Buxton Thomas Fowell

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Biografie:
THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON (1889-1945)
Tom Buxton who died on October 28 last was educated at Eton, where he was a King's Scholar, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, and he was called to the Bar in 19I3. During the 1914-18 war he served with
the Essex Yeomanry in France and was mentioned in Dispatches.
In 1919 he succeeded his father as baronet and thereafter he devoted himself to public work, mainly in Essex, where he was Chairman of Quarter Sessions and in 1928, like other members of his family, High Sheriff. He also gave much of his time to Church work, both in the Chelmsford Diocese and in connection with the Mission to Seamen of which he was at one time Treasurer, and the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society a movement with which his Family had very long been associated. Early in 1939, he obtained a commission as Flight Lieutenant in 909 County of Essex Balloon Squadron.
For the early months of the war he served with the squadron in East Ham, but in 1940 he was invalided out after a severe illness by which his health was permanently impaired, though this did not prevent him from continuing with Home Guard work. In all that he undertook he never spared himself and throughout his life his first thought was of his public duty without further consideration.
He started climbing in 1919, first in Skye and then further afield. In August 1920, with Dr. J. W. Arthur he made an attack on Mt. Kenya. In those days it was a far more formidable undertaking. to reach the mountain than it became even a few years later and theirs was the first successful approach from the south. The party climbed Pt. Lenana and then tried Mackinder's route up the main peak, but the attempt had to be abandoned owing to bad weather and illness.
In 1921 he first climbed in the Alps and he returned for frequent seasons in the inter-war period. He usually went to the Oberland or the Valais and he climbed .most of the big peaks in the Zermatt, Arolla district, usually under: the leadership of Christian Jossi, for whom he had a great affection. Indeed he once took him to the Coolin and in 1934 he persuaded him to join him at Arolla for what was to prove, I think, Christians last season. He also made some ascents in the Pyrenees, and in 1931 he managed a little climbing in New Zealand. In 1923 he was elected to the Alpine Club, being proposed by his great-uncle, E. N. Buxton, who had been a member of the Club since 1860, and seconded by J. P. Farrar.
He was a delightful companion, both among the mountains and at home quiet, responsive, considerate. The·first impression he made was one of great gentleness, but if anyone thought to take Advantage of it and to bend hirn to a course which he thought wrong, he quickly found the inflexible core beneath the gentle manner. With it too went a streak of adventurousness which showed itself not only in his mountaineering but in his travels in out of the way parts of the world and in his voyage across the Atlantic to Pernambuco as one of a crew of four in a 40-foot boat. One of the pictures. which springs to my mind is of him sitting in a bitter wind but unruffled in mind and appearance on top of one of the big Zermatt peaks and thinking only that his frostbitten feet would delay the party.
He was a man who sought no public recognition, no power for the sake of power, gentle, steadfast, lovable, whose 'mind moved in charity, rested in Providence, and turned upon the poles of truth.'
C. A. ELLIOTT.

Geboren am:
1889
Gestorben am:
28.10.1945