Hugh Ruttledge

Hugh Ruttledge (24 October 1884 – 7 November 1961) was an English civil servant and mountaineer who was the leader of two expeditions to Mount Everest in 1933 and 1936.

The son of Lt.-Colonel Edward Butler Ruttledge, of the Indian Medical Service, and of his wife Alice Dennison, Ruttledge was educated at schools in Dresden and Lausanne and then at Cheltenham College. In 1903 he matriculated as an exhibitioner at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and in 1906 he took a second-class Honours degree in the Classical Honours tripos.

Ruttledge passed the Indian Civil Service examination in 1908 and spent a year at the University of London studying Indian law, history and languages, before going out to India towards the end of 1909.

He was posted as an assistant in Roorkee and Sitapur, then was promoted a magistrate at Agra. He played polo and took part in field sports including big game-hunting until in 1915 a fall from a horse left him with a curved spine and a compacted hip. Also in 1915, he married Dorothy Jessie Hair Elder at Agra, with whom he had one son and two daughters.

In 1917, Ruttledge transferred to Lucknow as city magistrate and in 1921 became deputy commissioner there. In 1921, while on leave in Europe, he took up climbing in the Alps.

In 1925, he went as deputy commissioner to Almora in the foothills of the Himalaya, and within sight of some of its great peaks. Despite his injuries, Ruttledge was still able to climb, and he made up his mind to get to know every part of his district. With his wife he began to explore the glaciers and peaks on India's northern frontier.

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