Sir John Franklin: From the archive

The news that one of the two lost ships from Sir John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition has been found generated plenty of comment and speculation. My own contribution was digging out  a few 19th century Manchester Guardian pieces about the 1845 Northwest Passage expedition and the various attempts to rescue the crew: Sir John Franklin: From the archive

The Rücksack Club

Sharp-eyed fans of the Guardian's country diary archive column (yes, there are a few) might have noticed that today's piece has a small news item about the Rucksack Club sitting alongside it.

The Manchester Guardian, 11 April 1913

The Rucksack Club was formed in 1902 after JE Entwistle and AE Burns, two "novices with a good walking record and a secret ambition to handle a rope and axe", wrote to the Manchester City News suggesting that a mountaineering club be formed in the city. There was a good enough response to justify a start and it is still going strong today. Read more about its history here.

There were strong links between the Manchester Guardian and the club, especially during its early years, with news of climbing activities and annual reports regularly appearing on the pages of the paper. Several members of staff joined the group including Laurence Scott, eldest son of CP Scott, the long-serving Guardian editor.

On 14 November 1903, a small news piece appeared in which an umlaut has been added to the club's name, thus turning it into the exciting looking Rücksack Club. I rather like this, but the use of the diacritic appears to have been very short-lived.

The Manchester Guardian, 14 November 1903

Read more stories like this in the Guardian Book of Mountains. Also available as an ebook.

Early history of British rock climbing

Footless Crow features a fascinating account from George Abraham of a 1913 mysterious rock-climbing route in North Wales which only recently came to light. George, and his brother Ashley, were photographers whose work provided a unique record of the early history of British rock climbing. But as the blog reports:

"Although the brothers are best known for their photographic work, they were very much mountaineers and pioneers in the true sense of the word. Establishing new climbs and revisiting established climbs which were detailed in their well regarded and illustrated books. After their co-operation with the legendary OG Jones for his very successful Rock Climbing in the English Lake District (1897), they produced companion volumes, Rock Climbing in North Wales (George, in 1906) and Rock Climbing in Skye (Ashley, in 1907)."

This period at the beginning of the 20th Century provided a rich seam of archive material for The Guardian Book of Mountains. At the time, the paper was something of a clearing house for new rock climbing developments and regularly featured news and features about the Lake District and North Wales, as well as the Alps, Norway, and further afield. There were a number of reasons for this, but having mountain-lovers on its staff certainly helped. One in particular was CE Montague, a leader writer and essayist, who worked for the Manchester Guardian from 1890-1925.

For a detailed examination of Montague and this period, I'd recommend this article by Jonathan Westaway.

Women climbers

The Spring 2010 edition of Trail magazine includes an interesting feature on 200 years of female mountaineers. Starting with Marie Paradis climbing Mont Blanc in 1808, Lizzie le Blond's exploits to Tori James becoming the youngest British female to summit Everest. Central to the article is the role the Pinnacle Club, Britain's first women's rock-climbing club, which started in 1921, has played in encouraging female particpiants of the sport.

As mentioned in The Guardian Book of Mountains, Emily 'Pat' Kelly and Eleanor Winthrop Young announced the formation of the club on the letters page of the paper on April 2 1921. The paper also published a supportive leading article. The club was an instant success and is still going strong.

The charismatic Pat Kelly, died on the Tryfan, North Wales, the following year. However, her husband, the great Lakeland climber HM Kelly, recalled "It was remarkable to have the backing of a paper of such prestige, and it was gratifying to have sympathetic approval of male climbers". Eleanor Winthrop Young was the wife of the mountaineer, Geoffrey Winthrop Young.

Lakeland climbing

A couple of news snippets about Lakeland climbing caught my eye today. Firstly, in the Guardian's Country diary Tony Greenbank reminisces about climbing a streaming wet Kern Knotts Chimney with two people who worked for K shoes of Kendal, sometime in the 1950s. All very interesting, but he also mentions that K Shoes used to be called Somervell Bros, and that a family member was Howard Somervell, of Everest fame. An experienced alpine climber and surgeon, he joined both the 1922 and 1924 expeditions, and was a close friend of George Mallory.

Following the attempts on Everest, Somervell turned his back on a prestigious surgeon’s job in London and instead worked for nearly 40 years as a missionary doctor in South India before retiring to the English Lake District. His book, After Everest: The Experiences of a Mountaineer and Medical Missionary, is well respected and the following review appeared in the Manchester Guardian on January 5 1937.

Turning to an earlier climbing generation, UKClimbing features a story about Dave Birkett making a winter ascent of Botterill's Slab, a route high on Scafell, in the Lake District. When Fred Botterill put up the climb in 1903 it was one of the first to be graded Very Severe, a grade it still maintains today. Botterill's Slab, a film by Alison Stockwell, that re-creates the original climb can be seen here.

Sadly the Manchester Guardian didn't feature this first ascent but the period did see an incredible amount of reporting of the growing sport of rock climbing, a number of which are featured in On the Roof of the World.