George Mallory
George Herbert Leigh Mallory was an English mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest, in the early 1920s. During the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition and his climbing partner, Andrew "Sandy" Irvine, disappeared on the north-east ridge during their attempt to make the first ascent of the world's highest mountain; the pair were last seen. Mallory's ultimate fate was unknown for 75 years, until his body was discovered on 1 May 1999 by an expedition that had set out to search for the climbers' remains. Whether Mallory and Irvine had reached the summit before they died remains a subject of speculation and continuing research. Mallory was born in Mobberley, the son of Herbert Leigh Mallory, a clergyman who changed his surname from Mallory to Leigh-Mallory in 1914, his mother was the daughter of a clergyman in Walton, Derbyshire. George had two sisters and a younger brother, Trafford Leigh-Mallory, the World War II Royal Air Force commander, he was raised in a 10-bedroom house on Hobcroft Lane in Mobberley.
In 1896, Mallory attended Glengorse, a boarding school in Eastbourne on the south coast, having transferred from another preparatory school in West Kirby. At the age of 13, he won a mathematics scholarship to Winchester College. In his final year there, he was introduced to rock climbing and mountaineering by a master, R. L. G. Irving, who took a few people climbing in the Alps each year. In October 1905, Mallory entered Cambridge, to study history. There, he became good friends with future members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Rupert Brooke, John Maynard Keynes, James Strachey, Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, who took some portraits of Mallory. Mallory was a keen oarsman. In 1909, Lytton Strachey wrote of Mallory: "Mon dieu!—George Mallory! … He's six foot high, with the body of an athlete by Praxiteles, a face—oh incredible—the mystery of Botticelli, the refinement and delicacy of a Chinese print, the youth and piquancy of an unimaginable English boy."After gaining his degree, Mallory stayed in Cambridge for a year writing an essay he published as Boswell the Biographer.
He lived in France afterwards. In 1910, he began teaching at Charterhouse, another of England's great public schools, where he met the poet Robert Graves a pupil. In his autobiography, Goodbye to All That, Graves remembered Mallory fondly, both for his encouragement of his interest in literature and poetry, his instruction in climbing. Graves recalled: "He was wasted at Charterhouse, he tried to treat his class in a friendly way, which puzzled and offended them."While at Charterhouse, Mallory met his wife, Ruth Turner, who lived in Godalming, they were married in 1914, six days before Britain and Germany went to war. George and Ruth had two daughters and a son: Frances Clare, Beridge Ruth, known as "Berry", John. In December 1915, Mallory was commissioned in the Royal Garrison Artillery as a second lieutenant and promoted to lieutenant in 1917, he fought at the Battle of the Somme. After the war, Mallory returned to Charterhouse, but resigned in 1921 to join the first Everest expedition. Between expeditions, he attempted to make a living from writing and lecturing, with only partial success.
In 1923, he took a job as lecturer with the Cambridge University Extramural Studies Department. He was given temporary leave. In 1910, in a party led by Irving, Mallory and a friend attempted to climb Mont Vélan in the Alps, but turned back shortly before the summit due to Mallory's altitude sickness. In 1911, Mallory climbed Mont Blanc, made the third ascent of the Frontier ridge of Mont Maudit in a party again led by Irving. According to Helmut Dumler, Mallory was "apparently prompted by a friend on the Western Front in 1916 a emotional article of his ascent of this great climb". By 1913, he had ascended Pillar Rock in the English Lake District, with no assistance, by what is now known as "Mallory's Route"—currently graded Hard Very Severe 5a, it is to have been the hardest route in Britain for many years. One of Mallory's closest friends and climbing companions was a young woman named Cottie Sanders, who became a novelist with the pseudonym of Ann Bridge; the nature of their relationship is elusive.
