Michael Westmacott

Michael Horatio Westmacott (12 April 1925 – 20 June 2012) was a prominent British mountaineer who was a member of the team which made the first ascent of Mount Everest.

Biography Westmacott was born on 12 April 1925 at Coombe House, St George's Crescent in Babbacombe, Torquay, Devon. He was the oldest of three children of Horatio Westmacott, who served in the Royal Navy, and Irene Mary Juanita Gwennap Moore. His sisters were Monica Mary Westmacott and Catherine Penelope Westmacott.

Westmacott was educated at Radley College, Radley near Abingdon, Oxfordshire and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where, after the war, he read mathematics.

During World War II he served as an officer with the British Indian Army Corps of Engineers in Burma. In Burma he was involved in building bridges with the King George V's Bengal Sappers and Miners with 150 Japanese PoWs under his command.

He retired in 1985 and moved to the Lake District. On 20 June 2012 he died in Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria.

Mountaineering Westmacott climbed extensively in the United Kingdom and the European Alps on an expedition to the Peruvian Andes. Streetly and Westmacott successfully made the first ascent of the Huagaruncho on 17 August 1956.

Whilst based in the US he joined a small party in 1964 on the first successful rock climbing expedition to the Arrigetch Peaks of Alaska. Westmacott and his wife were members of the teams which made first ascents of several of the area's granite spires.

He became president of the Alpine Club (1993–1995) and was instrumental in establishing the Alpine Club's Himalayan Index. He was also elected president of the Climbers Club (1978–1980).