Beatrice Tomasson

It is not being claimed that Beatrice Tomasson was Irish since she was born in 1859 to William and Sarah Anne Tomasson, in Barnby Moor, Nottinghamshire, England.  However, at ten years old, Tomasson and her family moved to Ireland, where they lived in Gortnamona House (formerly Mount Pleasant) a property near Tullamore, County Offaly.

The diary of the High Sheriff of Kings County, now Co. Offaly, Ireland in 1868 records the arrival of the Tomasson family at Gortnamona House, Blue Ball, 5 miles south west of Tullamore.  The house is about 500 yards south of the lake at Blue Ball called Loch na Phailis. (Pallas Lake). It was built by Moris O'Connor, son of John O'Connor, last Chief of the O'Connor's, and was leased to William Tomasson.  William Tomasson knew the art of land reclamation and was successful in growing crops on what had been very boggy land from his experience on their lands at Grainfoot where about sixty acres on the hillsides close to the farm had been enclosed.  

The family had some interaction with the Howard-Bury family of nearby Charleville Castle.  

It was here in Gortnamona that Beatrice spent her formative years up to age 22. In 1882 she  travelled to Potsdam, then part of Prussia, to work as a private tutor for the household of Prussian army General von Bülow.  She was proficient in a number of European languages and worked on translations of books from German to English.  How and where she received her education is unclear but likely to have been by home tuition under a tutor.

 Tomasson moved to Innsbruck in 1885 where she took up mountain climbing. From 1892, she worked as a governess for Edward Lisle Strutt, whom she accompanied on numerous expeditions to Tyrol, Ötztal, the Stubai Alps and the Karwendel range. Despite Tommason being 15 years older than Strutt the family believed they were romantically involved. Tomasson became a member of  the Austrian Alpine Club in 1893 and began to attempt major climbs in the Dolomites from 1896 onwards.

Tomasson began climbing with Michele Bettega, a mountain guide, in 1897. Together, they made the first ascents of Cima d'Alberghetto, Torre del Giubileo, Campanile della Regina Vittoria, Monte Lastei d'Agner, and Sasso delle Capre.  In 1898 she made the first ascent of the northeast face of Monte Zebrù, which was considered at the time to be the most difficult ice wall to climb in the Tyrol, as well as the first ascent of Ortler and the second ascent of the west face of Laurinswand, which was considered to be the Dolomites' most difficult rock wall. She and Luigi Rizzi were the first climbers to summit the Dent di Mesdi via the south face in 1900. In July 1901 Tomasson, Bettega and Bartolo Zagonel made the first ascent of the south face of the Marmolada, which is considered her greatest climbing achievement. The route had been considered "the longest and most difficult climb in the Alps" for more than a decade, yet Tomasson's team made the ascent in just one day.

Alpine Journal

For the duration of her mountaineering career, Tomasson worked as a governess for wealthy families in Innsbruck.

Beatrice was an 'extraordinary character, very determined', according to a statement by her relative Paul Demoge of Paris.  Her determination was in those days a completely unfeminine attribute.  Her niece Mrs Philomena Baynes (b.1928) from her husband's side of the family described her simply as 'masculine' and 'wiry'. 'Wiry' is an appropriate description of her character.  No curls, hair combed straight back into a bun, and no smile on her face, a completely un-English aunt in her wonderful country house down in Sussex, was her niece's memory of Beatrice. 'We cousins in London had a nickname for our aunt: "the old hairpin".'

 Beatrice died on the 13 February 1947 at the age of 87.

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Any women involved?

 Womens participation in sport in general, during the 19th century, was somewhat frowned upon by society.

[The ascent of women, how female mountaineers explored the Alps 1850-1900. Clare A. Roche]

However, in relation to climbing mountains, three names come to mind:

1. Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed (26 June 1860 – 27 July 1934;)

Lizzy (Wikipedia)

2. Mrs Main; 

3. Mrs Aubrey le Blond.

4. Beatrice Tomasson

5.Mrs Tyndall

The first three names refer to the same person.  Usually known after her third marriage as Mrs Aubrey Le Blond and to her climbing friends as Lizzie Le Blond, was an Irish pioneer of mountaineering at a time when it was almost unheard of for a woman to climb mountains.  In effect she was 'The first Irish Woman Alpinist'  (see Joss Lynam in IMEHS Journal, Vol 3, pp 11; Mountaineering Ireland  & Frank Nugent - In search of Peaks, Passes...)

