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Sandy Irvine was not the obvious choice as George Mallory’s climbing partner. He was only 22 and had almost no climbing or mountaineering experience.
Other members of the 1924 Everest Expedition said that it was a strange decision.
Edward Norton wondered why George didn’t choose Noel Odell, who was acclimatized, familiar with the oxygen apparatus, and an experienced climber. John Noel’s recollections show that Sandy was not in good health and was breathing heavily.
In Everest, a Mountaineering History, Walt Unsworth asks if George chose Sandy because he “liked” him.
“That [Mallory] did like him was beyond doubt: he had shared a dining table with him on the voyage out and had wanted to share a cabin too, but Hazard had been allocated the berth already. But did the springs of motivation go deeper? Had Mallory formed a romantic attachment for the handsome young undergraduate?”
Was George taking a beautiful young man up a mountain with him because he “liked” him?
Or was Sandy a competent and capable climbing partner?
George Chose Sandy As His Partner Early
On April 21, Sandy wrote in his diary:
“After dinner we were all allotted to our climbing parties [...]
Norton + Somervell 1st Non Ox climb
Mallory + Self 1st Ox climb
[...]
I’m awfully glad I’m with Mallory in the first lot but I wish ever so much that it was a Non Ox attempt.”
In the original plan, there would be four men doing the attempt, supporting each other in pairs (Norton + Somervell / Mallory + Irvine). George’s stated rationale for choosing Sandy as a partner was his oxygen expertise.
“Irvine has done the principal engineering work on the apparatus […] he has practically invented a new instrument […] so Irvine will come with me.”
“It must be Irvine”
The early plan didn’t work out because there were issues with bad weather and logistics. George ended up doing the first summit attempt with another climber, Geoffrey Bruce, without oxygen.
“Oxygen is condemned in order to save porters or Irvine & I would have been together.”
George and Geoffrey turned back, and the team ran a second non-oxygen attempt with Norton and Somervell, who also turned back. Norton became snowblind and Somervell almost choked to death on the inner lining of his throat. George then decided that he and Sandy would make one final attempt, with oxygen. Norton admired George’s initiative, but did not support George’s choice to take Sandy, particularly when Noel Odell also understood the oxygen systems and had mountaineering expertise.
In Everest, a Mountaineering History, Walt Unsworth explains:
“All the logic pointed to Odell as the man who should go with Mallory. But Mallory was adamant: it must be Irvine”.
However, Norton was exhausted and snowblind so he didn’t argue. “It was obviously no time for me to interfere with the composition of the party, and when I found that Mallory had completed his plans I made no attempt to do so.”
John Noel wrote that Mallory had only two companions to choose from: Sandy or Odell, because they were the oxygen experts. “Mallory chose Irvine [...]. Irvine had virtually taken charge of the oxygen apparatus.”
Noel remembered that Sandy was unwell. “He was anxious and worried about the machines; and, I think, the anxiety told heavily on him because he also was far from being in good condition. He breathed heavily and with labour. We all noticed it.”
But he said the same thing about George. “Mallory remained a great deal in his tent and sleeping-bag. He looked ill and in my opinion he was “an unfit man” when, some days later he started for the mountain with Irvine to make his last effort and to meet Death.”
These could be details that Noel noticed in retrospect, as Sandy’s diary does not describe these health concerns. “George & I both arrived at the camp very surprisingly fresh.”
Did George “like” Sandy?
I think that George probably was attracted to Sandy. George was queer, and he wrote about Sandy’s body, character, and his “nice” voice, which he said was similar to beautiful bisexual poet Rupert Brooke.
“a splendid specimen of a man; he rowed two years in the Oxford boat as a heavy weight & yet is not clumsily made at all – he is completely modest and has a nice voice which reminds me strangely of Rupert Brooke's”
Walt Unsworth wondered the same, and in 1977, he corresponded with George’s rumoured former lover, Duncan Grant, to ask if George was bisexual.
“Duncan Grant, who knew Mallory well, states emphatically that he was not and he suggests that the decision might well have been taken on aesthetic grounds. Given that Odell and Irvine were both good with the oxygen sets ‘it would have been characteristic of Mallory (with his own superb proportions) to choose, of two equal objects, the more beautiful’.”
OK. PAUSE.
Excuse me Duncan?
George wasn’t bisexual…but he chose Sandy because Sandy was more beautiful.
To be clear: Duncan Grant knew George was queer. George had moved in queer circles for a long time at Cambridge and as a young man. In 1966, Duncan had been upset that a biography of Lytton Strachey had published details about Lytton’s and Duncan’s gay relationships, and Duncan had even feared arrest because gay sex was illegal at the time. Could he have been trying to protect George’s “reputation”?
George the Mentor
Julie Summers, Sandy’s great-niece, wrote a detailed biography of Sandy and gives Sandy more agency in the Mallory–Irvine story. She emphasized Sandy’s engineering skills and how George picked Sandy as a climbing partner because of his oxygen expertise.
Summers denies, however, that George might have been attracted to Sandy. She writes:
“Through Irvine, George could also act out the counterpart of his relationship with Geoffrey Young and his other senior mentors, this time with George initiating a younger partner into the ways of mountaineering.”
Which is kind of hilarious, given that Geoffrey Winthrop Young was gay and in love with George.
Like her logic is: George and Sandy wasn’t a gay thing, it was just like [even more gay thing].
Finding Answers
I think we can conclude that George liked Sandy, and was likely attracted to him. Sandy literally seems like he was manufactured in a lab to be George’s type: young, attractive, athletic, competent, cheerful, nice Rupert Brooke voice. We can also see that Sandy was valued on the expedition, despite his inexperience, and that he was brilliant with technology.
When I started my research for this post, I had my thesis firmly in mind: that two truths can exist at once, and that George chose Sandy because he was good with oxygen AND because he liked him. But after looking into this further, I now think that George let his emotions override his logic.
I don’t think bringing a young man with essentially no climbing experience up Everest makes any sense, especially when Noel Odell was right there. Julie Summers’ work is important for showing Sandy’s capability, but just because Sandy was good at fixing oxygen equipment doesn’t mean he was a strong Himalayan climbing partner. The people closest in proximity and time – the actual expedition members, Duncan Grant, and Unsworth writing in the 1970s – all recognized that George made a strange decision.
I think George chose Sandy because he liked him.
George wanted Sandy beside him when they reached the top.
