| Walter Hadwen | |
| Birth Name: | Walter Robert Hadwen |
| Birth Date: | 3 August 1854 |
| Birth Place: | Woolwich, England |
| Death Place: | Gloucester, England |
| Alma Mater: | Bristol University |
| Children: | 3 |
Walter Robert Hadwen (3 August 1854 – 27 December 1932) was an English general practitioner, pharmaceutical chemist and writer. He was president of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) and an anti-vaccination campaigner, known for his denial of the germ theory of disease.
Walter Robert Hadwen was born in Woolwich on 3 August 1854.[1] He began his career as a pharmacist in Highbridge, 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 the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection 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.[2]
He later became a member of the Plymouth Brethren and married Alice Harral in 1878; they had three children.[3] Hadwen was a frequent speaker for the National Anti-Vaccination League. He was also a member of the London Association for the Prevention of Premature Burial (founded in 1896). Hadwen stated that the "modern germ theory is all bosh".[4]
Hadwen was active in general practice until he died from a severe heart attack in 1932, age 78.[5] In his honour the Dr Hadwen Trust was founded in 1970 to fund exclusive non-animal techniques to replace animal experiments.[5]
Hadwen became a vegetarian in his early twenties when taking a bet from a fellow student that he could live six months without eating meat. His bet was successful and he stated that "For my part I am quite satisfied with my trial of vegetarianism, and it would take more than mortal power to persuade me once again to make my stomach a graveyard for the purpose of burying dead bodies in."[5]
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.[6] He was acquitted of all charges.[7] [8]