Proceedings Of The Club
The third Annual Club Dinner was held at the Hotel Metropole, Leeds, on February 11th, 1905. The President, Mr. Alfred Barran, occupied the chair, and fifty-nine members and friends were present.
The Club was honoured by the presence among its guests of Mr. C. E. Mathews, Mr. G. B. Bryant, Hon. Secretary of the Climbers’ Club, and Mr. W. H. Pearson of the Rucksack Club.
The evening was as fully enjoyable as similar occasions in the past. The menu card was adorned by a cave scene in black and colour by Mr. G. T. Lowe, and forms a pleasant memento of the occasion.
The toast of “The King” was proposed by the President, after which Mr. C. E. Mathews rose’ to propose that of “The Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club,” in an oration the memory of which will last long in the minds of those privileged to hear it.
“Mr. President and Gentlemen: I think this is the third time I have received the honour of an invitation to your annual banquet. Previous invitations unhappily I have been unable to accept, but when for the third time my old friend Mr. Slingsby wrote and said “you must come” I thought it was time to rally, so I replied “yes,” and here I am, very much at your service, to discharge that particular duty which your Committee have imposed upon me. Gentlemen, I propose the Yorkshire Ramblers’ I Club, that gallant band of Yorkshiremen who have distinguished themselves in so many positions. No doubt you think that yours is the most delightful county in England, and yet you have chosen a man born in Worcester, and brought up in Worcester, to do justice to the toast. In addition I happen to be one of the survivors of the first Alpine Club, and we are always delighted to assist Kindred Clubs of which we were the forerunners, and have followed with much interest the achievements, the aspirations, and even the vagaries of our children.
Gentlemen, I have had some honours forced upon me in the course of a long and chequered career, but I have never valued one more than that which was forced upon me when I was elected President of the Alpine Club; but this position has often plunged me into many difficulties. It would seem that I am in constant request at the annual gatherings of all mountaineering societies. For myself, I have never missed one winter dinner of the Alpine Club, and I think that fact should secure me some immunity from attending on the claims of what I venture to call collateral societies – but nothing of the kind! There is the Junior Alpine Club at the University of Oxford, and I am never allowed to absent myself from their May meeting every year. Then there is the Scottish Mountaineering Club; I have duly to make my bow to my Scottish brethren on the other side of the Tweed, and have attended with great pleasure their annual gathering. Then there is the Climbers’ Club; I have never yet missed one of their annual debaucheries. Then there is the Rucksack Club, whose dinner I had the honour to attend in the month of December last, and from whom I received a most cordial welcome and was made an honorary member of that most interesting Club. Now there is the Yorkshire Ramblers’, and I am proud and happy to meet to-night a club of which I am an Honorary Member. But the worst of it is that I cannot attend one of these meetings without making a speech. Sometimes I think of that delightful prophesy of the immortal Thackeray. He looked forward to the time when speaking, like carving, would be done at a side table.
Now, gentlemen, I suppose that during the last few years I have delivered, say fifty speeches, and it is not possible that I should never repeat myself, so if I say anything that I have said before, forgive me. Frank confession is always followed by absolution. I would remind you of that rather interesting notice of which Bret Harte speaks, which was put up in a saloon in San Francisco – “Visitors are requested not to draw on the pianist for he is doing his best.”
On occasions like the present I cannot avoid touching upon the relations which have always subsisted between myself and the various Alpine Clubs. There is something most touching in the relations between myself and them. I am the only one of the fathers of the Alpine Club who has kept up practical mountaineering to the present day, and it has always been my pride to be a connecting link between the mountaineers of the old days and the mountaineers of the present. Believe me, I am glad to think that I have been, on many occasions, able to render some service to younger men. Many great men whose names you know – Stephen, Reilly, and many another whose names are as familiar in our mouths as household words, have left us one by one, and at my time of life it must be that memory causes us to view the past with sad eyes. But the future, gentlemen, is with you and with clubs like the Yorkshire Ramblers, and the best wish I can offer you and any similar institution is that you should preserve untainted the fine traditions and great trust which you have received from your fathers.
