Arnold Louis Mumm (1859-1927)

A.L. Mumm, Snowbird Pass, 1913

In Memoriam

Arnold Louis Mumm, an Honorary Member of this Club, whose father had what was once the creditable, but what has now become a doubtful, distinction of supplying an excellent brand of champagne, died a little over a year ago at the age of 68. For one who had spent so much of his life and energy on the heights, it seemed an incongruous ending to succumb at sea, and be plunged into the depths in the Bay of Biscay on the return voyage to his native land.

Both at school, Eton, and at the University of Oxford, Mumm was distinguished in the line of scholarship and sport. When he left Eton he was captain of the school. Academic successes at Oxford did not interfere with his playing on the university football team. After leaving Oxford, Mumm came to London and studied for the Bar, was admitted at the Inner Temple in 1883, and called to the Bar in 1886. He could have made a good practice for himself, but legal work was not congenial to him; and, owing to an independent fortune, which was quite sufficient for his bachelor needs, a practical incentive was lacking. In 1894 he joined the publishing firm of his relative Edward Arnold, and interested himself in it, both as a reader and a manager for over thirty years.

While cultivating the habits and tastes of a scholar, Mumm continued to show a keen interest in sport and out-of-door pursuits. He is said to have been an excellent shot and a good rider to hounds; and we know that he became a daring mountaineer and a persistent and adventurous traveler. It is in the latter activities that we are interested, and for which we commemorate him here.

At the early age of fourteen, Mumm began his alpine career with the ascent of the Titlis (10,627 f't.), near Engelberg. He celebrated this experience by repeating it fifty years later in 1923. In the meantime he had made scores of big ascents in Switzerland, and in the Dauphiné, had explored and climbed in Africa, in the Himalayas, in the Canadian Rockies, and in Japan, and had visited the glaciers of New Zealand. He was thus a world-wide and legitimately renowned mountaineer; but his inclination was to avoid publicity.

In 1905 he went with D. W. Freshfield to the Ruwenzori, and although this adventure was not successful in its main object, yet it aroused in Mumm the desire to explore as well as to climb. Two years later, he joined General Bruce and Dr. T. G. Long- staff in an expedition to the Himalaya, in the course of which Longstaff, with the two Brocherels, made the first ascent of Trisul (23,400 ft.). Mumm’s chief contribution to mountaineering literature, “Five Months in the Himalaya,” gives a full account of this trip, and incidentally throws a pleasing light on the relations between himself and Moritz Inderbinen, who became to Mumm as indispensable a fellow-traveler as he was a guide.

After his return from Asia, Mumm was attraoted to this continent, where he appeared at the Alpine Club of Canada camps on half a dozen occasions, when he doubtless met many members of this Club, the last time being at Palliser Pass in 1922. He climbed and explored vigorously in the Canadian Rockies, less so in the Selkirks, accompanied by the Right Honorable L. S. Amery, Dr. Norman Collie, Dr. Hastings, and G. E. Howard, and, of course, by the faithful Inderbinen. His attempts on Mt. Robson have become historical. Papers of his, like “Some Characteristics of Mountain Ranges” and “A Mixed Bag,” reflect the combination of a good raconteur with a capable alpinist and experienced traveler. The speaker’s first acquaintance with Mumm began at the Canadian Alpine camp of 1909 at Lake O’Hara. Eleven years later a delightful day was spent with him and Mr. Freshfield at Banff, when Mumm was on his way to the camp at Mt. Assiniboine, which was, I think, the last of his higher climbs in the Rockies. The last of his big climbs seem to have been the Dent du Midi and Dent Blanche in 1921. On the latter he was dreadfully tired, as a Zermatt guide who accompanied him, and whom I employed the following year, informed me. Inderbinen was no longer able to accompany him. He died two years before his “Herr,” who had settled him and his English wife comfortably at Zermatt, and who paid him an appreciative tribute in the Alpine Journal, November, 1927. While traveling in the Tyrol in 1926, Mumm’s physical powers, which had probably been over-taxed for some years, failed him suddenly; and he never regained his health.

