Courtauld Augustine

(Bearbeiten)

Biografie:
Augustine Courtauld (1904-1959)
Augustine Courtauld, who died on March 3 last, was elected to the Alpine Club in 1947. Educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his degree in engineering and geography, he immediately embarked upon that career in Polar exploration by which his name will be principally remembered. His qualification form for the Alpine Club is very unusual:
1926 East Greenland.
1927/28 Southern Sahara.
1929 East Greenland, with ascent of Petermann Peak.
1930/31 Greenland (this was the occasion of his well-known sojourn for five months alone throughout the winter, on the Greenland ice-cap).
1934 Winter climbing in Skye.
1935 East Greenland (W atkins mts.)
1946 Champéry various minor ascents.
His companions on his various adventures included such names as J. M. Wordie, F. R. Rodd (now Lord Rennell) and Peter Rodd, V. E. Fuchs, H. G. Watkins, F. Spencer Chapman, J. L. Longland, and, most frequent of all, L. R. Wager.
Courtauld was an able and enthusiastic yachtsman, holding a Board of Trade Yacht Master's Certificate. Throughout the War in 1939-45 he served in the R.N.V.R., and after the war he threw himself into public work in Essex, becoming a J.P., a County Councillor, Deputy Lieutenant and (1953) High. Sheriff.
Courtauld did not play an active part in Alpine Club affairs, and indeed his health began to deteriorate soon after the time of his joining. He had served, however, on the Council of the Royal Geographical Society and was one of their Honorary Secretaries from 1948- 51. As is well-known, he became seriously disabled, but his interest in exploration continued unabated, and in June 1958 he attended for the last time at the R.G.S., in a wheeled chair, to hear Sir Vivian Fuchs's Trans-Antarctic lecture.
He was a most modest, unassuming man, who seemed quite unable to understand why people should make a fuss of him after his fame had been established by his winter alone in Greenland. He proved a brave and resourceful explorer, and the same spirit sustained him through the trials of the long illness that marked the close of his life.
T. S. Blakeney
Quelle: Alpine Journal Vol. 64. Nr. 298, 1959, Seite 279-280


Geboren am:
1904
Gestorben am:
03.03.1959