Herbert Harold Richardson

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Biografie:
Harold Richardson Herbert 1907-1981
Harold Herbert was the youngest of four brothers, three of whom were members of the Club, the eldest (later Lord Tangley) becoming honorary secretary and president. He was educated at Reading School and St John's College, Oxford. While at school he had visited the Alps with his family and as secretary he was a prominent member of the Oxford University Mountaineering Club. This was at a period when the club officers regarded it as part of their duties to organise Alpine meets for novices. In 1927 he was at Arolla at a meet with Alexander Lagger as guide, and the following year at a guideless meet in the Grand Paradiso district. Thereafter, until the outbreak of the second war, he visited the Alps every summer with the exception of 1932 and 1937 (AJ 51, 43)
when he was in Norway and 1938 when he was training with his antiaircraft battery. He was elected to the Club in 1930 and to the Committee in 1950.
For the whole of the war he served in the Mediterranean theatre and took part in the landing at Salerno for which he was awarded the
Military Cross. To this period belong recondite ascents of Mt Olympus (Cyprus) and Djebel Maghouan (Tunisia). With the return of peace he resumed his holidays in the Alps and made a substantial number of ascents until 1965. With few repetitions they added up to a very large total indeed. Many were in the company of G. F. Smith-Barry, who provided a car and put his immense knowledge of the range at the party's disposal. In his way good use was made of limited time, for Herbert was a busy City solicitor with many important irons in the fire.
He was an excellent mountaineer and a cheerful companion whose equanimity in trying situations was much to be envied. In 1961 he married Jean Haswell who survives him with a son and a daughter.
A. M. Binnie
Paul Herbert writes:
Harold was also active in introducing the younger Herbert generation to the mountains. Before his marriage there were family skiing holidays with nephews and nieces in Grindelwald and St Anton including the late Lord Tangley and Prof. W. E. Herbert. In the summer of 1959 I was
privileged to join a climbing party including Harold, David Herbert and A. M. Binnie making ascents in Austria and also the Bernese Oberland where we took advantage of steps laboriously cut by the Swiss Army up the N ridge of the Finsteraarhorn. His two children have also become keen skiers. It is hard to lose an Uncle who was such a guide, mentor and friend.
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 88, 1983, Seite 258-259


Geboren am:
1907
Gestorben am:
1981