from a Tramp's Wallet: A Life of Douglas William Freshfield

Douglas William Freshfield was the youngest schoolboy to climb Mont Blanc. This feat, in 1863, was the beginning of his long and distinguished career as a mountain climber and explorer. In his later career he led a small expedition into the then virtually unknown Caucasus to discover an unsuspected region of magnificent scenery inhabited by wild and colourful tribes, often at war with each other and hardly welcoming to strangers. For his explorations he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society s coveted Gold medal and in 1903 he published the story of his expedition into the unmapped region north of Kanchenjunga. Round Kanchenjunga is a classic of mountaineering literature and is still referred to today by mountain climbers and explorers alike. At one time he was President of both the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club and he spent some stormy reformative years as Hon Secretary of the R.G.S. He was instrumental in the foundation of geography as an academic subject and he played a part in modernising the Ordnance Survey, with the result that it began to produce the standard form of maps we recognise today. In his personal life he was a friend of Alfred Tennyson and his wife was closely involved with the Bloomsbury set. The book describes many of his explorations and gives an insight into a unique period of English culture.