Personally, I have endeavoured to do what I could for your most flourishing institution. I have delivered already two lectures of priceless merit (” Hear, Hear,”) at the usual rate of remuneration (laughter) and I have, been foolish, enough to promise to open your next Session (cheers). I trust that it may be counted to me for righteousness.
But, after all, the object of your Club and all other such Clubs is to provide an alternative from daily toil, and there is no alternative like mountaineering. I have often thought a man who is a lawyer or a manufacturer, but who is that and no more, is often the dullest and sometimes the most miserable of mankind, but the man who, whilst holding his breadwinning occupation, takes his fair share in the wider life of the world, in politics, art, literature, or science, or some form of manly sport, is not only better fitted for the ordinary duties of life, but has a career which must contain some element of nobleness, and which is often able to render some valuable services to mankind. It brings such priceless friendships. And I now ask you, would any of you, if it were possible, erase from your memories the names of those kind, warm-hearted friends, who, but for mountaineering, you would never have known? Barran, Gray, and Slingsby, and many others whom I am proud to call my friends – it is not too much to say that if it had not been for our common pursuit, there is not one of them that I should have shaken by the hand.
For myself, gentlemen, I am touched by the kindly reception which you have given to an old member of the Alpine Club; I have unfortunately reached that time of life which is described by the Psalmist as ‘the allotted span,’ but there is life in the old dog yet, and old age yet has its honour and its toil.
I began climbing more than half a century ago amongst the Welsh hills, which have always had an irresistible fascination for me; I have been up Cader Idris 30 times, up Snowdon 90 times, and I have been up the Glyders over 100 times. In the Alps, I have ascended almost every one of the great peaks; I have spent forty seasons there, and I do not know how any forty seasons could have been better employed. This very year, I have walked through Greece from the Gulf of Talanta to the Gulf of Corinth and ascended on the way Mount Parnassus; but time begins to tell, and I am sad to think that the higher summits are now closed to me, and that I must gaze at the big hills from their bases.
But as short speeches ought always to be the order of the day you will not be surprised to hear that – as Lady Godiva remarked on her return from her journey – “I am approaching my close.”
I propose with all my heart, “The Health and Prosperity of the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club.” I am glad to have been associated with so gallant an institution.
The future is fortunately hidden from us, but whether the time be long or short during which I may be permitted to answer to my name when the muster roll is called, believe at least, that I do not forget, and do not wish to be forgotten.”
The President, Mr. Alfred Barran, in responding to the toast said:-
“The honour which has been done to the Club to-night is one which we can rarely expect to have repeated: we have the honour to meet one of the founders of the Alpine Club, an honorary member, we are proud to say, of the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club, who at sixty years of age again ascended Mont Blanc, and proved to us that we may at sixty, aye, even at seventy, be able to do something which does not fall to the lot of ordinary mortals. There may be a difference of opinion as to the merits of mountaineering, but those who have had long experience of the sport know, as Mr. Mathews has said, that good comradeship, good health, happy memories of old climbs which recall faces and scenes we would not forget, are amongst the many advantages of the sport. We have much to thank our late President for and amongst the many things are the three visits which Mr. Mathews has already paid to us.
We have not, I am glad to say, called ourselves the Junior Alpine Club. We have taken our own title: it is not Alpine: it is not borrowed, begged or stolen from any other sport: we are a Ramblers’ Club pure and simple, though it is true that both among our honorary and ordinary members there are a considerable number of Alpine Club men, who I am glad to say are added to annually.
The Club has outgrown its infancy and is now in robust youth with about eighty members and can lay claim to much useful work in the county. During the last year two parties have done exceedingly good work: Mr. Slingsby was a member of one party and Mr. Priestman of another who have had great success within the Arctic Circle; we are extremely proud of this and jealous that it was not possible for us to share in their work. First descents of two pot-holes – Jockey Hole and Rift Pot – have also been made, these have special interest because they are not yet marked on the six-inch ordnance map.
In replying to this toast, I wish to express in the name of the Club our grateful thanks to Mr. Mathews for his presence to-night and for his promise to come to us in the autumn. We hope that he will not only come then, which is almost too much to ask of him, but that he will come repeatedly, because we want to have the happy memory of a man who not only enjoyed the sport and helped to found the Alpine Club but made himself one with the younger generation, and has thereby earned the gratitude of many of those to whom we look to carry on the sport worthily in years to come.”
The toast of “Kindred Clubs” was proposed by Mr. , Slingsby, who spoke enthusiastically about the work done and the pleasures enjoyed by our friends of other Clubs. Whilst speaking of the Alpine Club, he said:-
“There are some honours which are greater than those represented by a whole alphabet being placed after a man’s name, notably is this the case when a star or an asterisk is placed before the name of a man in the list of members of the Alpine Club. This denotes that the person referred to is one of the founders of the Alpine Club. Gentlemen, we are honoured by the presence of one of these heroes here this evening in the person of our most dear friend Mr. Mathews. Mr. President, I am going to break all rules and to defy all, order and precedent! Brother Yorkshiremen and other friends, stand up and drink to the health of our most honoured guest Mr. Charles Edward Mathews.”
This was done amid great enthusiasm which lasted for some minutes.
Continuing, he said that while it was good for men to club together for the furtherance of such pursuits as ours, he thought it equally desirable that the Clubs should also club together and he was happy to see that the Alpine Club, the Scottish Mountaineering Club, and the Rucksack Club were so well and so numerously represented on the present occasion.
Mr. Bryant, on behalf of the Climbers’ Club, expressed his appreciation of the hearty reception of the toast. He congratulated the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club upon their Journal as conducted by Mr. Gray. Recalling that the Club, founded only in 1892, had started a Library in 1897, secured its own rooms in I8QQ, but had not ventured upon the dissipation of an annual dinner until 1903, he considered that it stood as a model to other Clubs of a similar kind.
Professor Clapham responded on behalf of the Alpine Club and the Scottish Mountaineering Club, and Mr. Pearson for the Rucksack Club.
The Rev. L. S. Calvert proposed the toast of “The Visitors” in the following terms:-
“Fortunate as the Club has been in past years in its visitors, to-night it is singularly so. At this late hour it is impossible to enumerate the individual distinctions of our guests. They are well-known to all of us. At the risk, however, of losing last trains – a real risk – there is one to whom must be accorded a special welcome.
Presidents and Ex-Presidents of the Alpine Club have from time to time done the Yorkshire Ramblers the honour to accept their invitations, an honour of which we are very sensible. Mr. C. E. Mathews they especially welcome as an Honorary Member and a firm friend. Apart from his long and brilliant record in the hills where he is unanimously regarded as ‘Primus inter pares‘; by the beauty of his writings, the charm of his speeches, and above all by his intensely human feeling, he has raised mountaineering to its present high standard and inspired affection in more hearts than he can ever know.”
Mr. Unwin, replying to the toast of the Visitors, said:-
“He felt it a great honour as well as a pleasure to answer this toast and he could say that all appreciated their most hospitable reception. The name of the Club did not do its members justice, they were more than Ramblers,- they descended into the bowels of the earth to places that had never been heard of before, taking their lives in their hands, and they also ascended Alpine heights, and all who had read the Clubs Journal or attended its lectures knew how delightful were the accounts brought back.”
The Annual General Meeting was held at the Club Rooms on Tuesday, October 30th, 1905, when the Committee presented their 13th Annual Report.
The Club now consists of 9 honorary and 83 ordinary members, being a decrease of one honorary and an increase of six ordinary members in the last twelve months.
