George Lee Mallory

George Leigh Mallory was an English schoolteacher and mountaineer. He was educated at Winchester College and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read history under the tutelage of A.C. Benson and wrote a biography of James Boswell. While at Cambridge, Mallory developed close friendships with several members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Duncan Grant and Lytton Strachey. He was keenly interested in political issues of the day, and was a Fabian socialist who favored women’s suffrage and Irish home rule. Mallory later worked as a schoolmaster at Charterhouse School, where he taught the future poet Robert Graves. Graves credited Mallory with encouraging his writing and introducing him to the work of modern authors.

Mallory is best known for participating in the three Mount Everest expeditions of the 1920s. Along with Andrew Irvine, he died attempting to be the first to climb Mount Everest. It is not known whether or not they reached the summit before their fatal accident.