George Lowe

Wallace George Lowe (15 January 1924 – 20 March 2013), known as George Lowe, was a New Zealand-born mountaineer, explorer, film director and educator. He was the last surviving member of the 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition, during which his friend Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first known people to summit the world's highest peak.

Early life and expeditions Born in Hastings, New Zealand, into a farming family, George Lowe was educated at Hastings High School and Wellington Teachers' College before starting work as a teacher. He spent holidays climbing in the Southern Alps, where he met fellow-New Zealander Edmund Hillary. On 28 May, Lowe, Alfred Gregory and Sherpa Ang Nyima, all carrying heavy loads, set out with Hillary and Tenzing as the support party for their summit attempt. Camp IX was established at , then Lowe, Gregory and Ang Nyima descended to the South Col. Lowe also directed a documentary film during the expedition, entitled The Conquest of Everest that was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

In 1954, Lowe again joined Hillary, on an unsuccessful New Zealand expedition to Makalu. However, during this trip, Lowe met Vivian Fuchs, who invited him to become a New Zealand representative on the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition which, between 1955 and 1958, not only traversed Antarctica, becoming the first to reach the South Pole by land since Amundsen in 1911 and Scott in 1912, but also carried out extensive surveying of the continent. At the Pole, he was met by Hillary, who had led a route-finding party from the other direction. Lowe worked on the film of the expedition: The Crossing Of Antarctica.

In 1960, Lowe was a member of the 1960–61 Silver Hut expedition to the Himalayas with Hillary, to study high-altitude physiology with Griffith Pugh and to hunt for the Yeti around Rowaling.

During the decade, Lowe went on expeditions with the John Hunt Exploration Group for young people to Greenland, Greece and Ethiopia. He also joined Hunt on an expedition to the Pamirs with a British-Russian team. He had himself become an Inspector of Schools for the Department of Education and Science, retiring from this post in 1984. His memoirs of the climb were published in 2013, the sixtieth anniversary of this remarkable expedition.

In 1953, Lowe was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1954 NZ New Year Honours List for the Mount Everest Expedition. In the 1958 Special Honours List he was awarded the Polar Medal as part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition team. His final appointment was as a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) in the 1998 NZ New Year Honours List for services to New Zealand interests in the United Kingdom.

Death Lowe died 20 March 2013 at a nursing home in Ripley, Derbyshire, England, after battling Alzheimer's disease for several years. He was 89.