A collection of items from the leader of the first Mount Everest expedition comes up for auction.
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury of Charleville Castle in County Offaly and Belvedere House in County Westmeath was a relative of Laurence of Arabia. He had a spirit of adventure but was not a mountain climber.
He was chosen to lead the first Everest expedition in 1921 because of his other talents. Soldier, intelligence officer, plant collector, photographer, big game hunter, and to deal with China, Tibet and Nepal, a linguist and diplomat.
His diplomatic skills were challenged when dealing with one member of the expedition team, mountaineer George Mallory. There was constant friction between Howard-Bury and Mallory and in another expedition in 1924, Mallory died on the mountain.
The expedition of 1921 was poorly equipped for the severe cold and high altitude. The team suffered badly from the elements dressed in tweed and used primitive breathing apparatus. They reached a height of 23,000 feet, 4,000 feet short of the summit of Everest.
Marian Keaney, editor of the Howard-Bury Journals, describes the significance of the expedition. The objective of the mission was to carry out a reconnaissance of the flora and fauna, the climatology, and the geology of the mountain.
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury died in 1963 and left behind a collection of photographs he took on the 1921 expedition and other travels. The collection also include his journals and newspaper cuttings relating to his travels. The collection is to be auctioned at the Montrose Hotel in Donnybrook, Dublin.
Auctioneer Fonsie Mealy, believes this is a very important and unique collection which he values at in the region of £20,000. Although the collection has international appeal, he would like to see it remain in Ireland.
There's very few collections of early Everest material as important as this one.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 29 November 1994. The reporter is Colm Connolly.
