Tom George Longstaff (15 January 1875 – 27 June 1964) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

doctor, explorer and mountaineer, most famous for being the first person to climb a summit of over 7,000 metres in elevation,

Trisul Trisul is a group of three Himalayas, Himalayan mountain peaks of western Kumaon division, Kumaun, Uttarakhand, with the highest (Trisul I) reaching 7120m. The three peaks resemble a trident - in Sanskrit, Trishula (weapon), Trishula, trid ...

, in the India/Pakistan

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

in 1907. He also made important explorations and climbs in

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

, the

Karakoram The Karakoram is a mountain range in Kashmir region spanning the borders of Pakistan, China, and India, with the northwest extremity of the range extending to Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Most of the Karakoram mountain range falls under the ...

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norw ...

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

, and Baffin Island. He was president of the (British)

Alpine Club The first alpine club, the Alpine Club, based in the United Kingdom, was founded in London in 1857 as a gentlemen's club. It was once described as: :"a club of English gentlemen devoted to mountaineering, first of all in the Alps, members of whi ...

from 1947 to 1949 and a founding member of The Alpine Ski Club in 1908.

Early life

Longstaff was the eldest son of Lt-Col.

Llewellyn W. Longstaff Lieutenant-Colonel Llewellyn Wood Longstaff (23 December 1841 – 20 November 1918) was an English industrialist and fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He is best known for being the chief private-sector patron and financial angel of the D ...

OBE of

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * ...

, the first and most generous supporter of

Captain Scott Captain Robert Falcon Scott, , (6 June 1868 – c. 29 March 1912) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the ''Discovery'' expedition of 1901–1904 and the ill-fated ''Terra Nov ...

's National Antarctic Expedition.''Obituary: Dr T. G. Longstaff'' by Eric Shipton in ''The Geographical Journal'', vol. 130, no. 3 (September, 1964), pp. 443-444 He was educated at

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

, and St Thomas' Hospital,

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

War service

Longstaff was commissioned into the 1/7th Battalion of the

Hampshire Regiment The Hampshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, created as part of the Childers Reforms in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 37th (North Hampshire) Regiment of Foot and the 67th (South Hampshire) Regiment of Foot. The regim ...

in 1914 and served on the General Staff at Army Headquarters,

Simla Shimla (; ; also known as Simla, the official name until 1972) is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared as the summer capital of British India. After independence, th ...

, 1915–1916. He was Assistant Commandant of the Gilgit Corps of Scouts, Frontier Militia, and Special Assistant at Fort Gupis to the Political Agent in Gilgit, from 1916, and was promoted Captain in 1917, retiring from the service in 1918. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he served with the 7th and 13th Battalion of the KRRC from 1939 to 1941.

Mountaineer

Longstaff climbed in the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...

, the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...

, Selkirk,

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

, and

. Before the

Great War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he travelled in

in 1905, ascended

in the Himalayas, 1907, and in 1908 was awarded the Gill Memorial by the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

for his work in the Himalaya and Tibet. He went on to explore the Siachen Glacier and discovered the peaks of

Teram Kangri __NOTOC__ The Teram Kangri group is a mountain massif in the remote Siachen Muztagh, a subrange of the Karakoram range. The high point of the group, and of the Siachen Muztagh, is Teram Kangri I. The peak lies on the boundary between disputed ...

in 1909. After the war, he took part in an

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

Expedition to

in 1921 and was chief medical officer and naturalist on the 1922 British Mount Everest expedition. He returned to Spitsbergen in 1923 and to the Garhwal Himalaya in 1927. He led the Oxford University Expedition to Greenland in 1928 and the same year was awarded the Founder's Medal of the

for his work in the Himalaya, especially his discovery of the

Siachen Glacier The Siachen Glacier is a glacier located in the eastern Karakoram range in the Himalayas at about , just northeast of the point NJ9842 where the Line of Control between India and Pakistan ends. At long, it is the longest glacier in the Kar ...

. In Greenland again, 1931 and 1934, and Baffin Island, 1934. In 1933 he was one of eleven people involved in the appeal that led to the foundation of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), an organisation for the study of

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

in the British Isles. He lived at

Achiltibuie Achiltibuie (; gd, Achd Ille Bhuidhe or ''Field of the yellow-haired boy'') is a long linear village in Ross and Cromarty, Highland, on the Coigach coast of northwestern Scotland, overlooking Badentarbet Bay to the west. Loch Broom and the S ...

, in the

Highlands of Scotland The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Sco ...

, where he died at the age of eighty-nine on 27 June 1964.Thelema Lodge Calendar
at billheidrick.com (accessed 7 January 2008)

Notes

References

*''Longstaff, Tom George'' in ''Who's Who'' 1964. *Eric Shipton, ''Longstaff, Tom George (1875–1964)'', rev.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Oxford University Press, 2004

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Longstaff, Tom George 1875 births 1964 deaths Royal Hampshire Regiment officers King's Royal Rifle Corps officers British Army personnel of World War I British Army personnel of World War II Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford English explorers English mountain climbers Baffin Island People educated at Eton College Presidents of the Alpine Club (UK)