About the museum
The IVF Museum
About the museum
A museum for one of the great achievements of modern medicine, and for the people who made it happen.
Why IVF matters
Wanting a child, and not being able to have one, is one of the oldest sorrows there is. For most of history there was nothing a doctor could do. Then, on 25 July 1978, Louise Brown was born in Oldham, and everything changed.
Behind every one of those numbers is a family. For some, IVF meant a child they had stopped hoping for. For others, it meant testing an embryo so that an inherited illness would not be passed on, or freezing eggs before cancer treatment so that the chance of a family was not lost. IVF also opened a window onto the first days of human life, and the science learned there now reaches far beyond the fertility clinic.
This museum tells how it happened: the people, the papers, the failures and the firsts. It is built from the original record, and it is offered as a thank you.
The people who made this museum possible
A museum like this cannot be built by one person. These are some of the people whose work, care and generosity lie behind it.
Thomas Elliott
Founder and curator
A clinical embryologist for some thirty years, Thomas began in Oxford and then spent twenty-five years in the laboratory in Atlanta, training embryologists along the way. He put the first video of ICSI on the internet, founded IVF.net in 1997 and co-founded the International IVF Initiative. He knew Robert Edwards, and this museum is his way of making sure the whole story is told.
Madelin Evans
Archivist, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge
Madelin Evans is an archivist at Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge (a repository specialising in 20th century personal papers of politicians, scientists, diplomats and military leaders). She joined the Archives Centre as a project archivist in 2017 to work on the Papers of Sir Robert Edwards for 18 months. Following on from this, Madelin has remained at the Archives Centre working on various personal papers collections including further resources on the history of IVF and reproductive medicine, and facilitating access to and promotion of the Centre’s collections.
Email: Madelin.Evans@chu.cam.ac.uk
Dr Jenny Joy
Daughter of Professor Sir Robert Edwards
Jenny was key in gathering together her father's papers, which have been at the Churchill Archives Centre since 2010 and open to the public since 2019. Without that archive, much of what is shown here, Jean Purdy's letters and the Oldham notebooks among it, could not be seen at all.
Dr Kay Elder
Senior Research Scientist, Bourn Hall
Kay joined Bourn Hall in 1984 as clinical assistant to Patrick Steptoe, and from 1987 worked as a senior embryologist in Robert Edwards' laboratory. In 1989 she set up a continuing education programme for IVF doctors, scientists and nurses, and she has taught clinical embryology ever since. With Professor Martin Johnson she read and analysed the Oldham notebooks, published in 2015. That work brought Jean Purdy's part in the story back into the light.
Professor Martin H. Johnson
Reproductive scientist, University of Cambridge
Co-author with Kay Elder of the six papers on the Oldham notebooks, and of the reassessment of Jean Purdy's role that this museum draws on.
And to everyone who has shared a memory, a photograph or a correction: thank you. Corrections are always warmly welcomed.
About the sources
- World Health Organization. Infertility prevalence estimates, 1990 to 2021. Geneva, 4 April 2023 (about 17.5% of adults, roughly one in six).
- Bourn Hall. Dr Kay Elder, biography (bournhall.co.uk).
- University of Cambridge. Giving life to research: the archive of Professor Sir Robert Edwards, 19 March 2021 (cam.ac.uk), on Dr Jenny Joy's part in gathering the archive, its arrival in 2010 and opening in 2019, and Madelin Evans as its archivist.
- Progress Educational Trust. Robert Edwards at 100, Part 1: Dr Jenny Joy (progress.org.uk), 2025.
- Elder K, Johnson MH. The Oldham Notebooks, parts I to VI. Reproductive BioMedicine and Society Online 2015;1(1). See FP·14.
