George Herbert Leigh-Mallory (18 June 1886 – 8 or 9 June 1924) was an English mountaineer who participated in the first three British Mount Everest expeditions from the early to mid-1920s. He and his climbing partner Andrew "Sandy" Irvine were last seen ascending near Everest's summit during the 1924 expedition, prompting speculation as to whether they reached it before they died.
Born in Cheshire, England, Mallory became a student at Winchester College, where a teacher recruited him for an excursion in the Alps, and he developed a strong natural climbing ability. After graduating from Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he became friends with prominent intellectuals, he taught at Charterhouse School while honing his climbing skills in the Alps and the English Lake District. He pioneered new routes and became a respected figure in the British climbing community.
His service in the First World War interrupted his climbing, but he returned with vigour after the war. Mallory's most notable contributions to mountaineering were his expeditions to Everest. Famously, when asked by a reporter why he wanted to climb Everest, Mallory purportedly replied, "Because it's there." In 1921, he participated in the first British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition, which established the North Col-North Ridge as a viable route to the summit. In 1922, he took part in a second expedition to attempt the first ascent of Everest, in which his team achieved a world altitude record of using supplemental oxygen. They were awarded Olympic gold medals for alpinism.
During the 1924 expedition, Mallory and Irvine disappeared on Everest's Northeast Ridge. They were last seen at 800 vertical feet (240 metres) from the summit. Mallory's body, along with personal effects, was found in 1999 by the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition at , some 688 vertical metres below the summit. The discovery, however, provided no evidence that he had reached the summit.
Early life and teaching career
Childhood
George Herbert Leigh Mallory was born at Newton Hall, Mobberley, Cheshire, on 18 June 1886. He was the first son and second child of Annie Beridge Leigh-Mallory and the Reverend Herbert Leigh Mallory, rector of the parish. Mallory had two sisters, Mary Henrietta and Annie Victoria (Avie), and a younger brother, Trafford, who was a Second World War Royal Air Force commander. (Herbert Mallory legally changed his surname to Leigh-Mallory in 1914; Trafford followed suit, but George remained known as Mallory.) At the end of 1891, the Mallorys moved from Newton Hall to Hobcroft House, Mobberley. The family resided there until 1904, when they moved to Birkenhead, Cheshire. Mallory exhibited an early proclivity for climbing, and at age 7 he climbed the roof of his father's church, St Wilfrid's, in Mobberley. His sister Avie recalls, "He climbed everything that it was at all possible to climb." Included in his climbing exploits were the drainpipes of Hobcroft House and the walls that divided the farmers' fields.
1896–1905: Glengorse and Winchester College
In 1896, Mallory was sent to Glengorse boarding school in Eastbourne on the south coast of England, after the abrupt closure of his first preparatory school in West Kirby, following the death of its headmaster. Mallory won a mathematics scholarship to Winchester College, an English public school, where he started in September 1900. At Winchester, he was proficient at sports, in addition to his academic ability. He became the best gymnast in the school, the only one capable of performing the giant swing on the horizontal bar. In July 1904, Mallory was a member of the Winchester team who won the Ashburton Shield for rifle shooting at Bisley.
In 1904, Irving was seeking new climbing companions after the accidental death of his regular climbing partner. R. L. G. Irving, the Master in College at Winchester, was a member of the Alpine Club and an accomplished mountaineer, and he recruited Mallory and fellow pupil and friend, Harry Gibson, for a trip to the Alps. It was there in early August 1904 that Mallory had his first experience with high-altitude mountaineering. In his final year at Winchester, Mallory studied history instead of mathematics. After sitting his exams, he was awarded a history scholarship, known as a sizarship, to Magdalene College, Cambridge.
1905–09: Magdalene College, Cambridge
In October 1905, Mallory entered Magdalene College to study history, where his tutor, A. C. Benson, became enamoured of him. On 6 February 1907 at Christ's College, Mallory dined with Charles Edward Sayle, under-librarian at Cambridge University Library. At Sayle's he met undergraduates with whom he established enduring friendships including painter Jacques Raverat, surgeon and author Geoffrey Keynes, poet Rupert Brooke, and psychoanalyst James Strachey. On 12 February 1909, Mallory met Geoffrey Winthrop Young and they developed a strong friendship. Through James Strachey and Geoffrey Keynes, Mallory got to know their brothers, Lytton Strachey and John Maynard Keynes, who were members of the Bloomsbury Group. Through the Stracheys, he befriended their cousin, painter Duncan Grant, a Bloomsbury member. His letters attest to the flirtatious nature of these friendships. Following his engagement in 1914, he wrote to one-time partnerPeter & Leni Gillman, The Wildest Dream: The Biography of George Mallory, The Mountaineers Books, Seattle 2000, p120. James Strachey: "It can hardly be a shock to you that I desert the ranks of the fashionable homosexualists (and yet I am still in part of that persuasion) unless you think I have turned monogamist. But you may be assured that this last catastrophe has not happened."
