the sport. Nine years later Imseng died in an avalanche attempting to make the third ascent of the same route with his client Marinelli. The Pendlebury brothers went on to make several other first ascents, including the Schreckhorn from the Lauteraarsattel (D+, 1873), which was a remarkable achievement for the time. Richard Pendlebury, who was Senior Wrangler at Cambridge in 1870 and a Fellow of St John’s College, was also one of the founders of British rock climbing, ascending Jake’s Rake on Pavey Ark and making the Pendlebury Traverse (M, 1872) on Pillar Rock in the Lake District.
The ascent of the Col des Grandes Jorasses in 1874 by Thomas Middlemore, a Birmingham leather merchant, created a similar controversy, particularly regarding the morality of taking professional guides into areas with significant objective risk. Middlemore confessed to being black and blue with bruises caused by falling rocks. Climbing with Henri Cordier, a Parisian student who died in a climbing accident at the age of 21, and John Oakley Maund, a quick-tempered London stockbroker, Middlemore made first ascents of the Aiguille Verte from the Argentière Glacier (D+/TD-), Les Courtes (AD, 3,856m/12,651ft) and Les Droites (AD, 4,000m/13,123ft) all within the space of a week. The Cordier Couloir on the Aiguille Verte once again involved climbing a route that was obviously exposed to frequent rockfall and was not repeated for nearly 50 years. With Cordier, Middlemore also made the first ascent of the beautiful snow and ice arête of the Biancograt on the Piz Bernina (AD, 4,049m/13,284ft), one of the great alpine ridges which, while relatively free from objective risk, is technically more difficult and exposed than many traditional routes. In later life Middlemore bought the Melsetter estate in Orkney which comprised a number of islands including Hoy, whose famous sea stack was to become the setting for a television climbing spectacular in the 1960s.
Middlemore also climbed with James Eccles, who made numerous first ascents on the Mont Blanc massif with the outstanding guide Michel Payot, including the Aiguille de Rochefort (AD, 4,001m/13,127ft) in 1873, the Dôme de Rochefort (AD, 4,015m/13,173ft) in 1881 and, most famously, the upper section of the Peuterey Ridge in 1877, where he camped at the side of the Brouillard Glacier beneath what is now called Pic Eccles and next day crossed the Col Eccles, reached the Frêney Glacier and ascended the ridge. The Peuterey Ridge, which in its entirety still merits a grade of D+, was repeated just twice before the Second World War.
Charles and Lawrence Pilkington, of the glass-making and colliery-owning family, were also active climbers at this time. With their cousin, Frederick Gardiner, a Liverpool ship-owner, and George Hulton, a Manchester businessman, they pioneered guideless climbing in the Alps. They made the first guideless ascents of the Barre des Écrins (PD, 1878), La Meije (AD, 1879) – the last and one of the hardest of the major alpine peaks to be climbed – the Jungfrau from Wengern Alp (PD, 1881) and the Finsteraarhorn (PD, 1881). All four were also active climbers in Britain. The Pilkington brothers climbed Pillar Rock in 1869 when Lawrence was just 14 and were amongst the first to climb on Skye, which at that time was harder to reach than the Alps, making the first ascent of the Inaccessible Pinnacle (M, 1880) on Sgurr Dearg, the only major Scottish peak that requires rock climbing to reach the summit.
