Summers Geoffrey

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Biografie:
Geoffrey Summers 1891-1972
Geoffrey Summers was elected to the Club in April 1947. He was educated at Uppingham and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, taking an honours degree in engineering, as well as showing himself to be a first-class pianist. Summers's mountain experiences commenced with fell-walking in the Lake District and Scotland, as well as pot-holing in Derbyshire, before and after the First World War, and during periods of leave from war service in the Royal Engineers. But in 1920 he was climbing with George Abraham in Skye, and in 1921 he accompanied the Abraham brothers to the Dolomites, accomplishing Cinque Torri, Croda da Lago (E face), Kleine Zinne (in part), and other climbs. He was again in the Dolomites in 1922 and 1927, with 1924 an intermediate season spent at Zermatt and Chamonix.
In 1923 he joined the Merton College Arctic Expedition, led by George (later Sir George) Binney, and including friends from that College, Andrew C. (Sandy) Irvine, Geoffrey Milling and others, as well as 'outsiders', of whom the writer was privileged to be one, as leader of inland exploration. Geoffrey Summers was not in my sledging party for the latter activity, but on our return to northern Norway we had, together with Irvine and Milling, a most enjoyable expedition into the fine mountains of Finmark, and climbed Jaeggevaare (1915 m) under memorable conditions of prolonged autumn Alpenglühen.
In 1925 he paid a visit to South America and the Andes, and above Puente del Inca he climbed a foothill peak in the Horcones valley just below Aconcagua; and in 1932, when in Canada, a brief visit to the Rockies and Lake Louise enabled him to climb a small rock peak, but to fail in an attempt on Mount Victoria, owing to heavy snowfall.
My own climbing with him was largely on the crags of Snowdonia, under summer and winter conditions, where he showed himself to be a very competent and careful climber, particularly as second on the rope. His generosity to his companions was outstanding, a notable example being in 1935, when he invited my wife and me to be his guests at Sligachan for many delightful climbs in the Cuillin Hills of Skye. It was very unfortunate that in 1943 an attack of cerebro-spinal meningitis left him with a permanently weakened right arm, which, however, did not prevent his following me up the Horned Crag climb on Lliwedd a few years later. He was a keen member of the Climbers' Club and of the Arctic Club, and he attended most of their meetings and dinners, particularly of the Northern Committee of the former on which he served. But latterly he was sadly crippled, having been paralysed down his left side for over three years, following a stroke.
Professionally, Geoffrey was an engineer, and for many years he served as a director of the family firm, John Summers & Sons, Ltd, steel manufacturers. As The Times related in its obituary of him on 18 January 1972, he did very important public work, for which he received a CBE in 1942 and a baronetcy in 1952. He married twice, and leaves a widow of the second marriage, but no heir to the baronetcy.
N. E. Odell
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 78, 1973, Seite 292


Geboren am:
1891
Gestorben am:
18.01.1972