The Wellcome Foundation Archive

“Great Scott!” – Explorers Found in the Wellcome Foundation Archive.

Henry Wellcome was a consummate salesman, always looking for a new angle or opportunity. As a young man he had travelled widely in South America and this had given him an interest in and contacts with a range of professional Victorian explorers. One of these, Stanley, became a good friend of Wellcome’s, and this initial interest spurred Wellcome to developing a major product range within the business.

Burroughs Wellcome & Company (BW&Co.) medicine cases, containing drugs and medical equipment tailored for a specific climate or environment, were developed for travellers in Europe, the Tropics or the Far East. They were also sold at home as first aid kits for homes and the work place. As part of the marketing strategy professional explorers were offered, free of charge, their own specialised medicine cases. These explorers were photographed in situ with the BW&Co. or ‘Tabloid’ branded products clearly visible. These photographs, together with carefully selected quotations from letters of commendation received, were then used to market the products to the general public.

Currently work is being carried out on the original marketing material for explorers such as Amundsen, Stanley, Shackleton, Pasha, Etherton and Walter Wellman. However, also surviving is a remarkable set of newspaper cuttings dedicated to exploration c 1908 – 1940, including explorers who had not used BW&Co. products. The original indices are now available for the first time, on-line for researchers.

The index contains entries for expeditions in the North Pole and South Pole, the Arctic and Antarctic, the scaling of Everest, and treks across the Sahara, ships such as ‘Endeavor’ and ‘Quest’, adventures in the Tropics, trips in planes and submarines, missionaries and cannibals, ladies in aeroplanes and pigmies in Africa. Re-live the excitement of early twentieth century exploration!

Enquiries about the WF Archive should be addressed to Archives and Manuscripts ( archs+mss@wellcome.ac.uk).

View the catalogue: under ref WF/M/GB/35

Many of the explorers’ medicine cases survive in the Wellcome Collection at the Science Museum.