- Fell & Rock Climbing Club
The Fell & Rock Climbing Club of the English Lake District (in everyday usage the Fell and Rock Club or FRCC) is the senior
climbing club covering the EnglishLake District . It was founded in 1906–1907 and, amongst its other activities, publishes the rock climbing guides to the area. It owns many of the early climbing photographs (e.g .Hankinson, 1975) taken byGeorge & Ashley Abraham , who were founding members.Early history
The club had been originally proposed by
John Wilson Robinson about 1887, approximately when rock climbing began as a sport in England. Robinson, owner of a farm and, later, an estate agent's business in Keswick, climbed withWalter Parry Haskett Smith , generally acknowledged as the father of rock climbing inGreat Britain , and it was Robinson – in 1885 - who introduced the use of the alpine rope in the Lake District.Ashley Abraham was elected the first president of the FRCC, with Robinson one of its two vice-presidents. The chief objective of the club [Journal of the Fell & Rock Climbing Club, Vol. 1] was :
::"To encourage and foster under the safest and most helpful of conditions the exhilarating exercise and sport of Fell Rambling and Rock Climbing in the Lake District."
Safety was an issue at the time, since several fatal accidents had occurred recently. Alluding to these, Abraham commented at the first annual dinner [Mountaineering in Britain (1957)] :
::"Lack of discretion is a great evil in rock climbing, but there is another evil equally as great, and that is competitive climbing. This has been the fundamental cause of most of our home accidents . . ."
Notes
References
* cite book
title = The First Tigers
author = Hankinson, Alan
year = 1972
publisher = J. M. Dent & Sons
id =
* cite book
title = Camera on the Crags
author = Hankinson, Alan
year = 1975
publisher = Heinemann
id =
* cite book
title = Mountaineering in Britain
author = Clark, R. W. & Pyatt, E. C.
year = 1957
publisher = Phoenix House
id =ee also
Other UK
Mountaineering 'Senior Clubs':
*The Alpine Club
*Climbers' Club
*The Rucksack Club
*Scottish Mountaineering Club
*The Wayfarers' Club External links
* [http://www.frcc.co.uk Fell & Rock website]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.