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Edward Whymper FRSE (27 April 184016 September 1911) was an English Mountaineering, explorer, illustrator, and author best known for the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. Four members of his climbing party were killed during the descent. Whymper also made important first ascents on the Mont Blanc massif and in the Pennine Alps, Chimborazo in South America, and the Canadian Rockies. His exploration of Greenland contributed an important advance to Arctic exploration. Whymper wrote several books on mountaineering, including .
In 1861, Whymper successfully completed the ascent of Mont Pelvoux, the first of a series of expeditions that threw much needed light on the topography of an area which at the time was very poorly mapped. From the summit of Mont Pelvoux, Whymper discovered that it was overtopped by a neighbouring peak, subsequently named the Barre des Écrins, which, before the annexation of Savoy added Mont Blanc to the possessions of France, was the highest point in the French Alps. Whymper climbed the Barre des Écrins in 1864 with Horace Walker, A. W. Moore and guides Christian Almer senior and junior.
The years 1861 to 1865 were filled with new expeditions in the Mont Blanc massif and the Pennine Alps, among them the first recorded ascents of the Aiguille d'Argentière and Mont Dolent in 1864, and the Aiguille Verte, the Grand Cornier and Pointe Whymper on the Grandes Jorasses in 1865. That same year he also made the first crossing of the Moming Pass. According to his own words, his only failure was on the west ridge of the Dent d'Hérens in 1863."This was the only mountain in the Alps that I have essayed to ascend, that has not, sooner or later, fallen to me. Our failure was mortifying ..." Quoted in Dumler, Helmut and Willi P. Burkhardt, The High Mountains of the Alps, London: Diadem, 1994, p. 157. As a result of his Alpine experience, he designed a tent which came to be known as the "Whymper tent" and tents based on his design were still being manufactured 100 years later.
Whymper was convinced that the Matterhorn's precipitous appearance when viewed from Zermatt was an optical illusion, and that the dip of the strata, which on the Italian side formed a continuous series of overhangs, should make the opposite side a natural staircase. This party of four was joined by Hudson and Croz, and the inexperienced Douglas Hadow. Their attempt by what is now the normal route, the Hornli Hut, met with success on 14 July 1865, only days before an Italian party. On the descent, Hadow slipped and fell onto Croz, dislodging him and dragging Douglas and Hudson to their deaths; the rope parted, saving the other three.
A controversy ensued as to whether the rope had actually been cut, but a formal investigation could not find any proof, and the elder Peter Taugwalder was acquitted. The rope had snapped between Taugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. Whymper asked Taugwalder to show him the rope. To his surprise, he saw that it was the oldest and weakest of the ropes they brought, and one which had been intended only as a reserve. All those who had fallen had been tied with a Manila rope, or with a second and equally strong one, and consequently it had been only between the survivors and those who had fallen where the weaker rope had been used. Whymper also had suggested to Hudson that they should have attached a rope to the rocks on the most difficult place, and held it as they descended, as an additional protection. Hudson approved the idea, but it was never done.Edward Whymper, Scrambles amongst the Alps, 1872. It can be deduced that Taugwalder had no other choice but to use a weaker rope, as the stronger rope was not long enough to connect Taugwalder to Douglas. The account of Whymper's attempts on the Matterhorn occupies the greater part of his book, Scrambles amongst the Alps (1871), in which the illustrations are engraved by Whymper himself. The accident haunted Whymper:
Another expedition in 1872 was devoted to a survey of the coastline.
During 1880, Whymper made two ascents of Chimborazo (6,267m), including its first ascent; though Alexander von Humboldt had climbed on the volcano in 1802, he did not reach the summit."Alexander von Humboldt: A Chronology from 1769 to 1859" in Personal Narrative of a Journey to the Equinoctial regions of the New Continent by Alexander von Humboldt. London: Penguin Classics 1995, p. lxviii. Whymper spent a night on the summit of Cotopaxi and made first ascents of Sincholagua, Antisana, Cayambe, Sara Urco and Cotacachi. In 1892, he published the results of his journey in a volume entitled Travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator.
His observations on altitude sickness led him to conclude that it was caused by a reduction in atmospheric pressure, which lessens the value of inhaled air, and by expansion of the air or gas within the body, causing pressure upon the internal organs. The effects produced by gas expansion may be temporary and dissipate when equilibrium has been restored between the internal and external pressure. The publication of his work was recognised on the part of the Royal Geographical Society by the award of the Patron's medal.
His experiences in South America having convinced him of certain serious errors in the readings of aneroid at high altitudes, he published a work entitled How to Use the Aneroid Barometer, and succeeded in introducing important improvements in their construction. He afterwards published two guide-books to Zermatt and Chamonix.
While in Ecuador, Whymper made a collection of amphibians and reptiles that he handed over to George Albert Boulenger at the British Museum. The collection received some praise from Boulenger, who said that "though containing no striking novelties", the collection was "interesting on account of the care bestowed by its collector in recording the exact locality from which every specimen was obtained". Boulenger described four new species from the materials, three of them named after Whymper: the snake Coronella whymperi (now a junior synonym of Saphenophis boursieri) and the frogs Prostherapis whymperi, Atelopus elegans, and Hylodes whymperi (now a junior synonym of Pristimantis curtipes).
His brother Frederick also has a mountain in British Columbia named after him, from his days as artist illustrator with the Robert Brown's Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition in 1864.
Shortly after returning to Chamonix from another climb in the Alps, Whymper became ill, locked himself in his room at the Grand Hotel Couttet, and refused all medical treatment. Whymper died alone on 16 September 1911, at the age of 71. A funeral was held four days later. He is buried in the English cemetery in Chamonix.
Canadian Rockies
In the early 1900s, Whymper visited the Canadian Rockies several times and made arrangements with the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) to promote the Canadian Rockies and the railway in his talks in Europe and Asia. In exchange, the CPR agreed to pay transportation costs for him and his four guides. According to the surveyor and mountaineer A. O. Wheeler, Whymper was hired to “conduct explorations and surveys in the interests of the Canadian Pacific railway company” (Wheeler, 1905). In 1901, Whymper and his four guides (Joseph Bossoney, Christian Kaufmann, Christian Klucker and Joseph Pollinger) made the first ascents of Mount Whymper and Stanley Peak in the Vermilion Pass area of the Canadian Rockies.
Illustrator
When not climbing, Whymper pursued his profession as an engraver of illustrations for books and periodicals. Among the books he illustrated was his fellow-mountaineer Florence Crauford Grove's The Frosty Caucasus (1875)Grove, Florence Crauford, The Frosty Caucasus: an account of a walk through part of the Range and of an ascent of Elbruz in the summer of 1874 (London, Longmans, Green & Co, 1875, 341 pp.) Whymper also illustrated and engraved John Tyndall's "Hours of Exercise in The Alps" (1871) and Augusta Bethell's Helen in Switzerland (1867).
He illustrated books for Isabella L. Bird but his brother Charles Whymper was the designer of the Henrietta Amelia Bird memorial clock tower in Tobermory, Isle of Mull, Scotland. It was built in 1905, funded by Isabella Bird (Mrs. Bishop) in memory of her sister.
Final years
On 25 April 1906, aged 65, Whymper married Edith Mary Lewin aged 23 (born 1883) at Emmanuel Church in Forest Gate, Essex (now London). The service was presided over by Canon J. M'Cormick, who had assisted the mountaineer after the Matterhorn accident. The marriage produced one daughter, Ethel. The couple separated in 1910. Edith remarried in 1913 and died the following year from complications of pregnancy.
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Categories: 1840 Births, 1911 Deaths, English Mountain Climbers, English Illustrators, 19th-century English Explorers, British Magazine Illustrators, Fellows Of The Royal Society Of Edinburgh, People From Kennington, Artists From The London Borough Of Lambeth, Sportspeople From The London Borough Of Lambeth
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