She was a "climbing friend" or a "casual sweetheart". After Mallory died, Cottie wrote a memoir of him, never published, but nonetheless provided much of the material used by biographers such as David Pye and David Robertson and a novel Everest Dream. Mallory participated in the initial 1921 British Reconnaissance Expedition and financed by the Mount Everest Committee, that explored routes up to the North Col of Mount Everest; the expedition produced the first accurate maps of the region around the mountain, as Mallory, his climbing partner Guy Bullock, E. O. Wheeler of the Survey of India explored in depth several approaches to its peak. Under Mallory's leadership, with the assistance of around a dozen Sherpas, the group climbed several lower peaks near Everest, his party were certainly the first Westerners to view the Western Cwm at the foot of the Lhotse face, as well as charting the course of the Rongbuk Glacier up to the base of the Nort
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a collegiate public research university in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Founded in 1209 and granted a Royal Charter by King Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's fourth-oldest surviving university; the university grew out of an association of scholars who left the University of Oxford after a dispute with the townspeople. The two'ancient universities' share many common features and are referred to jointly as'Oxbridge'; the history and influence of the University of Cambridge has made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Cambridge is formed from a variety of institutions which include 31 constituent Colleges and over 100 academic departments organised into six schools. Cambridge University Press, a department of the university, is the world's oldest publishing house and the second-largest university press in the world; the university operates eight cultural and scientific museums, including the Fitzwilliam Museum, as well as a botanic garden.
Cambridge's libraries hold a total of around 15 million books, eight million of which are in Cambridge University Library, a legal deposit library. In the fiscal year ending 31 July 2018, the university had a total income of £1.965 billion, of which £515.5 million was from research grants and contracts. In the financial year ending 2017, the central university and colleges had combined net assets of around £11.8 billion, the largest of any university in the country. However, the true extent of Cambridge's wealth is much higher as many colleges hold their historic main sites, which date as far back as the 13th century, at depreceated valuations. Furthermore, many of the wealthiest colleges do not account for “heritage assets” such as works of art, libraries or artefacts, whose value many college accounts describe as “immaterial”; the university is linked with the development of the high-tech business cluster known as'Silicon Fen'. It is a member of numerous associations and forms part of the'golden triangle' of English universities and Cambridge University Health Partners, an academic health science centre.
As of 2018, Cambridge is the top-ranked university in the United Kingdom according to all major league tables. As of September 2017, Cambridge is ranked the world's second best university by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, is ranked 3rd worldwide by Academic Ranking of World Universities, 6th by QS, 7th by US News. According to the Times Higher Education ranking, no other institution in the world ranks in the top 10 for as many subjects; the university has educated many notable alumni, including eminent mathematicians, politicians, philosophers, writers and foreign Heads of State. As of March 2019, 118 Nobel Laureates, 11 Fields Medalists, 7 Turing Award winners and 15 British Prime Ministers have been affiliated with Cambridge as students, faculty or research staff. By the late 12th century, the Cambridge area had a scholarly and ecclesiastical reputation, due to monks from the nearby bishopric church of Ely. However, it was an incident at Oxford, most to have led to the establishment of the university: two Oxford scholars were hanged by the town authorities for the death of a woman, without consulting the ecclesiastical authorities, who would take precedence in such a case, but were at that time in conflict with King John.
The University of Oxford went into suspension in protest, most scholars moved to cities such as Paris and Cambridge. After the University of Oxford reformed several years enough scholars remained in Cambridge to form the nucleus of the new university. In order to claim precedence, it is common for Cambridge to trace its founding to the 1231 charter from King Henry III granting it the right to discipline its own members and an exemption from some taxes. A bull in 1233 from Pope Gregory IX gave graduates from Cambridge the right to teach "everywhere in Christendom". After Cambridge was described as a studium generale in a letter from Pope Nicholas IV in 1290, confirmed as such in a bull by Pope John XXII in 1318, it became common for researchers from other European medieval universities to visit Cambridge to study or to give lecture courses; the colleges at the University of Cambridge were an incidental feature of the system. No college is as old as the university itself; the colleges were endowed fellowships of scholars.
There were institutions without endowments, called hostels. The hostels were absorbed by the colleges over the centuries, but they have left some traces, such as the name of Garret Hostel Lane. Hugh Balsham, Bishop of Ely, founded Peterhouse, Cambridge's first college, in 1284. Many colleges were founded during the 14th and 15th centuries, but colleges continued to be established until modern times, although there was a gap of 204 years between the founding of Sidney Sussex in 1596 and that of Downing in 1800; the most established college is Robinson, built in the late 1970s. However, Homerton College only achieved full university college status in March 2010, making it the newest full college. In medieval times, many colleges were founded so that their members would pray for the souls of the founders, were associated with chapels or abbeys; the colleges' focus changed in 1536 with the Dissolution of the Monasteries. King Henry VIII ordered the university to disband its Faculty of Canon Law and to stop teaching "scholastic philosophy".
