Charles Pilkington

Charles Pilkington (1850–1918) was a British colliery engineer and mountaineer. In the Alps he was a pioneer of mountaineering without guides and made the first ascent of a number of peaks and several significant first guideless ascents. In the UK he made the first ascent of Sgùrr Dearg's Inaccessible Pinnacle on the Isle of Skye.

Biography Pilkington was born in St Helens on 18 August 1850, the son of Richard Pilkington (1795–1869) and his wife Anne (1812–1883), née Evans.

One of Charles Pilkington's younger brothers, Lawrence (1855–1941) was also a prominent mountaineer and one of his elder brothers was the conservative MP Richard Pilkington (1841–1908).

Charles Pilkington made his living as a colliery engineer, he married Mabel Fielden in 1884. and Hugh Brocklehurst (1886–1915) attended Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge. Both of them climbed with Charles in the alps Hugh was killed in action at Gallipoli in the Great War and Edward Fielden later became a director of two of the companies that his father had been involved with, the Pilkington Lancastrian Pottery and Tile Company and Manchester Collieries (into which Clifton and Kersley Coal Company had been subsumed),

Business Soon after leaving school Pilkington started working for Haydock Collieries, which were part of his grandfather's firm of Richard Evans & Sons (his mother Anne was the eldest daughter of Richard Evans (1778–1864)). Initially he worked as a fitter in the mechanics' shops where much of the machinery was made and repaired, this was the first step in his training as a colliery engineer. At the time Charles Pilkington was an assistant surveyor on the site and he was one of the first to go down the pit after the explosion, he was involved in clearing the roadways and trying to improve the ventilation so that they could access the workings and get the bodies out and for the next month he was in charge of one of the shifts working to restore the mine and complete the recovery of the bodies. In 1903 he was President of the Lancashire and Cheshire Coal Owners Association. Using the marl to make glazed bricks was considered but it was found to be more suitable for decorative glazed tiles its day-to-day management was in the hands of William Burton and his brother Joseph. In the early years of the 20th century the company became famous for its Lancastrian Lustre ware which was sold at Tiffany’s in New York and earned them a Royal Warrant.

UK climbing Pilkington climbed and walked regularly in the Lake District in the 1870s with Lawrence, George Eustace Hulton, Frederick Gardiner (who later married Pilkington's cousin, Alice Evans with Gardiner he had "been in the habit of wandering among the hills of Cumberland and Westmoreland at all periods of the year, but more especially in the winter season." Pilkington made his first visit to Skye in 1872, he was an enthusiastic angler, "an admirable salmon and trout fisher and an equally good shot and deer stalker",

In 1887 the Charles Pilkington was in the Skye Cuillin again and, with James Heelis, Horace Walker and the local mountain guide John MacKenzie, they made the first ascents of a number of unclimbed peaks in the Cuillin these included Clach Glas and Sgurr na h-Uamha and two unnamed peaks, one of these was then known simply as the north-east peak of Sgùrr Alasdair, they coined the name Sgùrr Theàrlaich, which is the Gaelic for Charlie's Peak, and that name is used to this day. The other peak they named as Sgùrr MhicChoinnich, which is the Gaelic for Mackenzie's Peak, after John MacKenzie, and that name has also been in regular use since then. He was also President of Rucksack Club for 1906/08 and he contributed the chapter "Hill Climbing in the British Isles" to the Mountaineering volume in the Badminton library. and they "made it into a respectable pursuit", "where difficulty, and possibly its accompanying danger, had to be met, he was the man to extricate his party well and safely". Their first foray was to the Dauphiné Alps, amongst the successes of that trip were the first guideless ascent of the Barre des Écrins and the first ascent of Pointe des Arcas. The trio made further guideless alpine ascents during the summers of 1879 and 1881, revisiting the Dauphiné and climbing in the Bernese Oberland and the Pennine Alps.

1881 was the final season that the Pilkingtons climbed with Gardiner, it was also the year that Gardiner married their cousin Alice Evans. The Pilkingtons continued to make significant alpine ascents without guides and in 1882, with George Eustace Hulton, they made the first guideless ascent of Piz Kesch, Piz Roseg & Monte Disgrazia (climbing Disgrazia by a new route via NE arete). and he was president of the Alpine Club from 1896 to 1898.

Significant ascents 1878 - First ascent of Pointe des Arcas with Frederick Gardiner and Lawrence Pilkington (12 July) 1879 - First guideless ascent of La Meije with Frederick Gardiner and Lawrence Pilkington (25 July) 1881 - First guideless ascent of the Jungfrau with Frederick Gardiner and Lawrence Pilkington (30 July) 1881 - First guideless ascent of the Finsteraarhorn with Frederick Gardiner and Lawrence Pilkington 1882 - First guideless ascent of Piz Kesch with Lawrence Pilkington and Eustace Hulton 1882 - First guideless ascent of Piz Roseg with Lawrence Pilkington and Eustace Hulton (7 August 1882) 1882 - First guideless ascent of Monte Disgrazia, climbed by a new route via NE arete, with Lawrence Pilkington and Eustace Hulton (12 August 1882)