Noelting Francis Adolphe Marcellin

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Biografie:
Francis Adolphe Marcellin Noelting (1886 – 1964)
With the death on December 28, 1964, of Francis Noelting, the Alpine Club lost one of its few remaining members who were climbing actively in the golden decade before the First World War. He had been elected to the Club in February, 1909.
He was born on July 5, 1886, at Mulhouse, where his father was Professor of Chemistry. He was educated at the University of Mulhouse himself, taking a degree in Chemical Engineering; he took a further diploma at Basle University.
During his student days he was a very active mountaineer, and a pioneer ski-mountaineer. He climbed the Matterhorn at the age of sixteen, with his grandfather, and repeated the climb forty years later. He did numerous standard climbs on the bigger peaks of the Oberland, at Zermatt and round Mont Blanc, and in Austria. As noted by Lunn, he joined in 1908 the first British party to ski guideless above 13,000 ft.;later on, he was ski-ing constantly with Oscar Supersaxo, and as mentioned in Noelting's contribution to Supersaxo's obituary in A.J. 55, in April 1915 he had 'one of my most glorious weeks on ski, when we climbed Alphubel, Allalin, Fluchthorn, Adler Pass and Strahlhorn (with descent to Zermatt), and Egginer from the pass, a fine rock climb with two feet of fresh snow'.
In 1909 he went to Russia, working there until the revolution. Climbing and ski-ing must have been an incentive, for he lost no opportunities. He was in the Caucasus in 1910 in the Terek valley, and again in 1911 , in the Adyl valley and in Suanetia. He was the first to ski in the Caucasus. His climbing there was modest, as he was alone and dependent only on local guides and porters.
In 1912 he was in Central Asia from July to September. He was one of the first to visit the Tien Shan, exploring around the Karakol valley and ascending several peaks. Again he depended on local helpers. He returned by Kashgar, Tashkent and Bokhara, where he was able to indulge his passion for oriental carpets. It is possible that he also visited the Hindu Kush.
Mter the Russian revolution he returned to France and was in Grenoble for two years. He naturally climbed extensively in the Dauphine Alps.
In 1919 he joined the du Pont organisation and whilst in New York in 1920 he married an Italian lady, Signorina Margherita Gerli, by whom he had a son and two daughters. He was appointed du Pont's Far Eastern Manager, and was resident in Shanghai until 1949. It was here that I met him shortly before the Second War. In Shanghai mountaineers were scarce, and members of the Alpine Club rarer still. My evenings spent in Noelting's company, refreshed by the charm and courtesy of his manner, and by his lively recollections of his Tien Shan journeys, are greatly to be treasured. In those days he was still active; he was a keen horseman, and used to join the band of enthusiasts who rode and 'paper-hunted' in the Shanghai delta country. Visiting Japan, he climbed Fuji, Asama and, I believe, in the Japanese Southern Alps.
He retired to Geneva in 1950 where, ten years later, I was also to meet him again, and found his health and vigour unimpaired. He had a passion for motor cars; he owned his first car in I905, and in his seventies drove an XK Jaguar.
It was a tragic end to so active a career that he should have been run down by a passing motorist when standing beside his car. He was terribly injured and spent more than a year in the hospital in Sion. He bore his injuries without complaint, and with determination that he would recover. He was on the point of returning to his home when he died. We have lost a great gentleman.
I am greatly indebted to Noelting's daughter, the Contessa Giovanni of Milan, for her help.
B. R. Goodfellow
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 70, 1965, Seite 370-371


Geboren am:
05.07.1886
Gestorben am:
28.12.1964