Mallory developed into an accomplished rower at Magdalene, and in October 1906, he was elected secretary of the Magdalene Boat Club and captain of boats from 1907 to 1908. Mallory joined the University Fabian Society, and acted as college secretary on the University Women's Suffrage Association committee. The Marlowe Society was established in 1907 and Mallory acted in its first production of Doctor Faustus.
Academically, in May 1907, Mallory sat Part I of the history tripos, achieving a third class. (In 1908, in Part II, he attained a second-class degree.) Mallory had to consider a future career and in 1907, he consulted deputy headmaster of Winchester, Howard Rendall, about becoming a teacher there, but Rendall bluntly dismissed his prospects. Mallory informed his tutor, A. C. Benson, that Randall "says that as I have nothing to teach and would probably teach it badly, there is not the least chance of ever getting to Winchester." Rendall suggested he go into the church and Mallory unenthusiastically considered following in his father's footsteps, perhaps engaging in "parish work of some kind... [But] I'm at variance with so many parsons that I meet. They're excessively good, most of them much better than I can ever hope to be, but their sense of goodness seems sometimes to displace their reason." Benson suggested Mallory return to Magdalene for a fourth year, where he could improve upon his degree. Mallory took his tutor's advice and settled into rooms at Pythagoras House, a short distance from the college.
In February 1909, Geoffrey Winthrop Young invited Mallory on a climbing trip to Wales. After Mallory's return to Magdalene, Young sent him an application to join the Climbers' Club, and in May 1909, Mallory was elected a member. The subject for the Members' Prize Essay in 1909 was James Boswell, biographer of Samuel Johnson. Mallory submitted an essay entitled Boswell the Biographer and it was awarded second place. (Benson encouraged him to submit his essay for publication and in 1912 it was published by Smith, Elder & Co.) Mallory completed his degree at Magdalene in July 1909.
1909–10: Interim In October 1909, the painter Simon Bussy, whose wife Dorothy was the sister of Lytton and James Strachey, invited Mallory to spend the winter with them at their villa in Roquebrune in the Alpes-Maritimes. Mallory, who had recently received a small family inheritance, accepted their offer and travelled to France in early November to stay with them. He stayed in Paris for a month to improve his French by reading, conversing, and attending the theatre, music halls and Sorbonne lectures.
In April 1910, Mallory returned to Cambridge, again considering his future career options. In May he took a temporary teaching post at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, which lasted two weeks. In July, Mallory received a letter from Gerald Henry Rendall, headmaster of Charterhouse, an English public school, offering him a job teaching Latin, mathematics, history, and French, which Mallory accepted.
1910–14: Charterhouse School
In September 1910, Mallory began teaching at Charterhouse as an assistant headmaster, but due to his youthful appearance he was often mistaken by parents for a student. He taught through enthusiasm and a friendly manner rather than by imposing authority. He followed the teaching styles of Irving and Benson, who sought to educate through mutual respect, getting to know pupils as individuals, and rejecting the strict discipline common in British schools at the time. Some of his colleagues, however, were hostile to his informal teaching methods, believing they eroded discipline. He recommended students read literature extensively, write essays on subjects such as hypocrisy, candour, and popularity, and engaged them in discussions of politics and literature. He also arranged visits to scenic landscapes and historic buildings.
Robert Graves, a student from 1909 to 1914, said Mallory was the best teacher and first genuine friend he ever had. In his autobiography, Good-Bye to All That, Graves wrote fondly of Mallory, who encouraged him in poetry and took him climbing in Snowdon. Irving and Young nominated Mallory for the Alpine Club, and in December 1910, he was elected a member. During the summer of 1913, Mallory collaborated with Graves and other students to produce a magazine called Green Chartreuse, intended to rival other school magazines, with its first publication on Old Carthusian Day, 5 July 1913. Mallory presented lectures on Italian painting in spring 1914, engaging students in a "rather philosophical" discussion about Botticelli, Michelangelo, and Raphael.
Climbing in Europe
The Alps
Mallory made eight expeditions to the Alps and accomplished four first ascents. His first climb was on 5 August 1904, when he, Irving, and Gibson ascended Mont Vélan on the Swiss-Italian border. The team, however, was forced to retreat below the summit because Mallory and Gibson were suffering from altitude sickness. On 13 August, they reached the summit of Dufourspitze, the third-highest peak in Western Europe. On 26 August, Irving and Mallory summited Mont Blanc, at , the highest mountain in Western Europe, marking Mallory's entry into high-altitude mountaineering.
In January 1905, Graham Irving established the Winchester Ice Club, and Mallory, Gibson, Harry Tyndale, and Guy Bullock became members. In August, the Ice Club travelled to the Alps. Mallory would not return for another four years, when he would accomplish a first ascent of the Southeast Ridge of Nesthorn with Young and Charles Robertson on 4 August 1909. Mallory wrote to his mother, "We were out 21 hours and were altogether pleased with ourselves," but he had also nearly fallen after missing a hold above an overhang. On 7 August, they crossed the mountain pass Grünhornlücke, followed by the Fiescher Glacier, and climbed to the summit via the Southeast Ridge of the highest mountain in the Bernese Alps, Finsteraarhorn, at , graded approximately 5.8, using the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS).