Eric Shipton

Biography

Eric Earle Shipton, CBE was an English Himalayan mountaineer.

Shipton was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1907 where his father, a tea planter, died before he was three years old. When he was eight, his mother brought him to London for his education. When he failed the entrance exam to Harrow School, his mother sent him to Pyt House School in Wiltshire. His first encounter with mountains was at 15 when he visited the Pyrenees with his family. The next summer he spent travelling in Norway with a school friend and within a year he had begun climbing seriously.

In 1928 he went to Kenya as a coffee grower and first climbed Nelion, a peak of Mount Kenya, in 1929. It was also in Kenya's commun...