Walter Hadwen

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Walter Robert Hadwen MD MRCS MRCP (August 3, 1854, Woolwich - December 27, 1932) was a Gloucester GP and pharmaceutical chemist, president of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), and an anti-vaccination campaigner.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Hadwen began his career as a pharmacist in Clapham then Somerset, then subsequently trained as a doctor at Bristol University. After qualifying, he moved to Gloucester in 1896. Hadwen was recruited as a member of BUAV by its founder and then president Frances Power Cobbe who hired a private investigator to assess his credentials (he was a vegetarian and total abstainer, had a reputation as a "firebrand" orator and was held in "high local esteem"). She subsequently selected him as her successor.

He joined the Plymouth Brethren as an adult.

As a frequent speaker for the National Anti-Vaccination League, his opposition to vaccination focused[citation needed] on his view of the deficiencies of smallpox vaccination.

He was also a member of the London Association for the Prevention of Premature Burial (founded in 1896).

[edit] Manslaughter trial

In 1924, having applied his rejection of the germ theory of disease, and his refusal to use diphtheria anti-serum produced by inoculation of animals to the treatment of Nellie Burnham, a young girl, she died and he was tried for manslaughter by criminal medical negligence[1]. He was aquitted of all charges.

[edit] Quote

  • I once believed in Jenner; I once believed in Pasteur. I believed in vaccination. I believed in vivisection. But I changed my views as the result of hard thinking.-- Dr. Walter Hadwen, MD

[edit] Publications

By

  • 1896, "The Case Against Vaccination"
  • The Difficulties of Dr Deguerre
  • 1902 Smallpox at Gloucester. A reply to Dr. Coupland’s Report by Walter Hadwen. Reprinted from “The Reformer,” National Anti-Vaccination League: Gloucester

About

  • Hadwen of Gloucester: Man, Medico, Martyr, by Beatrice E. Kidd and M. Edith Richards, 1933, John Murray, London

[edit] See also

Vaccine controversy

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[edit] Notes

  1. ^ The Times up to and including Oct 30 1924

[edit] References

  • The story of Dr Hadwen Biography at Dr Hadwen Trust
  • Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminism, Journalist, Reformer, Sally Mitchell, 2004, University of Virginia Press ISBN 0-8139-2271-2
  • Bodily Matters: The Anti-Vaccination Movement in England, 1853-1907, Nadja Durbach, 2005, Duke University Press, ISBN 0-8223-3423-2
  • Obituary, The Times, Saturday, Feb 25, 1933 John Murray, London, 1933

[edit] External links

  • SoilAndHealth.org - 'The Case Against Vaccination' , Walter Hadwen (January 25, 1896)
  • SoilAndHealth.org - ' The Fraud of Vaccination', Dr. Hadwen, Truth, (January 3, 1923)
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