Harold Raeburn

Harold Andrew Raeburn (1865 to 1926) was a Scottish mountaineer from Edinburgh and one of the leading British climbers of his generation. The son of a brewer, he trained as a chemist and worked in the family brewing business while climbing in his spare time. He joined the Scottish Mountaineering Club in 1896 and soon became its foremost climber, recording many classic routes, including a long list of new routes on Ben Nevis, and serving as vice-president from 1909 to 1911 before turning down the presidency. He climbed widely abroad, with first ascents in Norway and the Caucasus, and made the first British guideless ascent of the Zmutt ridge of the Matterhorn in 1906. In 1921 he was made lead climber of the first British reconnaissance expedition to Mount Everest, but illness left him unable to continue and he died in Edinburgh in December 1926.