Elliott Claude Aurelius

(Bearbeiten)

Biografie:
gestorben in Buttermere (Großbtritannien)

Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 79, 1974, Seite 280 f

Sir Claude ElIiott 1888-1973
Claude (Aurelius) Elliott died at the age of 85 in Cumberland in the late autumn of 1973. He had been President of the Club in 1950-1952, Chairman of the Himalayan Committee when the 1953 Everest Expedition was planned, and successively Headmaster and Provost of Eton from 1933-66. Had it been within his powet he would have discouraged the writing of this In Memoriam notice-some short reference to the death of a former President of the Club who climbed with much enjoyment for many years, would in his view have been entirely adequate. For he was one of the most unassuming and modest of men; to him climbing was essentially a personal and private experience to be shared, both at the time and in retrospect, with a small circle of friends.
He was born in India in 1888 where his father was Lieutenant Governor of Bengal and some of his earliest recollections were of the Himalaya seen as a child from hill stations. After his return to England closer contact with mountains came from schoolboy holidays in the Alps, with which the Elliott family had much earlier association. They were related to Leslie Stephen and his father's elder brother JuIius Elliott made the second ascent of the Matterhorn from the Swiss side in 1868 (AJ 27 283) and was killed in the following year while climbing unroped near the summit of the Schreckhorn - 19 years before Claude was born. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, but typical of Claude Elliott's humour and economy of words, that, when in middle life a young schoolmaster companion treated a crevassed glacier without proper respect, his only - and adequate comment was “My uncle is down there”.
In 1906, when an undergraduate at Cambridge, he began alpine climbing with a traverse of the Diablerets; regular visits to the Alps followed and he went frequently to Cumberland and Wales where he soon became a very competent and fast climber. In 1911, soon after he had obtained a double first in History at Trinity College, Cambridge and been elected a Fellow of Jesus College, he had a particularly full - and eventful - year. Skiing above Sierre in January; North Wales with Geoffrey Winthrop Young and others at icy Easter; Skye and Glencoe in July; the Pyrenees in September. There in a strenuous few weeks he found the delights of expedition climbing and rough travel. His account in the Climbers' Club Journal (1912) - one of his few climbing articles - leaves no doubt that the Caucasus and Himalaya then featured in his future plans. But that was not to be. A few days after his return from the Pyrenees he was in the Lake District. A fine day with 6 routes on Scafell -not unusual for him- was followed by deteriorating weather. The party turned to Walker's Gully. Increasing rain turned the summit pitch into a waterfall: the leader, Hugh Pope, was 'washed off' twice on the final pitch and the party descended with Elliott as last man. A threaded rope broke. Ellion fell down 2 rock steps and shot head foremost down a scree until halted partly by a hand jamming in a rock crack, partly by Raymond Bicknell catching his foot. The party reached Burnthwaite at 6.00am. The only comment on Ellion's injuries in his climbing diary was typically left to the last sentence, “No more climbing owing to a damaged hand and knee”. The latter, a fractured knee-cap, was to be a recurrent source of trouble for many years. A less determined man would have given up, or at least slowed down. Elliott usually did neither. A walking stick, tied by a thong to his wrist, helped to maintain his pace on British hills and the long ice-axe of the period served the same purpose in the Alps. In the next 2 years a traverse of the Weisshorn, a traverse of the Rothorn, the NW Ridge of the Obergabelhorn and several Chamonix Aiguilles were among more than a dozen climbs, many guideless with Raymond Bicknell. Pre-war climbing ended in late July 1914 when he, Bicknell and Porter had a narrow escape in an avalanche on the flanks of the Chardonnet. During most of the war he was in the Admiralty and gained the OBE for his services. There were occasional short strenuous escapes to Cumberland; once he walked from Keswick to Burnthwaite and back in 3 days making 7 routes on Scafell, Gable and Pillar on the way.
In 1919 Elliott, Mallory and Porter returned to the Alps, the first 2 having made the first ascents of the Garter Traverse and Bowling Green Buttress on Lliwedd, the previous Easter. But Ellion's knee was unequal to the Alps; Mallory wrote (AJ 33 171):
“From the moment that Ellion first mooted the proposal that we should come to Chamonix at once instead of the Dauphine an apprehension had always been present its possessor. Suffice it to say, that for Alpine labour it has been usually brought to a benevolent disposition by a careful course of previous suggestion. But the couloirs of a government office during the summer months last year had contrariwise” been a training in idleness. By the completion of our first expedition it was brought to a state of open rebellion ... it refused to be cajoled'.
ElIiott returned to England after a very painful descent. The Walker's Gully accident deprived him not only of that season but also of the likelihood of being on the Everest expeditions of 1921-4. He would have been an ideal expedition member. His mountaineering skill, his strength and his powers of endurance were obvious qualifications. Still more perhaps were his personal qualities, unassuming and patient with a quiet sense of humour; judgment, absolute integrity and a total lack of any affectation. Porter once wrote in his diary “Claude's hypnotic eye lured me”, when explaining why they had both had a quite unnecessary soaking in North Wales when protective clothing was not of today's standards and they were old enough to know better. There is perhaps no better description of ElIiott's impact on his fellows. The early Everest expeditions would surely have benefited from his presence, equally in camp and on the mountain.
