Young, Geoffrey Winthrop (1876–1958), mountaineer and educationist

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Young, Geoffrey Winthrop (1876–1958), mountaineer and educationist

• Geoffrey Young

25 October 1876 - 8 September 1958

Geoffrey Winthrop Young was born in 1876 and was the son of Sir George Young and Alice Eacy. He was educated at Marlborough College and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was one of the most famous British mountaineers before the First World War. He met George Mallory at a dinner in Cambridge in February 1909 and they remained close friends often climbing together at the climbing parties at Pen y Pass (these were gatherings of leading climbers in Snowdonia). Geoffrey was Mallory's best man at his wedding to Ruth. He served in Belgium and France during the First World War as a war correspondent for the Daily News. He founded and commanded the Friends' Ambulance Unit in Flanders, and served mostly at Ypres. In August 1917 he was severely wounded and had his left leg amputated above the knee. After the War he continued to write and climb with only one leg. In 1918 he married Eleanor Slingsby and had 2 children. He died in 1958 and his ashes were scattered on the peaks above Pen y Pass.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography