Bullock, Guy Henry (1887-1956), diplomat and mountaineer

Person

Bullock, Guy Henry (1887-1956), diplomat and mountaineer

23 July 1887 - 12 April 1956

Guy Bullock was a member of the 1921 British Mount Everest Expedition.

As expedition mountaineers, Guy Bullock and George Mallory found a northern access route to Everest by climbing the 6,849-metre (22,470 ft) Lhakpa La col above the East Rongbuk Glacier and by going on to reach the North Col at 7,020 metres (23,030 ft). They did not, however, reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Shortly before the 1921 Everest expedition was due to embark, one of the climbing team was asked to drop out (Finch) and Mallory suggested Bullock as a replacement. The Foreign Office rejected Younghusband's request to grant leave to Bullock, who was in Lima at the time, to join the expedition but he gained a special dispensation from the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, so he could have leave on half pay until the end of 1921 but with no chance of this being renewed.  Bullock and his wife sailed for Bombay on the SS Naldera, arriving on 30 April 1921. The expedition had a climbing team of four but, of the two most experienced members, one died doing the march-in (Kellas) and the other was taken ill (Raeburn). This left only two main climbers, Mallory and Bullock. Bullock was a well-organised person, able to get on well with almost everybody. He was steady and cheerful, and so was a very good companion for Mallory (the better climber). Bullock was reunited with his wife at Lachen in the Teesta valley in Sikkim on 8 October and they eventually sailed home from Bombay.

Bullock's diary of the expedition was published in 1962 in the Alpine Journal. Bullock had previously declined to lend the diary to Mallory who had been wanting to make use of it for his lectures after the expedition.

He died in a London hospital in 1956.

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