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 2 Susan Gavan Duffy
Richard Barrington 3 Elizabeth Hawkins-Whithed
James Bryce 4 Elizabeth Le Blond
Arthur David Mc Cormick 6 Mary Tighe
Richard Cotter 7 Beatrice Tomasson
Tom Fitzpatrick 9. Frederica Plunkett
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| Recorded mountains to 1700 |
John de Courcy has detailed the summits that appear on maps up to 1700.
(see Mountaineering Ireland. IMEHS Journal, Vol 2, 2005)
Charles Vallencey produced a military survey
of parts of the island around 1780.
Various land owners produced estate maps of their property and it was William Edgeworth, who had been involved in the bog survey, that produced a trigonometrical survey of Co Longford and part of Roscommon. With him, 'native Irish cartography attained a new high level'.
In 1824 the six-inch Ordnance Survey mapping of Ireland was begun. As a consequence the surveyors were the first group to systematically get to all the significant mountain summits on the island.
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| Principal triangulation with dates. |
Much discussion took place as to the merits of contour lines or hachuring to represent altitude and slope and it was not until about 1890 that the complete hill edition was produced.
A full account of the operation and proceedings of the OS in 19th Century Ireland is given by JH Andrews in A Paper Landscape.
Thomas Colby was the director of the OS in Ireland and John O' Donovan played
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| John O'Donovan |
an important role in the toponymical aspects of the survey.
Of course, the surveyors climbed the mountains for professional reasons rather than for recreation. However, their activities may have had an influence on a generation of people that became interested in the activity of surveying, some of whom carried this interest abroad to Europe and North America and carried out surveys of their own in these places. Among such people were John Palliser, Anthony Adams Reilly, Edward Oliver Wheeler and there will be more about these to follow.
A fascinating 'biography of the Ordnance Survey' is Map of a Nation by Rachel Hewitt (Granta, 2010)
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| Bryce. Wikipedia |
A notable feature of the people undertaking this activity was that they were wealthy. It required substantial financial resources to travel to the Alps, spend at least a couple of weeks there and to hire the necessary porters and guides to undertake expeditions that may have lasted for a number of days. John Tyndall's initial foray to the mountains may have been an exception because he 'got by very cheaply' but that was before he did 'serious' climbing.
The local people who climbed summits did so mainly at the behest of the 'wealthy tourists' who employed them as guides and porters because their knowledge and experience gained through hunting and other activities.
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| Russell. Wikipedia |
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| Cotter |
Many of the 'summiteers' wrote of the experiences and the result was that the interest in climbing mountains spread to many other regions in the years following the Golden Age. Some of the Irish who were involved in the second half of the 19th Century were the following and not all were wealthy:
James Bryce in many places
Henry Russell in the Pyrenees.
William Spotswood Green in Canada and New Zealand.
More about all these to follow.
Politician, diplomat, jurist, political scientist, historian and mountaineer, James Bryce was a man of many parts.
Born in a small terraced house in Arthur Street, Belfast, on 10th May 1838. He spent the first eight years of his life at his grandfather's residence on the shores of Belfast Lough. At age eleven he climbed Trostan from Cushendall and claimed it was the birth and growth of his 'lifelong passion for mountain climbing'. His schooling and academic career were extensive (see here for details). He was widely honoured, receiving the order of merit (1907) and honorary degrees from thirty-one universities, and was president of the British Academy (1913–17).
Bryce became a great mountain walker and climber, and his love of both activities was closely related to his interest in the natural world. In his early youth he spent much of his time in the mountains of Ireland and Scotland. Bryce’s notable experiences of mountain landscape combined with a particular environmentalist sensibility and political liberalism to shape his pioneering ideas about landscape preservation. His mountaineering was important to his personal identity and to his practice as an historian. Bryce’s ideas about history were influenced by an environmentalist perspective on the world, gained through on-foot experience of it.
A slim, wiry man of medium height with a crisp purposeful walk and piercing deep-set eyes, Bryce exuded a sense of energy, liveliness, and movement; his pursuit of knowledge was incessant, his interests ranging over geology, botany, history, politics, law, and philosophy. He carried his great learning lightly and was happy with life's simple pleasures: smoking his pipe, reading, a good walk, or a brisk swim.
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| N Face Mt Bryce. Wikipedia |
From 1862, when he spent a semester in Heidelberg University, he climbed the classics of Switzerland and Italy including Monte Rossa, Streckhorn Monte Pelmo and Marmolata. In 1866, with Leslie Stephen, he climbed in the Carpathians (Monte Csalho). In 1872 he was in Iceland but seems not to have been impressed by the mountains there - 'in Switzerland....the difficulty is getting to the top of your peak. In Iceland it is getting to its bottom', requiring long , tedious journeys. In 1873 he was in the Pyrenees, climbed with Henry Russell, and climbed Maladetta, Vignemale, Pic de Nethou and Canigou. In 1876 he was the first European to climb Mount Ararat in Turkey. In 1878 he was in Tatras in Carpathia and climbed a number of summits. Elected to membership of the Alpine Club in 1879 and its president from 1899 to 1901 (in John Ball's footsteps). In 1889 he was instrumental in the formation of the Cairngorm Club, the oldest and one of the largest hillwalking and climbing clubs in Scotland.
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| Mt Bryce. Wikipedia |
Bryce Canyon in Utah is not named in his honour, but for Ebenezer Bryce.
Mount Bryce in the Canadian Rockies was named in his honour by J Norman Collie in 1898 - the 15th highest peak in British Columbia.
Arthur Oliver Wheeler was born in Kilkenny (The Rocks, Maddoxtown) on 1st May 1860.
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| The Rocks |
After attending school in Dublin and Galway he spent two years in Dulwich College in London from age fourteen. Emigrating to Canada with his family in 1876 he lived in the town of Colingwood, a port on Lake Huron, until he went to work for the Surveyor General of Canada, Dr Edouard Deville who was pioneering the use of photography as a means of land surveying. Wheeler was to be one of the pioneers in this work.
After qualifying as a surveyor in 1881 he spent some time working in the prairie provinces around Winnipeg and Saskatchewan. He enjoyed travelling by canoe and became an expert in handling the craft and was impressed by the vast lonely spaces of the region - the 'Great Lone Land' as portrayed by William Francis Butler.
In 1885 the North West Rebellion (Riel Rebellion) took place; an armed resistance movement by the Metis, and first nations of Cree and Assiniboine that was suppressed by the Canadian Militia. Wheeler had joined a special Surveyors Corp and was wounded in action.
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| from 'Wheeler' by Esther Fraser |
Their meeting on a westbound train may have inspired Wheeler to use the services of experienced mountain guides in his survey work, carrying heavy photographic equipment on the high, glaciated summits in the Selkirk range. He was thrilled and excited by his first venture on to a glacier. The Swiss guides were employed for the higher climbs but by 1902 Wheeler had mastered the climbing techniques and of thirty five high camera stations only two required the assistance of the guides. He made a number of First Ascents, notably Mt Oliver (8,379ft) and Mt Wheeler (11.023ft). The first was named for his son, Oliver, who accompanied him on the climb and the latter he, without modesty, named for himself!
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| Mt Wheeler. Wikipedia |
The purpose of the two year Selkirk survey was to provide accurate maps and information for the ever increasing number of climbers and explorers in the region. The Selkirk Range was his report of all that was known about every aspect of the range and was published in 1905 and by this time Wheeler was acquiring a distinct reputation among the climbing fraternity.
Through his meetings with some of the renowned visiting mountaineers (particularly Edward Whymper of Matterhorn fame) Wheeler became convinced of the value of a national mountaineering club. Others supported him in this; a countrywide campaign was launched and in 1906 the Alpine Club of Canada was founded. Arthur Wheeler was elected its first President, a position he held (under the title of Managing Director) until 1926. He also acted as editor of the club's Alpine Journal for the twenty years up to 1927. Although others were certainly involved in the club's foundation, it is claimed that "... without Wheeler, Canada would have had to wait a long time for an Alpine Club" In a publication to mark the centenary of the discovery of the Columbia Icefield it is recorded that "the people of Canada owe a special debt to A.O. Wheeler for the important role he played in expanding the boundaries of Jasper National Park to include a large part of the Columbia Icefield."
In the winter of 1907/8 Arthur visited Europe. He attended the Alpine Club's Jubilee celebration dinner in London and went on to make his only recorded climb in Swiss Alps. He also took the opportunity to visit the place of his birth and took a stroll on the banks of the River Nore at his childhood home. In the following years he disposed of his remaining property in Kilkenny thus severing the last direct link with this country and setting his roots firmly in Western Canada.
He continued his work with the Alpine Club of Canada for some years after his retirement. He died in 1945 in Banff, British Columbia, where he rests in Banff cemetery among the mountains he loved.
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| Wheeler home near Banff, before demolition. |
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| Courtesy: Whyte Museum, Banff |
