Thomas Middlemore

Thomas Middlemore (1842 – 16 May 1923) was an English mountaineer who made multiple first ascents during the silver age of alpinism. His audacity earned him a reputation as the enfant terrible within the Alpine Club. He was also the head of the Middlemores Saddles leather goods company in Birmingham, England, after the retirement of his father, William Middlemore, in 1881. Thomas Middlemore had taken over the management of the company in 1868 and established a bicycle saddle factory in Coventry.

In August 1870 Middlemore climbed Monte Rosa, the Strahlhorn and the Wetterhorn with guide Jakob Anderegg of Meiringen while qualifying for membership of the Alpine Club. In 1872 he made a traverse of the Matterhorn together with Frederick Gardiner and the guides Jean-Joseph Maquignaz, Johann Jaun and Peter Knubel of St. Niklaus in the canton Valais.

According to Claire Engel, Middlemore was one of the first alpinists to climb routes in the Alps of an unprecedented degree of difficulty and danger:

Middlemore's crossing of the Col des Grandes Jorasses made his Alpine Club colleagues realize that mountaineering had found a new mode of expression. With his guide, Jaun, and their porter he spent his time dodging falling stones ... One wonders here at the extraordinary lack of foresight displayed by both Middlemore and his guide, or at the indifference to the most elementary rules of prudence.

The ethics of employing a guide and then taking him into an area where there was significant objective danger created a considerable controversy at the time.

On 31 July 1876 Middlemore made the first ascent of the north-east face of the Aiguille Verte by what is now known as the Cordier Couloir with the London stockbroker John Oakley Maund, the Chamonix guide Henri Cordier, Grindelwald guides Johann Jaun, Andreas Maurer, and Jakob Anderegg. The route was not repeated until 1924, and according to Helmut Dumler is "one of the most respected achievements in the history of mountaineering, for the 900m couloir is set at an angle of up to 56°". Engel notes that the party were all nearly obliterated by rockfall while they were crossing the bergschrund.

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