Centenary of Howard Bury expedition to Everest

In September 1921, a small group of mountaineers reached a ridge high in the Tibetan Himalayas. Rising before them was the greatest mountain of them all: Chomolungma to the Tibetans, Sagarmatha to the neighbouring Nepalese and Mount Everest to those explorers. Leading that small group was an Irishman, Charles Howard-Bury, who grew up in Charleville Castle in Offaly, and who spent most of his life in Belvedere House.

Offaly to Everest

Charles Howard-Bury had an extraordinary life. Born in the early 1880s to an extremely wealthy family, he was educated in Charleville Castle near Tullamore and studyed in Eton and Sandhurst. Before the Everest expedition, he had many experiences as an explorer; he secretly entered Tibet in 1905 and traversed the Tian Shan Mountains in 1913, from China to Uzbekistan. An accomplished naturalist and superb photographer, he was, reputedly, fluent in more than 20 languages and dialects.

During the First World War, he commanded the 7th and 9th battalions of the British army’s King’s Royal Rifles and saw active service at Arras, the Somme, Passchendaele and Ypres. He was mentioned in dispatches on multiple occasions and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1918 for distinguished conduct under enemy fire. He spent the last eight months of the war as a prisoner of the German army, after being captured in March 1918.

After the war, Howard-Bury was instrumental in organising the British-funded expedition to Mount Everest. At that time, Mount Everest was unmapped and, apart from the fact that it was the world’s tallest mountain, little was known about it. British exploration groups such as the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club had long hoped to send expeditions to Everest. They were especially keen to see a British-funded team reach the summit, since Roald Amundsen’s Norwegians had been the first to reach the South Pole and Robert Peary’s American expedition had been credited with reaching the North Pole for the first time.

Journey through Tibet

Howard-Bury travelled to Tibet in 1920, helping to obtain the Dalai Lama’s permission for an expedition to travel to Mount Everest. During the 1920s, Tibet was an independent state, having expelled Chinese forces in 1912, and it kept tight control on its borders.

The expedition left Darjeeling, northern India, in mid-May 1921, entering Tibet soon after and then trekking across the southern tip of that country until they reached the vicinity of Mount Everest in late June. Along the way, one of the team, Alexander Kellas – a Scottish chemist and expert climber – died of heart failure while travelling through a high pass. Another team member became so ill during the trek that he was forced to return to Darjeeling.

The expedition received two key objectives from its sponsors, the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club: to determine whether it was possible to climb to the summit of Mount Everest; and to map the mountain and its immediate environs.

On first viewing Everest from a distance, Howard-Bury feared that it might not be possible for humans to reach the summit.

Yet, during weeks of strenuous climbing and careful mapping, the team investigated a seemingly endless series of ridges and glaciers, methodically compiling the required information. By September 1921, they had found a potential route to the summit, along an area called the North Col, which expedition member George Leigh Mallory attempted to climb.

Although he was defeated by harsh winds and poor weather, the team achieved its goal, correctly identifying a route to the summit and producing detailed and accurate maps of the region – maps that would prove vital to subsequent expeditions.

Howard-Bury arrived back in Europe to discover that he had become an international celebrity. He was awarded the Founder’s Medal by the Royal Geographical Society and lauded in newspapers across the world.

There was one aspect of this global attention, however, that Howard-Bury was not expecting. During the expedition, he sent regular dispatches to the media, one of which mentioned strange tracks high in the mountain snow. Howard-Bury judged that the track had been left by a wolf, although his dispatch also stated that the Tibetan porters who were accompanying him believed the tracks had been made by a wild human-like creature that lived in the mountains.

Within days, the London Times was printing reports about ‘Wild Hairy Men’ and what it called the ‘Abominable Snowman’. That phrase grabbed public attention and so Howard-Bury inadvertently played a role in popularising the legend of what would later be more widely known as the Yeti.

Tibet to Westmeath

Howard-Bury was a superb leader, who guided his team on the arduous journey from India and through Tibet.

On the way, he took a series of incredible photos of Tibet and its people, and recorded stories and facts.

Through the work of Marian Keaney, historian and former Westmeath county librarian, many of those photos and papers are now in Mullingar Library in the Charles Howard-Bury Collection, a collection that has international significance.

It is that collection and Howard-Bury’s role in leading the 1921 mission to Mount Everest that is commemorated and explored in a digital exhibition that was launched last week at Belvedere House and Gardens. It is researched and curated by this writer, who travelled to Tibet in 2007 and who is currently historian in residence for County Westmeath.

The exhibition brings together a wealth of material, making it accessible to a wide audience and allowing viewers to follow Howard-Bury’s remarkable journey. The exhibition also charts Howard-Bury’s life after Everest, including his political career and his long connection with Belvedere House.

The exhibition is enlivened by maps, recordings and interviews with Frank Nugent, a modern explorer and mountaineer. Nugent, who is also a historian and author, has followed in the footsteps of Charles Howard-Bury, and was deputy leader of the Irish expedition to Mount Everest in 1993 which put Dawson Stelfox atop the world’s highest mountain.

Nugent and his colleagues traversed some of the same ground as Howard-Bury’s 1921 expedition.

The digital exhibition can be found at www.everest1921.com.

• Ian Kenneally is the current Westmeath County Council Decade of Centenaries Historian in Residence.