Hartley Herbert Kent

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Biografie:
Herbert Kent Hartley 1908-1986
Herbert Hartley was early attracted to his native Pennine moors and crags where he was an active climber by the age of 13. Two years later he made his first, modest, guided alpine climb from Grindelwald where he returned in '25 and '27. While a student at Manchester University he was a founder-member of the MUMC (of which he became successively Editor and President), and joined forces with fellow-student Maurice Linnell in many rock-climbs at home and in his first guideless alpine season in 1929, when he led six major climbs in the Chamonix Aiguilles. He returned to the Aiguilles in 1930 and led G S Bower and H S Gross in further major climbs. Family and professional commitments and the war kept him from the Alps (but not from British rock) until his first visit to Zermatt in 1949, where he climbed the Rothorn by the Rothorngrat, Matterhorn by the Zmuttgrat and Allalinhorn. Successive summers saw him in the Valais, Tyrol, Norway and Graians, sometimes leading his wife, daughter and son on standard climbs on major peaks. With the death of his wife and retirement from work his energies took him to wider horizons, and in 1974 at the age of 66 he made the first of several extended post-monsoon treks in Nepal with one or two companions and with but a single Sherpa. He crossed Tilman's Col and climbed a peak on the shoulder of Machapuchare. He also climbed in the Atlas, the Southern Alps in New Zealand including Malte Brun, and the Tetons and Wind River Range in Wyoming. His long-held ambition to visit the Karakoram led to him joining the AC Meet in 1985, but sickness forced him to leave the main party and make more modest expeditions from Gilgit. He was deeply disappointed and felt frustrated that he had not been able to get to the Concordia, but it was evident that age (now 77) was telling and that he was l slowing and needed help. It is remarkable that he was able to do so much so late in life.
But it is not for his climbing alone that he should be remembered. One of the gifted band that Fred Pigott drafted with such distinction into the Mountain Rescue Committee, for 30 years he made, annually, statistical analyses of all mountain rescues in Britain and of the events and circumstances that necessitated the rescues. For 2S years he was Joint Hon Secretary of the MRC. Characteristically, his service to the MRC was unstinted, highly competent and
entirely without personal publicity.
He was President of the Rucksack Club, 1954-55.
Professionally he was a distinguished industrial chemist. He introduced polyurethane to this country and spent most of his working life in developing its manufacture and use in many forms; in 1977 he was awarded a Gold Medal of the Plastics and Rubber Institute. During the past war he developed and manufactured the adhesive used on the “sticky bomb”, for which he received an inventor's award at the end of the war.
His personal qualities were of the highest. Able to converse on many subjects, he knew when to appreciate silence. Under intolerable weather conditions he never lost his head or temper. His natural courtesy avoided offence when his intellect forced him to disagree with others. On rock he was determined with an elegant, almost dainty, technique which served him well on
the gritstone climbs that he pioneered.
He is survived by a son and a daughter to whom we extend our sympathy.
Frank Solari
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 92, 1987, Seite 311-312



Geboren am:
1908
Gestorben am:
1986