New Zealand: Edmund Hillary Obituary - full text
Searching more than 75 years of world history
Queen Elizabeth II, New Zealand's head of state, on Jan. 24 invited members of the family of the late New Zealander mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary to attend a special memorial service for him at Windsor Castle, UK. The service was announced after the royal family was criticised by the media in New Zealand for not attending Hillary's state funeral in Auckland on Jan. 22. Hillary died of a heart attack on Jan. 11, aged 88.
Immediate Context
In 1953 Hillary, on an expedition with partner Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, became the first man to stand on the summit of Mount Everest (some 8,850 metres above sea level), the highest mountain in the world. His death followed a fall he suffered in Nepal in April 2007 whilst reviewing work undertaken in Kathmandu (the Nepalese capital) by the Himalayan Trust, a charity Hillary set up in 1960 to provide basic infrastructure for the Sherpa communities in the Himalayas.
Thousands of mourners paid their respects to Hillary at Auckland's Holy Trinity Cathedral, where Hillary's body lay in state for 24 hours ahead of a state funeral on Jan. 22. The funeral service was preceded by pupils from Auckland's Sir Edmund Hillary College performing a traditional Maori haka written specifically for their patron. At the ceremony, Sherpa representatives laid Buddhist mourning scarves over the coffin, which was draped with New Zealand's national flag. The ice axe Hillary used to climb Everest was also placed upon the casket.
New Zealand's Governor General Anand Satyanand, Prime Minister Helen Clark, opposition leader John Key, and representatives and members of the Indian and Nepalese communities laid wreaths inside the cathedral. Clark, on Jan. 21, said that the whole country was mourning Hillary's passing and that "New Zealand has lost its greatest hero".
On Jan. 18, the New Zealand Herald, the country's highest-circulated paper, described the intended absence of Queen Elizabeth II from Hillary's state funeral as a "snub to one of the country's greatest legends".
Reaction and Outlook
In response to the furore over the supposed royal "snub" of Hillary, Prime Minister Clark told Radio New Zealand on Jan. 18: "I think everyone understands that the Queen herself, in her early 80s, is not in a position to travel this great distance at short notice." She also remarked that the proposed special memorial service for Hillary at Windsor Castle, scheduled to be held in April, was "very rare and very special" arrangement. (Hillary had been made a Knight of the Royal Garter in 1995, and royal protocol dictated that after the death of a knight his garter was to be presented to his family during a memorial service.)
Following Hillary's death, the philanthropic work that characterised his later years resulted in commendations from the Nepalese and Indian authorities. On Jan. 16, Nepalese Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation Minister Prithvi Subba Gurung announced that he would propose to the Nepalese cabinet that Lukla airport in eastern Nepal be renamed after Hillary and Tenzing. Gurung also proposed that May 29 (the anniversary of the climb to the summit) should be observed as Everest Day every year, commenting that "had they not climbed Everest no one would have known Nepal. They have made a very big contribution to Nepal's tourism." On Jan. 25, the Indian authorities announced that Hillary, who had served as New Zealand's high commissioner to India, would be posthumously awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour, recognising exceptional service to the country in any field.
Historical Context
Hillary was born on July 20, 1919, in Auckland, New Zealand. At the age of 20 his interest in mountaineering began when he started exploring the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Hillary achieved his first substantial mountaineering accomplishment in 1939 when he reached the summit of Mount Ollivier (1933 meters). That year he abandoned, in the second year of study, his joint mathematics and science course at Auckland University College.
However, Hillary's mountaineering career (supplemented by beekeeping) was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II; in 1943 Hillary joined the Royal New Zealand Airforce, and was eventually stationed in Fiji and the Solomon Islands. In 1945 he was invalided out of the service after becoming badly burned during a boating accident.
Upon returning to New Zealand, Hillary, under the tutelage of highly regarded mountain guide Harry Ayres, climbed the European Alps in 1950, before being invited by Eric Shipton to join a UK Everest reconnaissance expedition in 1951. The reconnaissance expedition established the existence of a viable route to the summit of Everest from the south side of the mountain; post-war expeditions had attempted to ascend the mountain from the Tibetan north face.
In 1952 a Swiss expedition made two unsuccessful attempts to scale the summit of Everest, although mountaineer Raymond Lambert, accompanied by Tenzing Norgay, reached the highest point on the mountain thus far.
In 1953, under the new leadership of John Hunt, a serving UK army officer with extensive Alpine and Himalayan experience, the Nepalese authorities granted the UK expedition permission to ascend Everest again. Hunt's expedition arrived in Nepal in February and established a base camp at the village of Thyangboche towards the end of March.
The initial assault on the summit was made on May 25 by Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, using a "closed-circuit" type of oxygen apparatus. When the apparatus failed, a second--this time successful--attempt to reach the summit was made by Hillary and Tenzing, using "open-circuit" apparatus. (In the "open-circuit" system there was no conservation of oxygen, the air breathed out being lost. In the "closed-circuit" system a proportion of the air breathed out was retained in the apparatus and used again, thereby giving each cylinder of oxygen a much longer life.) Hunt later commented that Hillary and Tenzing reached the summit with "a safe margin of time, oxygen, and effort".
Tenzing had been a member of every UK Everest expedition since 1936 and it was only after Tenzing's death in 1986 that Hillary finally revealed in his autobiography View From the Summit, published in 1999, that he had stepped foot on the summit before his Sherpa climbing partner: "I continued cutting a line of steps upwards. Next moment I had moved onto a flattish exposed area of snow with nothing but space in every direction...Tenzing quickly joined me and we looked round in wonder. To our immense satisfaction we realised we had reached the top of the world."
The successful ascent of Everest coincided with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. On June 23, 1953, members of the UK Everest expedition, including Tenzing, arrived back in England and were received at Buckingham Palace by Queen Elizabeth. Knighthoods were conferred upon Hunt and Hillary, whilst Tenzing was presented with the George Medal, the second highest gallantry honour a civilian could be awarded. On April 22, 1995, Hillary became a Knight of the Order of the Garter, the highest award of the UK and Commonwealth honours system.
After the ascent of Everest, Hillary continued to mountaineer as well as embark on other expeditions: On Jan. 3, 1958, Hillary became the first man to journey to the South Pole overland since Captain Robert Scott, who reached the South Pole on Jan. 18, 1912. Hillary visited the North Pole with astronaut Neil Armstrong in 1985, becoming the first man to stand at both Poles and the summit of Everest. Hillary also traced the route of the Ganges from the ocean to its source in the Himalayas.
Hillary spent four-and-a-half-years in New Delhi (the Indian capital) after he was appointed New Zealand high commissioner to India and Bangladesh and ambassador to Nepal in 1985. Following these appointments, Hillary's career became increasingly focused upon philanthropic work for the Sherpa people. Hillary's Himalayan Trust founded over 30 schools and built two hospitals, as well as planting over 1 million trees in 25 protected sites.
By the time of Hillary's death over 1,200 climbers had reached the summit of Everest. However, Hillary himself was critical of what he saw as the commercialisation of Everest, suggesting that the Nepalese government should stop issuing permits to climbers to "give the mountain a rest for a few years".
