{{Short description|British mountaineer and bacteriologist}} {{Not to be confused with|Eileen Hayes|Eileen Healy}}{{Infobox person | image = Eileen Healey - Expédition féminine de 1959 au Népal.jpg | caption = Pictured 1959 | birth_name = Eileen Mary Gregory | birth_date = 11 September 1920 | birth_place = Brighton, United Kingdom | death_date = 8 September 2010 (aged 89) | alma_mater = University of London | occupation = Pharmacologist | employer = Boots | organization = Pinnacle Club, Ladies' Alpine Club | known_for = Mountaineering, filming 1959 Cho Oyo female expedition | spouse = Tim Healey | children = 2 }}
'''Eileen Mary Gregory Healey''' (11 September 1920 – 8 September 2010) was a British pharmacologist, filmmaker and mountaineer. She was known for filming the tragic 1959 all female expedition to Cho Oyu, that resulted in the deaths of Claude Kogan, Claudine van der Stratten and Ang Norbu. Healey was a pioneering alpinist for her era, noted for her success on granite climbs in the Mont Blanc range at a time when few women were attempting these peaks.
== Biography == Eileen Mary Gregory was born in Brighton on 11 September 1920.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Forward to EILEEN HEALEY DIARIES |url=http://www.alpine-club.org.uk/EH_diaries/EHD/EHD_Forward.html |access-date=2025-03-20 |website=www.alpine-club.org.uk}}</ref> Her parents instilled her love of climbing through childhood holidays hill walking in Wales and the Lake District.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last=Douglas |first=Ed |date=2010-11-22 |title=Eileen Healey obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/22/eileen-healey-obituary |access-date=2025-03-20 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> At age 11, Healey began keeping a climbing journal. She would continue to contribute to it until she was 39, recounting climbs in England, Scotland, Norway, the Swiss Alps and the Himalayas.<ref name=":0" />
=== Mountaineering === Gregory attended University of London for studies in pharmacology. Upon graduation worked as a bacteriologist. She took a job in Nottingham so she could be closer to the mountains, later moving to Manchester.<ref name=":1" /> During the 1940s, Gregory took up mountaineering with earnest. In 1947, she spent her first season in the Alps, where she became known for her expertise in the Mont Blanc range. In 1956 she travelled on an expedition with Joyce Dunsheath to India, where the team surveyed the Bara Shigri Glacier. Gregory would climb several peaks in the Kullu region, including a first ascent via a new route on Deo Tibba (6,000m+).<ref name=":1" />
She was a member of the women-only Pinnacle Club and the Ladies' Alpine Club, and became known for her skillful and competent climbs.<ref name=":0" /> While leading a climb up Mur y Niwl on Craig yr Ysfa, in north Wales, Gregory met Tim Healey. In 1958, the pair married.<ref name=":0" />
=== 1959 expedition === left|thumb|Photo of the 1959 Cho Oyu expedition prior to departure. On the couple's first wedding anniversary, Eileen Healey left for Cho Oyu for the 1959 All-Women's expedition led by Claude Kogan. The 1959 expedition consisted of 12 experienced female mountaineers, including fellow Pinnacle Club members Dorothea Gravina and Margaret Darvall.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Himalayan expedition firsts |url=https://www.pc100.org/himalayan-expedition-firsts |access-date=2025-03-20 |website=The Pinnacle Club Centenary: 100 years of women's rock climbing and mountaineering |language=en-US}}</ref> The women's trip was heavily publicized and recognized to be the first expedition in mountaineering history consisting entirely of women and groundbreaking for the time.<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=November 23, 1959 |title=But I was Alone |url=https://vault.si.com/vault/1959/11/23/but-i-was-alone |magazine=Sports Illustrated}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gugglberger |first=Martina |date=2020-09-02 |title='Joys of Exploration': Gender-Constructions in the 1959 Cho Oyu Women's Expedition |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09523367.2020.1810022 |journal=The International Journal of the History of Sport |volume=37 |issue=9 |pages=813–830 |doi=10.1080/09523367.2020.1810022 |issn=0952-3367|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Healey brought her husband's 16mm camera along for the expedition to document the trip.<ref name=":1" /> The expedition would end with the deaths of four expedition members, including leader Claude Kogan.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Daley |first=Robert |date=1959-10-20 |title=The Mountain Is Still the Master; Woman Finds Death on a Storm-Swept Himalaya Peak Mme. Kogan's Skill and Zeal No Match for Cho Oyu |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/10/20/archives/the-mountain-is-still-the-master-woman-finds-death-on-a-stormswept.html |access-date=2025-03-20 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=AAC Publications - Asia, Nepal, Cho Oyu |url=https://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12196015601 |access-date=2025-03-20 |website=publications.americanalpineclub.org}}</ref> Healey's footage would provide a valuable account of what transpired, and contained some of the last images of Claude Kogan and Claudine van der Stratten before their deaths.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2010-11-11 |title=Eileen Healey |url=https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/eileen-healey-glmknhfxx7v |access-date=2025-03-20 |website=www.thetimes.com |language=en}}</ref>
