Andrew Irvine (mountaineer)
Andrew Comyn "Sandy" Irvine was a British mountaineer who took part in the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition, the third British expedition to the world's highest mountain. He and his climbing partner George Mallory disappeared somewhere high on the mountain's Northeast Ridge, and were reportedly last seen alive at an indeterminate distance from the summit. Mallory's body was found in 1999, and Irvine's partial remains were discovered in 2024.
Early life
Irvine was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, one of six children of historian William Fergusson Irvine and Lilian Davies-Colley. His father's family had Scottish and Welsh roots, while his mother was from an old Cheshire family. He was a cousin of journalist and writer Lyn Irvine, and also of pioneering female surgeon Eleanor Davies Colley and of political activist Harriet Shaw Weaver.He was educated at Birkenhead School and Shrewsbury School, where he demonstrated a natural engineering acumen, able to improvise fixes or improvements to almost anything mechanical. During the First World War, he created a small stir at the War Office by sending them a design for a synchronisation gear to allow a machine gun to fire from a propeller-driven aeroplane through the propeller without damaging its blades, and also a design for a gyroscopic stabiliser for aircraft.
He was also a keen sportsman and particularly excelled at rowing. His prodigious ability as a rower made him a star of the 1919 'Peace Regatta' at Henley with the Royal Shrewsbury School Boat Club, and propelled him to Merton College, Oxford, to study engineering. At Oxford, he joined the Oxford University Mountaineering Club, and was also a member of the Oxford crew for the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race in 1922 and a member of the winning crew in 1923, the only time Oxford won between 1913 and 1937.
Irvine had an affair with a former chorus girl named Marjory Agnes Standish Summers. Marjory was married to the steel magnate Henry Hall Summers and was 33 years younger than her husband. Summers was one of the sons of founder John Summers, of John Summers & Sons, a steel company. While Irvine was on Everest, Henry began divorce proceedings against Marjory.
Everest expedition
In 1923, Irvine took part in the Merton College Arctic Expedition to Spitsbergen which was led by George Binney; Irvine excelled on every front. Other mountaineers on the expedition were Tom Longstaff and Noel Odell. Irvine discovered that he and Odell had met in 1919 when Irvine had ridden his motorcycle to the top of Foel Grach, a 3,000-foot-high Welsh mountain, and surprised Odell and his wife Mona, who had climbed it on foot. Subsequently, on Odell's recommendation, Irvine was invited to join the forthcoming third British Mount Everest expedition on the grounds that he might be the "superman" that the expedition felt it needed. He was at the time still a 21-year-old undergraduate student.Irvine set sail for the Himalaya from Liverpool on board SS California on 29 February 1924, along with three other members of the expedition, George Mallory, Bentley Beetham, and John de Vars Hazard. Mallory later wrote home to his wife that Irvine "could be relied on for anything except perhaps conversation".
During the expedition, he made major and crucial innovations to the expedition's professionally designed oxygen sets, radically improving their functionality, lightness, and strength. He also maintained the expedition's cameras, camp beds, primus stoves, and many other devices. He was universally popular, and respected by his older colleagues for his ingenuity, companionability, and unstinting hard work.
The expedition made two unsuccessful attempts on the summit in early June, and time remained for only one more before the heavy snowfall that came with the summer monsoon would make climbing too dangerous. This last chance fell to the expedition's most experienced climber, George Mallory. To the surprise of other expedition members, Mallory chose the 22-year-old inexperienced Irvine above the older, more seasoned climber, Noel Odell. Irvine's proficiency with the oxygen equipment was obviously a major factor in Mallory's decision, but some debate has occurred ever since about the precise reasons for his choice.
Mallory and Irvine began their ascent from the North Col on 6 June, and by the end of the next day, the pair had reached Camp VI—previously established by Edward Norton and
Howard Somervell—a final two-man camp at, from which they would make their final push for the summit. What time they departed on 8 June is unknown, but circumstantial evidence suggests that they did not have the smooth, early start that Mallory had hoped for.
Odell, who was acting in a supporting role, reported seeing them at 12:50 pm—much later than expected—ascending what he believed was the Second Step of the Northeast Ridge and "going strongly for the top," although in the years that followed, exactly which of the Three Steps Odell had sighted the pair climbing became extremely controversial.
Traces on the ridge
Discovery of the ice axe
On 30 May 1933, nine years after the disappearance of Mallory and Irvine, Percy Wyn-Harris, a member of the fourth British Everest Expedition, discovered an ice axe at around, about below the crest of the Northeast Ridge and some east of the First Step. It was found lying loose on brown 'boiler-plate' slabs of rock, which though not particularly steep, were smooth and in places had a covering of loose pebbles. The Swiss manufacturer's name matched those of a number supplied to the 1924 expedition, and since only Mallory and Irvine had climbed that high along the ridge route, it must have belonged to one of them.Hugh Ruttledge, leader of the 1933 expedition, speculated that the ice axe marked the scene of a fall, during which it was either accidentally dropped or that its owner put it down, possibly to have both hands free to hold the rope.
Noel Odell, the last man to see Mallory and Irvine on their ascent in 1924, offered a more benign explanation: that the ice axe had merely been placed there on the ascent to be collected on the way back since the climbing ahead was almost entirely on rock under the prevailing conditions.
In 1963, a characteristic triple nick mark on a military swagger stick, found among Andrew Irvine's possessions, was found to match a similar mark on the ice axe's shaft, suggesting the axe belonged to Irvine. In an interview with PBS, Wyn Harris, who discovered the ice axe, claimed, "When I picked up the axe there was no mark on it. The cross, over which there has been so much controversy, was not put on either by Mallory or Irvine. It was in fact cut by my personal Sherpa porter, Kusang Pugla, who did it under threats from me that it must not be lost or mixed up with other axes."
Discovery of the oxygen cylinder
On 15 May 1991, a 1924 oxygen cylinder was discovered by Eric Simonson at approximately, some higher and closer to the First Step than the ice axe found in 1933.Since only Mallory and Irvine had been on the Northeast Ridge in 1924, this oxygen cylinder marked the minimum altitude they must have reached on their final climb. The oxygen cylinder was recovered on 17 May 1999.
Discovery of Mallory
On 1 May 1999, Mallory's body was found at by the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition, in a funnel-shaped basin on the "8,200m Snow Terrace," some below and about horizontal to the location of the ice axe found in 1933. The remains of a rope still encircled his waist, which exhibited serious haemorrhaging, indicative of a strong rope-jerk injury, and strongly suggesting that at some point either Mallory or Irvine fell while they were still roped together. Mallory was found with relatively few major injuries, compared to a number of modern climbers who had fallen the full distance from the Northeast Ridge and who were found to have sustained numerous fractures, suggesting he had survived this initial fall, and suffered a further accident. A golf ball-sized puncture wound in his forehead seemed to be the likely cause of death, and could have been inflicted by an ice axe. It has subsequently been speculated that an injured Mallory was descending in a self-arrest "glissade," sliding down the slope while dragging his ice axe in the snow to control the speed of his descent, and that his ice axe may have struck a rock and bounced off, striking him fatally.A search of the body revealed two pieces of circumstantial evidence that suggested that Mallory might have possibly reached the summit:
- Firstly, Mallory's daughter had always said that Mallory carried a photograph of his wife on his person with the intention of leaving it on the summit when he reached it, and no such photograph was found on the body. Given the excellent state of preservation of the body and the artifacts recovered from it, the absence of the photograph suggests that he may have reached the summit and deposited it there.
- Secondly, Mallory's snow goggles were in his pocket when the body was found, indicating that he died at night, that he and Irvine had made a push for the summit and were descending very late in the day. Given their known departure time and movements, had they not made the summit, it is unlikely that they would have still been out by nightfall.
The search revealed no trace of the two Vest Pocket Kodak cameras that Irvine's diaries said he and Mallory were carrying, leading to speculation that one or more of the cameras might yet be found with Irvine's body. Experts from Kodak have said that there is a good chance that the cameras' black-and-white film could be developed to produce "printable images", due to its chemical nature and its likely preservation in subzero temperatures. Such images could illuminate the fate of Mallory and Irvine.