TOPICS
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GEOFFREY
WINDTHROP YOUNG
Geoffrey Winthrop Young D.Litt.
(1876 – 1958) was a British climber, poet and educator, and
author of several notable books on mountaineering. Educated at
Marlborough, Young began rock climbing shortly before his first term
at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied Classics and won the
Chancellor's Medal for English Verse two years running,
Cambridge and The
Roof-Climber's Guide to Trinity
While at Trinity College, Cambridge,
he developed a love of mountaineering. Whilst at Cambridge Young
wrote a humorous college climbing guide called The Roof-Climber's
Guide to Trinity, in part a parody of early alpine guidebooks, in
part a useful reference work for those, like him, who were keen to
clamber up Cambridge's highest spires, He was also a talented poet
and won the Chancellor's Medal for English Verse at university.
Alpine Climbs
In 1909 Young met George Mallory. The
two men became close friends and that summer they climbed together
in the Alps. Young also climbed the Brouillard ridge of Mont Blanc
and made the first complete traverse of the west ridge of the
Grandes Jorasses. In 1913 Young was elected president of the
Climbers' Club. When George Mallory married Ruth Turner on 29th July
1914, Geoffrey Winthrop Young.
First World War
On the outbreak of the First World War
a few months later, Young became a journalist with The Daily News.
Young was a pacifist and was a strong opponent of the conflict.
However, when faced with the tragic consequences of the war, he
resigned as a war correspondent and joined the Friends' Ambulance
Unit at Ypres. This involved transporting both casualties and
refugees away from the Western Front. In 1917 Young went to Italy to
establish an ambulance service in the mountains of the
Italian-Austrian front. On 31st August he was hit by an Austrian
shell. His left leg was so badly wounded that it had to be amputated
at the knee. He then had to walk sixteen miles in two days to avoid
being captured by the Austrian Army. On 16th September 1917, Young
wrote to George Mallory that he was already planning to climb with
an artificial leg: "Now I shall have the immense stimulus of a
new start, with every little inch of progress a joy instead of a
commonplace. I count on my great-hearts, like you, to share in the
fun of that game with me."
Post War Career
After the war Young worked for the
Rockefeller Foundation. He continued to climb with an artificial leg
and over the next few years reached the summits of the Matterhorn
and Zinal Rothorn. In 1920 Young published the 300-page manual of
mountaineering instruction entitled Mountain Craft, to which
Eckenstein and J. Norman Collie also contributed. The editor of the
Alpine Club, John Percy Farrar, wrote to Young on the book's
publication, saying: 'The book is magnificent ... It will be
standard for so long as mankind is interested in mountaineering. The
profound amount of work put into it staggers me.' Young also had a
strong interest in education and along with his friends, George
Mallory and David Pye, talked about opening their own progressive
school. According to the authors of The Wildest Dream: The Biography
of George Mallory (2000): "George Mallory went so far as to
prepare a draft prospectus for the school." However, the death
of Mallory while climbing Mount Everest in 1924 brought an end to
this plan.
Later life and Death
n 1932 Young began lecturing on
education at London University. He also joined the campaign to
persuade Ramsay MacDonald to allow Kurt Hahn to enter the country in
1934. Later that year he helped Hahn establish the international
school at Gordonstoun in Moray. The two men were also involved in
the creation of Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme and the Outward Bound
movement.
Young was president of the Alpine Club
from 1941 to 1944 and the main figure behind the founding of the
British Mountaineering Council during the Second World War. Geoffrey
Winthrop Young died at eighty-two in 1958. |
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