Mallory was born in Mobberley, Cheshire, the son of Herbert Leigh Mallory (1856–1943), a clergyman who changed his surname from Mallory to Leigh-Mallory in 1914. His mother was Annie Beridge (née Jebb) (1863–1946), the daughter of a clergyman in Walton, Derbyshire. George had two sisters and a younger brother, Trafford Leigh-Mallory, the World War II Royal Air Force commander. In 1896, Mallory attended Glengorse, a preparatory boarding school in Eastbourne on the south coast of England, having transferred from another preparatory school in West Kirby. At the age of 13, he won a mathematics scholarship to Winchester College. In his final year there, he was introduced to rock climbing and mountaineering by a master, R. L. G. Irving, who took a small number of people climbing in the Alps each year. In October 1905, Mallory entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, to study history.There he became good friends with members of the future Bloomsbury Group including James Strachey, Lytton Strachey, Rupert Brooke, John Maynard Keynes, and Duncan Grant, who took several portraits of Mallory.Mallory was a keen oarsman, rowing for his college while at Cambridge.In 1909 Lytton Strachey wrote of Mallory: "Mon dieu!—George Mallory! … He's six foot high, with the body of an athlete by Praxiteles, and a face—oh incredible—the mystery of Botticelli, the refinement and delicacy of a Chinese print, the youth and piquancy of an unimaginable English boy. After gaining his degree, Mallory stayed in Cambridge for a year writing an essay he later published as Boswell the Biographer (1912). He lived briefly in France afterwards. In 1910, he began teaching at Charterhouse School, Godalming, Surrey, where he met the poet Robert Graves, then a pupil, and he went on to act as best man at Graves' wedding in 1918. In his autobiography, Goodbye to All That, Graves remembered Mallory fondly both for his encouragement of Graves' interest in literature and poetry and his instruction in climbing. Graves recalled: "He (Mallory) was wasted (as a teacher) at Charterhouse. He tried to treat his class in a friendly way, which puzzled and offended them.  While at Charterhouse, he met his wife, Ruth Turner (6 October 1892 – 6 January 1942), who lived in Godalming, and they were married in 1914, just six days before Britain and Germany went to war. George and Ruth had two daughters and a son: Frances Clare (19 September 1915 – 2001), Beridge Ruth, known as 'Berry' (16 September 1917 – 1953), and John (born 21 August 1920). In December 1915, Mallory joined the Royal Garrison Artillery as 2nd lieutenant and in 1916, he participated in the shelling of the Somme, under the command of Major Gwilym Lloyd George, the son of then Prime Minister David Lloyd George. After the war, Mallory returned to Charterhouse, resigning in 1921 in order to join the first Everest expedition. Between expeditions, he attempted to make a living from writing and lecturing, with only partial success. In 1923, he took a job as lecturer with the Cambridge University Extramural Studies Department. He was given temporary leave so that he could join the 1924 Everest attempt.

In Europe[edit] In 1910, in a party led by Irving, Mallory and a friend attempted to climb Mont Vélan in the Alps, but turned back shortly before the summit due to Mallory's altitude sickness.[12] In 1911, Mallory climbed Mont Blanc, as well as making the third ascent of the Frontier ridge of Mont Maudit in a party again led by Irving. According to Helmut Dumler, Mallory was "apparently prompted by a friend on the Western Front in 1916 [to write] a highly emotional article of his ascent of this great climb";[13] this article was published as 'Mont Blanc from the Col du Géant by the Eastern Buttress of Mont Maudit' in the Alpine Journal[14] and contained his question, "Have we vanquished an enemy?" [i.e. the mountain] to which he responded, "None but ourselves." By 1913, he had ascended Pillar Rock in the English Lake District, with no assistance, by what is now known as "Mallory's Route" – currently graded Hard Very Severe 5a (American grading 5.9). It is likely to have been the hardest route in Britain for many years. One of Mallory's closest friends and climbing companions was a young woman named Cottie Sanders, who became a novelist with the pseudonym of Ann Bridge. The nature of their relationship is elusive. She was a "climbing friend" or a "casual sweetheart." After Mallory died, Cottie wrote a memoir of him, which was never published, but nonetheless provided much of the material used by later biographers such as David Pye and David Robertson and a novel Everest Dream.[15] In Asia[edit] 1921 Everest Expedition; Mallory at right on rear row; Bullock at left on rear row Mallory participated in the initial 1921 British Reconnaissance Expedition,[16] organised and financed by the Mount Everest Committee, that explored routes up to the North Col of Mount Everest. The expedition produced the first accurate maps of the region around the mountain, as Mallory, his climbing partner Guy Bullock and E. O. Wheeler of the Survey of India explored in depth several approaches to its peak.[17] Under Mallory's leadership, and with the assistance of around a dozen Sherpas, the group climbed several lower peaks near Everest. His party were almost certainly the first Westerners to view the Western Cwm at the foot of the Lhotse face,[18] as well as charting the course of the Rongbuk Glacier up to the base of the North Face. After circling the mountain from the south side, his party finally discovered the East Rongbuk Glacier—the highway to the summit now used by nearly all climbers on the Tibetan side of the mountain. By climbing up to the saddle of the North Ridge (the 23,030 ft (7,020 m) North Col), they spied a route to the summit via the North-East Ridge over the obstacle of the Second Step. In 1922 Mallory returned to the Himalayas as part of the party led by Brigadier-General Charles Bruce and climbing leader Edward Strutt, with a view to making a serious attempt on the summit. Eschewing their bottled oxygen, which was at the time seen as going against the spirit of mountaineering, Mallory, along with Howard Somervell and Edward Norton almost reached the crest of the North-East Ridge. Despite being hampered and slowed by the thin air, they achieved a record altitude of 26,980 ft (8,225 m) before weather conditions and the late hour forced them to retreat.[19] A second party led by George Finch reached a height of approximately 27,300 ft (8,321 m) using bottled oxygen both for climbing and — a first — for sleeping.[20] The party climbed at record speeds — a fact that Mallory seized upon during the next expedition. Mallory organized a third unsuccessful attempt on the summit, departing as the monsoon season arrived. While Mallory was leading a group of porters down the lower slopes of the North Col of Everest in fresh, waist-deep snow, an avalanche swept over the group, killing seven Sherpas.[21] The attempt was immediately abandoned, and Mallory was subsequently accused of poor judgement, including by expedition participants such as Dr. Longstaff.[22] Mallory is famously quoted as having replied to the question "Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?" with the retort "Because it's there", which has been called "the most famous three words in mountaineering".[23][24] There have been questions over the authenticity of the quote, and whether Mallory actually said it. Some have suggested that it was a paraphrase by a newspaper reporter, but scrutiny of the original report in the New York Times leaves this unresolved. The phrase was certainly consistent with the direct quotes cited in the New York Times report, so it appears not to misrepresent Mallory's attitude.[25][26]
 

June 1924 expedition to Everest[edit] Memorial to George Mallory and Andrew Irvine in Chester Cathedral Main article: 1924 British Mount Everest expedition Mallory joined the 1924 Everest expedition, led, as in 1922, by General Bruce. Mallory believed that, due to his age (he was 37 years old at the time of the ascent), it would be his last opportunity to climb the mountain and, when touring the US, proclaimed that that expedition would successfully reach the summit[citation needed]. Mallory and Geoffrey Bruce had made the first attempt, which was inexplicably aborted by Mallory at Camp 5. Norton and Somervell set off from Camp 6, and in perfect weather, Norton managed, without oxygen, to reach 28,120 ft (8,570 m), a new record height. On 4 June 1924, Mallory and Andrew Irvine set off from Advanced Base Camp (ABC) at 21,330 ft (6,500 m) and already began using oxygen from the base of the North Col, which they climbed in 2 1⁄2 hours—such was the conversion of Mallory from anti- to pro-oxygen usage, Mallory having been converted from his original scepticism by his failure on his initial assault and recalling the very rapid ascent speed of Finch in 1922. At 8:40 am on 6 June they set off, climbing to Camp 5. On 7 June they reached Camp 6. Mallory wrote he had used only 3⁄4 of one bottle of oxygen for the two days, which suggests a climb rate of some 856 vertical feet per hour. On 8 June, expedition colleague Noel Odell was moving up behind the pair in a "support role". At around 26,000 ft (7,925 m) he spotted the two climbing a prominent rock-step, either the First or Second Step, about 1 pm; although Odell might, conceivably, have been viewing the higher, then-unknown, "Third Step".[27] Odell later reported: At 12.50, just after I had emerged from a state of jubilation at finding the first definite fossils on Everest, there was a sudden clearing of the atmosphere, and the entire summit ridge and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow-crest beneath a rock-step in the ridge; the black spot moved. Another black spot became apparent and moved up the snow to join the other on the crest. The first then approached the great rock-step and shortly emerged at the top; the second did likewise. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more.[28] At the time, Odell observed that one of the men surmounted the Second Step of the NE ridge. Apart from his testimony, though, no evidence has been found that Mallory and Irvine climbed higher than the First Step; one of their spent oxygen cylinders was found shortly below the First Step, and Irvine's ice axe was also found nearby in 1933. They never returned to their camp. Presumably Mallory and Irvine died either late the same evening or on 9 June. The news of Mallory's and Irvine's disappearance was widely mourned in Britain, to the extent that the two were hailed as national heroes. A memorial service was held at St Paul's Cathedral, London on 17 October and was attended by a great assembly of family, friends, and dignitaries including Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald, the entire British Cabinet, and members of the Royal Family, headed by King George V. Lost on Everest for 75 years[edit] After their disappearance several expeditions tried to find their remains and, perhaps, determine if they had reached the summit. Frank Smythe, when on the 1936 expedition, believed he spotted a body below the place where Irvine's ice axe was found three years earlier: "I was scanning the face from base camp through a high-powered telescope...when I saw something queer in a gully below the scree shelf. Of course it was a long way away and very small, but I've a six/six eyesight and do not believe it was a rock. This object was at precisely the point where Mallory and Irvine would have fallen had they rolled on over the scree slopes" Smythe wrote in a letter to Edward Felix Norton. He kept the discovery quiet as he feared press sensationalism, and it was not revealed until 2013, after the letter was found by his son when preparing his biography.[29] In late 1986, Tom Holzel launched a search expedition based on reports from Chinese climber Zhang Junyan that his tent-mate, Wang Hungbao, had stumbled across "an English dead" at 26,570 ft (8,100 m) in 1975. On the last day of the expedition, Holzel met with Zhang Junyan, who reiterated that, despite official denials from the Chinese Mountaineering Association, Wang had come back from a short excursion and described finding "a foreign mountaineer" at "8,100 m."[30] Wang was killed in an avalanche the day after delivering his verbal report and so the location was never more precisely fixed. In 1999 the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition, sponsored in part by the TV show Nova and the BBC, and organized and led by Eric Simonson, arrived at Everest to search for the lost pair. Guided by the research of Jochen Hemmleb, within hours of beginning the search on 1 May, a frozen body was found by Conrad Anker at 26,760 ft (8,157 m) on the north face of the mountain. As the body was found at 27,000 ft, below where Irvine's axe was found in 1933 which was found at 27,760 ft, the team expected the body to be Irvine's, and were hoping to recover the camera that he had reportedly carried with him.[31] They were surprised to find that name tags on the body's clothing bore the name of "G. Leigh Mallory." The body was well preserved, due to the mountain's climate. A brass altimeter, stag-handled lambsfoot pocket knife with leather slip-case and an unbroken pair of snow-goggles were also recovered from Mallory's corpse. The team could not, however, locate the camera that the two climbers took to document their final summit attempt.[31] Experts from Kodak have said that if a camera is ever found, there is some chance that its film could be developed to produce printable images, if extraordinary measures are taken and provided guidance as to handling of such a camera and the film inside, in the event that such were found in the investigation.[32] Before leaving the site of Mallory's death, the expedition conducted an Anglican service for the climber and covered his remains with a cairn on the mountain. The 1999 research team returned to the mountain in 2001 to conduct further research.[33] They discovered Mallory and Irvine's last camp, but failed to find either Irvine or a camera.[34] Another initiative in 2004 also proved fruitless.[35] In 2007, the Altitude Everest Expedition led by Conrad Anker, who had found Mallory's body, tried to retrace Mallory's last steps.