As Alfred wrote: ‘The labels – Cust’s Gully, Westmorland’s Climb, Botterill’s Slab – convey nothing to my mind. These proprietary brands...are sometimes a little trying to those who like to find out things for themselves.’61 In 1898 John Hopkinson and three of his children died while climbing near Arolla in Switzerland. The other brothers never climbed again. Aleister Crowley, the self-styled ‘Great Beast 666’ (who will re-appear later in this book), appears to have played some part in the accident. Crowley had succeeded in descending a route which the local guides had said was impossible. He recommended it to Hopkinson as being without difficulty or danger for a responsible party and it is possible that they were attempting to find it when they fell. By that time, Crowley had already left the valley. John Hopkinson’s two surviving sons were killed in the First World War.
As the popularity of hill walking and rock climbing increased, so too did media interest in the activity, which in turn contributed to the growth of the sport. In 1894 Haskett Smith published Climbing in the British Isles, which provided brief details of climbs to be found in Britain, including some outcrops and sea cliffs. Haskett Smith’s book suggests that the subsidiary sport of bouldering (climbing small but technically difficult rock faces, without ropes) also had its origins around this time. His description of Bear Rock notes that it is ‘a queerly-shaped rock on Great Napes, which in the middle of March, 1889 was gravely attacked by a large party comprising some five or six of the strongest climbers in England. It is difficult to find, especially in seasons when the grass is at all long.’62 The most influential book on British climbing during this period was undoubtedly Rock-Climbing in the English Lake District, a collaboration between Owen Glynne Jones and the Abraham brothers, published in 1897, which contained lively descriptions of climbs and superb photographs. The success of the book ensured that Jones became the most famous rock climber of his generation. Like all successful self-publicists, he also attracted much criticism from his climbing peers.
Jones, like Whymper, was firmly part of the heroic rather than aesthetic school of climbing. He wrote about the challenge and excitement of climbing and rarely referred to the beauty of the mountain landscape. Also like Whymper, he was from a lower social class than many climbers of the day; his father was a Welsh carpenter and builder who moved to London shortly before Jones was born. Members of the Alpine Club dubbed the new wave of British rock climbers ‘gymnasts’ or ‘chimney sweeps’, by which they intended to imply both the intellectual and social inferiority of the sport as compared with alpinism. Jones was unrepentant: ‘A line must be drawn somewhere to separate the possible from the impossible, and some try to draw it by their own experience. They constitute what is called the ultra-gymnastic school of climbing. Its members are generally young and irresponsible.’
Born in 1867, Jones showed early promise at school and won a series of prizes and scholarships culminating in a Clothworkers’ Scholarship to the Central Institution in Exhibition Road, South Kensington, where in 1890 he obtained a first in experimental physics. He subsequently became a teacher at the City of London School. While a young man he read accounts of the Golden Age of mountaineering, including those by Stephen and Whymper. As C. E. Benson noted at the turn of the century: ‘About this time, too, certain striking and somewhat sensational photographs of rock-climbing began to find their way into shop windows, and immediately attracted attention and comment, the latter generally criticizing the intellectual capacity of climbers.’63 Jones’ attention was attracted by just such a photograph in a shop on The Strand and he decided to become a climber. Had he been born just a few years earlier, it is doubtful whether he would ever have considered the sport, but having once discovered it, he was addicted. When unable to get to the mountains, he climbed whatever else was available, including several London church towers, Cleopatra’s Needle and a complete traverse of the Common Room at the City of London School.
For Jones, the mountains were simply a stage upon which the climber performed. As a contemporary reviewer of Rock-Climbing in the English Lake District (1897) observed: ‘The soul of mountaineering did not appeal to him so much as its physical charms.’64 He had an apparent disregard for height and exposure (allegedly because of his short-sightedness), and days out with Jones had a habit of turning into epics which many partners were loath to repeat. Jones climbed in the Alps, including a guideless traverse of the Zinal Rothorn and the Weisshorn with the Hopkinsons, but it is chiefly for his contribution to British rock climbing that he is remembered. When he died, in a climbing accident on the Dent Blanche, his landlady said: ‘I always knew that he must come to this end, and he knew it too. He used to say so and say it was the death he would choose.’65
An outstanding gymnast, ‘he studied his own physical powers as a chauffeur studies a car and for that reason he talked a great deal about himself’,66 according to Haskett Smith. Although a fearless leader – ‘strong, cool and resolute’67 – he sometimes pre-inspected difficult pitches using a top rope, a technique he adopted on Kern Knotts Crack (VS 4c, 1896). This practice started an ethical debate that has continued in various forms to the present day. In typically acerbic style, Aleister Crowley argued that Jones’ reputation ‘is founded principally on climbs he did not make at all, in the proper sense of the word. He used to go out with a couple of photographers and have himself lowered up and down climbs repeatedly until he had learnt its peculiarities, and then make the “first ascent” before a crowd of admirers.’68
The ‘couple of photographers’ referred to by Crowley were the Abraham brothers, George and Ashley, who collaborated with Jones on Rock-Climbing in the English Lake District and who were amongst the leading rock climbers of their generation. Born in Keswick, they began climbing around 1890, but many of their most famous routes were climbed with Jones from 1896 onwards, including Jones’ Route Direct from Lord’s Rake (HS, 1898) on Scafell Pinnacle, a route that involved open climbing on steep slabs. After Jones died, the Abraham brothers continued climbing with other partners, completing Crowberry Ridge Direct on Buachaille Etive Mor (S 4a, 1900) with the gritstone specialists Jim Puttrell and Ernest Baker and the North East Climb on Pillar Rock (S, 1912). Ashley also put up numerous routes on Skye with H. Harland, including Cioch Direct (S 4a, 1907). As professional photographers and guide writers, the Abraham brothers were the first people to earn a living from rock climbing as opposed to mountaineering. Their British Mountain Climbs, published in 1908, was particularly successful, remaining in print for 40 years until 1948.
Partly under Jones’ influence, rock climbing became more competitive and more rowdy than it had been in the early years. Until surprisingly recently British climbing circles have maintained the pretence that climbing, despite being a sport, is not competitive in the conventional sense of the word. However, the reality is that climbing has always been intensely competitive. Haskett Smith, the ‘father of British rock climbing’, made numerous gully climbs before and after his famous ascent of Napes Needle. He justified his choice of gullies as follows: ‘When A makes a climb, he wants B, C, and D to have the benefit of every single obstacle with which he himself met, while B, C, and D are equally anxious to say that they followed the exact line that Mr A found so difficult, and thought it perfectly easy...If you climb just to amuse yourself you can wander vaguely over a face of rock; but if you want to describe your climb to others, it saves a lot of time if you can say – “There, that is our gully! Stick to it all the way up!” ’69 Despite his later protestations, what Haskett Smith was describing is competition. Jones simply took it one step further by introducing the concept of grading rock climbs according to their difficulty and by publicising his ascents. But for the climbing establishment, competition, grading and publicity were all anathema.
The social atmosphere of the sport was also changing under the influence of the new generation of rock climbers. In the early days, a scholarly atmosphere pervaded meets at Wasdale Head. In many respects the ambience resembled that of an Oxbridge Senior Common Room. From the 1890s until the outbreak of the First World War, more boisterous behaviour became the norm, particularly amongst the younger climbers.70 While the smoke room remained a place of discussion, where Haskett Smith, Collie and others held court, the younger men indulged in energetic games and disputes in the billiard room. Popular tests of strength and agility
