Travel the world and explore the past at Kew

By: Stephanie Rolt - 19/01/2012

Have you ever wondered what it might have been like to travel to India, China or South America over 100 years ago? What you might have eaten? How you might have travelled? And where you would have slept? Kew’s Archives  are full of letters, notebooks and other forms of documentation which can help us to understand what daily life really was like for the adventurers of the past.

The travels of Charles Wilford

Charles Wilford's bill for goods purchased from SW Silver & Co (Archive ref: KCL/13/1)

Some 19th century travellers appear, by modern standards, to have travelled in extravagant style. The Archives contain documents relating to a number of expeditions organised by Kew to collect plant specimens from abroad. One of these expeditions to Japan and China was undertaken by Charles Wilford between 1857 and 1860, and the documents relating to it include an invoice from S. W. Silver & Co., a company who supplied clothing and equipment to travellers. The invoice includes items such as:

• 1 x Best Hair Mattress and Pillow (we are unsure what 'best' means)
• 1 x Enamel Basin
• 2 x German Silver tea spoons

Invoices such as this paint a vivid picture of the style in which collectors like Wilford might have lived whilst they were travelling.

The travels of Francis Kingdon-Ward

Other explorers also clearly enjoyed home comforts on their travels. The papers of Francis Kingdon-Ward, who traveled throughout south-eastern Asia in the first half of the 20th century, include a bill from Fortnum & Mason’s export department for goods sent to Kingdon-Ward for an expedition to India. The bill includes: 

• 12 x tins Heinz Baked Beans
• 6 x bottles HP Sauce
• 4 x 10 lb tins Cadbury’s Mexican Chocolate
• 1 x Abyssinian Table [This appears to have been a type of table used for playing bridge!]

Kingdon-Ward continued to travel into the 1950s and, remarkably, the archive contains a collection of material samples sent to Kingdon-Ward for possible use in a tent he was having specially made for an expedition in 1952. It is a rare treat to be able to touch and so closely examine the types of materials used to make the equipment employed by travellers at this time.

Samples of material for Kingdon-Ward's tent (Archive ref: FKW/2/24)

The travels of Charles Darwin

Some explorers, on the other hand, appear to have embraced the native lifestyle in the places to which they travelled. A notable such example would be Charles Darwin . The Archives hold 44 letters which Darwin wrote to his tutor Rev. John Stevens Henslow, who was Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge. In one of these letters , written from Montevideo in Uruguay and dated November 12th 1833, Darwin describes how he travelled on horseback from Rio Negro to Buenos Aires. Darwin writes:

“I am quite charmed with the Gaucho life: my luggage consisted of a Hammer Pistol & shirt & the Recado (saddle) makes the bed: Wherever the horses tire, there is your house & home.” 
 

Excerpt of a letter from Darwin to Henslow, 12 Nov 1833 (Archive ref: DAR/1/1/20)

- Steph -
 

Related Links

• Discover Kew's collections
• Read more of Darwin's adventures on teh Darwin Correspondence Project web pages
• Email the Archvies team with an enquiry

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