Tilman , Harold William , 1898-1979 , Major , explorer and mountaineer

Born, 1898, education Berkhamsted School, 1909, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, 1915; Royal Field Artillery, 1915-1917; Royal Horse Artillery, 1917-1919; coffee planter, Kenya, 1919-1930; ascended the two peaks of Kilimanjaro (Kibo and Mawenzi) and Mount Kenya and the Ruwenzori range with Eric Shipton; returned to England, 1932; prospected for gold in Kenya and bicycled across Africa from Uganda to the west coast, 1933; reconnaissance of Nanda Devi, Himalayas with Eric Shipton, 1934; reconnaissance expedition to Mount Everest, 1935; climbed Nanda Devi, 1936; explored and mapped a little-known area of the Karakoram; 1937; leader of the 1938 Mount Everest expedition; rejoined the Royal Artillery, 1939; Special Operations Executive, 1943-1945; attempted Rakaposhi in the Karakoram and Muztagh Ata in the Chinese Pamirs, 1947; travelled across China to the Chitral with Eric Shipton; 1948; explored in Nepal, 1949; expedition to Annapurna IV in Nepal and accompanied Charles Houston on the first ever approach to Everest from the south up the Khumbu glacier, 1950; British consul at Maymyo in Burma, 1952; returned to Britain and took up sailing: voyage to Patagonia, crossing the Patagonian ice-cap and circumnavigating South America, 1955-1956; circumnavigated Africa, 1957-1958; sailed to the Crozet Islands and Kerguelen Island in the southern Indian Ocean, 1959-1960; series of voyages to east Greenland, 1961-1974; expedition led by Simon Richardson to Smith Island in the South Shetlands, 1977-1979, on which he died, 1979. Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), 1935-1977; awarded the RGS Founder's Medal, 1952.