Howard-Bury, Charles Kenneth (1883–1963), mountaineer and army officer

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Howard-Bury, Charles Kenneth (1883–1963), mountaineer and army officer

1883-1963

Lt. Col. Charles K. Howard-Bury, Leader of the 1921 British Mount Everest Expedition.

Born at Charleville Castle, King's County, Ireland, the only son of Captain Kenneth Howard-Bury (1846–1885) and Lady Emily Alfreda Julia, daughter of Charles Bury, 3rd Earl of Charleville. He was educated at Eton and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

He was interested in climbing in his youth and climbed the larger routes in the Austrian Alps. In 1904 he joined the King's Royal Rifle Corps and was posted to India, where he went travelling and big game-hunting. At the beginning of World War I he rejoined his regiment and served with distinction as a frontline officer on the Somme and throughout the conflict. He was captured during the German Spring Offensive of 1918, and then made a dramatic escape from his prisoner-of-war camp, before being recaptured ten days later.

In 1921 he became the leader of the first Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition which was organised and financed by the Mount Everest Committee (a joint body of the Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society). In 1922 he wrote a full account of the expedition, published as Mount Everest The Reconnaissance, 1921. In 1922 he was awarded the Founder's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his leadership of the expedition.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography