Theodore Howard Somervell

Theodore Howard Somervell OBE, FRCS (16 April 1890 – 23 January 1975) was an English surgeon, mountaineer, painter and missionary who was a member of two expeditions to Mount Everest in the 1920s, and then spent nearly 40 years working as a doctor in India. In 1924 he was awarded an Olympic Gold Medal by Pierre de Coubertin for his achievements in mountaineering (Alpinism).

Somervell was born in Kendal, Westmorland, England, to a well-off family which owned the shoe-manufacturing business founded by two Somervell brothers in Kendal in 1845, that became K Shoes.^[1] His father William Somervell (1860 – 1934) was a businessman, philanthropist and Liberal politician. He attended Rugby School, and at the age of eighteen joined the Fell and Rock Climbing Club, beginning an interest in climbing, art and mountaineering which would last a lifetime. He studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge where he developed his strong Christian faith and gained First Class Honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos. He then began training as a surgeon at University College Hospital; eventually graduating in 1921 after his training had been interrupted by the First World War.

He married Margaret Hope Simpson (1899–1993), daughter of Sir James Hope Simpson, the general manager of the Bank of Liverpool. With Margaret he had three sons: James, David, and Hugh.

Somervell painted many hundreds if not thousands of paintings and has been described as a compulsive sketcher and painter.^[23] The Himalayan Club identified some 600 titles, with at least 200 of them being representations of the Himalayas or Tibet. 126 of these relate to the 1922 and 1924 expeditions, many of which were exhibited at the Royal Geographical Society in April 1925 and at the Redfern Gallery, London, in 1926. He exhibited almost annually at the Lake Artists Society exhibitions in the Lake District after his return to England.

Many of his watercolours are painted on what has been described as no more than ‘cheap’ brown or off-white wrapping paper.^[23] However, given that Somervell was a sometime commercial artist, this oft-repeated tale is largely apocryphal. He used this style of paper as early as 1913 and was still using it in the 1970s. It particularly lends itself to the dun colours of the Tibetan landscape. Other artists such as John Sell Cotman and Edith Collingwood^[who?] used similar paper. He often used watercolour and body colour in preference to watercolour alone. He also used pastel, either alone or with watercolour. Watercolour seems to have been his favoured medium in Tibet, Himalaya and India.^{[citation needed]}

The Alpine Club in London possesses thirty paintings by Somervell. The Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal has thirteen Somervell watercolours and one oil painting while the Royal Geographical Society holds a large watercolour, Gaurisankar from the North West, dated 1924, although this may in fact be a painting of Menlungtse.^[21] Somervell’s paintings of the Himalayas and of Westmorland were exhibited at the Abbot Hall Art Gallery in April 1979.

Somervell died in Ambleside in 1975. The Dr. Somervell Memorial Mission Hospital, established in 1975 at Karakonam, south of Trivandrum and the Dr. Somervell Memorial CSI Medical College, established in 2002, are named in his honour.

With the expedition over, Somervell set out to see India, travelling from the far north to Cape Comorin. He was shocked by the poverty he saw, and in particular the poor medical facilities. At the main hospital of the south Travancore medical mission in Neyyoor he found a single surgeon struggling to cope with a long queue of waiting patients, and immediately offered to assist. On his return to Britain, he abandoned his promising medical career, and announced his intention to work in India permanently after his next attempt on Everest. Most of his paintings sold today are from his travels in various parts of India. Even though most of his time was in Kerala where many landmarks to his name still remain.

A collection of his mountaineering equipment and other effects, including his 1924 Winter Olympics gold medal, and his sketchbooks and paintings, now in the possession of his grandson, was shown on an episode of the BBC Television programme Antiques Roadshow in April 2022.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1922_British_Mount_Everest_expedition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Somervell

https://www.mountainpaintings.org/T.H.Somervell.html