05-07-2025
Matterhon climber was haunted by tragedy — and a vicious letter
Edward Whymper was celebrated as the first climber to reach the summit of the Matterhorn, although the triumph was marred by the deaths of four of his party.
For the remainder of his life he was tormented by both the tragedy and the authorship of a poison pen letter, which he believed was connected with a prominent rival.
His celebrated account of the climb, which is being republished on the 160th anniversary of the expedition, includes for the first time a copy of the abusive letter and a second note that shows the mountaineer was still hunting for the author 41 years later.
Whymper was 25 when he led the expedition in the Swiss Alps in July 1865. During the descent back to Zermatt on July 14 a rope severed, leading to the deaths of Lord Francis Douglas, 18, the son of the Marquess of Queensbury; The Reverend Charles Hudson, 36, a celebrated British climber; his protégé Douglas Hadow, 19, the son of the chairman of the P&O shipping company; and a local guide, Michel Croz, 35.
Whymper was the only British survivor, along with the local guides Peter Taugwalder and his son of the same name. The rope was severed between the elder Taugwalder and Lord Douglas. There were suggestions, which were never proven, that it was deliberately cut to prevent all of the party being dragged to their deaths.
In a letter to The Times, Whymper described Hadow slipping, knocking over Croz and then dragging Hudson and Lord Douglas with them.
'We held; but the rope broke mid way between Taugwalder and Lord F Douglas,' he wrote. 'For two or three seconds we saw our unfortunate companions sliding downwards on their backs, and spreading out their hands endeavouring to save themselves; they then disappeared one by one, and fell … we remained on the spot without moving a single step.'
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After Whymper made an appeal in The Times for the families of the guides he received an anonymous letter which was to aggravate him for the remainder of his life. The correspondence is published for the first time in the 2025 edition of The Ascent of the Matterhorn.
The letter, sent from Winchester and dated August 25, 1865, begins: 'I enclose what I believe to be the full damage actually sustained to society by the late loss of life on the Matterhorn or Madder-horn (?) peak.
'The view of The Times and the opinions being expressed in that paper by an intelligent 'Swiss' coincide with my own, and with the general opinion of the English public.
'The fact is that the members of the 'Alpine Club' are generally a vain set … Vanity — the love of notoriety — a morbid hankering for the applause of the 'stupid starers'…
'Professor Tyndall is an exception — he risks his life, and nobly, for science and truth. But what benefit do the ordinary mountain-climbers confer on anybody? None.'
The letter was signed 'Anti-Humbug', with a PS reading 'I did not read your own 'whimpering' account'.
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Was it just coincidence that the poison-pen letter referenced Whymper's great rival, Professor John Tyndall, an Irish experimental physicist, who had made a failed attempt on the summit before strongly discouraging Whymper from making the ascent? The letter obviously rankled as 41 years later Whymper was still seeking to identify the writer.
He contacted Frederick Morshead, a fellow member of the Alpine Club who reached the top of the Matterhorn at least five times, and asked for help in identifying the writer. Morshead was housemaster at Winchester College and founder of the school's Morshead House.
Morshead replied on February 2, 1907: 'After the lapse of so many years I am afraid that I am unable to give you any clue which might help you to find out the author of the enclosed document.
'From the handwriting — which is not at all the Wykhamist type — and the style — which hardly carries out the Wykhamist motto of 'Manners maketh man' — I should say that it certainly does not come from anybody connected with the college.'
Whymper died four years later apparently without discovering the identity of the troll.
The deaths, particularly of the young aristocrat, caused outrage in Victorian society. Charles Dickens condemned climbing as 'greater folly than gambling' with 'nothing to win but an empty boast'. Queen Victoria even suggested to William Gladstone, the prime minister, that mountaineering should be outlawed. The dramatic story inspired writers including Thomas Hardy, Mark Twain and Alphonse Daudet.
The debate was extensively reported in The Times, which asked: 'Why is the best blood of England to waste itself in scaling hitherto inaccessible peaks, in staining the eternal snow and reaching the unfathomable abyss never to return?'
Martin Rynja, the publisher of the new edition of Whymper's account by Gibson Square, said it was clear that the reference in the poison-pen letter to Tyndall 'stung Whymper deeply'.
'As an autodidact who left school at 14, he seems to have been deeply conflicted about the fact that his fame was based on scandal rather than science like Professor Tyndall,' Rynja said. 'Despite the scathing tone, the letter writer's position is nuanced compared to the public outcry. The invective is entirely aimed at Whymper and other 'humbugs' of the Alpine Club.
'However, the letter is highly partisan and extols beyond any reproach the same effort undertaken a few years earlier by Whymper's rival Professor Tyndall purely because it was further to the 'noble' pursuit of Tyndall's scientific interests.
'This distinction appears not to have been made or discussed in the press and suggests a proximity to Tyndall close enough to be well informed about Tyndall's minor research interest.'
The forward to the new edition is written by Theresa May, the former prime minister, who describes Whymper's expedition as having 'defined the relationship between Britain and the Alps and opened up Alpinism to the rest of the world'.
May is a regular visitor to Zermatt and, after leaving Downing Street, said she was considering writing a novel about the expedition. She said the reason why the rope broke 'is an interesting question'.
'We can only imagine the mixed emotions of triumph and grief that Whymper felt writing about his greatest mountaineering achievement while mourning the death of his friend Croz and the loss of three other lives,' she writes in the foreword.
'He had tamed the mountain, but in its own way the mountain had tamed him. What we do know is that this important ascent was to change the course of history for Zermatt and its people, change the relationship of the British with the Alps and leave a lasting legacy for mountaineering.'
