Wilcock Institute

The Wilcock Institute was a research facility working on a eugenics programme. It was named for a Professor Wilcock. (AUDIO: Changing of the Guard)

During the Second World War, the Wilcock Institute was started to create a line of "super-soldiers": female volunteers were impregnated and the foetuses altered. The intention was that if Britain was conquered, the super-soldiers could be part of a future liberation. Toby Kinsella and Charles Waverly were in charge of the project, and were two of the volunteers as well. Kinsella's then-wife Mary Cleaver, another volunteer, faked a miscarriage and dropped out of the project. Her son was called Ray. (AUDIO: Sins of the Fathers) Waverly didn't inform his wife of what was going on. (AUDIO: Manhunt)

Kinsella and Waverly continued to be part of the eugenics programme during the Cold War, when the Institute which was preparing to create soldiers for nuclear war. At this point it was clear that the original creations had psychosis and the Wilcock Institute was trying to both "care" for the originals and create versions without this problem. (AUDIO: Sins of the Fathers) Waverly's daughter Emma was part of his plan to usurp control of the Intrusion Countermeasures Group but she was exposed as a mutant after she started murdering men involved with the Institute.

Kinsella tried to cover up the remaining evidence of the project. (AUDIO: Manhunt) Unfortunately, Ray Cleaver became aware of his abilities and was exposed; Toby became aware this was his son but was unable to stop Ray from being driven psychotic and attacking the Institute itself. An attempt by Countermeasures to stop him was ruined when Templeton had the building and all the mutants within nerve-gassed.(AUDIO: Sins of the Fathers)

A parliamentary inquiry was held into the Wilcock Institute and Toby Kinsella's actions. In the end, it decided that as everyone else involved was dead — and the project had started during wartime — they would consider the matter resolved. (AUDIO: Changing of the Guard)