Edmundson David

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Biografie:
David Edmundson (1909-1979)
David Edmundson's wide circle of friends were shocked at the news of his sudden death on 5 December. Until that very morning he had been drafting letters for the Mount Everest Foundation and taking a very keen interest in the prospects of the opening of new areas of Tibet and Sinkiang to explorers and climbers. He had accepted the honorary role of Secretary on the retirement of T. S. Blakeney for 2 declared reasons: gratitude for what mountaineering had meant to his own family; and desire to help young people to do the mountaineering that circumstances had denied him in his own youth.
From his climbing companions in the 1930s, and especially from his cousin, Henry Rowntree, and Arthur Bullough of the Rucksack Club, come reminiscences of holidays in Wales, the Lake District and the West Highlands. David was taking his degree the hard way, by evening study after a day's work as an apprentice engineer at the BTH, Rugby, and limited to 2 weeks' holiday a year, with 4 days at Easter. A highlight of this period was the summer of 1935, spent on and around Skye and including completing the Cuillin Ridge from Garsbheinn to Sgurr nan Gillean. Only deteriorating weather prevented their adding Blaven and Clach Glas within the 24 hours, and it was left to others to achieve this prize several years later.
The war and the demands of a young family prevented David's going to the Alps regularly before 1958, but from then on he hardly missed a season, gaining a very detailed knowledge of many regions from the Gran Paradiso, Dauphine and Lötschetal to the Valtournanche, the Valais, and, increasingly, Chamonix. Founder and first President of the Rugby
Mountaineering Club, he took great pIeasure in the fact that both his sons became keen Alpine Montaineers and that the elder married the daughter of Dr Pierre Danigue of Chamonix whilst the younger preceded his father into the Alpine Club and made several expeditions to the Hindu Kushand Himalayas with MEF support.
David's professional career was distinguished. From his early work in micro-wave radar and special flight instumentation for the first jet engines, by 1959 he had been appointed General Manager of BTH, Rugby. In 1967 he was made a Director of GEC-AEl Electronics Ltd. and in 1969 was elected President of the Institute of Electrical Engineers; in this capacite he and his wife Margaret were to make a world tour.
On his retirement they moved to the Lake District - to a home overlooking Windermere, the Coniston range and the Langdale Pikes. There he took great pride in owning a piece of fell and cultivating a fine garden in which he waged - with increasing success - war against the depredations of deer. One room there was the Mount Everest Foundalion office, from which he answered meticulousIy and sympathetically the many and varied queries which came to its Secretary whilst extending his already wide knowledge of the world's mountain ranges.
A keen musical since his school days in Saffron Walden, and widely informed, hi sense of humour and vital interest in others made him an excellent raconteur and gave him a boundless enthusiam for living. He will be sadly missed by those many who valued his friendship and who now offer their sympathy to his family in their profound loss.
John Tyson
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 85, 1980, Seite 260-261


Geboren am:
1909
Gestorben am:
05.12.1979