One area that remained almost unexplored in the 1870s was the French Dauphiné Alps, and for that reason it attracted the attention of William Coolidge and his formidable aunt Meta Brevoort. Born in 1850 near New York, and brought up by his aunt, Coolidge left the United States at the age of 14 and lived first in France, then England, and finally Switzerland. Since it was possible in those days to travel anywhere in Europe, except Russia and the Balkans, without a passport, Coolidge never obtained one, and at the outbreak of the First World War he found that he was stateless, having lost his US citizenship. Coolidge was introduced to climbing at the age of 15 by Miss Brevoort, a spirited explorer who climbed over 70 major peaks and did not hesitate to beat some mule drivers whom she saw mistreating their animals. They were frequently accompanied by their pet bitch Tschingel – described by a Swiss gentleman who was obliged to share a hut with her as a ‘formloser, watscheliger fettklumpen’ (‘a shapeless, waddling fat lump’) – who nevertheless succeeded in climbing 66 major peaks. Coolidge too did not possess an athletic physique – a contemporary at Magdalen College where he became a Fellow in 1875 remembered him as a ‘tubby, undersized little man’15 – but he was tough and resolute. Coolidge was inordinately fond of his aunt, and after her death in 1876 he took Holy Orders and turned his attention to the academic study of the history of alpinism, becoming increasingly obsessive in his pedantry and the vehemence with which he defended his views on the subject. Between 1865 and 1898 he spent 33 seasons in the Alps, amassing a staggering total of 1,700 climbs, including first ascents of Pic Centrale de la Meije (PD) in 1870, Ailefroide (F, 3,953m/12,969ft) in 1870, the Piz Badile (PD, 3,308m/10,853ft) in 1876, and numerous lesser peaks in the Maritime and Cottian Alps. During most of this time he was guided by Christian Almer and later his son of the same name. He made the first winter ascents of the Wetterhorn and Jungfrau in 1874, with Miss Brevoort, and the Schreckhorn in 1879, and is generally regarded as the father of winter mountaineering. He also climbed in the Caucasus with Douglas Freshfield in 1868.
Coolidge wrote numerous books and articles, including the Conway and Coolidge Climbers’ Guides to the Alps (1881–1910), co-authored with Martin Conway, which were the first practical alpine guidebooks. Coolidge contributed long, pedantic, heavily annotated volumes, while Conway smoothed out the ferocious rows that took place between Coolidge and the publisher. In keeping with Conway’s exploratory instincts, the guides were originally conceived as a means of ensuring that pioneering parties avoided routes that had previously been climbed. Of course, they were overwhelmingly used for exactly the opposite purpose. The slim volumes gave descriptions of the routes and also named the first ascensionists. Conway noted that even those members of the Alpine Club who abhorred competition and self-advertisement in others were quick to correct any omissions with respect to their own achievements. From 1880 to 1889 Coolidge was also editor of the Alpine Journal, a position that brought him into bitter conflict with most of the leading climbers of the day. Famous for his stubbornness, Coolidge ‘could do anything with a hatchet but bury it’,16 according to Arnold Lunn, one of his many victims. He resigned from the Alpine Club in 1899, was re-elected as an honorary member in 1904, resigned again in 1910 and was re-elected again in 1923. He is the only member ever to have resigned an honorary membership.
Coolidge’s arguments with Whymper, over ‘Almer’s leap’, an illustration in Scrambles Amongst the Alps showing Christian Almer apparently making a daring leap during the descent of the Barre des Écrins, were legendary, but towards the end of Whymper’s life the two men were reconciled. Coolidge was, in many respects, quite similar to Whymper. Both were fired by single-minded ambition, both had an apparent indifference to the opinion of others, and both appeared completely immune to the beauty of the mountain landscape. Coolidge often regretted that he had not been born earlier so that he might have taken part, with Whymper, in the Golden Age of alpine exploration. His obituary in The Times talked of his ‘adeptness at the gentle art of making enemies’,17 but without his scholarship much early alpine history would have been lost. Furthermore, Coolidge was a balanced judge of climbing ability. He argued with Fred Mummery, as he did with everyone else, but was appalled when Mummery was blackballed by the Alpine Club in 1880, despite being proposed by Dent and Freshfield. When Mummery finally allowed himself to be put forward for membership again in 1888, Coolidge surreptitiously slipped some of the ‘noes’ in the ballot box into the ‘ayes’ to ensure that he was elected.
Fred Mummery was born in Dover in 1855, the son of a tannery owner. He was a sickly child with a deformed back, which prevented him from carrying heavy loads, and was amongst the first in a long line of climbers whose tolerance of huge exposure was attributed to his acute short-sightedness. He spent the first part of his career climbing with Alexander Burgener, and then went on to revolutionise the sport by putting up hard new routes without the use of guides. Even when accompanied by guides, he impressed upon them that his requirement was for another man on the rope, not a leader. Burgener stated that Mummery ‘climbs even better than I do’,18 which was high praise from a proud man.
Mummery was a charismatic individual who made many staunch friends in the climbing community, including Norman Collie, Cecil
