Bentley Beetham

Bentley Beetham (1 May 1886 – 5 April 1963) was an English mountaineer, ornithologist and photographer, and a member of the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition.

Early life Beetham was born in Darlington in 1886, the second son of James Weighell Beetham and Frances Elizabeth Beetham. His mother's maiden name was Bentley.

Career For some years after leaving school Beetham worked in an architect's office in Darlington, then from 1903 to 1914 he was busy with field research, writing books and articles, photography and giving lectures. A Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, in 1927 he was elected a member of the Royal Geographical Society. He retired in 1949, and moved to Cotherstone in County Durham. His ashes were scattered from the top of Shepherd's Crag, Borrowdale. In his 2012 book Into the Silence, Wade Davis argues that Beetham – whom he considered an ill-advised selection for the expedition – prevented the most qualified and promising English climber of the period, Richard Graham, from joining. Graham had been a conscientious objector during the First World War, which became the basis of a whispering campaign by Beetham, even though Beetham had not fought himself.

By contrast, Somervell wrote, in an obituary to Beetham, that "the whole expedition was severely handicapped by having our best climber forced into inactivity" It was during this expedition that Beetham took his highly regarded photographs of Tibet.

Beetham made numerous expeditions to other ranges in the world, including the Tatra Mountains of Czechoslovakia, Chile, the Drakensberg, the Lofoten islands and Spitsbergen. He is most associated with the High Atlas mountains of Morocco, which he visited on five occasions.

Beetham's name is familiar to anyone who climbs in the Borrowdale valley in the Lake District. He made the first ascent, often solo, of numerous classic climbs in the valley, including "Little Chamonix" and "Corvus", and wrote the third edition of the Fell & Rock Climbing Club guidebook to the valley, published in 1953. The 1990 guide to the valley notes that Beetham, "with the Goldsborough Club of Barnard Castle School, surveyed every sizable crag in the valley, working out well over a hundred routes with a wide range of difficulty".

Bentley Beetham Trust A collection of Beetham's photographs – those he took in Tibet on the 1924 expedition, considered "an important historical record of Tibetan culture", as well as photographs of Barnard Castle, Teesdale, the Alps, the Atlas and Tatra mountains – is held in Palace Green Library next to Durham Cathedral. The collection is supervised by the Bentley Beetham Trust in conjunction with the University of Durham.