'How the English made the Alps' is Jim Ring's book in which he explains how the English, during the 19th century, were gradually taking over the Alps, scaling their peaks, driving railways through them, and introducing both winter sports and their social institutions.
As we have seen, this movement was driven by the influence of the Romantic poets, painters, writers and the impresario Albert Smith; the effect of which was that an alpine visit - 'glacier tourism' - became an essential part of the Grand Tour that became an almost mandatory part of the education of a certain class.
As Jim Ring points out, from the point of view of the locals, the tourists in question were 'English speaking' but were, in fact, English, Irish, Scots and Welsh.
Of course there were people in the 'Alpine' countries who were exploring their mountains, e.g. -:
Gottlieb Studer (1804-1890) was Swiss and a prolific climber and topographer - '(his) descriptions of the less known parts of the Alpine chains, are appreciated by all Alpine travellers'' (John Ball, 1st President of the Alpine Club).
Placidus a Spescha, (1752-1833) also Swiss, a Benedictine monk and self taught mountaineer, spent fifty years exploring and climbing and was a pioneer of alpinism in the eastern Swiss Alps up to 1833.
Peter Carl Thurwieser (1789-1865) was a pioneer in the Austrian Alps, had many first ascents and was 'the first man who climbed for the sake of climbing... the first real "mountaineer"', according to WAB Coolidge.
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| John Ball |
This 'Golden Age' saw the foundation of the Alpine Club (1857), a London gentlemen's club, the world's first mountaineering association, that was described disparagingly as a club for 'walking steeply uphill'.
Its first president was John Ball, born in Dublin and an indefatigable Alpine traveller who explored the whole range of the Alps before and after the arrival of the railways.
More on the Irish in the Golden Age of Alpinism to follow.
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