Dorothea Margaret Home Rawdon Briggs (5 April 1905 – 1990), was usually called by her maiden name, Molly Briggs or "Briggsie". She was a mountain climber, described as a "charismatic adventurer".[1]
Family
editBriggsie became Countess Gravina when she married the Count Gravina, by then a widower,[2][3] in Buckingham on 16 May 1933, when she was 20.[4]
After the marriage, they lived at Merano in the Italian Tyrol and she climbed and skied in the Alps with an uncle Binnie Briggs, who had been a founder member of the Alpine Ski Club, and with her husband, who was also a very competent skier.
Her mother-in-law, a predecessor as Countess Gravina, was the daughter of the celebrated conductor Hans von Bülow and his wife Cosima (later the mistress, then the wife, of the composer Richard Wagner).
Their son Christopher, now Count Gravina,[5] was born in 1934 in Buckingham (Vol. 3a, p. 1793). There were two more sons of the marriage.
Her husband, Count Gravina
editHer husband, Gilbert Graf Gravina[6] was born 17.10.1890 in Palermo, Italy. His German mother Blandine, born von Bülow, had married the Italian count Biagio [=Blasius] Gravina in 1882. She was by her mother Cosima a granddaughter of Franz Liszt and stepdaughter of Richard Wagner. Gilbert went to school in Bayreuth and studied mechanics at Dresden and Leipzig. At the same time he practised his musical talents. During the First World War he served in the Italian army. After that war he returned to Germany and worked as an orchestra-conductor. He spent the Second World War at his house in Meran. Later he lived in Bayreuth and worked as a musical assistant for the Richard Wagner Festival. Graf Gravina was a very popular man in Bayreuth; he died there on 23 November 1972.
Career
editAt the outbreak of war, Briggsie, a Briton in enemy territory, made her way with her sons to England, where she lived in a caravan on a farm,[7] and got a job delivering milk door-to-door to keep herself and her small sons. She never saw her husband again, but at the time of his death she was living in Frittenden, Cranbrook, Kent and with the youngest son she attended his funeral.
Briggsie became very much involved with the Girl Guide Movement.
Climbing
editBriggsie started climbing when she was only 4 years old, on the roof of her home in Yorkshire. In the 1920s she travelled in South and East Africa, and was possibly the first woman to climb Kilimanjaro.[8]
She joined the Ladies' Alpine Club in 1955 and in 1959, aged 55, Briggsie took command of an expedition up 26,867-foot Mount Cho Oyu after its leader, Mme. Claude Kogan of France, another climber, Mlle. Claudine van der Straten-Ponthoz, and two Sherpa porters had perished in an avalanche at 23,000 feet. Their attempt to scale the sixth highest mountain in the world was the first time in history that an expedition composed entirely of women (excepting guides and porters) had ever challenged such a peak. [9]
In about 1968, Briggsie went to South Africa and climbed there. She travelled on to Tanzania, and climbed Kilimanjaro. She then travelled on northwards, by third class railway through the Sudan, where the other passengers (all Muslim) required her to "cover up". She eventually reached Egypt, and much to her disappointment had to fly to Italy, where she hitch-hiked up the spine in a fish-lorry that picked her up at 6 in the morning. She eventually arrived at the home of her friend Olave Baden-Powell at Hampton Court Palace, where she stayed a few days before going home.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][excessive citations]
References
edit- ^ "Eileen Healey obituary - World news - The Guardian". theguardian.com. 22 November 2010. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^ ISBN 8870630560
- ^ "Africa Hotel: Hotel Lancelot, Rome". africa-hotel.blogspot.co.uk. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^ "FreeBMD Home Page". www.freebmd.org.uk.
- ^ "Barn Owl Blog". wesleytheowl.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^ by e-mail from Walter Bartl, Archivist to the Bayreuth Festival, 12:58 4 Nov 2013
- ^ Briggsie related this to me
- ^ "404 - Page not found : Himalayan Club". himalayanclub.org. Archived from the original on 3 November 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
{{cite web}}
: Cite uses generic title (help) - ^ "Sports Illustrated Vault - 1950 Issues". si.com. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^ "Helen O. Storrow with Countess Gravina, her family, and dog., Hollis Images, Harvard University". images.hollis.harvard.edu. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
- ^ http://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1991-92_files/AJ%201991-92%20293-310%20Templeman%20Memoriam.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ Nelsson, R. (2012). On the Roof of the World. Random House. ISBN 9780852653579. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^ "Cho Oyu Trekking Guidebooks, Books, External Links, DVDs". mountainsoftravelphotos.com. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^ "Topfoto - Preview IPU438441 - DENISE EVANS WITH COUNTESS DOROTHEA GRAVINA IN NEPAL / ; 5 JULY 1962". topfoto.co.uk. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^ "Those Who Dared: To the Himalayas on £250". thosewhodared.blogspot.co.uk. 12 November 2010. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^ Ota, Y. (2012). Basil Hall Chamberlain: Portrait of a Japanologist. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781136638671. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^ http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b322/GeeVor/No%20Going%20Back/Overland_Firms_87.jpg [bare URL image file]
- ^ http://www.indiaoverland.biz/forum/viewtopic.php?id=68 [permanent dead link ]
- ^ "Waugh's syndrome - 21 Oct 1988 - The Spectator Archive". archive.spectator.co.uk. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^ "404 - Page not found : Himalayan Club". himalayanclub.org. Archived from the original on 24 October 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
{{cite web}}
: Cite uses generic title (help) - ^ "404 - Page not found : Himalayan Club". himalayanclub.org. Archived from the original on 24 October 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
{{cite web}}
: Cite uses generic title (help) - ^ Sotheby & Co. (London, England) (1979). Old Master Pictures: The Properties of the Late Ralph Edwards, C.B.E., F.S.A. ; the Countess Gravina and from Various Sources which Will be Sold at Auction by Christie, Manson & Woods LTd. .. at Their Great Rooms 8 King Street, St. James's London, SW1Y 6QT ... on Friday, September 28, 1979 at 10.30 A.m. Precisely. May be Viewed Three Days Preceding Until 4.00 P.m. Thursday. Christie, Manson & Woods Limited. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^ "Quick Look Round".
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 December 2011. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/bnsj/pdf/bnsj_15.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ "Sower Of The Word - Mary Walmsley". soweroftheword.net. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^ Personal memories