(1891-1940), philanthropist Rosa Gladys Burden (née Williams) served as superintendent of the Stoke Park Colony, Bristol, around the time of the First World War. The Colony had been founded by the missionary and philanthropist couple Reverend Harold Nelson Burden (1860-1930) and Katherine Mary Burden (1856-1919) as an institution for the separation, rehabilitation, and occupational training of individuals with mental disabilities. Rosa became a close friend of the Burdens in her superintendent role, and, following Katherine’s death from a stroke in 1919, Harold and Rosa married on 12 May 1920. For the next decade, Rosa continued to support the Colony’s work and that of its charitable trust, the National Institutions for Persons Requiring Care and Control (NIPRCC). Following Harold Burden’s death from heart disease in 1930, Rosa took over his position as Warden of the NIPRCC and expanded his sponsorship of medical research at the Stoke Park Colony. She established the Burden Research Trust in 1933, a £10,000 fund to support medical and psychiatric studies of the Colony’s inhabitants. In 1936, the Trust oversaw the building of a dedicated clinic for the study of epilepsy, with a fully-fitted operating theatre, two small wards, and several laboratories. The clinic was officially opened on 12 May 1939 as the Burden Neurological Institute, under the directorship of neuropsychiatrist Frederick Lucien Golla (1878-1968). The Institute would go on to establish itself as a pioneering neuroscientific research unit in the latter half of the twentieth-century. Rosa Burden died shortly after the opening of the Institute, on 17 September 1940.

(1877-1968), neuropsychiatrist Frederick Lucien Golla was born in Fulham, London on 11 August 1877 to Italian parents Peter Alexander Evasio Golla and Alice Amelia Tingey. He was educated at Tonbridge School and Magdalen College, Oxford, before pursuing medical training at St George’s Hospital, London. He graduated in 1904 and became resident medical officer at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, under surgeon Victor Horsley (1857-1916) and neurologist Gordon Holmes (1876-1965), where he began to pursue research into the human nervous system. During the First World War, Golla volunteered for field ambulance duty with the Royal Army Medical Corps in August 1914 and was invalided out of the army after contracting bronchial pneumonia in June 1915. In August 1915, he returned to the Royal Army Medical Corps and rose to the rank of captain. His wartime research on tetanus was widely celebrated, leading to his post-war promotion to consultant physician at St George’s Hospital, where he worked on nervous conduction with neurophysiologist Charles Scott Sherrington (1857-1952). In 1923, Golla was appointed director of the Central Pathological Laboratory at the Maudsley Hospital, London. As well as controlling the educational programme of the Maudsley Hospital medical school, Golla continued to conduct research with junior colleagues. In the 1930s, he collaborated with neurophysiologist William Grey Walter (1910-1977) in pioneering studies of electroencephalography (EEG, the measurement of the electrical activity of the brain), including the first detection of a cerebral tumour using the technique in 1936. In 1939, Golla was invited to become director of the new Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. Under Golla’s direction, the Burden achieved several ‘firsts’ in British psychiatry, including the first trials of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) in 1939 and the first leucotomy (lobotomy) in 1941. He retired from the Burden in 1959. Golla was married twice, first to Thérèse d'Haussaire in 1908, who fatally contracted bronchial pneumonia while nursing Golla back to health in 1915, and then to Yvonne Lilly Brisco Ray in 1919. He had one daughter, Yolande Golla, who would later co-author research at the Burden Neurological Institute. Golla died of heart failure on 6 February 1968.

The Burden Neurological Institute (BNI) is an independently-funded research unit and registered charity specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. The BNI opened in 1939 at the Stoke Park Colony in Bristol, England. The BNI was named after philanthropist Rosa Gladys Burden (1891-1939). Burden’s husband, Reverend Harold Nelson Burden (1859-1930), founded the Stoke Park Colony with his first wife Katherine Mary Burden (1856-1919) in 1909. The Colony became the first certified institution for the care of individuals with mental disorders in Britain following the passing of the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. After Harold Burden’s death in 1930, Rosa continued his sponsorship of medical research by founding the Burden Research Trust in 1933, a £10,000 research fund to support medical and psychiatric studies of the Colony’s patients. In 1936, the Trust built a dedicated epilepsy clinic on site with a fully-fitted operating theatre, two small wards, and several laboratories. The clinic was officially opened on 12 May 1939 as the Burden Neurological Institute, under the directorship of neuropsychiatrist Frederick Lucien Golla (1878-1968). The BNI’s work was soon disrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. Throughout the conflict, the site was used as a neurosurgical hospital by the Emergency Medical Service (1938-1945), a state-run network of free hospital services organised by the Ministry of Health. Despite these duties, the laboratories remained open and research projects continued, such as a programme of electroencephalographic (EEG) research on war casualties who had sustained head injuries. Following the end of the war and the establishment of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948, Golla fought to keep the BNI independent to ensure that researchers could continue to choose their own projects. The BNI did, however, provide neurophysiological services for nearby hospitals for an annual fee. From its foundation, the BNI took a leading role in the development of neurological and psychiatric expertise in Britain. Researchers at the BNI carried out the country’s first trial of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) in 1939, closely followed by the first prefrontal leucotomy in 1940. The BNI also established itself as a centre of innovation in engineering, cybernetics, and early robotics during the post-war years, due in great part to the work of neurophysiologist William Grey Walter (1910-1977). Walter’s best-known inventions, his Machina Speculatrix (small robotic tortoises designed to model the basic functions of the human brain) attracted national attention, appearing in newspapers, on television, and at the Festival of Britain in 1951. After several years of financial uncertainty, the Trustees of the Burden estate sold the Stoke Park site to the Ministry of Health in 1968. While clinical work continued under the NHS at the newly constituted Burden Neurological Hospital, the Institute’s scientific researchers decided to remain separate, turning the BNI into a Company Limited by Guarantee in 1970. In 2000, the BNI moved its headquarters to the Rosa Burden Centre at Southmead Hospital, Bristol, following the final closure of the Stoke Park site in the late 1990s.