The Oxford University Mountaineering Club (OUMC) was founded in 1909 by Arnold Lunn, then a Balliol undergraduate; he did not earn a degree.
[2] Andrew Irvine was at Merton College and was a member of the OUMC at the time of his fatal attempt to climb Everest with George Mallory.
Evans was Deputy Leader to John Hunt on that expedition, Bourdillon was responsible for the oxygen apparatus, and Westmacott was in charge of keeping the dangerous passage through the Khumbu Icefall open.
[4] Bourdillon and Evans made the first attempt on the summit, on 26 May 1953, three days before the successful climb by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.
It claims first ascents of peaks in such places as Greenland, the Himalayas, the Karakoram, Kishtwar, Peru, Spitsbergen, and Wakhan.
[5][6] Those instrumental in the club's foundation were Jean Orr-Ewing, Dora Butterworth (LMH, 1917-1921), M. Budenburg (St Hugh's), A.