Lloyd Robert Wylie

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Biografie:
Robert Wylie Lloyd (1868 - 1958)
At the time of his death, on April 29 last, a few weeks after his ninetieth birthday, R. W. Lloyd was probably the oldest member of the Alpine Club in years, and only a few were his senior by length of membership.
His interest in the Club and in mountaineering had continued active almost to the end ; he had attended the Centenary Dinner in November 1957 and, until a renewed attack of thrombosis in January of this year, he retained his faculties remarkably for his years. The last few months of his life, however, were a heavy trial to him and few will have wished to see him continue an existence that had become too burdensome even for his fortitude. Lloyd in his lifetime aroused varied feelings among those brought into contact with him, but on one point there can be no difference of opinion of the courage and determination with which, in advanced old age, he faced the pairi and trials of his health, underwent an operation that might well have been fatal at his time of life, and resolutely drove himself to take an active part in all (and it was much) that interested him.
Lloyd was born on March 17, 1868, at Oswaldtwistle, Lancs., the grandson of Nathaniel Lloyd, a calico printer and bleacher. His family life was unhappy ; his parents separated, and Lloyd and his brother were brought up in somewhat reduced circumstances by his mother, to whom he was deeply attached. In a revealing moment, he once remarked that it had given him, as a boy, a shock to see his mother having to economise and he early determined to retrieve her fortunes and set her up in comfort. He had just succeeded in establishing himself satisfactorily, in his early twenties, when his mother died, and the blow was one he never forgot. From then on, instead of being able to work for another's welfare, he simply concentrated on extending his business activities and it was from this concentration that there arose that dour strain and vein of ruthlessness in his character that struck many who encountered him. That he tended to drive a hard bargain, that he liked his money's worth, will not be denied ; but there were other facets to his character not always seen by the world. He had helped one or two young men financially at the universities ; he assisted with funds several mountaineering expeditions of note ; and, provided his terms were acceded to, a number of institutions benefited from him, particularly the Royal Entomological Society of London, of which he had been a Fellow for over seventy years and of which he was Vice-President on several occasions. For many years he was Treasurer of the old Mount Everest Committee and its later transformations, and he was energetic in raising money for the Everest expedition of 1953· As Treasurer he could be difficult to manage and it was said (and it rather pleased him) that his assiduity in raising funds
for Everest was only matched by his extreme reluctance to part with them.
Lloyd visited the Alps first in 1896 and he was elected to the Alpine Club in December I go I, after being refused in 1900 on the grounds of insufficient climbing qualification. In the service of the Club he acted as Auditor from 1909-12 ; member of Committee from 1913-15 and again in 1930 ; Vice-President in 1938-9 ; Hon. Treasurer from 1949- 56. He was elected an Honorary Member of the Club in I956.
In his climbing, he travelled in the old style, with one or more firstrate guides, amongst whom were numbered both Josef and Franz Lochmatter and, pre-eminently, Josef Pollinger. On the whole, Lloyd tended to be something of a 'centrist', with the Valais and the range of Mont Blanc as his principal climbing grounds. The Oberland figures rather little in his records, though it was unsafe ever to assume that he was not acquainted with a particular district, not excluding outlying regions in Austria and even Lapland. Lloyd himself, though leaving the active work on a climb to his guide, was an eminently safe and tireless performer himself, with a preference for snow routes such as is uncommon today. His association with Pollinger partakes of the character of the classic friendships made in the pioneers' days with the Andereggs and Almers ; he first employed Pollinger in 1904 and for the last time in 1939 thirty actual seasons spent together. In the later years they tended to go to the Dolomites and other regions not so much frequented by them in their heyday, whilst an operation on Lloyd in I937 put an end to all serious climbing. That the collaboration was beneficial to Pollinger need not be doubted, as it secured him, annually, vigorous climbing when so much of his time was bespoken by Sir Edward Davidson, often on climbs well beneath Josef's powers.
In addition to the Alps, Lloyd had climbed at home, in the company of such good performers as H. V. Reade, to name but one, and he provided most of the funds for the Climbers' Club hut (the R. W. Lloyd hut) at Ynys Ettws, opened in I950 (C.C.J., ix, no. 75, p. 78). But his prime interest lay in the Alps, though in later years he was heard to regret not having visited the Himalaya before the first World War.
The list of his climbs is a long one and needs no detailing here. As far back as I904 he made a variation on the South face of the Obergabelhorn (A.J. 25. P. 86); in 1910 he made variations on the East face of Pizzo Torrone Centrale (A.J. 25. 458), climbed the East arete of the Dent Blanche, reached from the south (A.J. 25. P. 452) and, with J. P. Farrar, climbed Pollux by the North face (A.J. 25. P. 56o). In 1911 he ascended Mont Blanc by the Brenva arete and traversed the Obergabelhorn from the Wellenkuppe, descending by a variant of his 1904 route (A.J. 26. P. 87). The following year he made the first descent of the Brenva arete (A.J. 26. p. 431).
