General Arthur Westlake
Andrews
Male
England
1868-12-12
Hastings, East Sussex, England
1959-11-22
Zennor, Cornwall, England


About

From The Alpine Journal, circa January 1960: https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1960_files/AJ%201960%20133-141%20In%20Memoriam.pdf

Obituary – Arthur Westlake Andrews

By Thomas S. Blakeney and E.C. Plum

The death of Arthur Westlake Andrews at Zennor on November 22, 1959, removed a very notable figure in British climbing. He belonged to those active days in the 1890’s and early twentieth century, when so much was being done in the Lakes and North Wales by Glynne Jones and James M. Archer Thomson, and among them Andrews held a high place. He was elected a member of the Alpine Club in February 1899, and joined the Climbers’ Club in 1901, serving the latter as Editor, Vice-President, President, Hut Custodian and Guide-book writer.

Andrews was born at Hastings on December 12, 1868, and his childhood was spent at Teffont Evias in Wiltshire, where his father was rector. He was educated at Charterhouse (Junior Scholar, 1882, Senior Scholar, 1884) and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was an Exhibitioner (2nd Class Classical Mods., 1889; and Class Lit. Hum., 1891). He was a notable all-round athlete, representing Oxford in cross-country running in 1889 and in the high jump, 1890, where he was second, reaching 5ft. 8in. In 1893 he won a Continental championship at Berlin for the one mile.

Tennis was one of the great interests of his life; between 1887 and 1914 he frequently played at Wimbledon, in 1900 reaching the semi-finals of the men's singles [?]. After 1923 he represented Cornwall on several occasions, in later years figuring prominently in veterans’ tournaments at Eastbourne and at Saint Ives. He was said to play with a very large racket like a fishing net.

At Oxford he made his first contacts with mountaineering, having rooms below those of William A.B. Coolidge, with whom he became on friendly terms. A man of independent means, he first thought of taking up Law, but eventually decided upon Geography, becoming an extension lecturer both in Oxford and London. In 1897 he read a paper to the Royal Geographical Society (R.G.S.; G.J., ix, 427) on ‘The Teaching of Geography in relation to History’; the views he expressed were new in those days and his paper was reckoned to be of very real importance.

His first visit to the Alps was in 1890, when he climbed with Alexander Burgener and the following year he visited Norway, making, inter alia, the first ascent of Middle Rüngstind. In 1895 and 1896 he was again in the Alps, but with little to show. In 1898, however, he had a better season in the Zermatt, Arolla and Combin districts. In 1899 he visited the Horunger and in 1900 was in the Graians; in 1901 and 1902 he was in the Ortler group, working on the revision of Ball’s Guide, and also visited the Bernina.

In all these last five seasons Oliver K. Williamson was his companion, along with Jean Maître and Joseph-Marie Lochmatter (except in Norway). Others of his climbing companions in the Alps were John B. Farmer (with whom he traversed the Meije in 1906) and John C. Morland but dates are somewhat uncertain and in any case they did not normally essay big climbs, but travelled guideless, mostly in the Valais and Graians.

Andrews’ Alpine record looks small, but is incomplete. In England, however, he was an outstanding personality and his paper in the Alpine Journal (A.J., 24. 564) on Lliwedd did much to push forward the claims of British hills to the attention of members of the A.C. Although he had already climbed in Cornwall and Skye, Andrews made his first visit to North Wales in 1890, when there were still only a handful of climbs achieved on the local crags. After cycling up from Broadway in two days, he stayed with the Owens at Pen-y-Gwryd and scrambled on Lliwedd, Tryfan and the Glyders.

In 1892 he visited Skye. His next visit to Wales was not until 1901, where he found the exploration of the hills in full swing, and he soon fell in with J.M.A. Thomson, the leading climber there. Andrews came to know Lliwedd particularly well, mostly by solitary wanderings up, down and across. In those days of heavily nailed boots he was one of the first to climb in plimsolls on mountain rocks – an important step forward in British climbing development for which he deserves full credit. His collaboration with Thomson produced the first Welsh climbers’ guidebook, The Climbs on Lliwedd, published by the Climbers’ Club in 1909.

In spite of his long association with climbing in North Wales and abroad, today Andrews is best remembered for his great contributions to climbing on the Cornish cliffs. His uncle, John Westlake, bought a house at Zennor in 1873 and the very young Andrews soon began to go there for holidays, though he does not seem to have realised the climbing possibilities until 1902, when he began to record actual climbing routes at Bosigran, Wicca, etc.

He served in France in the First World War, returning in 1922 to live at Tregerthen, at Zennor, where so many climbers have since been made so wonderfully welcome. Andrews had described some of his climbs in Cornwall in the Climbers’ Club Journal for 1905, and in 1934, 1937 and 1938 the same journal published further accounts of climbs, and also pictures, both on the north and south Cornish coasts.

In 1938 he persuaded the Climbers’ Club to form the Bosigran hut; climbers began to come in increasing numbers to visit the area and Andrews was always there to welcome them. For years he had made all the routes and almost until he was 80 years of age he was ready to go out with newcomers on climbs. In 1948 he collaborated with E. C. Pyatt in producing the Climbers’ Club Cornwall guide-book.

During the Second world War, he served as a special constable and it was during this period that he began to write poetry, the first volume of his verse being published in 1957, and was very well received. He kept up a large correspondence with climbers and never seemed to forget anyone with his Christmas cards, whilst climbing parties in Cornwall came to regard a visit to Andrews as a regular item in the holiday programme, when he would welcome them with a cream tea and all the latest climbing news. He will be sorely missed.



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Archive statistics 1889 - 1919
1
46
14


Tournament wins 1890 - Penzance ()


Tournaments Queens Club Tournament - 1919 Wimbledon - 1913 Wimbledon - 1910 South of England Championships - 1910 Wimbledon Plate (Consolation) - 1910 Wimbledon - 1909 Sussex Championships - 1909 Teignmouth and Shaldon - 1909 Wimbledon - 1908 Wimbledon Plate (Consolation) - 1908 West Herts Championships - 1908 Middlesex Championships - 1908 Middlesex Championships - 1907 Wimbledon - 1902 Wimbledon - 1901 Queens Club Tournament - 1901 Kent Championships - 1901 South of England Championships - 1901 Middlesex Championships - 1901 Queens Club Tournament - 1900 Kent Championships - 1900 Gipsy - 1900 Middlesex Championships - 1900 South of England Championships - 1897 Queens Club Tournament - 1892 Wimbledon - 1890 Midland Counties Championships - 1890 Edgbaston - 1890 St. Leonards-On-Sea - 1890 Penzance - 1890 St. Ives - 1890 Wimbledon - 1889 Oxford University Tournament - 1889

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