Walter Robert Hadwen MD MRCS MRCP (3 August 1854, Woolwich

Woolwich

Woolwich is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.Woolwich formed part of Kent until 1889 when the County of London was created...

 - 27 December 1932) was a Gloucester

Gloucester

Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....

 GP

General practitioner

A general practitioner is a medical practitioner who treats acute and chronic illnesses and provides preventive care and health education for all ages and both sexes. They have particular skills in treating people with multiple health issues and comorbidities...

 and pharmaceutical chemist, president of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection

British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection

The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection is a British animal protection and advocacy group that campaigns for the abolition of all animal experiments...

 (BUAV), and an anti-vaccination campaigner known for his denial of the germ theory of disease.

Biography

Hadwen began his career as a pharmacist

Pharmacist

Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...

 in Clapham

Clapham

Clapham is a district in south London, England, within the London Borough of Lambeth.Clapham covers the postcodes of SW4 and parts of SW9, SW8 and SW12. Clapham Common is shared with the London Borough of Wandsworth, although Lambeth has responsibility for running the common as a whole. According...

 then Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

, 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

Frances Power Cobbe

Frances Power Cobbe was an Irish writer, social reformer, and suffragist. She founded a number of animal advocacy groups, including the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection in 1898, and was a member of the executive council of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage.Frances was...

 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

Plymouth Brethren

The Plymouth Brethren is a conservative, Evangelical Christian movement, whose history can be traced to Dublin, Ireland, in the late 1820s. Although the group is notable for not taking any official "church name" to itself, and not having an official clergy or liturgy, the title "The Brethren," is...

 as an adult.

As a frequent speaker for the National Anti-Vaccination League

National Anti-Vaccination League

The National Anti-Vaccination League was founded in 1896 in Britain, growing from earlier smaller organisations in London, originally under the title Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League. The organisation opposed compulsory vaccination, particularly against smallpox...

, his opposition to vaccination focused on his view of the deficiencies of smallpox

Smallpox

Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...

 vaccination.

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

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

Manslaughter

Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...

 by criminal medical negligence. He was acquitted of all charges.

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
  National Anti-Vaccination League
  The National Anti-Vaccination League was founded in 1896 in Britain, growing from earlier smaller organisations in London, originally under the title Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League. The organisation opposed compulsory vaccination, particularly against smallpox...
  
  : Gloucester

About

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

External links

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