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Career

Born on 25 December 1890 in St Lawrence, Isle of Wight, the son of the Revd Robert William Odell, rector of St Lawrence, and his wife, Mary Margaret.
He was educated at Brighton College and at the Royal School of Mines at Imperial College, London, where he studied geology.

First World War - he was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers and was wounded three times.
In 1917 he married Gwladys Mona (d. 1977), daughter of Robert Jones, rector of Gyffin, north Wales. They had one son.

After the war Odell embarked on a career in the petroleum and mining industries.
1922-25 - geologist with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company
1927-30 - consultant in Canada

He then moved into academia.
1928-1930 - lecturer in geology and tutor at Harvard University
1931-1940 - research student and lecturer at Cambridge, where he stayed on as a Fellow Commoner and supervisor of studies at Clare College
His research for his PhD (awarded in 1940) investigated the geology, glaciology, and geomorphology of north-east Greenland and northern Labrador.
1940–42 he served as a major in the Bengal Sappers and Miners.

After the Second World War he took up various appointments at universities in Canada, New Zealand, and Pakistan. He lectured at McGill, was visiting professor at the University of British Columbia (1948–9), and was professor of geology at the University of Otago (1950–56) and at Peshawar University (1960–62).

When he retired he returned to Clare College and in 1983, at the age of ninety-two, was made an Honorary Fellow, an event which much pleased him.

Mountaineering
Although he published several important academic papers on the geology of the Himalayas, and other mountain regions it was in mountaineering that he made his name.

He began climbing at the age of 13 in the Lake District and soon gained wide climbing experience in Britain and the Alps. He participated in the Oxford University Spitsbergen expedition in 1921 and led the Merton College Arctic expedition in 1923.

In 1924 Odell was a member of the Everest expedition. He spent two weeks living above 23,000 ft and twice climbed to 26,800 ft and higher, without supplemental oxygen. On 8 June 1924 George Mallory and Andrew Irvine attempted to summit Mount Everest via the Northeast Ridge route. Odell reported seeing them at 12:50 p.m. climbing one of the major "steps" on the North-East ridge, and "going strongly for the top." There is no evidence to prove they reached the summit, or that they ascended above the major second step. They never returned and died on the mountain.

There followed several visits for geological research, mountaineering, and exploration in the Canadian Rockies (1927–47), north Labrador (1931), north-east Greenland (1933), and the St Elias Mountains in Yukon and Alaska (1949 and 1977).

An ice route he pioneered in the White Mountains bears his name, Odell Gully, and two mountains, a lake, and a glacier are also named after him.
Odell's greatest mountaineering achievement was the first ascent of Nanda Devi (25,695 feet) in 1936. He and H.W. Tilman reached the summit, which for fourteen years remained the highest peak climbed.

In 1938 he joined Tilman in an attempt on Everest, but deep powder snow made the last 1,500 ft impossible to climb.

He was a founder member of the Himalayan Club and an honorary member of the Alpine Club and similar clubs in North America, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Norway.

In 1944 he received the Livingstone gold medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and, unusually, a star in the constellation Lyra was named after him.

He died suddenly on 21 February 1987 at his home, 5 Dean Court, Holbrook Road, Cambridge, and his body was donated to medical science at the Cambridge anatomy department.

Obituary Clare Association Annual, 1986/7 p.60

Born in 1865 and was the second son of William
School - Tonbridge

Admitted at Clare on 14 June 1884
Matriculated at Michaelmas 1884
B.A. 1887; M.B., B.C. and M.A. 1892; M.D. 1901
At St Bartholomew's Hospital, and at Berlin University
Travelling exhibition (Skinners' Company), 1888-93
M.R.C.P., 1896
Weber-Parker medal, 1903
Lecturer on diseases of the ear, nose and throat at the Medical Graduates' College, London, 1899
Secretary to the Otological Society of the United Kingdom, 1901-3
Ernest Hart scholarship from B.M.A., 1902
Secretary to the Laryngological Society of London, 1906-7
President of the Laryngological Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1920
Lecturer in Laryngology at London University, 1921
President of the Section of Diseases of Ear, Nose and Throat, of the British Medical Association, 1924
Edited the Journal of Laryngology, Rhinology and Otology, 1899-1903, and Transactions of the Otological Society, 1903-7

Lived at 11 Wimpole Street, London and Mereworth, Maidstone, Kent, in 1944

A child prodigy, Bor was a recitalist during the 1920s and 1930s. She performed with the Griller Quartet, the Amadeus and the Kantrovich Trio, and was a regular broadcaster for the BBC.

Two of her pianist contemporaries were Eileen Joyce, and Myra Hess, who organised the wartime concerts at the National Gallery. Bor created her own series of lunchtime concerts at London's Royal Exchange.

After World War II she became a piano teacher. Her pupils included Prince Charles and Princess Anne.

