Page 85 - They Also Served

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Charles Howard-Bury 1904.
Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury was born in
Charleville Castle, Ireland, on 15th August 1883.
Educated at Eton, he was commissioned from
Sandhurst on 18th May 1904 into the King’s
Royal Rifle Corps. Initially serving in India,
his experience forged a lifelong interest in Asia.
Travelling widely, in 1905, he was one of the
first westerners to enter the forbidden region of
Tibet, where he met the Dalai Lama, an adventure that earned him a rebuke from the viceroy, Lord Curzon.
Howard-Bury kept meticulous diaries of his travels, which reveal a great eye for detail, knowledge of natural history and botany, and a flair for dialects. Indeed, he was renowned for being fluent in 27 languages. While stationed in India, he stalked and shot a man-eating tiger that had killed 21 people, and hunted crocodiles in Burma. He also acquired a bear, which he named Agu, and which he brought home to Ireland. The animal evidently approved of the climate, for it lived for another 20 years and would wrestle with its master in the garden.
Returning from India, Howard-Bury resigned his commission in 1913 but, the following year, re-enlisted and accompanied his regiment to France. Promoted to acting lieutenant-colonel in December 1916, he commanded a battalion, being awarded the DSO and being MiD five times. The London Gazette describes him as captain (temporary major, acting lieutenant-colonel, lieutenant (retired pay)). Howard-Bury was captured when his battalion was overrun during the March 1918 German offensive and awarded a sixth MiD as a POW for persistent attempts to escape.
In 1921, Howard-Bury was selected to lead the British Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition. One of the team was George Mallory, who died on Everest three years later; his body only discovered in 1999. The group climbed 7,000 metres (23,000 feet), the second-highest climb in the world at that time, and pushed closer to the summit of Everest than any previous expedition. During the mission, they found large wolf tracks – the Sherpas referred to the animal in their language as ‘filthy snowman’. One of the party mistranslated it as ‘abominable snowman’, and the
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