George Mallory

Uncategorized | December 30, 2010 | Share

Whenever we talk about the world’s highest mountain, Mt. Everest, the first thing that pops into our head is Tenzing Norgay, one of the first of the two individuals to have reached the summit of Zhumulangma Peak (Chinese name). But he was not the first person to have climbed this ‘goddess of the sky’. Long before, this mountain had been climbed by George Herbert Leigh Mallory. For many of us who do not know about this great English mountaineer, his life has been well described by the famous author Jeffrey Archer in his book the ‘Paths of Glory’. George Mallory was a man of great strength of character and determination. Once he set his mind onto something, he would not rest until he had achieved it. George Mallory has been often quoted as saying that he wants to climb “Everest because it’s there” in retort to the question, “why do you want to climb Everest”.

George Mallory was the son of Herbert Leigh Mallory, a clergyman, who later changed his name to Leigh Mallory in 1914. He was born in Mobberley, Cheshire and had two sisters and a younger brother, Trafford Leigh Mallory. At the age of 13 he won a scholarship to Winchester College, where he was taken to mountaineering and rock climbing by R.L.G. Irving, who would each year take a minimal number of people climbing in the Alps. In October 1905 he entered Magdalene College, Cambridge with history.

After attaining his degree, he stayed on a year in Cambridge writing an essay, which he later published as Boswell the Biographer (1912). On his return from France where he briefly stayed, he decided to take up teaching. He started teaching in 1910 in Charterhouse School, Godalming, Surrey where he met his wife Ruth Turner, daughter of Hugh Thackeray Turner and got married in 1914. After Germany and Britain, Mallory went to war where he joined the army as the 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery and in 1916 took part in the shelling of the Somme. In 1921 he resigned from the Charterhouse to devote his time to the first Everest expedition, in between the two expeditions he took to writing and lecturing in order to make a living.

By 1913 he had ascended Pillar Rock in the Lake District, the hardest route in Britain for years. In 1904 he attempted in a party to climb Mount Velan in the Alps but had to quickly come down because he fell ill from altitude sickness. In 1911 he climbed the Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps. In 1921 he participated in the British Reconnaissance Expedition, financed and organised by the Mount Everest Committee.

George Mallory along with Andrew Irvine and two others Noel Odell and Howard Somervell formed the historic Everest group in 1924. On the morning of June 8th George and 23 year old Irvine made the third attempt to reach the peak. Odell claims to have seen one of the two surmount on the top in the last five minutes. But that is where they were last seen. In 1999 Mallory’s frozen body was discovered by the Mallory and Irvine Expedition team when they noticed their clothing’s bore their name tags. After the discovery of the body the photograph of his wife was not found which could mean that he may have left it on the summit as was his wish.

Research is still going on as to whether he died after reaching the summit or he went down in the process. People are still looking for his camera to get the answer. If the answer is affirmative in the first case then it will give a big blow to Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary’s achievement. But advocates of Hillary and Norgay claim that a successful ascent not only involves reaching the summit but also returning to the bottom alive. Whether Mallory and Irvine in actuality reached the summit still remains a mind boggling mystery to experts, but one thing is for sure that he was amongst the first courageous few to dream the dream of conquering this magnificent and wondrous peak, much before his successive climbers.

Madhurima Ganguly