The Himalayan Club

: exploration, imperialism, and mountaineering in British India, 1927-1947

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between ideas of exploration, imperialism, and mountaineering on the Himalayan frontier of the British Empire in the 1920s and 1930s. This is done through an examination of the Himalayan Club, a society that was founded in Simla in 1927. With interests in mountaineering and upland recreation, the Himalayan Club and its members, many of whom were high ranking members of the Indian Civil Service and Military, were driven to create the Club by a nostalgia for a putative golden age of exploration. This study argues that for many British officials and officers in India in the 1920s and 30s the Himalaya was perceived to be a space in which an idealised form of imperialism could be performed without the constraints imposed by normal imperial administration. It does so through an examination of The Himalayan Journal, the literary organ of the Club, alongside mountaineering memoirs, travelogues, private correspondence and journals This idealised form of imperialism was predicated on a belief in the intimate connection between exploration and imperialism. This connection, in large part, depended on a nostalgic conception of the Empire’s past and indeed of many older colonial officials’ experience of it. Within this narrative, exploration had been the motor of the British Empire and the absence of new frontiers or of blank spaces on the map was something to be dreaded. For the Himalayan Club, however, exploration encompassed a variety of activities ranging from hunting excursions, to scientific expeditions, to high-altitude climbs. Overall, this study argues that a nostalgic conception of exploration and of Britain’s imperial past was widespread amongst British imperial agents during the Interwar period and suggests that by the 1920s and 30s these agents had increasingly come to understand the Empire in terms of personal interests and desires.

Date of Award	6 Dec 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Simon J Potter (Supervisor) & Dan Haines (Supervisor)