EYES up or down. Always up or down. Drawn up to the summit of Mount Canobolas, dominating the family farm's southern horizon; focused down on the beakers and Bunsen burners that set his inquiring mind free.
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Up or down. Natural opposites, but intrinsically natural states for this boy's gaze, states he would use to climb his way into the history books. In fact, if it wasn't for a piece of broken glass and an Academy Award winner, Orange's George Ingle Finch may well have been the first person to stand on top of the world.
Not many people associate Mount Everest with wallabies. Sherpas, snow and stamina? Certainly. Spring-footed marsupials? No. Not even George Finch's young, imaginative mind would have linked the two as he chased the fleeing animals up the parched creek beds of Mount Canobolas. The family farm - Nubrygyn Station - was founded to Orange's north in the 1840s and was well and truly flourishing by George's arrival on August 4, 1888. It's safe to assume from the tales of bare-footed wallaby pursuits and his later achievements that his parents Charles and Laura and brother Maxwell nurtured George's appreciation of both mountaineering and natural sciences from an early age.
Enrolled at Wolaroi Grammar School, George showed an aptitude for science bordering on the prodigious. Physics, biology, chemistry. Especially chemistry. It was an exciting time in the field. On the other side of the world Alfred Nobel (of the Prize fame) and others were perfecting formulas that would create, among other things, dynamite and the X-ray, proof that even the rigid laws of science adhere to the principle that there's a ying for every yang. George lapped it all up, his thirst for knowledge of the periodic table proving anything but periodic.
In 1902 the Finch family holidayed in Europe. Somehow the trip turned from vacation to relocation and 14-year-old George had left footprints on central west slopes for the last time. Despite a teenager's understandable reluctance to accept the permanence of the move not even George could ignore to perks of his new Swiss base: science laboratories and alps as far as he could see. Eyes, wide with wonder, always looking up or down.
Overcoming the language barrier in German-speaking Geneva, George immersed himself in his two passions. He successfully applied to study physical sciences at the University of Geneva, specialising in the electrical ignition of gases. When his nose wasn't buried in text books it was smelling the fresh air atop Europe's highest peaks, France's Mount Blanc (4,810 metres) and Switzerland's Mount Rosa (4,634m) his most frequent conquests. Both mountains presented formidable climbs, but already George's sights were set on a bigger challenge. The biggest, in fact, one he was certain was his destiny to scale before any other man.
But before Nepal came England, and there, for the first time in his life, George found obstacles he couldn't easily overcome.
The Royal Geographical Society was founded in 1830. Starting as little more than an informal dining club, by the time George arrived in London the organisation's charter of serving "the advancement of geographical sciences" had been buttressed by a stately clubhouse - Lowther Lodge in Kensington - and a thriving lecture schedule. In the early 20th century adventurers like Robert Falcon Scott graced the RGS's 750-seat lecture theatre on a regular basis, regaling audiences with tales of courage and daring the next great pioneer to leap into the unknown.
As long as he was both amateur and British.
Tradition and parochialism always die hard in such institutions. To the members of the RGS heroic deeds of exploration were only heroic if done for King and Country and completely bereft of financial benefit for the individuals undertaking them. A Home Counties accent and Public School education went a long way, too. In the clubish comforts of Lowther Lodge's fire-lit rooms the ability to tie a Windsor knot was seen as being at least as important as knowing how to tie off a climbing rope.
Exploration took a back seat in 1914 when Britain's best found themselves trudging towards the trenches of the western front. George quickly enlisted, taking a brief furlough to marry his girlfriend Alicia Gladys Fisher in June, 1915.
Alicia gave birth to a son, christened Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch, in September the following year. The fact that George had been occupied defusing German bombs nine months previous to the birth aroused the obvious suspicions in his mind and by the time the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918 George had won a captain’s stripes, divorced a wife and adopted an illegitimate son, known thereafter as Peter. He remarried in September, 1921.
