Early History
The club had been originally proposed by John Wilson Robinson about 1887, approximately when rock climbing began as a sport in England. Robinson, owner of a farm and, later, an estate agent's business in Keswick, climbed with Walter Parry Haskett Smith, generally acknowledged as the father of rock climbing in Great Britain, and it was Robinson – in 1885 - who introduced the use of the alpine rope in the Lake District.
Ashley Abraham was elected the first president of the FRCC, with Robinson one of its two vice-presidents. The chief objective of the club was:
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- "To encourage and foster under the safest and most helpful of conditions the exhilarating exercise and sport of Fell Rambling and Rock Climbing in the Lake District."
Safety was an issue at the time, since several fatal accidents had occurred recently. Alluding to these, Abraham commented at the first annual dinner:
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- "Lack of discretion is a great evil in rock climbing, but there is another evil equally as great, and that is competitive climbing. This has been the fundamental cause of most of our home accidents . . ."
Read more about this topic: Fell & Rock Climbing Club
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