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C.H.Bury
Colonel Charles
Howard Bury   

Colonel Charles Howard Bury (1881-1963)
A Tale of Adventure featuring . . .
Bilston, Everest & The Abominable Snowman . . .

Lord Curzon
Lord Curzon
Viceroy of India
6 January 1899 
 18 November 1905   

The Formative Years

  • Born in London in August 1881, a descendent of the illustriousHoward, Bury and Campbell families Parents, Captain Kenneth Howard and Lady Emily Bury, who met during a botanical expedition in Algeria

  • “ . . . the brat is enormous and ugly and it squalls like hell.”
    Father, died in 1884

  • “My darling boy, I am afraid there is no chance of me being permitted to live long enough for you even to remember me, and this I need not tell you is a very great grief to me, as I had been so looking forward to having you as my companion in my walks, and telling you all about the birds and plants, flowers and fishes like my father did when I was a little boy, and I want you to grow up a manly boy, fond of all these things as well as of your books.” (Kenneth Howard-Bury, 1884)


  • Served with distinction at the Somme; captured at Ypres
  • Epitomised the spirit of Victorian exploration by traversing what is commonly referred to as Eurasia

  • Plant collector, photographer and big game huntsmen
    Linguist, becoming fluent in 27 European and Asian languages

  • Anthropologist, blessed with lively descriptive powers, tireless curiosity and a keen eye for detail – having produced diaries of all of his excursions

  • Exploratory career culminated in leading the first expedition to Everest in 1921, and the subsequent ‘discovery’ of the Abominable Snowman

  • Returned to Britain to become MP for Bilston (1922-1924)

Quotes about Bury

  • "Bury was a man of discretion and decorum, typical of a generation of men unprepared to yield their feelings to analysis, and quite unwilling to litter the world with themselves.

  •   Individuals so confident in their masculinity that they could speak of love between men without shame, collect butterflies and flowers in the dawn, paint watercolours in late morning, discuss poetry in the early afternoon"

  • Bury was a man of discretion and decorum, typical of a generation of men unprepared to yield their feelings to analysis, and quite unwilling to litter the world with themselves.

  •  Individuals so confident in their masculinity that they could speak of love between men without shame, collect butterflies and flowers in the dawn, paint watercolours in late morning, discuss poetry in the early afternoon and at dusk still be prepared to assault the German trenches or the flanks of the highest mountain in the world.” (Wade Davis, Explorer) "
Map 
A map showing Tian Shan Mountains today
Penny bus 
Howard-Bury inspects the penny bus from
Kuldja to Suidum:
 A Teahouse
A tea house in Kuldja,
taken by Charles Howard-Bury:


Early Exploration

  • 1905, when stationed in India, obtained leave for a hunting trip in the Tian Shan Mountains. Beforehand, Howard-Bury slipped into the forbidden land of Tibet – reading the works of the Krishnamuriti he visited the shrine guardians of Lhasa and met the Dhalai Lama

  • Upon his return to India, he fell foul of the British Government and Lord Curzon, who punished Howard-Bury by cancelling future leave

  • 1906, embarked on a pilgrimage along the Ganges, receiving teachings from Sanskrit scholars

  • Shot and killed a man-eating tiger that had carried off and eaten 21 ‘fakirs,’ or holy men

  • 1907, obtained necessary permits from the Russian Tsars to enter the region of the Pamirs and Turkestan

  • Expanded his knowledge of European, Indian and ‘Oriental’ languages – becoming fluent in 27 dialects

  • 1912, inherited Belvedere House, Mullingar, from his mother – resigning from the Army to devote his talents to travel and exploration

  • 1913, finally set out on a 6 month tour in the Remote Tian Shan Mountains – journey took him by the Trans-Siberian Railway to Omsk, by steamer through newly settled Siberia, by horse carriage to Kuldja, and then on horseback into the mountain hunting grounds of the Kazaks.

  • Wrote impressive diaries.

  • Bury Adopted Agua small Brown Bear
    who would be a life long companion

Continued