Some 45 years ago, in 1977, recognising the need for funds to support the research aspirations of the the relatively new School of Medicine at the University of Southampton, Professor (later Sir) Donald Acheson, along with Lord Northbrook and others, founded the Southampton and Wessex Medical School Trust: a registered charity with the objects of raising funds to support medical research, education and practice.
Unlike other long-established medical schools such as Oxford and London, the School of Medicine – which had been established just four years earlier in 1971 – had no ‘pot of gold’ built up over many years from historic endowments or donations received from grateful former students and from which bursaries and grants could be awarded.

During the past 45 years we have raised over £20 million in voluntary donations, which has been applied in full by our Trustees to support vital medical research projects, but the need is always to do more. To fund research to fight disease; to tackle the underlying causes of ill health in our community; to find better treatments and, potentially, cures for conditions that affect every age group – from infant asthma to Alzheimer’s dementia in our aged population.