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Born in Camberwell, London, daughter of John James Pilley, science lecturer, and his wife, Annie Maria Young.

Her first exposure climbing was on a family holiday in north Wales, but her parents were not dedicated climbers and felt the activity was dangerous.

She was introduced to rock climbing by Herbert Carr in 1915 and climbed in Wales with mostly male companions. She also climbed in the Lake District and joined the Fell and Rock Climbing Club in 1918. She was quickly elected a committee member, and in 1920 was a founder of its London section. The club was unusual being mixed, and her membership brought her closer to other innovative female climbers.

She climbed in the French Alps and qualified for membership of the Ladies' Alpine Club. During her second season in 1921 she made guideless ascents of the Egginergrat and the Portjengrat with two other female climbers. It was very unusual for women to lead an alpine climb, let alone do so as part of an all-female party. She was also involved with the founding movement of the Pinnacle Club in 1921 which was predominantly a rock climbing club and exclusively for women, it was dedicated to nurturing the skills of female climbers.

Throughout the 1920s she climbed extensively in Britain and Europe. During a two-year world tour, 1925–7, she climbed in the Canadian Rockies, the Selkirks, the Bugaboo, and the American Rockies. In 1926 first ascents of Mount Baker and Mount Shuksau, Washington, were made with Ivor Richards who she married on 31 December that year in Honolulu.
The high point of her climbing career came in 1928, when she made the celebrated first ascent of the north ridge of the Dent Blanche, with her husband, the guide Joseph Georges, and Antoine Georges. This was acknowledged as one of the last great alpine climbing problems.

She wrote Climbing Days (1935; 2nd edn, 1965) which is a comprehensive account of her climbing exploits.

After her marriage she continued climbing inclucing in China, Japan, Korea, Burma and America.

Following a car accident in 1958 the scale of her climbing was reduced but she continued to endorse mountain activity through support of the clubs she had joined in her youth and in 1975 was appointed the first vice-president of the Alpine Club (the amalgamated Ladies' Alpine Club and all-male Alpine Club).

Her achievements all over the world marked her as one of the most outstanding mountaineers of the inter-war and post-war periods. One of mountaineering’s most irrepressible personalities, she spent her last new year, aged ninety-one, at the climbers' hut at Glen Brittle, Skye, drinking whisky and talking mountains with a party of Scottish climbers. She died in Cambridge, on 24 September 1986.

At Magdalene
Although born Dorothy she was known at Magdalene as Dorothea. She was the first woman to have High Table dining privileges (from 1979).
She was a major benefactor to leaving the College her entire estate of £1.3 million which puts her alongside the major benefactors - the Founder of the College, Peter Peckard (Master, 1781-1997) and A. C. Benson (Master, 1915-1925). She also left to the College a remarkable diary, running from 1912 to 1986.

Obituary: College Magazine No. 31 (1986-87) pp. iv (two photographs) and p. 16

Ivor Richards was born at Hillside, Sandbach, Cheshire , and was he son of William Armstrong Richards, a chemical engineer originally from Swansea, and his wife, Mary Anne, daughter of William Haigh, a Yorkshire wool manufacturer. On his father's death in 1902 Richards moved with his mother and brothers to Bristol, where he attended Clifton College from 1905 to 1911. In 1907 he had an attack of tuberculos which kept him away from school for over a year.

In 1911 he matriculated from Magdalene College with an exhibition to study history. Within a few months he switched to moral sciences and studied ethics, logic, and psychology.

In 1922 he became a College Lecturer in English and Moral Sciences.

In 1926, when a separate English faculty was created as part of a general restructuring of the University's teaching arrangements, he was appointed a University Lecturer. In the same year he was made a Fellow. He immediately took a year's leave and travelled to America, Japan, and China. In Honolulu, on 31 December 1926, he married Dorothy Eleanor (1894–1986). The couple had first met on a climbing holiday in Wales in 1917, and they shared a lifelong passion for mountaineering.

In 1944 he became a Professor at Harvard, but returned to Magdalene in his retirement. He became an Honorary Fellow in 1964.

In 1979 he returned to China again for a lecture tour, but was taken seriously ill there and had to be flown back to England. He died in Cambridge on 7 September 1979.

He was a founding father of the English Faculty and originator of ‘practical criticism’. He was a brilliant literary critic and linguistic philosopher, a very good poet, a distinguished mountaineer, a tireless promoter of ‘Basic’ English (on which he collaborated with C. K. Ogden, a Magdalene man slightly his senior), and something of an intellectual guru in the USA.

Commemorative tablet at Wentworth House.

Further reading:
College Magazine, No. 23 (1978-79) pp. 1-7 (Sir William Empson, W. Hamilton)
Book Review, College Magazine, No. 34 (1989-90) pp. 60-63 (R. Luckett and J. E. Stevens)

Jon Ridgeon is an English former athlete who competed in the 110 metres hurdles and the 400 metres hurdles. In the 110m hurdles, he won the silver medal at the 1987 World Championships. He represented Great Britain at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He was at Magdalene between 1986-1989.

See: College Magazine, vol. 32 1987-88 for an article when he won a silver medal in the 110m hurdles at the World Athletic Championships in Rome in September 1987. Includes a black and white photograph of him clearing a hurdle.

Belgium court physician of King Leopold I.

Ruth Rix was born in Leamington Spa in 1942 and went to school in Gloucestershire, Berkshire and London. Her mother Helga escaped on one of the last Kindertransporte from Vienna in 1939, and her father fled Vienna in 1938. Her early years were spent in emigré circles including many people from the arts.

Ruth studied Art and Theatre Design at Chelsea School of Art and The Central School of Art and Design 1960–63, and Fine Art at Leeds College of Art 1969– 71. From 1972–74 she studied for 2 years at Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Vienna under Fritz Wotruba, before returning to live in England, in York, East Sussex and finally in Brighton.

Trained at the Welsh School of Architecture. In 1937 appointed to an assistant lectureship at King’s College, Newcastle, where he was influenced by L. C. Evetts, the authority on Roman lettering. University lecturer in Architecture, 1946-1978, with architectural commissions in Magdalene, 1953-1971. Made a Fellow in 1958. He designed more buildings in Cambridge than any other architect in history, but was also in demand for student accommodation at Oxford, Durham, Bangor, Liverpool and Sheffield. He was expert at the conversion of old buildings. Famous for personal charm and a hooting laugh.

Obituary: College Magazine, No. 27 (1982-83), pp. 1-6

Beridge Ruth Mallory was known as Berry. She was George and Ruth's second child and youngest daughter. Her older sister was Clare and her brother was John. Berry married David Robertson, who later published a biography of his father-in-law, George Mallory.

Master of Magdalene 2002–2012.

Educated at King Edward VI School Macclesfield, Clare College. Assistant Keeper of Paintings & Drawings, Fitzwilliam Museum 1970, Keeper 1976; Director Yale Centre for British Art 1981–1995. Director Fitzwilliam Museum & Marlay Curator 1995–2009; Master of Magdalene 2002–2012. Appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2008.

College Magazine
Article, 'Hail and Farewell' by Eamon Duffy, College Magazine, vol. 46 (2001-02) pp. 8-9
Article, College Magazine, vol. 56 (2011-12) pp. 10-11
Obituary by John Munns, College Magazine, No. 67 (2022-23) pp. 13-24

English engraver.

Belgian politician, publicist and philanthropist.

An English portrait painter. He was the most fashionable artist of his day, painting many leading society figures – including his artistic muse, Emma Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson.

British noblewoman.