Archive Item of the Month – June 2011

7th June 2011

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To coincide with the Cheltenham Science Festival our item of the month has a slightly scientific theme. Pictured is a copy of a poem on ascending Mount Everest by Samuel Robinson, who was a student at the Cheltenham Training College between 1906-1908. The poem is about the climb made by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing, and is indicative of the type of material we hold relating to alumni and their work. We receive material detailing students’ lives whilst studying and in some cases what they do after leaving the institution. Together with the poem we have a newspaper article on Mr Robinson, a handwritten letter donating the poem to what was then St Paul’s College, and a Christmas card with another of Mr Robinson’s poems – all of which help to build a wider picture.

Below is an excerpt from the poem:

Merciless, pitiless, glowerest thou around –

Time’s monument upheav’d by ageless force,

From whose slopes, ice-bound, sheer, rise icy walls,

Which beat back mountaineers – whose form appals,

Yet, whose challenge intrepid souls, like theirs, ne’er stays.

As from hallow’d ground, pyramidal giant thou towerest,

From thee fell dangers – worst e’er met – descend

On stout hearts braving all who dare invade

Thy quiet repose and naked privacy –

Thou Sphinx-like wonder hewn by hand unseen

University Archive reference number D111.

Archive Item of the Month – June 2011

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