But his biggest climbs were yet to come, after the first World War, by which time Lloyd was over fifty. In 1919 he made the first ascent of the North face of the Col de Bionnassay (A.J. 33· p. 186) ; in 1920 the ascent of the Zinal face of the Ober Schallijoch (A.J. 34· p. 104) ; in I923 he descended to Courmayeur from the Col dit Infranchissable (the third recorded crossing and first by the descent A.J. 36. 35) and, finally, in 1926, he made a more direct ascent of the North face of the Aiguille de Bionnassay (A.J. 39·p. 35).
Lloyd was well-known to anyone interested in Swiss prints and old Alpine books, of both of which he had unsurpassed collections, partly acquired from the late G. vV. H. Ellis (A.J. 44· p. 288). During Strutt's editorship he allowed his colour-blocks of old prints to be used frequently for illustrations in the Alpine Journal, as also, in 1957, for the standard work on the first ascent of Mont Blanc brought out by Professor Graham Brown and Sir Gavin de ,Beer.
Apart from mountaineering, Lloyd had multifarious interests. The crude notion, derived perhaps from the cinema, that business magnates have no interests outside 'business' could not have been further from the truth than in Lloyd's case. Absorbed though he certainly was in his various commercial concerns, he yet found time for much else. On his qualities as a collector of works of Art we are indebted to his friend of many years, Sir Alec Martin, for an appreciation, and members of the Alpine Club who have visited Lloyd's rooms in Albany, or his houses in the country, will recall the variety of his collecting habits. Nor was it solely as a collector that he was noteworthy ; he took a real interest in modern scientific discoveries, particularly in the realm of physics, so far as a layman could follow such recondite topics ; he was well-read in several branches of history and the books on his shelves had not been collected merely for show. If Lloyd talked on a subject, it can be said with confidence that he had taken trouble to try and get a proper grip of it. He was particularly interested in the Napoleonic period ; was fully prepared to defend 'Prinny' against adverse criticism; and even held the unusual view (outside of France) that it would have been better for Europe had Wellington been defeated at Waterloo.
He was genuinely interested in religion and (as in all matters that he took seriously) he endeavoured to ground himself in theology and Church History, and many will have noticed how in his declining years, when he was so much confined to his chair, he had ready to hand a set of commentaries on the New Testament. He was well-read in the Bible and his nurses were apt to be put through their paces (sometimes to their undoing !) by him, who held to an old-fashioned view of the cultural value of Bible reading.
Within the Alpine Club Lloyd often provoked controversy by his hard and unaccommodating outlook, but no one could doubt of his concern for the Club's interests as he saw them and he was a shrewd observer. In spite of a strongly Victorian manner towards the young, he was often generous in his appreciation of much that must have seemed highly unorthodox, if not irregular, to him. Reserved, selfreliant to the point of obstinacy, he never courted popularity ; but he did arouse admiration for his courage in adversity, and his passing removes a memorable figure from our midst.
T. S. Blakeney
Sir Alec Martin writes :
Lloyd 's first interest was in beetles and butterflies, which he collected as a boy on the commons of Clapham and Wimbledon. As he prospered, he went further afield and to the mountains, and his collecting, particularly of beetles, continued despite his severe physical difficulties, to within a few months of his death at 90. He would go out from his country house at Bampton, sometimes accompanied by me, but more often by Dr. Hobby of Oxford, and on his return each day would set and label them all with his own hand.
When increasing wealth enabled him to pursue more ·expensive quarry he was at first, like many other successful young industrialists, less selective than accumulative, though he did seek advice from the well-known oriental experts, H. L. Joli, Tomita and others, on the vast array of Chinese and Japanese lacquer, Japanese ivories and swordblades, which were crowded into a few glass cases in Albany and were more suggestive of a store than of an artistic display.
He had, however, been given a very fine Turner drawing which so interested him that, in the course of time, he acquired through Agnews some sixty of this artist's best water colours, together with some good examples by other English nineteenth-century painters. All these framed drawings were hung over the glass cabinets, close to the ceiling, covered with blinds to protect them from the sun and artificial light. In recent years, knowing my intense love of oil paintings he got me to buy for him, giving me a free hand, a small collection of works by artists of the Flemish, Dutch and Italian Schools of the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries and by English artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Of more immediate relevance to the Alpine Journal is his very fine and comprehensive collection of Swiss Coloured Aquatints and Drawings and old and modern mountaineering books. The Swiss coloured aquatints and drawings and those books containing Swiss aquatints, were mainly acquired with the help of the famous dealer Kundig, of Geneva. They comprised upwards of five thousand prints and are of the finest quality of any private collection in the world and, even in the Swiss public institutions, it would be difficult to find a comparable ensemble. Lloyd himself became an expert of them ; he exhibited them at the Alpine Club in 1924 and had lectured on them.