=== Later life === After Healey's return from Cho Oyu, she would continue to pursue her passion for climbing, as well as for sailing. Later, Healey and her family moved to Uganda, where she climbed Mount Kadam. After Idi Amin was ousted by a military coup, the Healey family returned to the United Kingdom.<ref name=":1" /> In 1968, Healey climbed the summit of Titlis in the Uri Alps along with a group of 60 women marking the inception of the Rendez-vous Hautes Montagnes.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |date=2015-01-25 |title=History {{!}} RHM - Rendez vous Hautes Montagnes |url=https://www.rhm-climbing.net/history/ |access-date=2025-03-20 |language=en-GB}}</ref>
In 2003, Healey reunited with Pem Pem Norgay, whom had joined the 1959 Cho Oyu expedition. In 2009, Healey's footage of the ill-fated expedition would be screened at the Kendal mountain festival in Cumbria, exactly fifty years after the initial expedition.<ref name=":1" />
=== Death and legacy === Healey died on 8 September 2010.<ref name=":1" /> After her death, Healey's climbing diaries were discovered in the loft of her home. They have since been digitised and share a valuable history of mountaineering of her time. The names of many notable British climbers appearing within the diary's pages, including Monica Jackson, A.B. Hargreaves, Tony Moulam and Fred Pigott.<ref>{{Cite web |title=EILEEN HEALEY DIARIES CONTENTS |url=http://www.alpine-club.org.uk/EH_diaries/Contents.html |access-date=2025-03-20 |website=www.alpine-club.org.uk}}</ref> In 2014, Healey's film of the Cho Oyu expedition was remastered into high definition for the BBC.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2014-11-04 |title=1959 Cho Oyu expedition Historical 16mm film |url=https://www.alivestudios.co.uk/1959-cho-oyu-expedition-historical-16mm-film/ |access-date=2025-03-20 |website=Alive Studios |language=en-GB}}</ref> Healey's amateur film of the expedition is considered an important early visual narrative of documentary filmmaking by women, and has been subject to extensive academic discourse.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Motrescu-Mayes |first1=Annamaria |title=British Women's Media Narratives of Gender and Collective Memory |date=2018-11-01 |work=British Women Amateur Filmmakers: National Memories and Global Identities |page=0 |editor-last=Motrescu-Mayes |editor-first=Annamaria |url=https://academic.oup.com/edinburgh-scholarship-online/book/35885/chapter-abstract/309193214?redirectedFrom=fulltext |access-date=2025-03-20 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |doi=10.3366/edinburgh/9781474420730.003.0007 |isbn=978-1-4744-2073-0 |last2=Nicholson |first2=Heather Norris |editor2-last=Norris Nicholson |editor2-first=Heather|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hunt |first=Rachel |date=2019 |title=Historical geography, climbing and mountaineering: route setting for an inclusive future |url=https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gec3.12423 |journal=Geography Compass |language=en |volume=13 |issue=4 |article-number=e12423 |doi=10.1111/gec3.12423 |bibcode=2019GComp..13E2423H |issn=1749-8198|hdl=20.500.11820/8b341b89-7f74-4f39-af21-92fa4473d491 |hdl-access=free |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Müller |first=Eva-Maria |date=2023-01-02 |title=Cinematic cultures of descent: the other sides of the mountaineering story |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17400309.2022.2102405 |journal=New Review of Film and Television Studies |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=96–115 |doi=10.1080/17400309.2022.2102405 |issn=1740-0309|doi-access=free }}</ref>
== References == {{Reference list}}
== External links ==
* [http://www.alpine-club.org.uk/EH_diaries/Contents.html Eileen Healey Diaries] at the Alpine Club * [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/163434/ Nepal: Ill Fated Cho Oyu Expedition on way back to Katmandu] (1959), British Pathé * [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/130679/ Six members of the 11 women international expedition to Cho Oyu] (1959), British Pathé
{{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Healey, Eileen}} Category:1920 births Category:2010 deaths Category:British female climbers Category:20th-century British sportswomen Category:Alumni of University College London Category:British bacteriologists Category:British mountain climbers Category:Amateur filmmaking