Beatrice Tomasson

Beatrice Tomasson (25 April 1859 – 13 February 1947) was an English mountaineer. She climbed extensively in the Dolomites and made the first ascent of the south face of the Marmolada in 1901.

Biography

Early life Beatrice Tomasson was born in 1859 to William and Sarah Anne Tomasson, in Barnby Moor, Nottinghamshire; she was their second child. At ten years old, Tomasson and her family moved to Ireland. They lived in Gortnamona, a property near Tullamore, County Offaly.

In 1882, when she was 22 years old, Tomasson travelled to Potsdam, then part of Prussia, to work as a private tutor for the household of Prussian army General von Bülow. Unsuccessfully, she tried to translate and publish Felix Dahn's four-volume novel A Struggle for Rome from German to English. She and Cäcilie Wüstenburg later wrote and translated The Chimes of Erfurt: A Tale, which was published in 1885. From 1892, she worked as a governess for Edward Lisle Strutt, whom she accompanied on numerous expeditions to Tyrol, Ötztal, the Stubai Alps and the Karwendel range. Despite Tommason being 15 years older than Strutt the family believed they were romantically involved. Tomasson became a member of the Austrian Alpine Club in 1893 and began to attempt major climbs in the Dolomites from 1896 onwards. She returned to Britain in 1912 where she devoted her time to horse riding and hunting. She married Patrick Chalmers Mackenzie in 1921, when she was 61 years old, and they settled in his Sussex estate, where Tomasson died in 1947 at the age of 87.