Sir Harold Jeffreys was a British geophysicist who made significant contributions to mathematics and statistics. His book, Theory of Probability, which was first published in 1939, played an important role in the revival of the objective Bayesian view of probability.

Jeffreys studied for the Mathematical Tripos at St John's College, Cambridge, where he established a reputation as an excellent student: obtaining first-class marks for his papers in Part One of the Tripos, he was a Wrangler in Part Two, and in 1915 he was awarded the prestigious Smith's Prize.

In 1914 he became a Fellow of St John's College, and he retained his Fellowship until his death 75 years later. At the University of Cambridge he taught mathematics, then geophysics and finally became the Plumian Professor of Astronomy.

Born in Middlesbrough in 1883
School - Darlington Grammar School
Worked in a chemical laboratory of the Darlington Forge Company

Enrolled in Armstrong College (now Kings College, University of Newcastle upon Tyne), in 1904. B.Sc. (1907), M.Sc. (1909), D.Sc.
from Cambridge (1915).

After taking a fellowship at Armstrong College, Smith moved to Clare College, Cambridge in 1912. He published his first paper on corals there.

1913-1920 - Aberystwyth College, Wales
1920-1921 - Bedford College for Women, London
1921-1922 - Toronto College

1922 - became assistant lecturer in geology at the University of Bristol. Retired in 1948.

From 1913-1930, Dr Smith undertook annual vacations which would include work at the British Museum (now the Natural History Museum) and much of this work was undertaken with Dr W.D. Lang. He and Lang would mentor students from Cambridge, including Dorothy Hill, who was working on her PhD at Cambridge in the 1930s.

During World War II, extensive bombing of the Bristol Museum damaged a number of the collections Smith worked on. Like many academics he was prevented from continuing his research at the Natural History Museum in London, due to the emergency relocation of its collections for preservation during the War.

1947 - awarded the Geological Society of London's Lyell Medal

Each year, the Stanley Smith Prize, named in his honour, is awarded to the best Level 3 student in palaeontology at the University of Bristol.
 

Japanese physicist and science essayist known for his work in glaciology and low-temperature sciences. He is credited with making the first artificial snowflakes.

Born in Wallasey, Cheshire, the son of a John Hinkes Tilman (wealthy sugar merchant) and his wife Adeline.
Educated at Berkhamsted Boys school.
First World War - commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery. He fought at the Battle of the Somme, and was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery.

Known for climbing with Eric Shipton in Kenya and East Africa including Kilimanjaro.

Involved in two of the 1930s Mount Everest expeditions - participating in the 1935 Reconnaissance Expedition, and reaching 27,200 feet without oxygen as the expedition leader in 1938.

1936 - lead an Anglo-American expedition to Nanda Devi. Tilman and Noel Odell succeeded in making the first ascent of the 25,643 ft mountain, which remained the highest summit climbed by man until 1950.

1939 - was the first man to attempt climbing in the remote and unexplored Assam Himalaya.
1947 - he attempted Rakaposhi, then made his way to Kashgar to join up with Eric Shipton to make an attempt on Muztagh Ata which nearly succeeded.
He was awarded in 1952 the Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Medal for his achievements.

Second World War - he volunteered for service seeing action during the Battle of France helping to cover the retreat in Flanders before getting to the beaches at Dunkirk. He then served in North Africa, Iraq and Iran before being called on for special duty in 1943. He was dropped by parachute into Albania behind enemy lines to fight with Albanian and Italian partisans. For his actions there he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and was given the keys to the city of Belluno which he had helped save from occupation and destruction.

Following the War he took up deep sea sailing. On his last voyage in 1977 (aged 80) he travelled with mountaineers to the South Atlantic to climb Smith Island. En route to the Falkland Islands the crew disappeared and it was presumed the ship sunk.

Born in Hamburg, Germany and educated at Wanganui Collegiate School and the University of Otago (New Zealand)

1954 - came to the University of Cambridge on a Shell Post-Graduate Scholarship to do his Ph.D. in physics (1956) as student of Sir Nevill Mott

1955 - Fellow of Clare College and

1976 - became a professor and took over as head of the theory group at the Cavendish Laboratory, a position that he held until his retirement in 1997

1974 - elected Fellow of the Royal Society

Usually known as Nicholas or Nico Mann

Born in Salisbury, Wiltshire in 1942
Read modern languages and literature at King's College, Cambridge, and completed his PhD there in 1965
1965-1967 - Fellow at Clare College

In 1967 he took up a lectureship at the University of Warwick
In 1972 he went to Oxford, where he became a visiting fellow at All Souls in that year, and subsequently a Fellow and tutor at Pembroke from 1973
In 1990 he was appointed Director of the Warburg Institute and Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition in the University of London
In 2007 he retired and was awarded an emeritus professorship in Renaissance studies in the University

Born in Chester in 1905 the son of G.P. Millett
School - Haileybury College

Admitted to Clare on 14 January 1924