She grew up in Greystones, County Wicklow, in the south-east of Ireland, where her father owned quite a bit of land. However, her father then died in 1871, leaving no other children, while she was still a minor, and the Lord Chancellor took her on as his ward.

She who raised in Killincarrick House, Greystones, Co. Wicklow, where her childhood was said to be happy, playing  in the countryside with a devoted mother, and after the death of her father she was left to inherit Killincarrick House along with nearly 2,000 acres of land spreading across Dublin, Meath and Wicklow at the age of eleven years.

At eighteen she entered London society, and shortly afterwards, on 25 June 1879, married Captain Fred Burnaby, soldier, intrepid adventurer, aspiring politician and best-selling author.

Frederick Burnaby
by James Jacques Joseph Tissot
oil on panel, 1870
NPG 2642

The Burnaby’s only child, a son, was born in May 1880. Some months later and reportedly in poor health, Elizabeth left London for Switzerland. 

Her first significant ‘scramble’ was made almost by accident:  having planned a leisurely excursion to the lower slopes of Mont Blanc, she and a woman friend, clad ‘in high-heeled buttoned boots and shady hats’, spontaneously decided to climb further. Having spent the night on the mountain, Elizabeth’s appetite for further adventure was whetted. During the following summer she completed several difficult ascents and scaled Mont Blanc twice. Over the next two decades she spent much of her time in Switzerland, climbing in both winter and summer and making more than one hundred ascents. She defied convention by occasionally climbing without a guide, and in 1900 took part in what is regarded as the first women-only expedition. 

Later in her climbing career, she abandoned Switzerland for the far north, and  over six summers in the Norwegian Arctic notched up a total of thirty-three climbs, twenty-seven of them first ascents. On 17 January 1886 Elizabeth was widowed when Burnaby was killed in battle in the Sudan. Her second husband, Dr John Frederic Main, died in Denver, Colorado in 1892, and in 1900 she married Aubrey Le Blond. 

By this time she had more or less retired from climbing, but she remained one of the sport’s best-known spokeswomen, and in 1907 founded and was elected president of the Ladies’ Alpine Club, the first climbing association for women in the world.  (Rosemary Raughter )

 She was also an author and a photographer of mountain scenery. Many of Lizzie’s photographs were included in her own and others’ publications, while others were used to illustrate her lantern lectures, including one entitled ‘Mountaineering from a woman’s point of view’. She also became involved at an early stage  in film-making: a 1902 catalogue lists ten of her short films, all set in Switzerland,  featuring bob-sleigh racing, tobogganing and figure skating, making her the world’s first mountain filmmaker as well as one of the first female filmmakers.  She was one of the first to photograph winter sports and the first person to make short cine films in 1899 to illustrate the growing popularity of winter sports.

In 1883 Elizabeth Le Blond became the first climber of any gender to publish an English book on winter mountaineering: The High Alps in Winter, part memoir and part how-to guide. Of her motivations for first winter ascents, she wrote: “I was never sure, when starting, whether the thing was practicable or not, and this uncertainty gave the excursion a flavor of excitement which was very enjoyable. Besides (shall I be honest enough to admit it?) to do something which no one else had done is pleasant.”

View a collection of her pictures here: 

Martin and Osa Johnson SAFARI MUSEUM

Some of her works:

The high Alps in winter, or mountaineering in search of health – published 1883 

Mountaineering in the Land of the Midnight Sun

Adventures on the Roof of the World

True Tales of Mountain Adventure: For non-climbers Young and Old

My Home in the Alps

High Life of Towers and Silence

Day In, Day Out. (autobiography).

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Beatrice Tomasson 

Mrs Tyndall