WHYMPER, EDWARD (1840-1911), British artist, ex plorer and mountaineer, was born in London on April 27, 1840. The son of an artist, he was at an early age trained to the pro fession of a wood-engraver. In 186o he was commissioned to make a series of sketches of Alpine scenery, and undertook an extensive journey in the Central and Western Alps. Among the objects of this tour was the illustration of an attempt, which proved unsuccessful, made by Professor Bonney's party, to ascend Mont Pelvoux, at that time believed to be the highest peak of the Dauphine Alps. He successfully accomplished the ascent in 1861 —the first of a series of expeditions that threw much light on the topography of a district at that time very imperfectly mapped. From the summit of Mont Pelvoux he discovered that it was overtopped by a neighbouring peak, subsequently named the Pointe des Ecrins, which, before the annexation of Savoy added Mont Blanc to the possessions of France, was the highest point in the French Alps. Its ascent by 'Whymper's party in 1864 was perhaps the most remarkable feat of mountaineering up to that date. The years 1861 to 1865 are filled with a number of new ex peditions in the Mont Blanc group and the Pennine Alps, among them being the ascent of the Aiguille Verte and the crossing of the Moming Pass. Professor Tyndall and Mr. Whymper emulated each other in fruitless attempts to reach the summit of the Mat terhorn by the south-western or Italian ridge. Mr. Whymper, six times repulsed, determined to attempt the eastern face, convinced that its precipitous appearance when viewed from Zermatt was an optical illusion, and that the dip of the strata, which on the Italian side formed a continuous series of overhangs, should make the opposite side a natural staircase. His attempt (the seventh) by what is now the usual route was crowned with success (July 14, 1865) ; but on the descent four of the party slipped and were killed, and only the breaking of the rope saved Whymper and the two remaining guides from the same fate.
The account of his attempts on the Matterhorn occupies the greater part of his Scrambles among the Alps (1871), in which the illustrations are engraved by the author himself. He visited Greenland in 1867, with a view to crossing the interior. Another expedition in 1872 convinced him that the enterprise was too great for a private expedition. But his visits resulted in valuable collections of fossils, trees and shrubs.
He next organized an expedition to Ecuador, designed primarily to collect data for the study of mountain-sickness and of the effect of diminished pressure on the human frame. He took as his chief guide Jean-Antoine Carrel, whose subsequent death from exhaustion on the Matterhorn after bringing his employers into safety through a snowstorm forms one of the noblest pages in the history of mountaineering. During 188o Whymper on two occasions ascended Chimborazo, whose summit, 20,500 ft. above sea-level, had never before been reached ; spent a night on the summit of Cotopaxi, and made first ascents of half-a-dozen other great peaks. In 1892 he published the results of his journey in a volume entitled Travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator, in which he made useful observations, among other things, on mountain sickness. The collections of rock specimens and volcanic dust brought back from this journey were described by Dr. Bonney in the Proc. Roy. Soc. (Nos. 229-234). In 1901 1905 he undertook an expedition in the region of the Great Divide of the Canadian Rockies. Whymper died at Chamonix on Sept. 16, 1911.
See articles by T. G. Bonney in Alpine Journal (Feb. 1912), and by D. W. Freshfield in the Dict. Nat. Biog. (Second Supplement).