ElIiott was back in Switzerland in 1920. Two years later surgery relieved the kneeinjury and by the end of his career he had made 40 visits to the Alps with nearly 150 expeditions, mainly in the Pennine Alps, Chamonix or the Bernese Oberland. Harold Porter and Leslie Shadbolt were 2 of his most frequent companions in guideless climbing after the war. His speed on mountains was seldom better shown than when with Franz Lochmatter in 1928 he climbed the Dent Blanche by the E Ridge from the Schönbuhl hut in 5 3/4 hours including a halt to await daylight on the Col de Zinal. In the same year he was with Geoffrey Winthrop Young on his one-legged ascent of the Wellenkuppe and the E Ridge of the Weisshorn to within 500 feet of the top; in the previous year they had been together on Monte Rosa. Young's 'Mountains with a Difference' gives a vivid description of ElIiott as a companion on mountains.
In 1949 when over 60 years of age he climbed the Mittellegi-Grat with Hans Brantschen. Four years later a return to the Rimpfischhorn was his last Alpine peak but rock climbing and hill walking, especially in the Lake District, continued until the last years of his life. In his retirement he lived at Buttermere in a house, formerly owned by Professor Pigou, which he had first visited 60 years earlier.
To those of us who knew Claude in mountains or in his friends' houses, his public figure as a Headmaster of a great school was rather hard to comprehend. I first met him in the mid-thirties and years later, when I had come to know more of him, I was reminded of a cartoon I had enjoyed when my own climbing was starting. The subject was a pair of climbers on what then seemed an impossible crag; the caption 'Take it easy, Keep your strength for the difficult part'. Until you knew him, ElIiott's shy and rather hesitant manner could conceal his capacity for firm leadership and action when the time was ripe. Hasty, or what is sometimes called 'instant' decision was foreign to him, especially when weighty matters were involved. Eton remembers him with gratitude as the Headmaster who steadfastly refused, against continuing pressures, to adopt alarmist measures during the Second War, and as the Provost who later planned the most extensive re-building and modernisation programme in the School's history. A decision made and action taken, ElIiott avoided public discussion. This was not for fear of criticism but out of respect for the feelings of those who would have preferred matters to be decided otherwise. Future generations, if they wished, could review the past.
It was Claude ElIiott's good fortune to retain his health and interests until the end of his life. His last years were saddened by the death in 1966 of his wife to whom he had been married for over 50 years. But the hills above Buttermere remained a source of pleasure. A few weeks before he died he drove himself to the S of England, visiting family, friends and Cambridge. Conversation ranged over climbing from his early days to the modern generation whose achievements he followed closely, though sometimes with mild surprise. It was a pity, he said, that they might find him too old to be worth talking to; they were so much easier to understand than a former housemaster of his who became Headmaster of a girls' school which my daughter attended-'f would rather be an agricultural labourer' .The large untired blue eyes lit up. Then turning to another subject, seriously now, 'You know, I never could have confidence in anyone who had not confidence in himself-could you?' It seemed unbelievable that he had been married in the year f was born.
He left one son who shares his early enthusiasm for skiing.
Scott Russell
Anthony Rawlinson writes:
I should like to add a few lines of personal tribute. Claude Elliott was a man to whom I owe much. I am grateful for what he did for Eton. He was the headmaster who for my wartime generation sturdily maintained all the essentials. He was the Provost whose building programme has benefited the generation of my sons.
I am grateful to him for my introduction to rock-climbing. In April 1941, when I was 15, a chance meeting on a hillside above Buttermere in the Lake District brought an invitation to climb the Pillar Rock. Having already acquired a taste for hill-walking, I should probably have come to rock-climbing anyway, but that day on Pillar, which was followed by others with Claude, was a wonderful initiation into sane, sensible and civilised mountaineering. It was an initiation also into his friendship, and it is this which is my greatest debt to him. At Eton he was a somewhat remote figure, at least to the younger boys. Yet from the first he made it an easy and delightful companionship on the mountains, and the opportunity thus to get to know him sooner and better than many brought immense and continuing reward.
The friendship passed as readily to my sons. My eldest was introduced to hill-walking from his house. In his seventies he led us all up a little rock-climb starting in his back garden. Dinner with Claude became a key feature of family visits to the Lake District. Claude had the gift of treating everyone on equal terms, and not too seriously, least of all himself. He, who never sought respect, earned it more than most men, and with respect, affection.
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 80, 1975, Seite 295-298



Geboren am:
1888
Gestorben am:
1973