Mumm was a person of critical intellect. His friends were inclined to say that he was too prone to be a detached spectator of men and events and to cultivate a philosophic calm. What a refreshing contrast he must have presented to some of the aggressive and futile activity by which he was doubtless surrounded. He was probably very wise in his attitude; it was in accord with his temperament; he was thereby happier and able to radiate this happiness to others. He was devoted to his old Club, in whose interests he spent his time and money freely; but, indeed, he was interested in all alpine clubs and undertakings and helped to inaugurate the Japanese Club.

“It was entirely due to his characteristic diffidence,” says Mr. Freshfield, from whose fine notice of Mumm in the Alpine Journal, May, 1928, I quote, “that he did not succeed to the Presidency. As Secretary his benign and cheerful presence lent a grace even to the most formal proceedings.” And this is part of the tribute which Dr. Longstaff paid to Mumm’s share in the Himalaya campaign: “What struck me most during the whole trip was Mumm’s characteristic patience and unfailing good temper even under discomfort, which was often aggravated in his case by indifferent health. It was wonderful how he endured those awful two nights and three days when we were weatherbound at our high camp, 20,000 ft., on the occasion of our first abortive attempt on Trisul.”

Outstanding features of Mumm’s character were thus modesty, self-control and endurance; qualities which we like to think struggles with Nature in the wilderness and on the great peaks develop and establish as inestimable personal possessions.

J. W. A. Hickson

(Read at the Annual Meeting, January 19, 1929)

Publication Year: 1929

Source: AAC (American Alpine Club)  

Founding of The Himalayan Club

authored by G. L. Corbett  |   as published in The Himalayan Journal, April 1, 1929

Sir Geoffrey Latham Corbett
First Hon. Secretary of the Club

MR. DOUGLAS FRESHFIELD tells me that the idea of a Himalayan Club goes back so far as 1866, when it was formally suggested to the Asiatic Society of Bengal by Mr. F. Drew and Mr. W .H. Johnson. And Mr. Fresh field himself, writing in The Alpine Journal in 1884, advised that our knowledge of the Himalaya might thus be extended. ” The formation at Calcutta or Simla,” he said, ” of an Himalayan Club, prepared to publish  Narratives of Science and Adventure’ concerning the mountains, would be the most serviceable means to this end.” The idea must have recurred to many, but it never took shape, not because a Club was not wanted, but because in this land of endlessness it is only now and then that the two or three are gathered together. The thing had hung in the balance for years when a chance talk at Simla tipped the beam, and the Himalayan Club was born on the path behind Jakko on the afternoon of the 6th October, 1927.

I wrote first to Major Kenneth Mason of the Survey of India, who also had long cherished the hope of a Club ; to Major-General Walter Kirke, then acting as Chief of the General Staff ; and to Brigadier E. A. Tandy, Surveyor General of India. I was diffident, for there seemed no reason why the time should now be fulfilled. Mason replied that he was with me heart and soul; Kirke that he would do anything he could to help ; Tandy that he would help in any way he could. So encouraged, I went ahead. The Viceroy, Lord Irwin, the Commander-in-Chief, Field-Marshal Sir William Bird wood, and Sir Malcolm Hailey, then Governor of the Punjab, were among the first to whom . I told our plans. Others were Mr. T. E. T. Upton, Solicitor to the Government of India; Sir Edwin Pascoe, Director of the Geological Survey of India; Major-General Kenneth Wigram and Brigadier W. L. 0. Twiss who still, they say, count for something among Gurkhas; Mr. G. Mackworth Young, Army Secretary; and Mr J. G. Acheson, Deputy Foreign Secretary. Mason meanwhile had consulted Major E. 0. Wheeler of the Survey of India, and Captain J. G. Bruce, 6th Gurkhas. These were the founders of the Himalayan Club, and it is to their confidence and sound judgment that the Club owes its constitution. There were three others who had no claim to be members of the Club, but whose interest and advice meant much to us : the Foreign Secretary, Sir Denys Bray ; the Education Secretary Mr. J. W. Bhore, who included in his Department the Survey of India ; and the Private Secretary to the Viceroy, Mr George Cunningham. It was Denny Bray who determined the quality of our founder members : ” What you want,” he said, “is a solid core of men who have done things.”