This remarkable collection of Swiss coloured aquatints, drawings, and books containing Swiss aquatints, the beautiful drawings by Turner and other artists, the Pekin lacquer and the Japanese sword-blades~ of immense commercial value, were bequeathed to, and have been accepted by, the British Museum. The Japanese lacquer, ivories and the Entomological Collection goes to the Museum of Manchester University. The Alpine books to the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh.
Professor T. Graham Brown writes :
Lloyd was a man of many interests, and it was in the course of one of them that his passion for mountaineering was born. An ardent collector of beetles, he climbed hills in Norway for that purpose, and there discovered the fascination of mountain climbing. In the Alps, he was fortunate enough to engage Josef Pollinger, with whom he climbed year after year and made a fast friendship. They were an ideal combination in the older continuous relationship of Herr and guide : Pollinger, a leading St. Niklaus man of his time, with his superb technique ; Lloyd with his physical energy and acumen. On one occasion Lloyd, standing in ice-steps, managed to hold a falling guide with one hand*) ; he was the author of their new or unusual expeditions in the range of Mont Blanc ; and there is a rather pathetic picture of Lloyd and Josef touring the Alps together by motor car after Lloyd had lost his leg, but would not break the old alliance.
Apart from the Alps and his many manufacturing interests, Lloyd will be remembered as a great collector, and to some extent as a collector of collections. He had valuable collections of English coins, postage stamps, Chinese lacquer, Japanese swords, butterflies and so on, the beginnings of which I do not know ; but he certainly made his collections of beetles, pictures, books and Swiss prints piece by piece. His beetles he caught by hand, and hunted actively for them until he could no longer walk. His pictures, bought with a keen sense of capital appreciation in addition to artistic achievement, ranged from primitive Masters, through his well-known collection of Turner drawings, to such now neglected Victorians as Landseer, and then to more modern examples. His own taste was catholic, perhaps inclined most to fine landscapes ; but he owed more than a little to the advice and experience of his friend, Sir Alec Martin, in the making of the collection.
To mountaineers, his collections of Alpine books and Swiss prints are of the greatest interest. Lloyd began both of them by the purchase of the collections made by Godfrey Ellis and he continued to add to them thereafter. On Swiss prints he was an admitted expert and was the leading spirit in the assembly and arrangement of the Alpine Club's exhibition in December 1924, for the catalogue of which he wrote the Introduction. To this he naturally contributed many of the rare examples from his own collection one of the largest and best until now in private hands.
His collection of Alpine books is also remarkable and reflects his own tastes. It includes many very rare, and some unique, copies, such as those among the early narratives of the ascent of Mont Blanc, but the proportion of foreign publications is surprisingly small. (He, in fact, usually bought books to read, and one of his regrets was that he did not buy the foreign part of J. P. Farrar's collection of Napoleonic literature when it was sold after Farrar's death.) One of the features of Lloyd's collection is a large number of small collections of ephemeral Alpine articles none of them approaching in size those made by Henry Cockburn or G. H. Morse, but making in all a considerable assembly.
Of Lloyd 's business life I had only rare and brief glimpses. As the saying goes, he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and he became I think, a collector of variegated and self-owned manufacturing businesses. In each of these he was certainly the master, and it seemed to me that he did not have the knack of delegating his authority sufficiently. His constructive work on that side is said to have had some of the features of genius, and his advice was eagerly sought and valued. He was in many ways both a hard and a generous man. He would be economical about the electric light whilst offering his guests almost priceless wines he drank little himself. Such contradictions and mixtures gave him a shell which was difficult to penetrate, but all his old friends know what a warm and loyal heart was found when the superficial barrier was broken.
*) The occasion was on the ascent of the Breithorn by the Triftjigrat, on July 28, 1906. Needless to say, the guide was not Josef.
T. S. B.
Quelle: Alpine Journal Vol. 63. Nr. 297, 1958, Seite 232-238


1926 1.Beg.Aiguille de Bionnassay-Nordwestwand „Pollinger-Führe“,55°,1200 HM,4052m,
(Montblancgebiet)
G.Schauer


Geboren am:
17.03.1868
Gestorben am:
29.04.1958