Thomas Duncan Bourdillon, known as Tom Bourdillon (pronounced /bɔrˈdɪlən/ bor-DIL-ən) (16 March 1924 in Kensington, London - 29 July 1956 in Bernese Oberland, Switzerland), was an English mountaineer, a member of the team which made the first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953.
Bourdillon was the elder son of Robert Benedict Bourdillon (1889–1971), a scientist who had been a founder member of the Oxford University Mountaineering Club in 1909, and of...
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Thomas Duncan Bourdillon, known as Tom Bourdillon (pronounced /bɔrˈdɪlən/ bor-DIL-ən) (16 March 1924 in Kensington, London - 29 July 1956 in Bernese Oberland, Switzerland), was an English mountaineer, a member of the team which made the first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953.
Bourdillon was the elder son of Robert Benedict Bourdillon (1889–1971), a scientist who had been a founder member of the Oxford University Mountaineering Club in 1909, and of his wife, Harriet Ada Barnes.
He was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Physics and was president of the Oxford University Mountaineering Club.
He made a career as a physicist in rocket research.
Active as a climber while still a schoolboy, Bourdillon developed his climbing during his years at Oxford. By his mid twenties he was an inspiring figure in the renaissance of British climbing in the Alps, and he then moved on to the challenge of the Greater Ranges and Mount Everest.
Bourdillon had been...
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