We proceeded deliberately, remembering always that it’s the first step that counts. There were three things to be decided : What should the Club be called ? What should be its objects ? Who should be asked to become founder members ? The name of the Club was soon settled. ” The Alpine Club of India ” had been suggested, but seemed likely to scare those whose interest was not high mountaineer­ing ; nor had we need to look for a name beyond our own great range. Almost from the first we thought of ourselves as “The Himalayan Club. It was agreed that our objects should be based on the famous definition in the Rules of the Alpine Club. But it is shikar that first impels nine-tenths of those who go to the Himalaya ; and though we were unwilling to admit shikar as a specific object of the Club we thought that our objects should recognise that knowledge of the Himalaya is extended through ” sport,” which would cover mountain climbing and ski-running as well as shikar. In this way we arrived at our definition :—

” To encourage and assist Himalayan travel and exploration, and to extend knowledge of the Himalaya and adjoining mountain ranges through science, art, literature and sport.”

The list of those who should be asked to become founder members, was anxiously and carefully compiled. Our intention was to include everyone who had ” done things in the Himalaya; and if anyone was inadvertently omitted, I hope he will forgive and join us now. On the 20th December, 1927, Mason and I sent out our circular letter, and then we waited apprehensively for the replies. We had never dared to hope for such a response. From all over India and beyond, and from the back of beyond, from Europe, Africa and America, replies came welcoming the Club and making varied and valuable suggestions. Almost everyone replied, and almost everyone who replied became a founder member. Our 127 founder members contribute to the objects of the Club much that there is of Himalayan knowledge and experience. The Club was formally inaugurated at a meeting held in Field-Marshal Sir William Bird wood’s room at Army Headquarters, Delhi, on the 17th February, 1928.

While we were still intent on our first step, we learnt that ” The Mountain Club of India ” had been formed at Calcutta on the 23rd September, 1927. Mason and I took an early opportunity to meet Mr. W. Allsup, its moving spirit, and it was agreed that the two Clubs should go forward with mutual good-will, and that the question of fusion should be considered later. At the inaugural meeting of the Himalayan Club it was decided to ask the Mountain Club whether it would be willing to amalgamate. A general meeting of the Mountain Club on the 14th December, 1928, agreed to amalgamate ” for the benefit of the common aims of the two Clubs,” and we are now one strong and united organisation.  Allsup to our regret has now left India, but the combined Club will not forget how selflessly he advocated amalgamation.

We owe much too to the Alpine Club, and in particular to Colonel E. L. Strutt, the Editor of the Alpine Journal, who is also one of our founder members, and to Mr. Sydney Spencer, the Honorary Secretary. From the first and throughout I have been in close correspondence with them, and their ungrudging help and wise advice have never failed me. Members of the Alpine Club who come to the Himalaya may be sure of a warm welcome and all the assistance that the Himalayan Club can give.

And so the Himalayan Club is founded, and we hope great things of it : the geographer that the blank places on his map may be filled in ; the scientist that our knowledge of the Himalaya, its rocks and glaciers, its animals and plants, its peoples and their way of living, may continually expand ; the artist that its glories may inspire fine pictures. The mountaineer may dream of the first ascent of a thousand unclimbed peaks, the shikari of record heads shot in nalas yet unknown. My own hope is that it may help to rear a breed of men in India, hard and self-reliant, who will know how to enjoy life on the high hills.

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