Edward Shirley Kennedy

Kennedy was a gentleman of independent means,[1] who attended Caius College, Cambridge as a Fellow-Commoner in his mid-thirties.

[2] During an ascent of the Finsteraarhorn on 13 August 1857,[3] Kennedy discussed the formation of a national mountaineering club with William Mathews, who had corresponded with F. J.

A wood engraving by Edward Whymper of The Alpine Club at Zermatt in 1864 shows Kennedy with John Ball, William Mathews, T. G. Bonney, John Tyndall, Alfred Wills (the Alpine Club's third president), and Ulrich Lauener.

Kennedy appears as a man of above average height, with a full beard, carrying a long plain wooden staff, several inches taller than himself.

[7] In 1854 Kennedy attempted the unclimbed Dom – the highest mountain entirely within Switzerland – with Saas-Fee priest and hotel owner Abbé Joseph Imseng and two Swiss guides, but the guides were unwilling to tackle a particularly tricky passage, although both Kennedy and Imseng were happy to continue.