T H E U N L I K E LY H E R O O F E V E R E S T: THE OTHER SIDE OF GEORGE MALLORY Remembered as a charismatic undergraduate at Magdalene, with many diverse interests, Captain of the Boat Club, a young man of captivating physical beauty, which made him a Bloomsbury idol, a nude model, devotee of naked wild swimming; mildly rebellious and vaguely imbued with fashionable homoeroticism, but later a happily married family man; of strong social conscience and left-wing leanings, for many years an unconventional but inspirational schoolmaster, teaching history and English literature, becoming a progressive educational theorist, a man with many friends and admirers among the London literary elite, and himself a gifted writer, aspiring poet, and accomplished scholarly author, setting everything down in elegant penmanship; impractical, perhaps, but something of a polymath, a ‘Renaissance man’ indeed: and now, in 1924, aged 38, poised on the brink of a promising career as a Cambridge academic, likely to become an influential and much-loved university character… So where did it all go wrong? The short answer is a fatal fall a few hundred feet from the top of the highest and most challenging mountain in the world, EverestChomolungma, Goddess-Mother of the Earth, on 8 June 1924. Because George Mallory, for all his other attributes, was above all, a mountaineer, who came to an untimely and mysterious end – a man celebrated ever since as a romantic symbol of human dedication, determination, courage, vision, and endurance. And so there have been numerous books and speculations innumerable about Mallory in the last 94 years. This article can make no claim to originality: almost anything one can say about even the lesser-known side of his life and personality has already been said by someone during the last 94 years. But details can be added from the College Archives. * Like everyone else seeing Mallory for the first time, A C Benson (then Junior Fellow of the College) was struck by his exceptional good looks. Benson was to figure in Mallory’s life from his early days in Magdalene during the Michaelmas Term of 1905. Mallory read for the Historical Tripos and Benson was his supervisor (‘one of my History boys; he is also a great Alpine climber’). Benson concentrated on technique for the compulsory English Essay, at which his pupil soon excelled. They became close friends, and remained so for the rest of Mallory’s life. Benson visited Mallory in his rooms ‘at the corner of the court’, overlooking the street. At the end of the Michaelmas Term 1906 Benson invited him to stay for a week at his Cambridgeshire retreat, Hinton Hall in the village of Haddenham. This was followed by another particularly enjoyable week of rural rides in June 1907, and then by a few days in July at the Benson family home, ‘Tremans’ in Sussex: Benson was pleased how easily he fitted in. He introduced him to his circle of Cambridge
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