Douglas Robert Hadow was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 novice mountaineer

Mountaineer

-Sports:*Mountaineering, the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, trekking and climbing up mountains, also known as alpinism-University athletic teams and mascots:*Appalachian State Mountaineers, the athletic teams of Appalachian State University...

 who died on the descent after the first ascent

First ascent

In climbing, a first ascent is the first successful, documented attainment of the top of a mountain, or the first to follow a particular climbing route...

 of the Matterhorn

Matterhorn

The Matterhorn , Monte Cervino or Mont Cervin , is a mountain in the Pennine Alps on the border between Switzerland and Italy. Its summit is 4,478 metres high, making it one of the highest peaks in the Alps. The four steep faces, rising above the surrounding glaciers, face the four compass points...

.

Family

Hadow was born in 1846 at 49 York Terrace, Regent's Park

Regent's Park

Regent's Park is one of the Royal Parks of London. It is in the north-western part of central London, partly in the City of Westminster and partly in the London Borough of Camden...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, the son of Patrick Douglas Hadow (Chairman of the P. & O. Steam Navigation Company

Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company

The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, which is usually known as P&O, is a British shipping and logistics company which dated from the early 19th century. Following its sale in March 2006 to Dubai Ports World for £3.9 billion, it became a subsidiary of DP World; however, the P&O...

) and Emma Harriett Nisbet (daughter of Robert Parry Nisbet

Robert Parry Nisbet

Robert Parry Nisbet JP DL was a British public man. He was High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1849, from 1852 a Deputy Lieutenant for the county, and Conservative Member of Parliament for Chippenham from a by-election in 1856 to the 1859 general election.After an early career in the Indian Civil Service...

, of Southbroom House, Wiltshire

Wiltshire

Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...

), who married at Southbroom on 28 January 1845. Hadow's paternal great-grandfather was George Hadow

George Hadow

George Hadow was professor of Hebrew and oriental languages at St Mary's College, University of St Andrews, Scotland from 1748 to 1780. He was the son of Principal James Hadow, also of St Andrews' University.-Life:...

, professor of Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 and Oriental Languages

Languages of Asia

There is a wide variety of languages spoken throughout Asia, comprising a number of families and some unrelated isolates. Many languages have a long tradition of writing.-Central and North Asian languages:*Turkic**Azeri**Kazak**Kyrgyz**Tatar**Turkish...

 at the University of St Andrews

University of St Andrews

The University of St Andrews, informally referred to as "St Andrews", is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge. The university is situated in the town of St Andrews, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It was founded between...

,Hadow family tree at Wikimedia Commons (accessed 15 February 2009) and one of his younger brothers was Frank Hadow

Frank Hadow

Patrick Francis Hadow was an English tennis player, who won the Wimbledon championship in 1878....

, who won the Wimbledon championship

The Championships, Wimbledon

The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors...

 in 1878.

Hadow was educated at Harrow School

Harrow School

Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...

, where he and six of his brothers who also attended the school were known as the 'Harrow Hadows'.

First season in the Alps

In 1865, at the age of nineteen, Hadow undertook his first trip to the Alps

Alps

The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

 as a protégé to Charles Hudson, a clergyman from Skillington and a leading advocate of guideless climbing. Together they made a swift ascent of Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc or Monte Bianco , meaning "White Mountain", is the highest mountain in the Alps, Western Europe and the European Union. It rises above sea level and is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence...

 and a number of other climbs; these ascents – together with the backing of a climber of Hudson's stature – persuaded Edward Whymper

Edward Whymper

Edward Whymper , was an English illustrator, climber and explorer best known for the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. On the descent four members of the party were killed.-Early life:...

 that Hadow was a suitable companion for an attempt on the Matterhorn

Matterhorn

The Matterhorn , Monte Cervino or Mont Cervin , is a mountain in the Pennine Alps on the border between Switzerland and Italy. Its summit is 4,478 metres high, making it one of the highest peaks in the Alps. The four steep faces, rising above the surrounding glaciers, face the four compass points...

.

Whymper later wrote:
In 'A Modern View of the 1865 Accident', the Alpine Club

Alpine Club (UK)

The Alpine Club was founded in London in 1857 and was probably the world's first mountaineering club. It is UK mountaineering's acknowledged 'senior club'.-History:...

 president Capt. J. P. Farrar (1917–19) concurred with this positive estimation of Hadow's ability:

Matterhorn accident

During the first ascent of the Matterhorn on 14 July 1865, Hadow was, however, challenged by the technical difficulties presented by the mountain. Whymper noticed his inexperience after the party had traversed onto what he termed the 'north-west face' whilst ascending the mountain. In a piece published by The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

shortly after the accident, he wrote:

Hadow's slip on the descent of the mountain was the immediate cause of the accident.Farrar notes, however, that '... the real cause of the accident was not the slip made by Hadow, nor the breaking of the rope, but the want of coherence in the "fortuitously" formed party. The great lesson to be learned from the occurrence is to undertake no serious expedition with a large party. 'A Modern View of the 1865 Accident', Alpine J, XXXII. He was the second on the rope as the party went down and he slipped not far from the summit, dragging three members of the party (Lord Francis Douglas

Lord Francis Douglas

Lord Francis William Bouverie Douglas was a novice, British mountaineer. After sharing in the first ascent of the Matterhorn, he died in a fall on the way down from the summit.-Early life:...

, Michel Croz

Michel Croz

Michel Auguste Croz was a French mountain guide and the first ascentionist of many mountains in the western Alps during the golden age of alpinism...

 and Charles Hudson) with him down the north face of the mountain to their deaths (the three other members of the party – Whymper and Taugwalder father and son – were saved when the rope between them and Douglas snapped). Claire Engel comments:
Hadow's body was recovered from the Matterhorn Glacier, and he was buried at the churchyard in Zermatt

Zermatt

Zermatt is a municipality in the district of Visp in the German-speaking section of the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a population of about 5,800 inhabitants....

. One of Hadow's shoes can be seen in Zermatt's Matterhorn Museum

Matterhorn Museum

The Matterhorn Museum in Zermatt is a cultural-natural museum whose main theme is the Matterhorn. The museum is in the form of a reconstituted mountain village consisting of 14 houses , and relates the history and development of tourism in the Zermatt area, including the story of the first ascent...

,http://swissalpin.wordpress.com/2007/09/09/ernstfall-am-matterhorn Accessed 10 April 2008. The text (in German) states 'The shoe appears to be in no state to tackle anything steeper than a flight of stairs.' together with the snapped rope and other relics of the climb.