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Capt. John B. L. Noel was a member of the 1922 and 1924 British Mount Everest Expeditions, serving as photographer and filmmaker.

John Noel was born on 26 February 1890 at Newton Abbot, Devon, the third and youngest son of Colonel the Hon. Edward Noel (1852–1917) and his wife, Ruth Lucas (d. 1926). He was baptised Baptist Lucius and added the name John by deed poll in 1908. His father, the younger son of the 2nd Earl of Gainsborough, was a prominent soldier and military historian. Noel was educated at Lausanne, Switzerland, but often missed classes to visit the mountains. His mother was an artist and encouraged him to study painting in Florence. His father's influence prevailed and he attended Sandhurst, though he passed into the regular army, not the Indian army, to his father's disappointment. In 1909 he was commissioned as Second Lieutenant, and applied to join the East Yorkshire regiment since it was stationed in northern India.

Noel's regiment spent summers in the hills of the Himalayas and he spent his leave plotting routes through the forests of Sikkim towards Tibet. After being promoted to Lieutenant in 1912, he took his leave in 1913 and travelled in disguise and without permission across an unguarded pass into Tibet with three Himalayan guides. Tibetan authorities forced Noel to turn back when he got within 40 miles of Mount Everest.

When war started in 1914, Noel was on leave in Britain and joined the King's own Yorkshire Light Infantry, as his own regiment was still in India. During the retreat from Mons he was taken prisoner by the Germans. He escaped and made his way through enemy lines, travelling at night by the stars. He rejoined his regiment at Ypres and was promoted to Captain in 1915, the year of his marriage to Sybil Graham (d. 1939), an actress whom he had met in Kashmir. In 1917 he became an instructor in the machine-gun corps and was temporary a Major from 1918 to 1920. From 1920 he served as revolver instructor at the small arms school at Hythe, Kent, and wrote several pamphlets on revolvers and automatic pistols, as well as publishing, jointly with his wife, a collection of cooking recipes for soldiers.

In 1919 Noel gave a lecture on his pre-war travels in Tibet at the Royal Geographical Society. Sir Francis Younghusband orchestrated the press coverage of Noel's paper to generate interest in a British expedition to climb Everest. Noel was invited to join the second Everest expedition in 1922 by its leader, and his cousin, General Charles Bruce as photographer and film-maker. He had been interested in cinematography since the age of fourteen, when he saw Herbert Ponting's Antarctic film sixteen times. The army would not grant him leave for the Everest expedition in 1922 so he retired and was granted the rank of Major.

Noel made a silent film called 'Climbing Mt. Everest' (1922) which portrays the manners and customs of Tibet as well as the ascent of the mountain. Noel's technical achievements—filming with a Newman Sinclair camera at 23,000 feet and developing film under harsh conditions in a tent at 16,000 feet—were overshadowed by the expedition's failure to reach the summit.

In 1924 Noel formed Explorer Films Ltd, with Younghusband as Chairman, and paid £8,000 for the film and photographic rights to Everest. He posted letters from Tibet with his own Everest stamp, and sent his film to Darjeeling for developing by Arthur Pereira, who in turn sent extracts to Pathé news. Noel also made innovative use of telephoto lenses and time-lapse film techniques. His silent film 'The Epic of Everest' (1924) contrasted the masculine climbers with the mystical Tibetans, and suggested that spiritual forces on Mount Everest might be responsible for the disappearance of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. Noel exhibited his film in London with dances by a group of monks from the Tibetan Buddhist monastery at Gyantse. Officials in Tibet, Sikkim, and Bhutan were offended by certain scenes in the film and by the performances of the monks, who had not been given permission to leave Tibet. The Dalai Lama saw pictures of the monks in newspapers and said he considered 'the whole affair as a direct affront to the religion of which he is the head' (Hansen, 737). The controversy over the 'dancing lamas' led to the cancellation of future Everest expeditions and a chill in Anglo-Tibetan relations, and Noel became persona non grata among British diplomats, geographers, and mountaineers for almost thirty years.

Noel's American lecture tour enjoyed great success, as did the American edition of his book Through Tibet to Everest (1927; repr., 1931, 1989), which was not as well promoted in Britain. His wife also published Magic Bird of Chomolungma (1931), about Tibetan folk-tales she had collected in Tibet in 1924. British diplomats curtly rebuffed Noel's attempts to organize Himalayan expeditions in the 1930s. He filled out an application to become a naturalized American citizen, but the paperwork was misplaced.

Noel was Roman Catholic, and one of his uncles was private secretary to several popes. Pope Pius XI, who was also a climber, sent his blessings to Noel's Everest endeavours and invited him to the canonization of St Bernadette at St Peter's in Rome in 1933. Noel surreptitiously shot the only photographs of the ceremony, with a camera disguised as a prayer book. He occasionally lectured on St Bernadette's story, and his photographs of the canonization were later given to the Society of Our Lady of Lourdes.

After his first wife died in 1939, Noel married Mary Sullivan (d. 1984) on 17 November 1941. During 1941–3 he joined the intelligence corps and was restored to the rank of Captain. He worked out the best supply-route from India to Burma, and it was briefly known as the Noel Road before being renamed the Stilwell Road. In 1944 he moved to Smarden, Kent, and restored several old homes.

After the first ascent of Everest in 1953, Noel began to give mountaineering lectures again with his films and hand-coloured photographs. Younger climbers and film-makers often visited him at Romney Marsh, Kent, to hear his eyewitness account of the disappearance of Mallory and Irvine. Footage from his Everest films appeared in many subsequent mountaineering films and television programmes. Noel's version of events also strongly influenced histories of the Everest expeditions written during this period.

Noel was known for his showmanship, mischievous humour, and an imperious demeanour. He died of pneumonia in 1989.

Philanthropist and wife of Lord Byron.

English painter and printmaker. He attended Hubert von Herkomer’s school at Bushey (1888–9), but he was dismissed for ‘Whistlerian impudence’. He went to Paris in 1899 and enrolled for several months at the Académie Julian. As the Beggarstaff Brothers he and his brother-in-law James Pryde designed a series of striking posters (1893–9), which recall those of Toulouse-Lautrec. In 1896 Whistler recommended Nicholson to the London publisher William Heinemann, who commissioned An Alphabet, a series of woodcut illustrations. It appeared together with An Almanac of Twelve Sports and London Types in 1898. From 1900 Nicholson worked mainly in oils. At first his debt to Whistler was paramount, evident in Max (1900; London, N.P.G.), although his portrait of the actress Marie Tempest (1903; London, N.P.G.) invites comparison with the work of John Singer Sargent. By contrast Girl with the Tattered Glove (1909; Cambridge, Fitzwilliam) is uncompromising in its realism.

In 1917 Nicholson established his studio at a fashionable address in London’s St James’s. During the 1920s and 1930s he sustained a successful portrait practice but also indulged his interest in still-life and landscape. His later work reflected the influence of younger artists, including his son Ben Nicholson. Sir Winston Churchill was among his pupils (1934–6). Nicholson served as a trustee of the Tate Gallery (1934–6), and he was knighted in 1936.

Matriculated at Magdalene College in 1848. Held a travelling Fellowship from 1854. Made a Foundation Fellow in 1877.
Fellow of the Royal Society, 1870; Royal Medal 1900.
An ornithologist who was the first Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, 1866-1907.
Lived in Old Lodge as a conservative eccentric; however, he was also a world leading pioneer in environmental conservation. British Ornithologists’ Union founded in 1858 from Old Lodge. Sponsor of the first sea-bird protection act in 1868.

Visitor of Magdalene College, Cambridge

He assumed the name Griffin by Royal Licence in 1797. The Visitorship derived from the Griffin inheritance when he succeeded his great uncle in the Barony of Braybrooke.
Educated at Merton College, Oxford; Honorary Doctor of Civil Law; incorporated Honorary LLD Cambridge, on admission to Magdalene as a nobleman in 1819.
As Visitor he had already nominated his son, the Reverend George Neville (later Neville-Grenville), who was only 24, as Master in 1813.

Lord Lieutenant and Vice-Admiral of Essex, 1798-1825; Recorder of Saffron Walden; High Steward of Wokingham; Provost-Marshal of Jamaica.

Eldest son of the 2nd Baron Braybroke. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. Made Honorary Doctor of Civil Law in 1810.
Matriculated and graduated at Magdalene in 1811.
Between 1805 and 1825 he was successively MP for Thirsk, Saltash, Buckingham and Berkshire. He succeeded his father as 3rd Baron in 1825, and removed from Billingbear, the family seat of the Nevilles, near Wokingham, to Audley End, which had been left to his father by his distant relative, Lord Howard de Walden. Was the Recorder of Saffron Walden and High Steward of Wokingham.

Author, President of the Camden Society (1853-1858), and first Editor of the Pepys Diary (1825). As Visitor, he appointed his fourth son, Latimer Neville, as Master in 1853.

Master of Magdalene College, 1853-1904

Educated at Eton.
Matriculated at Magdalene in 1845 otaining a second in the Classical Tripos in 1849
Made a Bye-Fellow in 1849
Rector of Heydon, 1851-1902, Rural Dean of Saffron Walden, 1873-1879
Master of Magdalene, 1853-1904, sometimes with office of Bursar or Dean
Vice-Chancellor, 1859-1861 (during the residence of the Prince of Wales)

'As Master he performed his duties conscientiously, for a long time combining them with the tasks of Bursar, and occasionally acting as Dean. Although he was quite a good cricketer and enjoyed shooting he was neither a hunting nor a rowing man'. He was sufficiently popular with the undergraduates for a new boat to be named after him in 1877. He was not feared as a strict disciplinarian. His 50 year Mastership though oversaw the decline in the standards of the College leaving it on the brink of ruin.

A. C. Benson described him as 'a dear old man' and thought his wife was 'the evil genius of the place'. Her view was that 'the College was a disagreeable sort of incumbrance on the Mastership'.

In 1902 he became 6th Baron Braybrooke (following the deaths of his elder 3 brothers). This meant that for a short time he was Visitor and Master.

Son of the 3rd Lord Braybrooke, succeeding his brother Richard in 1861. Matric 1842. Capt in 17th Essex Rifle Volunteers, 1860. High Steward of Wokingham and Vice-Lieutenant of Essex. He made no appointments to the Mastership and was succeeded by his brother Latimer Neville.

Master of Magdalene College, 1813 - 1853

Third son of 2nd Baron Braybrooke, he assumed the name of Grenville in recognition of a legacy from a maternal uncle. Educated at Trinity College.

He was appointed Master by his father at the controversial age of 24. This made him ineligible on two accounts as the Master should be 30 years of age 'or thereabouts' and in Holy Orders. The first was ignored and the second was resolved when he was hastily ordained deacon and priest on the same day in Trinity College Chapel.

As a Master of a College he valued good breeding and gentlemanly behaviour and was addicted to genealogy and noble pedigrees. Academic activity was low on his list of priorities.

To provide more undergraduate rooms he moved out of First Court and into a separate new Lodge in 1835.
He was also responsible for starting a project to transcribe and publish Samuel Pepys' diary which had lain unread and virtually unknown in the library [see Cunich, P., Hoyle, D., Duffy, E., Hyam, R., A History of Magdalene College Cambridge, 1428-1988 pp. 195-199 and Latham, R. C. Pepys and his Editors (Occasional Paper no 6, 1992, p. 2) for further details]

Vice-Chancellor, 1818-1819
Dean of Windsor, 1846

Arms in Hall glass, E3. Memorial brass in Chapel.

Admitted to Magdalene College in 1862, aged 25 and already ordained, as a Fellow-Commoner. Previously trained in industrial design and lithography. Gained a Class II in Natural Sciences Tripos, 1865. Rector of Shelton, Staffs, 1864-1871; protégé of Bishop Selwyn, and thus first Bishop of Dunedin, 1871-1919, an exceptionally long episcopate; Primate of New Zealand, 1904-1919; Sub-Prelate of the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, 1906.
Made an Honorary Fellow in 1906, proposed by A. C. Benson (Ref: Archive Benson Diary, 14 May 1906, vol 81, f 36v).
In his diocese he increased the number of churches from eight to nearly seventy, and founded a theological college, two schools and two orphanages, as well as the cathedral. Nevill was of ‘dominating personality’, fiercely defensive of the autonomy of colonial churches, notably at the Lambeth Conference of 1878.

Arms in Hall glass, W3.

Further Reading
College Magazine vol. 38 (1921) pp. 20-21

Music teacher and friend of the Turners and George Mallory who was part of the Pen y Pass climbing parties.

A Ceremony of Carols was dedicated to Ursula Nettleship, a singing teacher and choral trainer who was later responsible for assembling the choir that took part in the first performance of Britten’s Saint Nicolas in 1948. (She had shared a house in Chelsea with Britten and Pears in the autumn of 1942, and helped secure them concert engagements through her work with the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts.)

Educated at the University of Witwatersrand, and University of South Africa (BA); lawyer; President of South Africa, 1994-1999; Nobel (Peace) Laureate, 1993. In 1994 he agreed that the College’s South African postgraduate scholarships (set up by Mr Christopher von Christierson) should be awarded in his name. Elected Honorary Fellow, 2000, and admitted 2 May 2001.

Mother of Adolphe Van den Wiele (1803-1843).

Naundorff claimed to be Prince Louis-Charles, or Louis XVII of France, son of Louis XVI, King of France and Marie Antoinette of Austria.

In 1804 Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French, and embarked on a series of campaigns known as the Napoleonic Wars.

Educated at Downside. Matriculated in 1957. Assistant Registrary in the Old Schools. Made a Fellow on 10 August 1977. Bursar, 1 October 1977–2001 (and Steward to 1997); Tutor, 1997–2003; Development Director, 1997–2003; Honorary Fellow, 2005. A keen golfer and an enthusiast for all things Italian.

Geologist and geographer.

Jørgen Peter Müller was a Danish gymnastics educator and author.

His book Mit System (My System), published in 1904, was a bestseller and has been translated to English and many other languages. My System explains Müller's philosophy of health and provides guidelines for the 18 exercises that comprise the system, as well as photographic instructions featuring Müller himself. The book was the most successful physical culture book published in Britain during the early twentieth century. Müller moved to London and opened a physical culture institute in 1912.

Carolyn Mulholland was born in 1944 in Lurgan, County Armagh. She attended the Belfast College of Art, and in 1965 was awarded the Ulster Arts Club prize for sculpture.b] A close friend of Seamus Heaney, Mulholland sculpted a portrait bust of Heaney while a student in the 1960s. Mulholland donated a picture to an exhibition to raise funds for victims of civil disturbances in Belfast in the autumn of 1969. The exhibition at Queen's University was organised by Sheelagh Flanagan and showed works by William Scott, Graham Gingles, F E McWilliam, Deborah Brown, Cherith McKinstry, and Mercy Hunter, as well as more than twenty others.The wife of the Northern Irish Secretary of State Colleen Rees was the curator of a personal selection of works from Ulster Artists hosted at the Leeds Playhouse Gallery in 1976. Mulholland's work was among 49 artworks from various artists where she was displayed alongside TP Flanagan, Joe McWilliams, Mercy Hunter, Tom Carr and many others.

Much of Mulholland's sculpture depicts moving abstract figures. In 1973 she was awarded the Royal Ulster Academy Silver Medal Award. In 1974 Mulholland was elected Associate of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts alongside Renée Bickerstaff and Francis Neill. She was elected a member of Aosdána in 1990. She has been exhibited at the Pepper Canister Gallery in Dublin with Basil Blackshaw. In 1992 she won the Irish-American Cultural Institute's O'Malley Award. The Chester Beatty Library holds a portrait by Mulholland of Beatty from 1996, and the Office of Public Works holds her portrait of President Mary McAleese from 2003.

Mulholland has been commissioned to make a number of large and public sculptures, including for the famine memorial graveyard, Clones, County Monaghan in 1998, and in 2003 a bronze panel for the Customs House, Dublin. She has also been commissioned in Northern Ireland, by organisations such as the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. She created the Blitz Memorial for the Northern Ireland War Memorial museum in Belfast.