Frederica Plunket

Frederica Louisa Edith Plunket was born at Kilsaran, near Castlebellingham in County Louth (1838-1886). Her father Thomas Plunket, 2nd Baron Plunket (1792–1866), was a junior Church of Ireland clergyman and later became the Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry where he gained some notoriety for his behaviour during the Great Famine era.

 Her mother Louise Jane Foster (married in 1819) was the daughter of John William Foster of Fanevalley, County Louth, Member of Parliament for Dunleer. Her eldest sister Katherine Plunket was known as Ireland's oldest person at 111 years and 327 days.

Plunket travelled Europe with her sister Katherine Plunket and they made many sketches of flowers in France, Italy, Spain and Germany, and Ireland. These were bound in a volume, Wild Flowers from Nature, which was presented in 1903 to the Royal College of Science, and was later transferred to the Museum of Science and Art in the National Museum of Ireland. In 1970 it was part of the collections which were transferred to the Irish National Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin.  (Wikipedia)

At present there is little information available about her early life and career and it is not clear what inspired her to undertake mountaineering but in 1875, with her sister, she climbed the Eiger and Mt Blanc. The following year they climbed Monte Rosa and the Strahlhorn (with guide Peter Egger).

'Here and there among the Alps' (1875) is her account of some of her climbing activities and is written to encourage other women to undertake the activity. The following is a short excerpt from the introduction:

In offering the following pages to the public, the authoress is actuated, not so much by the motive to describe her own especial excursions, as by the wish to persuade other ladies to depart more than is their usual habit from the ordinary routine of a Swiss summer tour ; to urge them no longer to pause on the threshold of the Alpine world, but to pass its snow-marked boundaries, and to see and admire for themselves those wonders of nature which many of them are content to gaze on from a distance, thus losing half their beauty.

People involved (a list with links)

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.

 John Ball                                                                1 Mary Burtchell

 Charles Barrington                                                 2 Susan Gavan Duffy

 Richard Barrington                                                 3 Elizabeth Hawkins-Whithed

 James Bryce                                                           4 Elizabeth Le Blond

 Edmund Burke                                                       5 Mrs Main

 Arthur David Mc Cormick                                      6 Mary Tighe

 Richard Cotter                                                         7 Beatrice Tomasson  

Frederick Fitzjames Cullinan                                     8 Louisa Tyndall

Maxwell Cormac Cullinan                                         9. Frederica Plunkett                                                  

 Darby Field                                                                                                                        

Tom Fitzpatrick  

Robert Fowler                                                         

Robert James Graves

William Spottswood Green

Ewart Grogan

 Henry Chichester Hart

Brian Merriman

John Palliser

Richard Pococke

Anthony Adams Reilly

Henry Russell

Henry Swanzy

John Tyndall

Buck Whaley

Arthur Oliver Wheeler

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Mrs Tyndall

 Louisa Hamilton was the 30-year-old daughter of a member of parliament, Lord Claud Hamilton,

Louisa

and she married John Tyndall in 1876. She was a descendent of John Hamilton, an Irish Peer whose family owned extensive land in Donegal, Tyrone and Derry/Londonderry.

In Louisa, Tyndall had found someone to share his love of the Alps and after their wedding they went to Bel Alp in Switzerland where they spent two months. 

'Their affectionate behaviour in public...caused Meta Brevoort (an American mountaineer) to remark that they were seen "kissing on one of the spurs of the Sparrenhorn". (The ascent of John Tyndall ; Roland Jackson)

They took walking trips on the Aletsch glacier, climbed the Sparrenhorn and, notably the Aletschorn (4,195m - the second highest in the Bernese Oberland).  This was one of the earliest ascents by a woman. Later she went on to Pontresina and climbed  Piz Languard (3,262m) without him and explored the Roseg Glacier there.

Tyndalls at Bel Alp Hotel

The year after their marriage they built a chalet at Alp Lusgen, above Bel Alp, in a stunning position near the Aletsch Glacier.  They visited their chalet during many summers but there is little record of what were Louisa's accomplishments in the mountains other than that they climbed the Sparrenhorn a number of times and walked extensively in the region.

It was Louisa who caused John Tyndall's death through an accidental overdose of chloral hydrate. Some time after this she arranged the placement of a stone monument to his memory close to their chalet at Alp  Lusgen.  

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Piz Languard
(Wikipedia)

Tyndall's chalet today.
(Courtesy Blatten)