The following are some of the people involved with mountains, mainly during the 19th Century. There will be further additions to the list in due course.
Charles Barrington Susan Gavan Duffy
Richard Barrington Elizabeth Hawkins-Whithed
James Bryce Elizabeth Le Blond
Arthur David Mc Cormick Mary Tighe
Richard Cotter Beatrice Tomasson
Frederick Fitzjames Cullinan Louisa Tyndall
Maxwell Cormac Cullinan Frederica Plunkett
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;)
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| Lizzie (Wikipedia) |
2. Mrs Main;
3. Mrs Aubrey le Blond.
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 was 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. In May 1878, at a party presided over by Queen Victoria, Lizzie was introduced to Captain Frederick Gustavus Burnaby. Reputedly the strongest man in the army, he stood 6ft 4in with a 46 inch chest, an intrepid adventurer, aspiring politician and best-selling author (A ride to Khiva). Lizzie became enamoured of the gallant officer and they were married in June 1879.
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| Frederick Burnaby by James Jacques Joseph Tissot oil on panel, 1870 NPG 2642 |
The Burnaby’s only child, a son, Harry Arthur Gustavus St Vincent Burnaby, was born in May 1880. Some months later and reportedly in poor health, Elizabeth left London for Switzerland, leaving the child in the care of her mother and Fred. Something had gone wrong! According to writer Wilfred Scawen Blunt, Fred was 'a dull heavy fellow...with a dash of cunning and more than a dash of brutality'. Throughout her life Lizzie used 'ill-health' as a shorthand (and cover) for acute unhappiness. On 17 January 1886 Elizabeth was widowed when Burnaby was killed in battle in the Sudan. (|See Rachel Hewitt's In Her Nature for much greater detail on Lizzie's personal life and difficulties).
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. This seems to have come about as the result of a tragedy. In switzerland her most meaningful friendships were with her guides, especially Joseph Imboden and his son Roman. In 1896 Roman was killed in a climbing accident. Lizzie was said to be inconsolable. Neither she nor Joseph cared to face the sad associations of the Alps again. Encouraged to travel to Norway by Cecil Slingsby who had climbed there earlier with his wife and sister; Lizzie, with Joseph, spent seven weeks there in 1898, 'made 19 ascents, 15 of which were first ascents'. and over six summers in the Norwegian Arctic notched up a total of thirty-three climbs, twenty-seven of them first ascents. Her second husband, Dr John Frederic Main, had 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.”
She was also a noted cyclist and tennis player. She had the confidence befitting an aristocrat with a large inheritance obtained at an early age. Le Blond wrote freely, lived where she liked and married whom she pleased. She became the most wellknown woman mountaineer. This arguably happened because she was unafraid to publish several books for a wide readership and had the confidence and connections to ignore any criticism. In short, she had the self-assurance more typical of a man of this period than a woman. The care most women climbers took negotiating the social expectations surrounding the binaries of public/private and male/female was more typical. ( Clare A. Roche PhD Thesis)
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
High Life of Towers and Silence
Day In, Day Out. (autobiography).
