Howard-Bury

 Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury was born in London on 15 August 1883,

C K Howard Bury
Courtesy: Alpine Club

where his mother, Lady Emily Alfreda Bury likely preferred the maternity services of London and the society image of her child being born there.  His father, Captain Kenneth Howard, grandson of the 16th Duke of Suffolk and Berkshire had married in September 1881 and assumed the name of Bury by deed-poll.

The parents were a well travelled couple - the father having served in India, Canada, Australia and
Ireland and the mother had chalets in the Italian Dolomites.  There was a sister, Marjorie, born in July 1885, who died of typhoid at Charleville Castle, the family home in Tullamore, aged twenty two.  Captain Howard died that year and and a relative was appointed as guardian to Charles - this was Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, Lord Lansdowne who, as well as being a prominent politician, owned vast estates in Co Kerry.

Charleville Castle

  Charles spent much of his childhood on the Lansdowne estates in Dereen, Co Kerry, before attending school at Eton College in Berkshire, as had his father. After that he attended the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and in 1904 joined the King's Royal Rifles.  He suffered a rebuke of Lord Curzon for entering Tibet illegally in 1905 due to delicate international relations. Between 1906 and 1912 he travelled widely in India and Tibet, learning some of the local languages. His army career came to an end that year when he inherited Belvedere, a large estate on the shore of Lough Ennel in Westmeath.

Belvedere House
(Brian Shaw cc2 Geograph

)

1913 saw him embark on a six month long hunting trip to the Tien Shan mountains from which he brought back a young bear that lived at Belvedere up to the 1950s and acted as a wrestling parner for him there.  On the outbreak of the Great War he rejoined his regiment and remained at the front throughout the war, saw action at the Somme, experienced the horrors and devastation of battle until his capture during the Spring Offensive of 1918.

After the war the question of Everest was being considered by the Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society.  In 1920 no one from the western world had been closer than 40 miles from the mountain.  From his travel experience, through contacts made in India and from his diplomatic abilities Howard Bury was instrumental in arranging the permissions necessary for the organisation of an expedition '...to proceed through Tibet for the exploration and ascent of Mount Everest....it was due to your tact and address that the negotiations on our behalf achieved their object... (Younghusband, President, RGS).

General Charles G. Bruce was the choice of the Everest Committee as leader of  the expedition. His unavailability meant that someone else had to be chosen.  Howard Bury had the necessary abilities and experience and his appointment was announced on 24th January 1921.  It may have helped that he offered to pay his own expenses.

Everest 1921 team.

The primary aim of the expedition was a reconnaissance for an attempt on the summit the following year and this aim was comprehensively achieved - it.."made an original survey at a scale of 4 miles to an ich of an area of some 12,00square miles; a detailed photographic survey of 600 square miles of the environs of Mt Everest had been worked out..." (Howard Bury Everest - The Reconnaisssance')

Howard Bury & Wheeler

Detailed accounts of the expedition are available in many places, most natably in Into the Silence by Wade Davis.

His Tien Shan expedition:  Mountains of Heaven  (ebay)

Biographical details : here and on his early life.

He died in September 1963.

Ireland and the Greater Ranges - (Early 20th C)

] Towards the end of the 19th century European mountaineers began to consider the world's Greater Ranges (Himalayas, Andes, Caucuses) as destinations for their craft.  Initial European activity in the Himalayas largely involved the British East India Company mapping the region for military and strategic reasons in the Survey of India         

Irish people, as part of the British Raj, carried out a variety of mountain activities during the second half of the century (see here) in India. 

The climbs of the British climber W.W. Graham in 1883 are often considered the first true mountaineering exploits in the Himalayas.

 An early attempt on a major peak was made by Albert F. Mummery who died in 1895 while attempting Nanga Parbat.

 Sir Martin Conway led an expedition to the Karakoram in the  Himalayas in 1892/3.  The ensuing book ( Climbing and Exploration in the Karakoram Himalaya  was illustrated by the Irish artist A. D. Mc Cormick.  He later accompanied Clinton T. Dent to Central Caucasus.

The higher of the two summits of Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus was first climbed in 1874 by a British expedition led by F. Crauford Grove.

The Survey of India, through the Great Trigonometrical Survey, first identified Mount Everest (then Peak XV) as the world's highest mountain in the 1850s, thanks to the work of Indian mathematician Radhanath Sikhdar, with final height confirmation coming from later surveys, leading to its naming in 1865 after former Surveyor General George Everest, despite local names like Chomolungma (Tibetan) and Sagarmatha (Nepali) existing. 

Interest in climbing the world's highest mountain culminated, in 1921, with the British Reconnaisance Expedition.

Bury (top) Wheeler (below)

This expedition was led by Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury from Mullingar, Ireland.

Also on this expedition was Edward Oliver Wheeler, a Canadian, whose father was born in Kilkenny, Ireland an whose mother (Clara) was the daughter of John Macoun, born in Maheralin, Co Down.

The subsequant 1924 Everest attempt saw the disapearance of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine during their summit attempt, which was witnessed by Richard Hingston, the medical officer of the expedition. Born in London, from about age eight spent most of his life and was educated in Cork.               See Jim Murphy's 'Passage to Everest & Beyond'  for greater details and Vol 5 of IMEHS Journal.

In 1925 the 4th ascent of Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside the Himalayas, was achieved by

Mervyn Ryan,