During the year, seven General and ten Committee meetings have been held. Six lectures have been given as follows :-
1904 – November 5th. “Arctic Norway,” by Mr. Geoffrey Hastings.
November 22nd. “Mountaineering from a Woman’s point of view,” by Mrs. Le Blond.
December 13th. “Some Climbs in the Horungtinder,” by Mr. J. A. Green.
1905 – January 31st. “Val D’Herens and the Val Pelline,” by Professor Clapham.
February 28th. “New Ground in Arctic Norway,” by Mr. Howard Priestman.
March 14th. Club Evening. Short papers.
The lectures were very well attended.
The Committee have again to acknowledge gifts of books to the Club Library, and Mr. H. Buckley, the Hon. Librarian, will be glad to assist members who wish to make use of them.
The Scottish Mountaineering Club, the Climbers’ Club, and the Rucksack Club invited representatives from our Club to their Annual Dinners and accorded them very hearty receptions.
Two Meets were held during the year; one in the spring, on May 20th and 21st, at Middlesmoor, and the other in the autumn, on September 30th, at Arncliffe. Both were well attended.
The Fourth Annual Club Dinner was held at the Hotel Metropole, Leeds, on February 10th, 1906. The President, Mr. Alfred Barran, occupied the chair, and about sixty members and friends were present.
Owing to the necessity of publishing accounts of the last two Annual Dinners in this number of the Journal and the consequent pressure upon the space accorded to ‘The Proceedings of the Club’ it is unfortunately not possible to give more than a bare notice of the events of the evening. The speeches were excellent and well worthy of being placed on record had circumstances permitted.
After the President had given the toast of “The King,” Mr. W. P. Haskett Smith proposed the toast of “The Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club” which was replied to by the President.
The toast of “Kindred Clubs” was proposed by Mr. Wm. Cecil Slingsby and responded to by Mr. Charles Pilkington for the Alpine Club, Mr. Rennie for the Scottish Mountaineering Club and the Climbers’ Club, and Mr. Bury for the Rucksack Club.
“The Visitors” was proposed by Mr. J. A. Green and responded to by Dr. Forsyth.
Among the guests who honoured the Club by their presence were Professor Bodington, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds, Professor Kendall, Dr. Forsyth, Mr. Charles Pilkington and Mr. W. P. Haskett Smith.
New Members
The following New Members have been elected since the last issue:-
Barnes, J. B., Lynwood, Blundell Avenue, Birkdale, Southport.
Chadwick, R. A., M.A., LL.M., 247, Hyde Park Road, Leeds.
Dalton, H. E. J., 66, West End Avenue, Harrogate.
Elliot, Douglas, Barnet Cottage, Far Headingley, Leeds.
Farrer, Reginald John, J.P., F.R.H.S., Ingleborough, Lancaster.
Firth, Rev. H. J. R., M.A., 2, Nursery Mount, Hunslet, Leeds.
Kinnaird, F. D., 54, Chapel Lane, Headingley, Leeds.
Leach, Fredk., The Avenue, Halton, near Leeds.
Ledgard, W. G., 28, Burley Lodge Terrace, Leeds.
Lee, F. H., South Gable, Ben Rhydding.
Ormerod, John A., Barfield, The Drive, Roundhay, Leeds.
Preston, W. E., Cartwright Memorial Hall, Bradford
Robertshaw, Wilfrid, Silvamere, Chrisharben Park, Clayton, Bradford.
Robinson, Percy, 9, Vernon Road, Leeds.
Simpson, Wm., Catteral Hall, Settle.
Slingsby, Wm. Ecroyd, Beech Hill, Carleton, Skipton.
Thomas, Peter D., Rosebank, Chapel-Allerton, Leeds.
Williams, Robt. Stenhouse, M.B., C.M., D.Ph., Ashton Hall, The University, Liverpool.