George Finch

George Ingle Finch (4 August 1888 – 22 November 1970) was an Australian chemist and mountaineer. His obituary in The Times describes him as "one of the two best alpinists of his time" (with George Mallory). Education and military service He was born in Orange, New South Wales, Australia to British parents, Charles Edward and Laura Isabel (née Black) Finch, educated in German-speaking Switzerland, and studied physical sciences at the University of Geneva. He began studying medicine in Paris (where he scaled the walls of Notre Dame with his brother) but decided he preferred the physical sciences. During the First World War, he served with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1918 New Year Honours for services in connection with the War in France, Egypt and Salonika. In the Second World War he investigated fire defence. Career A member of the second British expedition under General Charles Granville Bruce to Mount Everest, on 27 May 1922 Finch and Captain Geoffrey Bruce reached an elevation of on the North Face before retreating. Finch fell out with the Everest Committee after 1922, but his pioneering work on oxygen, which he pursued with messianic zeal, remained crucial to future expeditions. In the Alps, Finch was on the first ascent of the North Face Diagonal or "Finch Route" on the Dent d'Hérens, which he climbed with T. G. B. Forster and R. Peto on 2 August 1923. Finch was also a keen skier and was a founding member of the Alpine Ski Club in 1908. He was a lifelong advocate and supporter of the Alpine Club and would later become its president.