Balston Francis William

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Biografie:
Francis William Balston (1880-1965)
Frank Balston was born in 1880, the eleventh child of a large family. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he rowed for Third Trinity. In 1906 he joined the family business of W. and R. Balston (now over two hundred years old) as Engineering Director, and succeeded his brother as Chairman in 1957, retiring only in 1962. His greatest interest lay in the mill and the people who worked there. He introduced many improvements and helped in the years between the wars to convert the hand-made paper process into one employing modern machinery. In 1909 he married Miss Kate Trousdell, herself a direct descendant of that James Whatman to whom his great grandfather had been apprenticed.
In his religion he found comfort and strength. As a churchwarden of St. Paul's, Maidstone (built by his forbears in 1859), he was justifiably proud of having welcomed four archbishops during his twenty-five years of office.
Frank's first climbing holiday, spent with me around Grindelwald, included ascents of the Mönch and Eiger, and from 1897 onwards mountaineering became his principal interest outside the mill. With his favourite guide, Peter Inabnit, he climbed nearly all the greater peaks of the Oberland; with other guides he was in the Valais, and he once visited (and toiled up alone) the Peak of Teneriffe.
1901 was a particularly good season during which he made several climbs unguided, including the Mittelhorn by the North-east arete with Walter Weston. At Rosenlaui that year we met Miss Gertrude Bell, who, finding one day that we were all making for the Simelistock, invited us to join her. The climb was rather marred by the three guides, her two, and our Peter. Getting together, the professionals quickly overcame the difficulties, which we too were hoping to enjoy, and frustrated our efforts by maintaining a well-meant stranglehold on the rope. Six were too many around the summit. Ruffled feelings, however, were presently subdued by the astonishing view and Miss Bell's gaiety. In the afternoon it was a pleasure to watch her smoothly descending the difficult rock wall like a squirrel.
Frank's best climb was with Peter Inäbnit and Fritz Steuri in 1908, when he made an ascent of the Jungfrau from the Güggi hut via the Jungfraujoch and the Rottalsattel (A.J. 24. 363). On reaching the icewall by which Leslie Stephen had made the first passage, they preferred instead to attack the second ice-fall, and reached the summit of the J ungfrau in ten hours, the shortest route from the Kleine Scheidegg- unless one should prefer the train.
After his marriage Frank did little ·Serious climbing, but loved to spend his holidays among the hills, often visiting old haunts. He was a good photographer and would try to share the pleasure he had found in climbing, with friends and others (including the inmates of Maidstone Prison) through talks illustrated by his slides. He was proposed for the Alpine Club by Waiter Weston and elected a member in 1937.
To Frank I owe my life at least once. I was leading the descent of the rotten cliffs of the Dents des Bouquetins above Arolla, when a crag, on which I had paused and over which we had all clambered earlier in the day, suddenly collapsed and thundered down to the snow-field far below, leaving me pendulous on the rope. Frank, above and out of sight, held firm till I had regained a footing. I like to think that perhaps one day he will save me from an even greater Abyss, holding me from Heaven's ramparts and waiting with his welcoming smile to show me round.
T. A. Rumbold.
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 70, 1965, Seite 182-183


Geboren am:
1880
Gestorben am:
1965