EDWARD LISLE STRUTT 1874-1948

The unexpected death of Colonel E. L. Strutt at Edinburgh on 7 July 1948 deprives the American Alpine Club of a distinguished honorary member, who edited the Alpine Journal from 1927 to 1937, succeeding Captain Farrar, and served as President of the Alpine Club from 1935 to 1938.

Born in 1874, he was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and Innsbruck University. His holidays were given over to climbing, and he joined the Alpine Club at the age of 21. He was also a member of Sektion Bernina of the Swiss Alpine Club.

During the Boer War Strutt served with the Royal Scots, 1900-02 (dispatches, Queen’s Medal and four clasps, King’s Medal and two clasps). In the years thereafter, his climbs in eastern Switzerland gave rise to The Alps of the Bernina (Part II, from the Muretto to the Bernina Pass, in the Conway and Coolidge series of climbers’ guides, 1910). He married Florence Nina Hollond in 1905.

In the period 1916-17 he was Field-Marshal Milne’s principal liaison officer with French headquarters at Salonika, and for his services in the war received many decorations and honors (D.S.O., 1917; C.B.E., 1919). In March 1919, as an officer of the Allied Council in Vienna, he escorted the Austrian Imperial Family to safety in Switzerland. In 1920 he became High Commissioner at Danzig.

On the Mount Everest expedition of 1922 he was second in command to General Bruce. His last visit to Switzerland was in May 1946, when he addressed a gathering of mountaineers at Zürich. His mountaineering career exerted a great influence upon international circles and his friendship will be well remembered.

J. M. T.