Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed

Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed (26 June 1860 – 27 July 1934), (known after her third marriage as Mrs Aubrey Le Blond and Lizzie Le Blond), At a time when female participation in mountaineering was rare, she achieved prominence for her ascents and distinctive attire, often photographed climbing in long skirts.

Relocating to Switzerland, Hawkins-Whitshed began climbing during the 1882–1883 season, later gaining recognition for her pioneering ascents and photographic work. In 1907, she played a leading role in founding the Ladies' Alpine Club, serving as its inaugural president. Over her career, she authored seven books on mountaineering and achieved 20 first ascents—summiting peaks previously unclimbed. In her lifetime, Lizzie conquered over 100 mountains in total.

Her legacy endures as a trailblazer who defied gender norms in alpine exploration while making a significant contribution to the documentation of mountain geography through writing and photography.

Early life Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed was born in Dublin on 26 June 1860 into an upper-class Anglo-Irish family. She was the daughter of Anne Alicia (née Handcock) (1837–1908) and Captain Vincent Hawkins-Whitshed (1837–1871) (see Hawkins-Whitshed baronets). Raised at Killincarrick House, Greystones, County Wicklow, in the south-east of Ireland, her father owned extensive lands across Dublin, Meath and Wicklow.

She authored the autobiography Day In, Day Out (1928), chronicling her life and adventures. Hawkins-Whitshed died on 27 July 1934 and was buried at Brompton Cemetery in London. While she found fulfilment in writing, her greatest passion lay in photography, a craft she practised avidly, often seen with her camera slung over her shoulder during expeditions.

Her literary career began in 1883 with The High Alps in Winter, a work chronicling alpine mountaineering experiences that preceded a series of books and articles on the subject. Later, she ventured into fiction, travelogues, and family history, though her talent for documenting mountain landscapes remained central to her legacy.

Among her pursuits in mountaineering, photography, and writing, Hawkins-Whitshed produced 69 distinct works, extant in 220 publications across three languages, with 2,228 library holdings recorded worldwide.

Mountaineering

Abandoning the conventional London lifestyle of the mid-1880s, Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed relocated to Chamonix, where her inaugural climb saw her ascend two-thirds of Mont Blanc. Her expeditions leveraged her wealth and status: she travelled with personal staff, and the perilous conditions were starkly illustrated when her maid required rescue from an ice-encased carriage during one journey.

In 1907, Hawkins-Whitshed co-founded the Ladies' Alpine Club, serving as its inaugural president. she exhibited regularly at its annual exhibitions from 1885 to 1903 under the names Jean Ville, Mrs. Main, and Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond.

Hawkins-Whitshed produced thousands of photographs, approximately 400 of which illustrated publications She developed and printed her own work, often in challenging field conditions, distributing prints as charitable fundraisers, personal gifts, or prizes at mountaineering events. Mountaineering in the Land of the Midnight Sun Adventures on the Roof of the World True Tales of Mountain Adventure: For Non-Climbers Young and Old My Home in the Alps High Life of Towers and Silence Charlotte Sophie, Countess Bentinck: Her Life and Times, 1715–1800 The Old Gardens of Italy: How to Visit Them Day In, Day Out (1928)