Chorley Theo

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Biografie:
geboren in Kendal (Kanada)

Lord Chorley (1895-1978)
Theo Chorley's love of mountains was a much wider thing than his personal enjoyment of them. He fought tenaciously for the rights of others to share this enjoyment and it was part of his life's task to make and keep our mountains, hills and indeed our whole countryside accessible to his fellow men. He was an officer of almost all the organizations for the preservation of natural beauty and President of many of them. Even this was only part of his broad sense of human justice. One has only to look at the long list of appointments which he held in areas ranging from penal reform to banking and insurance law to realize the width and distinction of this modest man's mind. His marriage to Katharine Hopkinson in 1925 laid a firm foundation for his unshakable devotion to the preservation of our countryside. No one who visited their home in Hampstead or later at Stanmore could fail to feel the deep-seated love of beauty and justice for which they stood.
Born in Kendal, Theo went to school there and thence to Queens College Oxford where he read history. He was called to the Bar in 1920 and was for many years Cassel Professor of Commercial Law in the University of London. From 1942 to 1944 he was Deputy Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence for the NW Region. Under the Attlee Government he became a Lord-in-Waiting and from 1944 to 1968 was Chairman of Westmorland Quarter Sessions.
For 35 years he was editor, some would say founder, of the Modem Law Review. In 1961 he was made a QC. He was Deputy Chairman of the National Trust and a member of the Hobhouse Committee whose work for our National Parks owed much to the clarity of his mind. He was also Hon Secretary of the CPRE and President of the Friends of the Lake District.
He was elected to the AC in 1938 and was its Vice-President from 1956 to 1958. He had been President of the Fell and Rock Club from 1935 to 1937 having joined that Club in 1916 and edited its Journal for 10 years before handing over this task to his wife Katharine, herself a keen climber. From 1950 to 1953 he was President of the British Mountaineering Council.
The first time I met Theo was in the summer of 1922 when he and R. B. Graham invited me to join them for my first season in the Alps. This was the first time I had been abroad and Theo looked after me on that magical journey in a kind and fatherly way, being 6 years my senior. He had been to the Alps the previous year and this of course made him an authority in my eyes. After a few guideless ascents from Arolla (including a search party which took us nearly to the top of the Petite Dent de Veisivi by moonlight) we engaged Josef Georges le Skieur for a week's tour which included a traverse of the Dent d'Herens from the Rifugio d'Aosta to Breuil (Cervinia) taking the calculated risk of crossing the ice-slope of the Mount Tabel glacier after midday, then, after a severe storm, a traverse of the Matterhorn from Breuil to Zermatt, mostly in crampons, followed by a traverse of the Dent Blanche by the Viereselgrat.* On the Mount Tabel ice-slope we were assailed by large stones whirring over the rope between us. (Forty years later Theo recallep this moment in a television programme in which we were both involved. My memory made the stones about the size of a large footstool, his made them the size of a grand piano. I do not know who was right.) The following year, 1923, the same party, after a guideless week in the Oberland which included the first complete traverse of the Fiescherhorn-Grünhorn-Grüneckhorn ridge from the Berglihut to the Concordia, met Josef Georges once more, this time for an attempt on the then unclimbed N ridge of the Dent Blanche; but this had to be abandoned at the last moment owing to a complete break in the weather.
My 2 companions were very different. Graham, schoolmaster and all-round mountaineer, took the lead in planning our expeditions; Chorley, the finer rock-climber, was always the quiet friend and observer with a kind but incisive sense of humour which never left him in the most uncomfortable moments.
In 1924 he was with George Bower and A. W. Wakefield at Chamonix for an attempt on the Aiguille Sans Nom from which they were driven back by bad weather. He climbed in the Alps most seasons until the war except for one holiday in Norway (Horungtinder and Romsdal) and 2 or 3 devoted to spring ski-ing. During these years he was sometimes with Katharine and in 1926 with Everisto Croux of Courmayeur when among other ascents they traversed the Grand Charmoz and, with the addition of C. G. Markbrieter and W. B. Carslake did the Aiguille Verte by the Whymper Couloir and the traverse of the Mont Mallet and Les Aretes de Rochefort. He also climbed guideless with Beetham, Pryor and Meldrum and with Speaker in the Engelhörner. At home we should not forget his first ascent of Eliminate 'C' on Dow Crags and also his loyal maintenance for many years of the tradition of ascending Pillar Rock on New Year's Day.
The latter part of his life will be better known to other members of the Club, for I was out of touch for many years. But his quiet friendliness was always there and his mind remained alert as ever in spite of failing sight and diminishing bodily strength.
We can be grateful for his noble spirit and his devotion to the welfare of his fellow men.
Michael Wilson
*See AJ 225 Nov 1922, also Theo's article 'Eight Days' in the FRCC joumal for 1922.
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 84, 1979, Seite 265-266


Geboren am:
1895
Gestorben am:
1978