A new memorial has been installed at Lord Mayor’s Treloar’s College in Hampshire to recognize 122 boys with haemophilia who were infected with HIV and hepatitis through experimental blood products during the 1970s and 1980s.
The inquiry concluded that the pupils, commonly known as the Treloar Boys, were treated as objects of research and were experimented on without their knowledge by NHS clinicians who knew the dangers. The newly unveiled statue depicts two pupils embracing, with one wearing a sling and another holding a cane. An inscription at the bottom reads: Remembering 122 haemophiliac pupils of Treloar’s. Infected as children, victims of unethical research
. It also includes a quote from public inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff stating: This disaster was not an accident.
Surviving Victims Recall the School Years
Richard Warwick, Adrian Goodyear, Steve Nicholls, and Gary Webster were among the pupils treated at the Hampshire college. Adrian Goodyear, 55, recalled arriving at the school at age nine and later receiving a diagnosis. He stated that they left school with death sentences and described being told by a doctor in 1985 that he had two to three years to live, noting that he is the last remaining boy from a room of six told their status that day. Gary Webster, 61, who attended from 1975 to 1983, stated that the treatments were unneeded, hindered their lives, and gave viruses to pupils that have killed over 90 boys so far. Steve Nicholls, 59, who attended from 1976 to 1983, stated that parents put trust in the school and were betrayed, noting that they were subjected to unethical research behind their parents’ backs.
Purpose of the New Memorial
Surviving alumni emphasized the importance of the monument to keep the scandal in the public consciousness and honor those who died. Webster stated that the memorial matters to remember what happened and ensure it never happens again. Goodyear noted that the monument helps fulfill promises made to classmates who died at the school to find out what happened.
