How Real Explorers Kit Themselves Out

In 1923, Archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter broke the seal on the tomb of Tutankhamun. Carter and his team boxed up the antiquities that he found in the tomb to ship back to London. Luckily, the expedition had drunk a lot of wine, so they had a lot of empty crates which to use. Those crates had come from the only department store in the world that had an Expeditions department.

Fortnum and Mason's on Piccadilly since 1707.

In the early 1700s, Hugh Mason let a room in his house to William Fortnum. Together the opened a store on Piccadilly that has come to be an icon of Britain. The store has held a number of Royal Warrants, issued by the Royal Family to there preferred suppliers.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Britain set its sights abroad, and soon expeditions were spreading out around the world. In addition to Carter's Egypt adventures, Fortnum and Mason's outfitted The 1922 Everest expedition, which didn't make the summit but did set a world record height record and included Sherpa Tensing Norgay. Norgay was one of two men who first reached the summit in 1953. The 1922 Everest expedition included "60 tins of quail in foie gras and four dozen bottles of champagne."

I don't know if the expedition department still exists. My guess is not, as not many people go on expeditions that include the need for "essentials as butter knives and sauce boats." Too bad though. Nothing quite as glamorous as eating caviar off bone china and white linens while boating in the Belgian Congo or looking for lost Mayan lost cities in British Honduras.