Barrow Walter

(Bearbeiten)

Biografie:
Walter Barrow (1867-1954)
Walter Barrow died on June 21, 1954. In February of this year he had completed sixty years membership of the Alpine Club, a rare achievement and one which makes it difficult to obtain any first hand information about his mountaineering exploits. I must therefore rely for these on such records as the Club possesses and on my recollection of what he had told me.
His boyhood climbs in Cumberland and Scotland showed an early love of mountains. At the age of twenty he made his first acquaintance with the Swiss Alps, but I think that in later life he looked back with most pleasure on his climbs in Norway, which he first visited in 1890 with Howard Priestman, who became his companion on many expeditions in that country, in Switzerland, the Dolomites and the British Isles. His election to the Alpine Club under the sponsorship of C. E. Mathews and W. C. Slingsby followed what was probably his most successful season with Priestman in the Tyrol the preceding year.
By the time I first got to know Waiter Barrow, in 1919, he had given up all thought -of resuming those climbing activities which had been interrupted by the war. He was by then over fifty and was becoming more and more engrossed in his many business activities and in public service. In 1918 he had joined the Board of Cadbury Brothers Ltd., to which firm he had been solicitor since I 90 5. He took a leading part in finance and in schemes for the welfare of the employees, notably in the establishment of the Men's and Women's Pension Funds and of the Works Councils. He found time to retain his partnership in the firm of Wragge and Co., Solicitors. His public life, as a Councillor for the Ladywood Ward of Birmingham at the turn of the century, as a Governor of King Edward Schools, as President of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce in 1929, culminated in his office of Pro-Chancellor of Birmingham University from 1933 to 1939. He was made an Honorary Master of Laws and the picture reproduced is from a portrait of him in his academic robes.
Despite these and many other activities, such as his notable contribution to the adult education movement in Birmingham, he maintained his interest in mountaineering, particularly by the encouragement of the younger generation. He gave many lectures illustrated by slides from his own photographs and took a prominent part in the formation of the Midland Association of Mountaineers of which he was President from 1935 to 1937. He was also President for many years of the Birmingham University Mountaineering Club, whose founding he had fostered, and was a member of the Scottish Mountaineering Club and of the Climbers' Club.
The secret of Waiter Barrow's success in the fields of law, of finance and of administration lay, I believe, in the combination of a clear, methodical, and painstaking mind with a spirit fostered by his Quaker tradition which sought to serve in any field where his talents could be of value. He was a kindly, patient friend to all who sought his advice. I am sure that he would have been a delightful and steadfast companion in the mountains, enthusiastic, sane and safe.
As he gradually relinquished his burdens he moved from his home in Edgbaston to a house he had built at Willersey near Broadway. Here he busied himself with his fruit trees and his garden. He survived four years the shock of the loss of his wife. The day before his death he had been active in his garden on the escarpment of the Cotswolds with its view across the Vale of Evesham, mowing his lawn despite his eightyseven years. He died very suddenly the next morning with no suffering.
M. Tatham
Quelle: Alpine Journal Vol. 59. Nr. 289, 1954, Seite 448-449


Geboren am:
1867
Gestorben am:
21.06.1954