George Mallory
Born in Mobberley, CheshireBorn on 18th of June 1886
Died on 8th of June 1924
“Because it’s there” was George Mallory’s famous response to a journalist asking why he wanted to climb Everest, the mountain that eventually claimed his life.
Mallory was born in Mobberley in Cheshire on June 18 1886, the son of a clergyman. He won a scholarship to Winchester College, where he was introduced to climbing. Though a sporting type while at Cambridge, continually in Magdalene College’s eight, he mixed in artistic circles, friendly with the likes of Lytton Strachey, Maynard Keynes, and Rupert Brooke.
From 1910 to his enlistment in the artillery in 1915 he taught at Charterhouse. Mallory married in 1914, and had three children.
Before the war Mallory became a highly respected climber in the Alps and the Lake District, but it is with Everest that he will forever be associated. He was on two exploratory expeditions in 1921 and 1923, and was probably the first human to set foot on the mountain proper.
Mallory, aged 37, and his climbing partner 22-year-old Andrew Irvine died near the summit of Everest on June 8 or 9 during a 1924 expedition. The mystery remains as to whether they died having reached their goal, or returning defeated. George Mallory’s body was discovered in 1999, the absence of his wife’s photo in his belongings - he planned to leave it at the summit - prompting renewed speculation he had made it.
A memorial window dedicated to him at St Wilfrids Church
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