LLOYD
,
Sir
WILLIAM
(
1782
-
1857
),
soldier and one of the first Europeans to reach the peak of any Himalayan snow-capped mountain
;
b.
29 Dec. 1782
, eldest son of
Richard
Lloyd
, a
banker
of
Wrexham, Denbs.
, and his wife
Mary
, and great-grandson of
Thomas
Lloyd
the
lexicologist
(
DWB
, 1141)
. He was educated in
Ruthin School
and then,
between 1798 and 1825
, he
served in the army
of the
East India Company
, attaining the rank of
major
in the
Bengal Infantry
. He was
captain
of the
Residency Guard
at
Nagpur
between 1806 and 1820
. He gained eminence not only in battle (in
1817
he was wounded four times in the
Mahratta War
) but also as a
cartographer
. In
1822
he went on a long journey through the foothills of the
Himalayas
as far as
Boorendo Pass
(or
Buan Ghati
) on the western boundary of
Tibet
, partly in the company of the most famous pioneer in this area,
Alexander
Gerard
(
1792
-
1839
) of
Aberdeen
and his brothers
Patrick
and
James
. After camping in the snow at the foot of the pass and spending an uncomfortable night on the pass itself,
Lloyd
was the only one to proceed to the western peak of
Boorendo
(16,880 ft.) on
13 June
, and see ‘
an assemblage … of all the mountains in the world
’. It is doubtful whether any others but the
Gerard
brothers had been on a mountain as high as this before. More importantly, this was the first time for almost anyone to climb a snow peak in the
Himalayas
merely for the sake of doing so rather than as part of the task of surveying. Even more importantly,
Lloyd
forestalled the
Alpine climbers
of the middle of the century by leaving a live, romantic record of his experiences. ‘
I had longed ardently to see them, to be upon them, to know them
’, he said of the
Himalayas
, ‘
The very impulse brought back to me my schooldays among the purple hills of the
Vale of Clwyd
.’ In
1840
, he published two volumes in
London
edited by his son
George
which include ‘
The narrative of a journey from Cawnpoor to the Boorendo Pass
’, based on his journal, as well as shorter items by
Alexander
and
James
Gerard
. A one-volume second ed. was published in
1846
. After retiring,
Lloyd
returned to
Wrexham
to live on
Bryn Estyn estate
, to captain the
Denbighshire Hussars Yeomanry
and play a prominent part on behalf of the
Whigs
in the political and social life of the district. He received a
knighthood
in
1838
and was appointed
hon. Lieutenant Colonel
in
1854
. He d.
16 May 1857
and was buried in the old
Llandudno
churchyard - he had a residence in the town.
It is believed that
GEORGE
LLOYD
(
1815
-
1843
), b.
17 Oct. 1815
, was his illegitimate son of an
Indian
mother.
George
, at the age of seven, was with his father during the first weeks of the
1822
campaign but was left behind in
Kotgarh
. He also
roamed in the Alps
with his father. In addition to editing his father's work, he edited
An account of Koonawur in the Himalaya
(
1841
), relating all of
Alexander
Gerard
's travels. He is said to have
published a book of poems
. He d.
10 Oct. 1843
, near
Thebes
in
Egypt
, after an ‘
accident with a gun
’.
Bibliography:
-
R. H. Phillimore
,
Historical records of the survey of India,
volume II (1800-1815)
, 1950
, 2,
1800-15
(1950)
, 417, and 3, 1815-30 (1954), 42 and 451-2;
-
Ioan Bowen Rees
,
Mynyddoedd, ysgrifau a cherddi
,
Llandysul, 1975
(1975)
, 90-3;
-
D. Leslie Davies
, ‘Sir William Lloyd of Bryn Estyn’,
Trafodion Cymdeithas Hanes Sir Ddinbych /
Denbighshire Historical Society Transactions
, 25
(1976)
and 26 (1977).
Author:
Dr Ioan Bowen Rees, (1929-99), Bangor
