Roberts Walter Meakin

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Biografie:
Walter Meakin Roberts (1876-1953)
Walter Meakin Roberts, O.B.E., M.A. ('Martin' at home and' Bill' at ' The Shop'), who died on October 16, 1953, in his seventy-eighth year, was a member of this Club from 1910 to 1948. He was a distinguished mathematician. As a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he won both the junior and senior mathematical scholarships awarded by the University, and achieved a first in the Final Honours School of Mathematics. After teaching for a . few years at St. David's College, Lampeter, he joined the staff of 'The Shop' (the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich) in 1904, where he served as a civilian instructor and where he later became Professor of Mathematics. A warm tribute to his services there appeared in The Times of November 10, 1953. He did his best to join the Army when war broke out in 1914, but it was some time before he was released from civilian duties, when he was not too late to see active service with the Gunners, many of whose regular officers he knew so well. When war broke out again in 1939 and ' The Shop ' closed down, he was once more commissioned in the Royal Artillery and did valuable work as an instructor with the rank of major. All his life he followed with interest the careers of the many sapper and gunner officers whom he had taught as gentlemen cadets.
His mountaineering began in 1904 with guided expeditions from Arolla, but from 1909 onwards he climbed guideless, often with his brother Ernest and with H. L. R. Dent and J. H. Hollingsworth. Resuming his climbing after the First War, he delighted in introducing to the Alps many beginners, who will remember him with the greatest affection, recalling his sound judgment, his humour and patience and, above all, his endeavours to find something to suit the varying capabilities of every member of his party. Martin Roberts was one of those few generous people who are prepared to take younger men on their rope year after year and to train them. He encouraged his pupils to lead or to come down last on suitable ground. In advising them he would see that their plans provided variety and interest, yet did not exceed the safe limit for all to take their due share of responsibility. As they grew more proficient he encouraged them to undertake more difficult expeditions without him and made useful suggestions from the wealth of his own experience.
Though intensely interested in competitive sports, particularly athletics, Roberts had no ambition to apply competition to the mountains. A modest and selfless man, he detested conceit and pose and regarded climbing as a sport to be enjoyed, not as a desperate international contest. He admired sound achievement, but bravado was utterly foreign to his nature. In the later years of his mountaineering, glaciers, snow, and ice, interested him more than rocks, and routefinding more than gymnastics. He had an immense knowledge of those little things which mean so much in moving surely and steadily, in economising effort and in the team work of climbing. Perhaps his greatest characteristic was consideration for other people, and acts which showed lack of appreciation would always receive appropriate censure. Negligent mismanagement of the rope might cause it, but incompetence necessitating a rescue party was more serious ; indeed, he taught that this was one of the major crimes in the mountains. Loyalty was another of his endearing virtues ; he would always apply this criterion in making his judgments and would cheerfully accept the many inconveniences that might follow. In the mountains Martin seemed able to make the early breakfast in a hut endurable and bad weather interesting ; the way off an awkward glacier would be found without undue difficulty. Those who had the privilege of his company and guidance will always remember him and be thankful for so much.
His knowledge of the Alps was not confined to any one district, but extended from the Dauphine to the Stubaital. From 1923 to 1931 he was one of the joint honorary secretaries of the A.B.M.S.A.C. and from 1931 to 1933 was president of that Association. He was also a member of the Yorkshire Ramblers Club. His marriage to Kathleen King in 1926 proved an outstandingly happy one. For the last three years of his life he suffered from increasing disability, yet even when quite helpless physically, after a second stroke early in 1953, he never complained and his interest in life never deserted him, whilst his eyes would light up on seeing old friends. Throughout his illness he had unstinted loving help from his wife, vvhose courage and cheerfulness matched his own.
E. A. L. Gueterbock
F. H. Slingsby
Quelle: Alpine Journal Vol. 59. Nr. 288, 1954, Seite 339-340


Geboren am:
1876
Gestorben am:
16.10.1953