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Educated at King’s College. Made a Fellow at Magdalene in 1900. Director of Studies in Classics, Senior Tutor, Praelector, President (1937-1946). A good Greek scholar, though a somewhat eccentric character, obsessed by all matters digestive.

Obituary - College Magazine, October 1956

Matriculated in 1753; Senior Wrangler, 1757; Fellow, 1758-1776.

At the age of 24 he was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, 1760-1798.
Fellow of the Royal Society, 1763 – Copley medallist.

Although a qualified (if nervous) physician, he abandoned medicine for mathematics and became ‘Magdalene’s greatest mathematical don. In his prime he was the most famous mathematician in England…lonely, disturbed, isolated…a mathematical genius’ (Dr S. Martin). He wrote ‘one of the most abstruse books written on the abstrusest parts of Algebra’, which made his name famous throughout Europe.

Master of Magdalene College, 1713-1740

Matriculated in 1699, aged 16. Became a Fellow in 1704;. Served as Vice-Chancellor, 1715-1716. He was an influential theologian; Royal Chaplain, and Archdeacon of Middlesex, 1730. He refused the Bishopric of Llandaff. He was author of many learned works (ed. Van Mildert, 6 vols). ‘Few names, recorded in the annals of the Church of England, stand so high in the estimation of its most sound and intelligent members, as that of Dr Waterland… this distinguished writer’ (Van Mildert, vol 1, p. 1).

College Magazine
Article: ‘Student counselling, eighteenth-century style’ by Ged Martin, College Magazine, No. 26 (1981-82) pp. 45-49
Article by Eamon Duffy, College Magazine, No. 33 (1988-89) pp. 22-26

Master of Magdalene College 1948-1966

Educated at Trinity College.
MP (National Conservative) for Croydon North, 1940-1948
Minister of Health, 1943-1945
Vice-Chancellor, 1953-1955
Created Baronet 1957, ‘for public services’ – he chaired four Royal commissions or commissions of inquiry between 1951 and 1962
Made an Honorary Fellow on his retirement from the Mastership in 1966

Arms in Hall glass, E3.

College Magazine
Article by F.H.H. Clark, College Magazine, No. 70 (1948) pp. 9-11
Article College Magazine No. 17 (1972-73) pp. 3-13
Obituary by R. Hyam College Magazine 1966

A New Zealand political cartoonist and caricaturist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom for many years. Low was a self-taught cartoonist. Born in New Zealand, he worked in his native country before migrating to Sydney in 1911, and ultimately to London (1919), where he made his career and earned fame for his Colonel Blimp depictions and his satirising of the personalities and policies of German dictator Adolf Hitler, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, and other leaders of his times.

Although no longer thought to have been educated at Magdalene, he was certainly an important benefactor, building a major part of the west range on First Court, and (together with his wife and daughter) endowing several fellowships and scholarships. He was also a central figure in Elizabethan political history: MP, 1553-1571; Speaker, 1571; Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench, 1574-1593, presiding over many state trials, including those of St Edmund Campion and Sir Philip Howard, 13th Earl of Arundel; he also received the submission of the Northern Earls, and acted as an assessor at the trial of Mary Queen of Scots.

Arms in Hall glass, W3. Memorial brass in Chapel.

Daughter of the 2nd Viscount Grandison, married Roger Palmer, 1659, later Earl of Castlemaine. Barbara Palmer was one of the loveliest ladies of the Court (so Pepys thought), but she was also one of the most promiscuous. She was mistress to the King, c 1659 to 1670, in which year she had herself created Duchess of Cleveland; she bore the King five children.

Nephew of Samuel Pepys, younger son of Pepys’s sister Paulina (‘Pall’) who married John Jackson, a Huntingdonshire farmer in 1668.
Admitted pensioner aged 14, 28 June 1686 and matriculated in 1687 (BA 1690).
Clerk and amanuensis to Pepys; European tour, 1699-1701, partly to find additions for Pepys’s collection.
Heir to the greater part of Pepys’s wealth, with charge, for his lifetime, of the Library; drew up the final recension of the catalogue and arranged for the reception of the Library in Magdalene, which took place upon his death (hence the date 1724 on the Pepys Building).

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.

Friend of George Mallory.

Born in Cambridge on 25 March 1887, son of (John) Neville Keynes (1852–1949), lecturer in moral science and later university registrary, and his wife, Florence Ada (1861–1958). His brother was John Maynard Keynes.
He was educated from 1901 at Rugby School, before going to Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1906 (of which he was made an honorary fellow in 1965), to study natural sciences, in which he received a first class (part one, 1909). He graduated MA (1913), BChir (1914), and MD (1918). He also became FRCS (1920), FRCP (1953), FRCOG (1950), and FRCS (Canada, 1956).

On 12 May 1917 he married Margaret Elizabeth Darwin, the daughter of Sir George Howard Darwin and granddaughter of Charles Darwin. They had one daughter, who died in infancy, and four sons.

Mentioned by George Mallory in a letter to his wife Ruth.

Curzon, George Nathaniel, Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925), politician, traveller, and viceroy of India, was born on 11 January 1859 at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, the second of the eleven children of the Revd Alfred Nathaniel Holden Curzon, fourth Baron Scarsdale (1831–1916), rector of Kedleston, and his wife, Blanche (1837–1875), daughter of Joseph Pocklington Senhouse of Netherhall in Cumberland. His family was of Norman ancestry and had lived on the same site since the twelfth century. In 1759 Sir Nathaniel Curzon, later first Baron Scarsdale, demolished the existing house at Kedleston and commissioned Robert Adam to build him a great country house in the Palladian style. His descendant, George Nathaniel, was always conscious, however, that the family home was more distinguished than the family which inhabited it, and from an early age he was determined to prove himself a fitting master for Kedleston. In the closing words of the epitaph he composed for himself, 'he sought to serve his country and add honour to an ancient name'.

A French psychoanalyst and pacifist. His psychoanalytical work combined Freudianism with elements of the thought of Carl Jung and Alfred Adler.

Major Edward Norton was a member of the 1922 and 1924 British Mount Everest Expeditions, serving as Acting Leader in 1924 after General Charles Bruce was taken ill.

Edward Norton was born on 21 February 1884 in Argentina, the second son of Edward Norton, a director of the Royal Mail and Union Castle shipping lines, and his wife, Edith Sarah. He was educated at Charterhouse School and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and was commissioned in 1902. In 1907 he was posted to Meerut, India, first with the Royal Field Artillery, then from 1910 with the Royal Horse Artillery. During this period he was aide-de-camp to the viceroy.

Norton served in France during the First World War. He was mentioned in dispatches three times, was appointed to the DSO, and was awarded the Military Cross. After the war he commanded D Battery in India and later served on the staff at Chanak.

On 18 December 1925 he married (Isabel) Joyce. They had three sons.

He attended the Staff College and later the Imperial Defence College, and returned to India as senior instructor at the Staff College at Quetta (1929–32). He then became commander, Royal Artillery, to the 1st division at Aldershot, and subsequently brigadier-general staff to the Aldershot command. In 1937 he was appointed aide-de-camp to King George VI, in 1938 he commanded the Madras district, and in 1939 he was appointed CB.

1940-41 - acting governor and commander-in-chief in Hong Kong. While there he was severely injured in a riding accident, from which he never fully recovered. It forced his retirement in 1942. He was granted the honorary rank of Lieutenant-General. After returning to England he became commander of the north Hampshire sector of the Home Guard (1942–4); when the Home Guard was disbanded he went on to serve as Hampshire's county Army Cadet Force commandant (1944–8). In 1947 he was appointed colonel commandant of the Royal Horse Artillery.

Norton was an alpine climber and in 1922 was selected for the second British Mount Everest expedition. With George Mallory and Howard Somervell he reached the then record height of 26,985 ft. They were the first to pass the critical level of 8,000 metres, and this without supplementary oxygen.

On the 1924 Everest expedition he took charge when the leader, Charles Bruce, was taken ill. He led the first serious summit attempt. Again he climbed without oxygen, an aid for which he had little respect. At 28,000 ft his companion, Somervell, was stopped by severe throat trouble and Norton continued alone to a height of 28,126 ft. He reached the great couloir on the north face, which later became popularly known as Norton's couloir. This, too, was an altitude record, and it was fifty-four years before anyone climbed higher without oxygen.

Another summit bid was undertaken a few days later by Mallory and Irvine, from which neither man returned. Norton handled this tragedy and the publicity with impeccable dignity. He also wrote the greater part of the official expedition book, The Fight for Everest, 1924.

He was a fine horseman, a keen shot, and an enthusiastic fisherman. He was also interested in natural history, and on his trips to Everest made collections of birds and flowers for the British Museum. He was a skilled draughtsman and watercolourist, with a preference for painting landscapes, several of which have been reproduced in the Everest literature. He also had a talent for quick and often witty sketches of his companions. A man of many interests, he was widely read, well informed, and a charming companion. Integrity was the essence of his character. He was a born leader and, in the army, popular with all ranks; he understood and got on well with Indians and with the Gurkhas, Sherpas, and Bhotias on Everest.

Norton died at his home, Morestead Grove, Morestead, Winchester, on 3 November 1954, survived by his wife, Joyce.

Colin Crawford was an officer of the British civil colonial government and mountaineer. He was a member of the 1922 British Mount Everest Expedition serving as a transport officer.

Sister of Ruth Mallory, wife of George Mallory.

Assistant Master of Rugby School, 1894-1903; Master of Malborough College, 1903-1911 (first layman to hold this post); Headmaster of Charterhouse, 1911-1935. He was Headmaster of Charterhouse during George Mallory's time there. In 1902 he married Dorothy Pope. He was knighted in 1937.

A member of the Royal Geographical Society and Alpine Club.

Climbing sherpa on 1921 Mount Everest Expedition with George Mallory, mentioned by name.

Climbing sherpa on 1921 Mount Everest Expedition with George Mallory.

Lee Keedick acted as the tour manager and press agent for George Mallory's lecture tour of North America and Canada in 1923

Nephew of actor William Poel. Created the Cambridge Marlowe Dramatic Society in 1907. Friend of George Mallory

Mentioned by George Mallory in letters to his wife Ruth Mallory in 1923.

Headmaster at Eton College, mountaineer, and climbing friend of George Mallory.

Climbing friend of George Mallory (mentioned in 1911 and 1923)

Major C. John Morris was a member of the 1922 British Mount Everest Expedition, serving as a transport officer and assistant to General Charles Bruce.

Major Charles John Morris was a British mountaineer, anthropologist and journalist, and controller of BBC Radio's Third Programme. He served as General Charles Bruce's personal secretary in 1922.

Morris served in the army from 1915 to 1934. After serving in the trenches during the First World War, he transferred to the Indian Army's 3rd Gurkha Rifles. He took part in two attempts to climb Mount Everest; the first under General Charles Granville Bruce and climbing leader Lt-Col Edward Lisle Strutt in 1924, and the second in 1936 under Hugh Ruttledge. On the latter, his personal servant was Tenzing Norgay, who made the first ascent of Mount Everest with Edmund Hillary in 1953.

He received an award from the Royal Geographical Society for his exploration of Chinese Turkistan, while still in the army. He retired from military service in the mid 1930s and taught English in Japan. He was Professor of English Literature, Keio University and lecturer at Imperial and Bunrika Universities, Tokyo from 1938 and also adviser on the English language to Japan's Dept. of Foreign affairs. He was repatriated by the Diplomatic corps after Japan's entry into the Second World War and joined the BBC, running their Far East service.

Morris was head of the BBC Far Eastern Service 1943–1952, and controller for the BBC Third Programme 1952–1958. From February 1943 to October 1943 he worked in the same department as George Orwell, at 200 Oxford Street.

He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1957.

Born at Mobberley, near Knutsford, Cheshire, on 11 July 1892, the youngest of the two sons and two daughters of Herbert Leigh Mallory (1856–1943) and his wife Annie Beridge. His father hyphenated his surname in 1914. Trafford followed his example, but his brother, George Herbert Leigh Mallory did not.

Educated at St Leonards, Sussex (1902–6), Haileybury College (1906–11), and Magdalene College, Cambridge (1911–14), where he took history and law.

August 1914 - commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 4th Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers.
April 1915 - went to France with the 3rd Battalion of the South Lancashire Regiment.
June 1915 - wounded and returned to England.
18 August 1915 - married Doris Jean Sawyer in All Saints' Church, Upper Norwood, his father officiated. They had one son and one daughter.

January 1916 - transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. He qualified as a pilot in June, was promoted to Lieutenant, joined 7 squadron on the western front in July, and then transferred to 5 squadron in August. He was promoted to Captain and appointed a flight commander in November.

April 1917 - returned to England and was promoted to the rank of Major. When he returned to corps duties on the western front he commanded 8 squadron. His squadron was hard worked after March 1918 (when the stalemate of trench war ended) in close support of ground forces until the November armistice. His energy and efficiency earned respect but not admiration.

1 January 1919 - awarded a DSO
August 1919 - granted a permanent commission as a squadron leader
1921-1923 - School of Army Co-operation at Old Sarum, Wiltshire; 1927-1929 Commanding Officer
Jan 1925 - promoted to Wing Commander
1925-1926 - attended the RAF Staff College, Andover
1930-1931 - instructor at the Army Staff College, Camberley
January 1932 - promoted to Group Captain
1932-1933 - air adviser to the disarmament conference in Geneva
1934 - studied at the Imperial Defence College and commanded a flying training school at Digby, Lincolnshire, until December 1935
1935 - December 1937 - worked in Iraq as Senior Air Staff Officer at Command Headquarters
January 1936 - promoted to Air Commodore
December 1937 - appointed to command 12 group (responsible for defending the Midlands and East Anglia from a headquarters at Watnall, Nottinghamshire) in Fighter Command, even though he had no experience of fighter operations or the organisation of an air defence system.
November 1938 - promoted to Air Vice-Marshal

During the Second World War he was at odds with fellow officers over strategy and was accused of incompetence. He employed inexperienced pilots on offensive operations across the channel and many were lost for no tangible advantage.

November 1942 - became head of Fighter Command and was promoted to Air Marshal in December.

November 1943 - he was confirmed by the Combined Chiefs of Staff as Commander of the proposed allied expeditionary air force (AEAF) to support operation Overlord, the campaign to liberate occupied Europe.

January 1944 - promoted to Air Chief Marshal (he was appointed because he was there. Late in 1943, British and American airmen of greater ability, more varied experience, and hard-won mutual respect were still active in the Mediterranean.

August 1944 - Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander in South-east Asi,a asked that he go to India as Air Commander. He left Northolt for India in an Avro York on 14 November 1944. Shortly after midday it struck a mountain ridge in South-east France killing all ten people on board (including his wife). A court of inquiry found that the weather had been very poor on the day of the accident, but that Leigh-Mallory 'was determined to leave and he is known to be a man of forceful personality.' Sir Charles Portal, chief of the air staff, added that Leigh-Mallory had no need for such haste. Tragically, 'the desire to arrive in India on schedule with his “own” aircraft and crew overrode prudence and resulted in this disaster' (TNA: PRO, AIR 2/10593).

He was appointed CB in July 1940 and knighted in January 1943.

Former Charterhouse pupil of George Mallory's. Part of a climbing party at Pen y Pass in Wales in 1915 before starting an officers' training course at Sandhurst.

Cottie Saunders was a friend of George Mallory's with whom she climbed in Wales. She married Owen O'Malley in 1913 and afterward called herself Mary Ann O'Malley. She was an author who wrote under the name Ann Bridge.

Van de Weyer served as Belgium’s Prime minister from July 1845 to March 1846. However, he lived for the majority of his life in London (17 Fitzroy Square, 50 Portland Place) and Windsor (New Lodge), and held the office of Belgian Minister at the Court of St. James’s under Queen Victoria, an ambassadorial role. Van de Weyer was close friends with Lord Palmerston. In addition to being a member of the Roxburghe Club, Van de Weyer was a founder member of the Philobiblon Society, the Vice President of the London Library, a Member of the Société des Bibliophiles de Belgique and the Head of the Royal Library of Brussels.
Pierre Henri Laurent said of Van de Weyer: 'His manners, taste, and savoir-faire brought him into the vital center of the intellectual, diplomatic, and financial communities. His home became the meeting place of writers, artists, and scientists’.