In 1920 the RGS launched a campaign to lift the war-ravaged nation's spirits in the same way Captain Scott's 1912 Antarctic expedition had. In conjunction with the Apline Club - a collection of registered British Mountaineers - RGS President Francis Younghusband established the Mount Everest Committee, whose singular goal was to see a British man become the first to conquer the Himalayan giant.
The committee deployed a reconnaissance mission to Nepal in 1921, ostensibly to determine the best geographical and diplomatic openings for a later assault on the summit. The party included George Mallory, a humble school master and fiercely determined climber widely regarded as the finest of the era. No serious attempt was made on Everest's 8,848-metre peak, but information on potential routes and weather patterns were recorded for use in the planned 1922 expedition.
That party began to take shape almost as soon as the scouting team returned to home shores. Brigadier Charles Bruce was chosen as expedition leader, his primary task being the safe transportation of the team and supplies to base camp, from where Mallory would assume control of the group.
Additional roles as varied as photographer and translator were quickly filled, but the selection of the group's climbers was the most contentious. The chance to stand where no man had stood attracted an array of candidates with an array of qualifications.
Few doubted George's place among the world's best mountaineers, least of all Mallory, who had witnessed firsthand the Australian's skills and stamina as they scaled Europe's alps together during previous summers. But his advocacy for the use of bottled oxygen at extreme altitudes – where it was known to be in short natural supply – was, in the eyes of the RGS, an almost sacrilegious cross against his name. A recent divorce, regardless of the circumstances, was another strike.
In the end it was only Mallory's endorsement of his talents and threat to remove his own name from the touring party which forced the RGS's hand. George packed his bags, his cargo including both his precious breathing apparatus and a unique coat of his own device he branded a ‘puffer jacket’ which, while practical, wouldn’t achieve fashionable popularity until decades later.
On March 26 he and 12 others departed England, arriving at their Nepalese base camp some five weeks later.
Once the group was under his direction Mallory's strategy became apparent: a series of small ascensions towards Everest's peak, each time stopping to establish and stock small camps to be used on subsequent climbs. Camps I, II, III and IV were quickly formed, the latter perched at an altitude of 7,000 metres.
George had used the voyage to both tinker with his oxygen apparatus and extol its virtues to his companions. Mallory remained skeptical, determining the first attempt should be undertaken without the chemist's aids. On the evening of May 20 Mallory, Howard Somervell, Edward Norton and Henry Morshead pitched their tents in diabolical weather at the newly-created Camp V (7,600 metres) with an eye on tackling the final 1,200-metre climb in the morning. The weather cleared, but by noon Morshead had succumbed to extreme exhaustion, urging his counterparts to go on without him. At 2pm, with the summit in sight but the prospect of a safe, daylight descent doubtful, Mallory abandoned the quest. He led Somervell and Norton down the mountain, collecting Morshead along the way.
The unsuccessful attempt was not viewed as a failure, the trio having climbed to a new world record height of 8,225 metres. Less charitable observers believed George to be delighted that the mountain remained unconquered, his chance at unique glory still intact. True or not, he would soon get his shot. Fighting exhaustion and his own disappointment Mallory immediately confirmed that George would lead the next assault. Once more, his eyes turned upwards.
George left base camp on May 24 accompanied by Geoffrey Bruce, a climber of only moderate note whose primary qualification for making the voyage in the first place was, seemingly, being the expedition leader’s nephew. The next day, buffeted by katabatic winds, the pair was forced to hastily set up camp at 7,460 metres. By the following morning conditions had deteriorated further and with both supplies and oxygen scarce in such rarefied air George was resigned to a sleepless night followed by descent, not ascent.
Miraculously, May 27 dawned clear. Despite the still present (though calmer) winds George and Bruce, fueled by optimism and oxygen, began a steady climb through the clouds. At 7,950 metres they deviated from the planned route, maneuvering in the direction of a steep gully later named Norton Couloir. The chosen path protected the pair from the increasingly blustery conditions, but its comforts came at the cost of altitude: hours later they were no nearer to the summit. But George’s confidence remained intact, believing there was still sufficient time to both reach the summit and descend to safety.
It wasn’t to be. By mid-afternoon Bruce’s exhaustion was total. Even with a steady supply of oxygen it’s doubtful he could have summoned the strength to carry on, but when a cracked glass valve in his breathing apparatus deprived him of additional air it became obvious his life was in jeopardy.
"No one had conquered Everest and only one man would ever be the first. History. Glory. A life-long ambition realised"
Through the howling gale George heard Bruce’s cries turn from distress to surrender. The Australian stopped. Above him, a mere quarter of a mile away, Everest’s summit glistened in the sun. Below him, a man’s life hung in the balance. The temptation to carry on must have been almost irresistible. No one had conquered Everest and only one man would ever be the first. History. Glory. A life-long ambition realised.
George checked his altimeter: 8,326 metres, higher than any man had ever been.
Up or down?
He turned, slowly lifted Bruce to his feet and began carrying the Brit down the slope.
One week later, Mallory and a troupe of climbers and porters set out on one last attempt before the approaching monsoon season would force both their hand and departure. At 7,000 metres an avalanche cascaded down the North Col and when the wave of snow finally settled seven porters had lost their lives. The survivors retreated to base camp, packed their supplies and returned to England.
In 1924 the RGS commissioned another expedition. Mallory, elected unopposed as climbing leader, stressed to the new Mount Everest Committee the importance of George’s inclusion, but his arguments fell on ears not so much deaf as self-muffled. To the RGS’s disgust the scientist had spent the previous 12 months parlaying his world record climb into financial gain via a series of lectures. Tut, tut. Plus, he was Australian. Remember, amateur and British.
In a heated discussion the dreaded divorce was rehashed, as was George’s reliance upon those blasted oxygen bottles. To the committee’s mind any such device would always render the battle between man and nature an unfair fight. Presumably they also believed tents and gas campfires grew naturally in the Himalayas, waiting for opportunistic harvest.
Mallory protested, arguing for George’s breathing aids and, as in 1922, threatening to boycott the expedition. But the RGS pulled some strings and the national hero, falling victim to a perfectly orchestrated royal family guilt trip, shelved his reservations and reluctantly acquiesced to their demands.
On June 8 that year Mallory and Andrew ‘Sandy’ Irvine, a youthful Oxford scholar whose physical fitness owed more to pulling rowing oars than scaling mountains, died on the upper slopes of Mount Everest. History is divided on whether they met their demise before or after reaching the summit.
With no conclusive evidence either way George’s altitude world record would officially stand for another 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, finally reached the top of the world. A New Zealander and a Nepalese Indian: colonial conquerors. Oh, to be a fly on the RGS’s oak-panelled walls that day.
When three friends died on Switzerland’s treacherous Jungfrau climb in 1931 George vowed to never again set foot on a mountain. He was true to his word, pouring his reserves of time and energy into his scientific endeavours.
Between 1936 and 1952 he held the position of Professor of Applied Physical Chemistry at London’s Imperial College while at the same time serving as a scientific adviser to the Home Secretary and director of the National Chemical Laboratory of India.
In 1944 he received the Hughes Medal, given by the Royal Society of London "in recognition of an original discovery in the physical sciences, particularly electricity and magnetism or their applications." The award placed him in esteemed company, with previous and future winners including telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell (1913) and world famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking (1976).
In time, even his most gaping wounds with the British climbing establishment began to heal. In 1938 George was made a Fellow of the RGS, an honour he accepted with humility. He won the presidency of the Alpine Club in 1959 and spent three years upholding the institution’s grandest traditions, not least gathering in the club’s plush Mayfair bar to tell climbing stories that grew both literally and figuratively taller with each passing year. An MBE for services to climbing simply confirmed a standing all of his contemporaries already recognised.
Peter Finch went on forge an impressive legacy of his own, winning a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor in the 1976 film ‘Network’ months after dying of a heart attack. Like father, like adopted son: George’s commitment to excellence had obviously been infused by example rather than genetics.
George Ingle Finch died on November 22, 1970, aged 82.
Chances are his eyes were looking up.