In response, colleges changed
Buckingham College, Cambridge
Buckingham College is the name of a former college of the University of Cambridge, that existed between 1428 and 1542, when it was reformed as Magdalene College. Abbot John Lytlington of Crowland Abbey was licensed by Letters Patent of King Henry VI to acquire a site so that a hostel could be established in Cambridge for Benedictine student-monks; the Benedictines sited their Monks' Hostel north of the River Cam at a distance from the temptations of town. The Benedictine monks began fine new buildings early in the 1470s. John of Wisbech, Abbot of Crowland, completed the Chapel. Individual Benedictine abbeys were invited to provide their own student chambers there. Four local Benedictine abbeys, Ely and Walden, contributed to the college buildings; as a result of patronage by the family of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, the name of the institution was changed from Monks' Hostel to Buckingham College. Some students who were not monks were admitted and such lay students would have paid rent to the host abbey whose rooms they occupied.
Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury, was appointed a lecturer at Buckingham in 1515. In 1519 Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham built the college Hall. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries one of the abbeys involved in the College, came into the possession of Thomas, Lord Audley who refounded Buckingham College as the College of St Mary Magdalene in 1542. Much of Magdalene's First Court dates from Buckingham College
Oxbridge
Oxbridge is a portmanteau of Oxford and Cambridge, the two oldest, most prestigious, highly-ranked universities in the United Kingdom. The term is used to refer to them collectively, in contrast to other British universities, more broadly to describe characteristics reminiscent of them with implications of superior social or intellectual status or elitism. Although both universities were founded more than eight centuries ago, the term Oxbridge is recent. In William Thackeray's novel Pendennis, published in 1850, the main character attends the fictional Boniface College, Oxbridge. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this is the first recorded instance of the word. Virginia Woolf used it, in her 1929 essay A Room of One's Own. By 1957 the term was used in the Times Educational Supplement and in Universities Quarterly by 1958; when expanded, the universities are always referred to as "Oxford and Cambridge", the order in which they were founded. A notable exception is Japan's Cambridge and Oxford Society arising from the fact that the Cambridge Club was founded there first, had more members than its Oxford counterpart when they amalgamated in 1905.
In addition to being a collective term, Oxbridge is used as shorthand for characteristics the two institutions share: They are the two oldest universities in continuous operation in the UK. Both were founded more than 800 years ago, continued as England's only universities until the 19th century. Between them they have educated a large number of Britain's most prominent scientists and politicians, as well as noted figures in many other fields, they have established similar institutions and facilities such as printing houses, botanical gardens, legal deposit libraries, debating societies, notable comedy groups. Rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge has a long history, dating back to around 1209, when Cambridge was founded by scholars taking refuge from hostile Oxford townsmen, celebrated to this day in varsity matches such as The Boat Race; each has a similar collegiate structure, whereby the university is a co-operative of its constituent colleges, which are responsible for supervisions/tutorials and pastoral care.
They are the top-scoring institutions in cross-subject UK university rankings, so they are targeted by ambitious pupils and schools. Entrance is competitive and some schools promote themselves based on their achievement of Oxbridge offers. Combined, the two universities award over one-sixth of all English full-time research doctorates. Oxford and Cambridge have common approaches to undergraduate admissions; until the mid-1980s, entry was by sitting special entrance exams. Applications must be made at least three months earlier than to other UK universities. Additionally, candidates may not apply to both Oxford and Cambridge in the same year, apart from a few exceptions. Most candidates achieve, or are predicted to achieve, outstanding results in their final school exams, interviews are used to check whether the course is well suited to the applicant's interests and aptitudes, to look for evidence of self-motivation, independent thinking, academic potential and ability to learn through the tutorial system.
The word Oxbridge may be used pejoratively: as a descriptor of social class, as shorthand for an elite that "continues to dominate Britain's political and cultural establishment" and a parental attitude that "continues to see UK higher education through an Oxbridge prism", or to describe a "pressure-cooker" culture that attracts and fails to support overachievers "who are vulnerable to a kind of self-inflicted stress that can all too become unbearable" and high-flying state school students who find "coping with the workload difficult in terms of balancing work and life" and "feel out of depth". The Sutton Trust maintains that the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge recruit disproportionately from 8 schools, they examined published admissions data from 2015 to 2017 and found that 8 schools accounted for 1,310 Oxbridge places during the three years, whereas 2,900 other schools accounted for 1,220. Other portmanteaus have been coined that extend the term Oxbridge, though none has achieved widespread recognition.
The term Loxbridge is used, was adopted as the name of the Ancient History conference now known as AMPAH. Doxbridge is another example of this, referring to Durham and Cambridge. Doxbridge was used for an annual inter-collegiate sports tournament between some of the colleges of Durham, Oxford and York. Meanwhile, Woxbridge is seen in the name of the annual Woxbridge conference between the business schools of Warwick and Cambridge. Thackeray's Pendennis, which introduced the term Oxbridge introduced Camford as another combination of the university names – "he was a Camford man and nearly got the English Prize Poem" – but this term has never achieved the same degree of usage as Oxbridge. Camford was used as the name of a fictio
The Boat Race
The Boat Race is an annual rowing race between the Cambridge University Boat Club and the Oxford University Boat Club, rowed between men's and women's open-weight eights on the River Thames in London, England. It is known as the University Boat Race and the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race; the men's race was first held in 1829 and has been held annually since 1856, except during the First and Second World Wars. The first women's event was in 1927 and the race has been held annually since 1964. Since 2015, the women's race has taken place on the same day and course, since 2018 the combined event of the two races has been referred to as "The Boat Race". In the 2019 race, which took place on Sunday 7 April 2019, Cambridge won the men's and women's races as well as both reserve races; the course covers a 4.2-mile stretch of the Thames from Putney to Mortlake. Members of both teams are traditionally known as blues and each boat as a "Blue Boat", with Cambridge in light blue and Oxford in dark blue.
As of 2019, Cambridge has won the men's race 84 times and Oxford 80 times, with one dead heat. Cambridge has led Oxford in cumulative wins since 1930. In the women's race, Cambridge have won the race 44 times and Oxford 30 times. Cambridge has led Oxford in cumulative wins since 1966. A reserve boat race has been held since 1966 for the women. Over 250,000 people watch the race from the banks of the river each year. In 2009, a record 270,000 people watched. A further 15 million or more watch it on television; the tradition was started in 1829 by Charles Merivale, a student at St John's College and his Old Harrovian school friend Charles Wordsworth, studying at Christ Church, Oxford. The University of Cambridge challenged the University of Oxford to a race at Henley-on-Thames but lost easily. Oxford raced in dark blue because five members of the crew, including the stroke, were from Christ Church Head of the River, whose colours were dark blue. There is a dispute as to the source of the colour chosen by Cambridge.
The second race was with the venue moved to a course from Westminster to Putney. Over the next two years, there was disagreement over where the race should be held, with Oxford preferring Henley and Cambridge preferring London. Following the official formation of the Oxford University Boat Club, racing between the two universities resumed in 1839 on the Tideway and the tradition continues to the present day, with the loser challenging the winner to a rematch annually; the race in 1877 was declared a dead heat. Both crews finished in a time of 8 seconds in bad weather; the verdict of the race judge, John Phelps, is considered suspect because he was over 70 and blind in one eye. Rowing historian Tim Koch, writing in the official 2014 Boat Race Programme, notes that there is "a big and entrenched lie" about the race, including the claim that Phelps had announced "Dead heat... to Oxford by six feet". Phelps's nickname "Honest John" was not an ironic one, he was not drunk under a bush at the time of the finish.
He did have to judge. Some newspapers had believed Oxford won a narrow victory but their viewpoint was from downstream. With no clear way to determine who had surged forward at the exact finish line, Phelps could only pronounce it a dead heat. Koch believes that the press and Oxford supporters made up the stories about Phelps which Phelps had no chance to refute. Oxford disabled, were making effort after effort to hold their waning lead, while Cambridge, curiously enough, had settled together again, were rowing as one man, were putting on a magnificent spurt at 40 strokes to the minute, with a view of catching their opponents before reaching the winning-post, thus struggling over the remaining portion of the course, the two eights raced past the flag alongside one another, the gun fired amid a scene of excitement equalled and never exceeded. Cheers for one crew were succeeded by counter-cheers for the other, it was impossible to tell what the result was until the Press boat backed down to the Judge and inquired the issue.
John Phelps, the waterman, who officiated, replied that the noses of the boats passed the post level, that the result was a dead heat. In 1959 some of the existing Oxford blues attempted to oust president Ronnie Howard and coach Jumbo Edwards. However, their attempt failed. Three of the dissidents returned and Oxford went on to win by six lengths. Following defeat in the previous year's race, Oxford's first in eleven years, American Chris Clark was determined to gain revenge: "Next year we're gonna kick ass... Cambridge's ass. If I have to go home and bring the whole US squad with me." He recruited another four American post-graduates: three international-class rowers and a cox, in an attempt to put together the fastest Boat Race crew in the history of the contest. Disagreements over the training regime of Dan Topolski, the Oxford coach, led to the crew walking out on at least one occasion, resulted in the coach revising his approach. A fitness test between Clark and club president Donald Macdonald resulted in a call for Macdonald's removal.
Pembroke College Boat Club (Cambridge)
Pembroke College Boat Club is the rowing club for members of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Over the last century, crews from Pembroke have held the headship of the men's Lent Bumps on four occasions, the headship of the men's May Bumps ten times; the men's 1st VIII spent their entire history in the 1st division of both events, apart from poor performances in the Lent Bumps 2000 and the May Bumps 2003, the crew is found in the top half of the division. The women's 1st VIII first raced in 1985, have not yet taken the headship of the Lent Bumps, but took the headship of the May Bumps in 1997, 1998, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010. University rowing Durack, John; the Bumps: An Account of the Cambridge University Bumping Races 1827-1999 ISBN 0-9538475-1-9 CUCBC - Lent and May Bumps programmes. Pembroke College Boat Club
Churchill College Boat Club
Churchill College Boat Club is the rowing club for members of Churchill College, Cambridge. The club colours are pink and brown, chosen as they were the horse-racing colours of Sir Winston Churchill. In recent years, the club has become famous for its lurid pink racing shells; the men's 1st VIII started the trend in 2002, with the women taking delivery of their own in 2006. The trend has continued to the extent; the women sport pink splash-tops and lycra in the summer months. Churchill College shares a boat house, known as "Combined", with King's and The Leys School; the boat house is the farthest downstream of all the College boathouses, a natural advantage for early morning outings. The men's boat club was founded in 1961, following a remark during the Lent Bumps of that year that a college was not a College until it was on the River. Frank Maine and Ed Markham led the effort to get the club on the river, under guidance from Canon Noel Duckworth, the first chaplain at the college; the boat of postgraduates used the, as yet unheard of, training time of 6 am – 9 am on weekday mornings as the river was deserted.
This time is now common across all clubs at Cambridge. The 1st boat started the May Bumps in the seventh division in 1961, bumping twice before being stopped by carnage on the third day being bumped themselves on the last. Following a successful Lent Bumps in 1962, the Churchill 1st VIII were repositioned up into the 3rd division for the May Bumps of the same year. By the early 1970s, the men's 1st VIII had risen to the 1st division of the Lent and May Bumps but found itself back in the 2nd division by the end of the decade, it achieved its highest position at 5th in Lent Bumps 1998. In May Bumps 2006, the crew rose to an all-time high for that competition; the women's boat club took part in the first women's bumps in 1974, racing in fours until 1989. The 1st women's VIII took the headship of the Lent Bumps in 1984. In the May Bumps, Churchill women have been Head of the River a total of 6 times, the joint most of any other women's boat club, although only for the last headship were the races held in eight-oared boats.
Between 1985 and 1987, Churchill finished Head of the Mays on 12 consecutive days – the longest continuous defence of the women's Mays Headship. The College has been awarded both the Pegasus Cup, the Marconi Cup for the best performing college in May and Lent Bumps respectively. Both the Men's and Women's crews hold spots in the first division of these races. Churchill Women won the "College A" event at the inaugural Henley Women's Regatta in 1988, again in 1990. Churchill Men last qualified for the Temple Challenge Cup in 1996 at Henley Royal Regatta, progressing to the second round. Churchill College Boat Club Website Old site with plenty of history
.jpg)
