80 Facts About George Mallory

George Mallory and climbing partner Andrew "Sandy" Irvine were purportedly last seen ascending near Everest's summit during the 1924 expedition, sparking debate as to whether they reached it before they died.

George Mallory pioneered new routes and became a respected figure in the British climbing community.

George Mallory's body was found in 1999 by the George Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition at 26,760 feet, along with personal effects.

George Mallory had two sisters, Mary Henrietta and Annie Victoria, and a younger brother, Trafford, the Second World War Royal Air Force commander.

In 1896, George 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.

George Mallory won a maths scholarship to Winchester College, an English public school, where he started in September 1900.

George Mallory became the best gymnast in the school, the only one capable of performing the giant swing on the horizontal bar.

In July 1904, George Mallory was a member of the Winchester team who won the Ashburton Shield for rifle shooting at Bisley.

On 6 February 1907, at Christ's College, George Mallory dined with Charles Edward Sayle, under-librarian at Cambridge University Library.

At Sayle's house on Trumpington Street, George Mallory met undergraduates with whom he established enduring friendships; painter Jacques Raverat, surgeon and author Geoffrey Keynes were among them.

George Mallory became good friends with poet Rupert Brooke and psychoanalyst James Strachey.

On 12 February 1909, George Mallory met Geoffrey Winthrop Young and developed a good friendship.

George Mallory's letters attest to the flirtatious, homoerotic aspect of these friendships.

George 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 George Mallory acted in its first production Doctor Faustus.

Academically, in May 1907, George Mallory sat Part I of the history tripos, achieving a third class.

The subject for the Members' Prize Essay in 1909 was James Boswell, biographer of Samuel Johnson; and George Mallory decided to enter.

In October 1909, the painter Simon Bussy, whose wife Dorothy was the sister of Lytton and James Strachey, invited George Mallory to spend the winter with them at their villa in Roquebrune in the Alpes-Maritimes.

George Mallory stayed in Paris for a month to improve his French by reading, attending the theatre, music hall, Sorbonne lectures, and conversing.

George Mallory tried to treat his classes in a friendly way, which puzzled and offended them because of the school tradition of concealed warfare between boys and masters.

In September 1910, George Mallory began teaching at Charterhouse, as an assistant headmaster.

George Mallory's teaching methods relied on infectious enthusiasm and avuncular mannerisms rather than imposing his authority.

George Mallory followed the styles of Irving and Benson, who sought to educate through mutual respect, getting to know pupils as individuals and repudiating the authoritarianism of most British schools.

George Mallory recommended students read literature extensively, write essays on subjects such as hypocrisy, candour, and popularity, and he engaged them in discussion on politics and literature.

George Mallory took them on excursions to places of aesthetic scenery and architectural landmarks.

Robert Graves, a student from 1909 to 1914, said George Mallory was the best teacher and first genuine friend he ever had.

George Mallory presented lectures on Italian painting in spring 1914, engaging students in a "rather philosophical" discussion about Botticelli, Michelangelo, and Raphael.

George Mallory embarked on eight expeditions in the Alps and achieved four first ascents.

One of George Mallory's closest friends and climbing companions, whom he met in Switzerland on this trip, was a woman named Cottie Sanders, who became a novelist using the pseudonym of Ann Bridge.

At the beginning of August 1911, George Mallory returned to the Alps with Irving and Tyndale.

In 1917, George Mallory rewrote an impassioned account about the Maudit ascent.

On 6 April 1906, George Mallory, Irving, and Leach reached the summit of Ben Nevis, climbing in snow via Observatory Gully and Tower Gully on the northeast face.

On 14 September 1907, George Mallory accomplished his first two climbs in Wales: North Gully and North Buttress on Tryfan.

George Mallory returned to Snowdonia in August 1908, accompanied by his brother, Trafford.

The ascent of The Slab Climb occurred due to George Mallory scaling it to retrieve his pipe, which he had left behind on a ledge known as Bowling Green.

George Mallory enlisted in the war effort and started artillery training at Weymouth Camp in January 1916.

George Mallory received additional training at the School of Siege Artillery at Lydd Camp.

George Mallory arrived in France in May 1916 and fought at the Battle of the Somme in the 40th Siege Battery.

George Mallory was reassigned as an orderly officer, serving as a colonel's assistant at the 30th Heavy Artillery Group headquarters, three miles behind the front line, for the first weeks of 1917.

George Mallory trained at the camp with the Royal Artillery's new generation of 60-pounder heavy guns.

In October 1917, George Mallory was promoted lieutenant and commenced a training course for newly promoted officers at Avington Park Camp.

On 23 September 1918, George Mallory was reassigned to the 515th Siege Battery, stationed between Arras and the French coast.

On 23 January 1921, George Mallory received written correspondence from John Percy Farrar, secretary of the Alpine Club, its former president and the nascent Mount Everest Committee member.

Young's arguments convinced Ruth, and she concurred that George Mallory should join the expedition; realising it was "the opportunity of a lifetime," George Mallory decided to participate.

On 9 February 1921, in Mayfair, London, George Mallory met with Sir Francis Younghusband, chairman of the Mount Everest Committee; John Percy Farrar, a committee member; and Harold Raeburn, the assigned mountaineering leader of the 1921 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition.

At the meeting, Younghusband formally invited George Mallory to join the expedition and was surprised to observe that he accepted without any evident emotion and exhibited no indication that he was brimming with enthusiasm.

In February 1921, George Mallory officially tendered his resignation from his mastership at Charterhouse, changing his previous intended decision of resigning at the end of the summer term.

On 8 April 1921, George Mallory departed from the Port of Tilbury in Essex, England, on board SS Sardinia, and brought the final shipment of expedition supplies.

The next day, the severe winds had not abated and the porters were at the limits of their physical reserves, so George Mallory decided to end the expedition.

On 9 November, Younghusband wrote to George Mallory requesting he participate in the second expedition in 1922.

George Mallory expressed that waiting until 1923 was unviable as they could not afford to squander the opportunity the current benevolence of the Tibetans presented.

George Mallory wrote to his sister Avie, expressing reservations about returning to Everest in 1922.

On 25 November, they arrived home, a few days afterwards George Mallory met Hinks in London and, within a week was included on a list of mountaineers who assented to participate in the 1922 expedition.

On 10 January 1922, George Mallory delivered his initial public speech in the Queen's Hall and then journeyed extensively around Britain, filling 30 lecture engagements.

George Mallory returned to the Himalayas as a member of the 1922 British Everest expedition.

George Mallory, who was leading, immediately reacted by forcing the pick of his ice axe into the snow and hitching the rope around the axe's adze.

George Mallory stood in a secure position and held the rope in his right hand above the hitch, pressed downward with his left on the axe's shaft, and, using his entire weight, leaned towards the incline, securing the pick of his axe in the snow.

George Mallory amended his lecture materials and wrote his finalised contribution to the 1922 expedition book, The Assault on Mount Everest: 1922.

The next day, The New York Times ran a story under the headline, SAYS BRANDY AIDED MT EVEREST PARTY; A Swig 27,000 Feet Up 'Cheered Us All Up Wonderfully,' George Mallory Tells Audience, which diverted its coverage of the tour into anti-prohibition propaganda.

The tour was a financial failure; George Mallory regretted that he, Ruth, and the children would have to live on less than he had anticipated, because he had no immediate prospects for permanent employment.

David Cranage, Secretary of the Board of Extra-Mural Studies at Cambridge University, and Arthur Robert Hinks of the Everest Committee travelled together on a train from London to Cambridge while George Mallory was still in America, and discussed a vacancy that solved George Mallory's situation.

George Mallory found a suitable residence for the family at Herschel House on Herschel Road, Cambridge.

On 18 October, Hinks wrote to Cranage, requesting George Mallory obtain leave to participate in the 1924 expedition.

That night, George Mallory shared a tent with Norton, who had just returned from his summit attempt with Somervell, and informed Norton that if his summit bid with Somervell had failed, he had planned to make one further attempt with supplemental oxygen.

George Mallory elucidated that he went down to Camp III and recruited enough porters with Bruce's assistance for another endeavour.

George Mallory chose Irvine as his climbing partner because of the initiative and mechanical expertise he exhibited with the oxygen apparatus.

George Mallory's message reminded Noel of the locations and approximate time of where and when to look for them during their summit attempt, which they had previously discussed and organised.

George Mallory had two assistant porters, peering through a telescope in turns, who saw nothing; 8 am arrived and went without sighting the mountaineers, and by 10 am, cloud and mist had enshrouded their view of the entire summit ridge.

George Mallory thought it might have been a mark used by Irvine on some of his equipment, although not verified by visual inspection of such items returned to Irvine's family, some of whom seemed to remember seeing a similar marking.

Holzel added that George Mallory presumably reached the summit in the late afternoon.

George Mallory wrote that on 12 October 1979, as their reconnoitring party attempted to reach the North Col, an avalanche occurred that swept three Chinese including Wang Hongbao, into a crevasse, resulting in their deaths.

Personal possessions were discovered on George Mallory's body including letters addressed to him.

The mountaineers buried George Mallory, covering his remains with rocks, and Politz read a Church of England committal ceremony provided by the Bishop of Bristol.

George Mallory graded the vertical crack, that forms the crux, at about 5.8.

Physicist George Mallory Moore discovered meteorological data from the 1924 expedition at the Royal Geographical Society's library in London.

The data collected, together with an analysed sea-level pressure map hand-drawn by the India Meteorological Department, were used to show that George Mallory and Irvine's summit attempt occurred when there was a drop in barometric pressure and temperature, which was likely the result of the passage of an upper-level trough.

George Mallory was honoured by having a court named after him at Magdalene College, with an inscribed stone commemorating his death set above the doorway to one of the buildings.

Frances Mallory's sons, Richard and George Millikan, became respected climbers in the 1960s and 70s.

George Mallory was filmed by expedition cameraman John Noel, who released his film of the 1924 expedition, The Epic of Everest.

Mallory was referenced by President John F Kennedy in 1962, in his "We choose to go to the Moon" speech, regarded as one of the great speeches of the 20th century: 'the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it.