Andrew Irvine (mountaineer)
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| Born: | April 8, 1902 Birkenhead, Merseyside, England |
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| Died: | 8-9 June 1924 The North Face, Mount Everest, Tibet |
| Occupation: | Student, Merton College, Oxford |
Andrew "Sandy" Irvine (April 8, 1902 – 8-9 June 1924) was a British mountaineer who took part in the third British Expedition to Mount Everest in 1924. Irvine disappeared somewhere high on the North-East ridge, along with climbing partner George Mallory, whilst attempting to make the first ascent of the world's highest Mountain in June of that year. The pair's last known sighting was only a few hundred metres from the summit.
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[edit] Early life
Irvine was born in Birkenhead, England, to a family with strong Scottish and Welsh roots, and was educated at Birkenhead School, Shrewsbury School and entered Merton College, Oxford to study Engineering. A keen sportsman, Irvine excelled at rowing and sat at No.5 on the Oxford crew which won the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race in 1923, which was to be Oxford's only victory between 1913 and 1937.
Andrew Irvine was compassionate, expressive, shy and creative. He was tall, broad shouldered, immensely fit, strong and possessed a natural engineering acumen, possessing the rare ability to fix or improve through improvisation almost anything mechanical. During the First World War, whilst still a schoolboy, he submitted to the War Office a design for an interrupter gear which would allow a machine gun to fire from a propeller plane without damaging the blades. He made local news in 1919 by riding his motorcycle to the top of Foel Grach, a 3000-foot Welsh mountain, where he met a surprised couple (Noel Odell and his wife Mona) who had climbed it on foot.
[edit] Everest expedition
In 1923 Irvine was chosen for a university expedition to Spitzbergen, where he excelled on every front. It was only during the expedition that he and the expedition's leader, Noel Odell, discovered that they had met before on Foel Grach. Subsequently, on Odell's recommendation, Irvine was selected for the forthcoming third British Everest expedition on the grounds that he might be the "superman" that the expedition felt it needed. He was at the time still a 21-year-old college undergraduate student.
His companion and friend George Mallory later wrote home to his wife, having set sail for the Himalayas, that Irvine "could be relied on for anything except perhaps conversation." He was later to make major and crucial innovations to the expedition's professionally designed oxygen sets, radically improving their functionality, lightness, and strength. He also maintained the expedition’s cameras, camp beds, primus stoves and many other devices. He was universally popular, and respected by his older colleagues for his ingenuity, companionability and unstinting hard work.
The ascent itself took place in early June, and the last day that the climbers were seen was 8 June 1924. Keen-sighted expedition colleague Noel Odell reported seeing them at 12:50 pm ascending one of the major "steps" on the ridge and "going strongly for the top", but no evidence thus far has proved conclusively that they reached the summit. They never returned to high camp and died somewhere high on the mountain. It is still uncertain if they ever reached the summit, and Irvine's body has never been recovered.
In 1933, some nine years after the dissapearance of Mallory & Irvine, Sir Percy Wyn-Harris attempted Everest and equalled Norton’s verifiable record height of 28,126 feet (8573 m). At around 27,500 feet (8380 m), just below the first step, Wyn-Harris discovered Irvine's ice-axe, left over from Mallory and Irvine's attempt in 1924. Irvine's Ice-axe was found lying on a rock in an area of relatively gentle gradient and some have since postulated, without definitive evidence, that this position might indicate a possible fall sight.
[edit] The Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition
In 1999, Mallory's body was found at 26,760 ft (8,155 m) on the North Face of Everest by the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition. Two details noted when Mallory's body was discovered further fueled the speculation as to whether the pair did in fact reach the summit that day in 1924:
- Firstly, Mallory's daughter has always said that Mallory carried a photograph of his wife on his person with the intention of leaving it on the summit when he reached it. This photo was not found on the body when it was discovered. Given the excellent preservation of the body and its garments, this lack suggests that he may have reached the summit and deposited the photo there.
- Secondly, Mallory's snow goggles were in his pocket when the body was found, indicating that he died at night. This implies that he and Irvine had made a push for the summit and were descending very late in the day. Given their known departure time and movements, had they not made the summit, it is unlikely that they would have still been out by nightfall.
While tantalising, neither of these details is conclusive. What might provide concrete evidence would be the recovery of images contained in the cameras that the men were carrying. Unfortunately, neither of the two cameras that the expedition carried have been found. Many have speculated that Irvine may have been carrying one of the cameras when they died. Experts from Kodak have stated that if one of the cameras is found with film, there is a good chance that the film could be developed to produce "printable images", due to the nature of the black and white film that was used and the fact that it has, in effect, been in "deep freeze" for over three-quarters of a century.
In 1975, a Chinese climber named Wang Hongbao reported seeing the body of an "old English dead" near the summit. He reported the discovery to Ryoten Hasegawa, a Japanese mountaineer, in 1979. However, before more information could be obtained, Wang was killed in an avalanche the following day. Current information indicates to most analysts that the body he saw would have been Mallory's. Inspired by the importance of the discovery of Irvine's body and the invaluable camera, high-altitude research expeditions spent weeks on Everest in 2001, 2004, and 2005 but were able to shed little further light on what had previously been known about his fate; speculation and debate continues, as does what is known in mountaineering circles as "The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine."
[edit] Trivia
- The ghost of a climber has allegedly been seen by other climbers, two of whom (Dougal Haston and Doug Scott) in 1975 claimed to have shared a snow hole with the ghost during their climb. Some who have seen him believe that the ghost is that of Irvine.[citation needed]
- Upon hearing of the dissapearance of Andrew Irvine along with his partner George Mallory, a family friend wrote; "One cannot imagine Sandy content to float placidly in some quiet back-water, he was the sort that must struggle against the current and, if need be, go down foaming in full body over the precipice"
- Arnold Lunn, one of Irvine's friends wrote; "Irvine did not live long, but he lived well. Into his short life he crowded an overflowing measure of activity which found its climax in his last wonderful year, a year during which he rowed in the winning Oxford boat, explored Spitsbergen, fell in love with ski-ing, and – perhaps – conquered Everest. The English love rather to live well than to live long.’
[edit] See also
- Mountaineering
- Mount Everest
- George Mallory
- Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition
- List of people who have disappeared
[edit] References
- Peter Firstbrook Lost on Everest: The Search for Mallory and Irvine, BBC Books (1999) ISBN 0-563-48712-7
- Holzel and Salkend The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine, Pimlico (1999) ISBN 0-7126-6488-2
- Julie Summers "Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine" (2000) ISBN 0-297-64682-6
