Richards [née Pilley], Dorothy Eleanor (1894-1986), journalist and mountaineer

Person

Richards [née Pilley], Dorothy Eleanor (1894-1986), journalist and mountaineer

• Dorothea Pilley
• Mrs I. A. Richards

16 September 1894 - 24 September 1986

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

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography