Finch George Ingle
(Bearbeiten)
Biografie:
Finch George Ingle, * Australien, 1907 Zürich,1936 bis 1952 London, + New South Wales
Ingle George Finch wurde 1888 geboren und verließ seine australische Heimat, um mit seiner Familie ein Jahr in Europa zu verbringen. Er wuchs im deutschsprachigen Teil der Schweiz auf und studierte später Physik an der Universität Genf. Zwischen 1936 und 1952 hatte er eine Professur für Angewandte Chemie am Imperial College London inne.
Als leidenschaftlicher Leser von Edward Whymper machte er mit seinem Bruder Max erste Erfahrungen in den Bergen. Er wurde von dem Berner Bergführer Christan Jossi ausgebildet. Seine Vorliebe galt dem Klettern ohne Bergführer und war deshalb unter den britischen Alpinisten nicht unumstritten.
1907 zog er nach Zürich und wurde Mitglied und später Präsident des Akademischen Alpenclub Zürich. Als der Krieg ausbrach, verlegte er seinen Wohnsitz nach London.
Finch war Mitglied der zweiten britischen Expedition am Mount Everest unter der Leitung von Brigadier Charles G. Bruce. Er hatte zuvor mit Georges Dreyer umfangreiche Versuche an der Universität Glasgow zum Einsatz von Flaschensauerstoff unternommen, einschließlich Versuchen in Unterdruckkammern, in denen Höhen von 9000 bis 10000 Meter simuliert werden konnten. In der Folge dieser Versuche wurde Finch zum überzeugendsten Verfechter des Einsatzes der sogenannten ?englischen Luft", ein Bonmot, das die Sherpas der 1922er Expedition dann zum Flaschensauerstoff prägten. Finchs medizinische Untersuchungen zum Einsatz von Flaschensauerstoff in der Todeszone blieben bis 1980 entscheidend für viele weitere Expeditionen an den 8000ern. Selbst den skeptischen George Mallory hatten die Leistungen Finchs und anderer beim versuchsweisen Gehen mit Sauerstoff in großen Höhen so überzeugt, dass der letzte Gipfelversuch Mallorys mit Sauerstoff erfolgte - derjenige Versuch, bei dem Mallory und sein Begleiter Andrew Irvine ums Leben kamen.
Am 23. Mai 1922 erreichten George Finch und Captain J. Geoffrey Bruce, der Vetter des Expeditionsleiters, mit Sauerstoff eine damalige Rekordhöhe von ca. 8330 Meter von der Nordseite des Mount Everest, bevor sie umkehrten. Er überwarf sich mit dem Everest-Komitee nach 1922 wegen Streitigkeiten um Buch- und Vortragshonorare und nahm in der Folge nicht an der Expedition 1924 an den Everest teil.
Auch die gefütterte Daunenjacke wurde vom Chemiker George Finch erfunden. Ursprüglich hatte Finch die Daunenjacke für die britische Everest-Expedition im Jahre 1922 entwickelt.
In den Alpen war Finch Erstbegeher der Nordwand-Diagonalen "Finch Route" am Dent d'Hérens, die er zusammen mit T. G. B. Forster und R. Peto am 2. August 1923 bestieg.
Finch wurde 1938 zum Mitglied ("Fellow") der Royal Society erwählt und gewann 1944 die Hughes-Medaille. Er war ein lebenslanger Verfechter und Unterstützer des Alpine Club, obwohl ihm in den 1920er Jahren ein Teil der Mitglieder wegen seiner einfachen Herkunft, seiner Erziehung abseits der englischen Schulen und seinem Benehmen als Einzelgänger und ?Führerloser? der Berge der Alpen kritisch gegenüberstand. Finch wurde 1959 auch Präsident des Londoner Alpine Clubs.
1911 1.Beg.Aiguille du Midi-Südsüdwestgrat "Cosmiquesgrat",IV,200 Hm,3842m, (Montblancgebiet)
1911 1.Beg.Monte Rosa-Ostwand,4634m, (Walliser Alpen)
1913 1.Beg.Täschhorn-Nordgrat,4491m, (Walliser Alpen)
1922 Best.Vers.Mount Everest über Nordseite bis 8330m,8848m, (Himalaya,Nepal/Tibet)
1922 1.Beg.Dent d'Herens-Nordabstürze "Finch-Terrasse" bis Ostgratschulter,4171m, (Walliser Alpen)
1923 Beg.Dent d'Herens-Nordwand Diagonale "Finch Route",4171m, (Walliser Alpen)
1.Beg.Pollux-Gesamter Nordgrat,4092m, (Walliser Alpen)
Gerd Schauer, Isny im Allgäu
Quelle: SAC Die Alpen 1971, Seite 51
Quelle: Rivista Mensile Volume 92, 1971, Seite 442
Quelle: CAF, LA Montagne 1971/72, Seite 266
George Ingle Finch 1888-1970
Professor G. I. Finch, who died in November 1970, will be remembered as the first exponent of oxygen on Everest, where he was a member of the 1922 expedition, and where he reached a then record height of 27,300 ft [8321 m].
He was born in New South Wales and was educated first at Wolaroi College and later at the Ecole de Medicine, Paris, with the idea of becoming a doctor. He changed over, however, to the study of the physical sciences and went to the Swiss Federal High School at Zurich, and later to Geneva University. In 1912 he was appointed research chemist at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, but left to join Imperial College the following year. He served throughout the First World War in France, Egypt and Salonika, being awarded the M.B.E. in 1917. He returned to Imperial College after the War, and was to hold the Chair of Applied Physical Chemistry there from 1936 to 1952.
He started mountaineering at Zurich, with climbs he later described in his book The Making of a Mountaineer (1924). In 1909 he accomplished a first ascent of Castor by the North face; in 1911, with his brother Max, he made the first ascent of the South South-west ridge of the Aiguille du Midi, and in 1913 the Bifertenstock by the West ridge, with his friend Smith-Barry. These and other climbs were significant in that they attracted the notice of J. P. Farrar, President of the A.C., when the first feelers were being put out for an expedition to Mount Everest. As early as March 1919 Farrar had earmarked Finch as a potential Everest climber, and he was picked to go in 1921. As a notable iceman, Finch was a supplement to Mallory's rock-climbing abilities, as well as being able to handle the oxygen problem.
As is well known, Finch was rejected by the doctors in 1921, and a replacement had to be found at short notice. A part cause of his unfitness may have been the after-effects of a drastic cure he had undergone in France for the malaria he had contracted during the war. In the light of the two doctors' reports, Wollaston, the M.O. of the expedition, had little option but to recommend a substitute. It was galling, but Finch had a notable season in the Alps that year and was passed fit for the 1922 Everest party, when he proved the value of oxygen on his great attempt on the summit with Geoffrey Bruce.*) The party's experiences at their highest camp (7772 m) were severe, and they made their final climb (to quote Finch's words) 'having had practically no rest for two nights and a day, half starved and suffering acutely from hunger'. Despite this, they reached a point some 100 m higher than that reached by the first assault party, and were able to descend 6000 ft to Camp 3 the same day.
Finch was much exhausted by the effort, and joined a party going home early. His relations with the Everest Committee later became strained, and he was not invited on future expeditions, and did not, in fact, climb in the Himalaya again. In his book (though not in the A.J.) he was critical of the route chosen via the North Col, and laimed that Raeburn in 1921 had been right in stating that the North-east ridge from the Rapiu La was the correct one.**) The 1935 Reconnaissance party examined this, and turned it down decisively.
Finch made other notable ascents in the Alps than those already mentioned, in 1921 re-opening the Eccles route on Mont Blanc from the Freney glacier, and in 1923 making the ascent of the North face of the Dent d'Herens.
In 1931, during an ascent of the Jungfrau from the Rottal side, one of Finch's companions, R. H. K. Peto, fell to his death (A.J. 43 409); thereafter Finch seems almost to have dropped climbing and taken to sailing. But he played an active part in the discussions in the A.C. in 1936 over the reconstitution of the Mount Everest Committee. In A.J. 39 292 he contributed an article on ascents in Corsica in 1909. He maintained his interest in oxygen, and in June 1952 he lectured to the Royal Institution on Man at High Altitudes, emphasising his points with his 1922 apparatus. His ideas on oxygen were in advance of his time in 1922, being an advocate of its use at a relatively low altitude to prevent deterioration, rather than as a stimulant when deterioration had set in. Though always accessible to new ideas, Finch was in the main a fine exponent of the old-fashioned type of icemanship, relying on expert use of an ice-axe, and he had reservations on the employment of crampons. He had been a keen ski-mountaineer in the pioneer phase. In his book he underrated the value of climbing on British hills, as he himself freely admitted in his Valedictory Address to the Club (A.J. 67 - 7).
He was elected to the A.C. in November 1922: he served on the Committee in 1940-2, was Vice-President from 1949 to 1950 and President 1959-61. He was also Chairman of the Mount Everest Foundation from 1959 to 1961. He founded the Imperial College Mountaineering Club, one of the first university climbing clubs. His distinguished scientific career is interestingly summarised in his obituary notice in The Times of 24 November 1970. He was elected F.R.S. in 1938; on retiring from Imperial College, he was appointed Director of the National Chemical Laboratory of India from 1952 to 1957.
Finch married in 1921, and our member R. Scott Russell is his son-in-law. To his widow and family the Alpine Club expresses their sense of the great loss they have sustained by the death of this notable mountaineer.
T. S. Blakeney
T. A. H. Peacocke writes:
As I have known George Finch for over forty years, I would like to add a small tribute to his memory. My first real contact with him was in 1929 when he came, with several of his friends to help the O.D.M.C. on our summer meet in the Bregaglia and Engadine. I was privileged to be on his rope on two occasions, both simple ascents, but I was able to watch his beautiful rhythmic movements on both snow and rock, and I learnt a lot on those two days. He joined us again in 1930 in the T6di group, when we had a combined meet with the Imperial College Mountaineering Club. Once again his presence was a real asset as he knew the district like 'the back of his hand'.
His book, “The Making of a Mountaineer”, was my guide to technique from my earliest days and largely influenced me in favour of snow and ice ascents rather than rock. I always remembered and used his directions on the art of step-cutting in ice, involving direct rather than diagonal ascent, and economy of effort. This technique helped me on many occasions involving steep ice ascents, in time, effort and safety. These were before the days of ice-pitons.
George Finch was a great force in the mountaineering world and always defended passionately what he believed to be right. I shall never forget the first meeting which I attended at the A.C. when the oxygen controversy was at its height, and George made a characteristically vigorous defence of the use of oxygen for the forthcoming 1933 Everest venture.
Though rather a stern figure in his middle years, he mellowed with age and I shall always remember him with deep affection coupled with the greatest respect, for I owe him much.
B. R. Goodfellow writes:
Those who came to know George Finch only in his later life soon realized that the fire of his character, of which one had long been aware from familiaritywith his writings was, if mellowed, far from extinct.
It was indeed a privilege, for mountaineers especially, to stay at his flat above the National Chemical Laboratory of India outside Poona. There by day one saw what a great service he was performing in the training of Indian scientists. It was something novel, for some of them at least, to be subjected to the towering personality of such a man; to his iron discipline and his absolute insistence on integrity in research. By evening there was all the world of mountains to discuss.
Back in England his home in North Oxfordshire was again a delight to visit; the walls lined with his superlative Everest photographs, his workshop a substitute for his old laboratory, and his garden a model of scientific application.
He attended A.C. meetings frequently, and long after his term as President. He thought nothing of driving back to his home late on winter nights when well into his seventies. He will be remembered for his comments after lectures on the Himalaya, when invariably he insisted on the importance of oxygen. To those of less experience he may have seemed obsessed. But surely he has been proved right. It was bad luck that on Everest 1922 shortage of oxygen frustrated the trials he had planned. Yet its indispensibility was surely proved by Finch's sensational revival of Geoffrey Bruce by oxygen when close to total exhaustion at 27,000 ft, of which Percy Farrar wrote 'Finch's party added a page to the history of Everest that need fear no comparison'. It must be remembered too how much Finch contributed to the 1953 Everest
success.
Back in England his home in North Oxfordshire was again a delight to visit; the walls lined with his superlative Everest photographs, his workshop a substitute for his old laboratory, and his garden a model of scientific application.
*) The oxygen apparatus was primitive, and Finch showed great skill and ingenuity in
overcoming defects.
**) Raeburn had based his opinion on a print he had seen, howing the North-east ridge and the North Col as viewed from the Lhakpa La (see: A.J. 34-210), but printed the wrong way round. As a result, Raeburn's left-hand ridge that he favoured was really that from the North Col. in rverse; and he could not be covinced otherwise. His failure to grasp this was one of the reasons why the late G. H. Bullock concluded that Raeburn's mind was weakening. Finch's opinion on the matter is curious.
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 77, 1972, Seite 287-290
George Ingle Finch 1888-1970
George Finch was endowed with the qualities-physical, mental and moral-required for the making of a superb climber and mountaineer. Co-ordination, speed, strength in hands and legs, determination, persistence, and courage were all impressive. He had the good fortune to be brought to Switzerland with his younger brother Max at an early age for schooling, and to be encouraged to climb by his mother, herself a former climber who saw to it that the boys had the best of formal instruction and training by a first-rate guide.
Realising the necessity of acquiring knowledge and skill before they could tackle large peaks on their own, the boys worked long and hard to attain competence in the art of mountaineering and all connected with it: knowledge of weather and its effect on snow and ice, the qualities of different kinds of rocks, the use of the Siegfried map, and the reaction of the climber to cold and altitude. This intellectual attitude struck me forcibly when I first climbed with George and Max as a learner. They formed a perfect team, George the more brilliant with more nervous energy; Max as fine a mountaineer, remarkable for his steadiness and even temper under all conditions.
On a mountain George gave the impression of being always master of his surroundings. His route-finding and eye for ground were excellent, results of his study of mountain form. On rock his strength was more apparent than grace of movement. He climbed very fast, going straight through from stance to stance, using holds far apart, without pause, rarely hesitating and almost never retracing a step. He seemed able to test each hold without loss of motion, for I never saw a weighted one come away under hand or foot.
On ice he was superb, cutting steps far apart very fast with a minimum of powerful strokes. On steep ice he liked to cut straight up with his backer-up only a step behind and moving with him. His lead on the Marinelli route on Monte Rosa in the very dry year of 1911 with step cutting from the Imseng rocks to the ridge of the Grenzgipfel was a perfect example of this technique.
When Finch was President of the Akademischer Alpen Club Zürich, in 1911, there were many notable climbers both active, that is students, and Alte Herren in the membership. Individualism was characteristic and to become President was a mark of the confidence and liking of his peers.
George Finch's relations with other climbers were not always harmonious and he was sometimes regarded as being overbearing and a difficult climbing companion. He was apt to be critical of the leadership of others, but with few exceptions his relations with really first class climbers were excellent. When in 1911 Val Fynn and Ernesto Martini invited us to join forces with them on the Zmuttgrat it was interesting to see how George, then President of the Akademischer Alpen Club of Zürich, admired and deferred to these more experienced climbers, and to see their respect for his ability. George led one of the ropes with me in the middle on the more difficult parts of the climb. It was on this occasion, descending the Italian ridge, that we came upon a party of four off the route, stuck, unable to move in a situation of some danger. After depositing them safely on the route George's blistering remarks shocked them into life. He was outspoken in his criticisms of those who undertook climbs beyond their ability through failure to judge the difficulties of a climb or knowledge of their own capacity, and of those who followed others and found themselves in trouble. He was sympathetic to those whose skill or physical ability was below his standards and to those who had an unavoidable accident-or perhaps a moment of carelessness. while George was cutting across an ice-groove in the Marinelli couloir and I was lighting his way, I dropped the candle lantern but was fortunate to recover it without losing my footing. All George said was 'Don't do many more things like that, man'.
He liked to help and train aspiring young climbers and was very patient with them. It was not until long afterwards that I realised that on the first climbs I did with him he was giving me systematic training of a varied nature. It was very sad that his climbing came to an end at such an early age due to his feeling that his physical powers were not what they had been. The picture I have of George in action is of a man of relentless energy, sure of himself, equal to all emergencies, moving ever upward and onward.
John C. Case
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 78, 1973, Seite 283-285
Geboren am:
04.08.1888
Gestorben am:
22.11.1970