Mallory [née Turner], Ruth (1892-1942), wife of mountaineer George Mallory

Persona

Mallory [née Turner], Ruth (1892-1942), wife of mountaineer George Mallory

1892-1942

Ruth Turner was born on 10 June 1892 and was the daughter of Hugh Thackeray Turner (a prosperous architect) and his wife May. She lived at Westbrook, an elegant house on the far side of the Wey Valley, with her two sisters Marjorie and Mildred. Her mother died in 1907.

She first met George Mallory at a dinner in the Autumn of 1913 at the house of Arthur Clutton-Brock, a lawyer and writer who lived in Hindhead Road not far from Charterhouse School where George was teaching. They met socially several times over the next few months and in March 1914 Thackeray Turner invited George to accompany him and his daughters on a trip to Italy. George and Ruth fell in love during the week long’s holiday and became engaged. They married on 29 July 1914 and had three children:

Clare (1915-2001) who married Glenn Millikan (Glen died in a climbing accident in Tennessee in 1947)
Beridge (1917-1953) who married David Robertson
John (1920-present) who married Jenifer Krohn (climbed Mount Everest in 1995).

After George's death she and the three children moved back to Westbrook to live with her father. When he died in 1937 Westbrook was sold and Ruth lived with a cousin.

In 1939 she married her friend Will Arnold-Forster after the death of his wife.

She died of cancer in 1942. Her daughter, Berry Robertson, also died of the disease in 1953.

Website: spartacus-educational.com
Gillman, P. and Gillman, L. (2000) The Wildest Dream. The Biography of George Mallory