THE TIMES

London, England

8 May 1959

(page 15)

MR. GUY KNOWLES.

BENEFACTOR OF THE FITZWILLIAM.

Mr. Guy Knowles, who died at Dorking on April 8 in his eightieth year, will be remembered in Cambridge as one of the principal benefactors of the Fitzwilliam Museum. By the terms of his will the university receives immediately, or subject to life interested in a few items, one of the best and most catholic collections of paintings and drawings, small bronzes and miscellaneous works of art given to the museum during this century.

[ . . . ]

In 1902 he attained some distinction as a mountaineer, as a member of an expedition that attempted to climb K.2 in the Karakoram. The party, which consisted, besides Knowles, of Oscar Eckenstein, the Swiss climber Jacot-Guillarmod [Jules Jacot Guillarmod], and Aleister Crowley, succeeded in ascending to within 5,250 ft. of the summit, an effort not to be despised, considering that most of them were amateurs and that they had equipment which would to-day be considered rudimentary. In the course of the climb Knowles was threatened with a revolver by Crowley, whom he promptly disarmed. He kept the revolver for the rest of his life as a souvenir of this serio-comic episode.

He then settled down to begin . . .