Where do I find out who sponsored the Himalayan Expeditions of the 1930`s?

Answer 1

A joint committee of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club.

"Interest among the British public in the long saga of efforts to reach the summit of the world's highest mountain has been widespread, enduring and, at times, intense, ever since the first expedition was sent by a joint committee of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club in 1921, whose main purpose was to explore the approaches to Everest from the north and east. When the story of their journey was told by its leader, Charles Howard-Bury and other members, it was confidently predicted that the North ridge, and its continuation from its junction with the great N.E. ridge, could be climbed. Subsequent expeditions were sent in 1922, 1924 and 1933, whose climbers made their way laboriously upwards from the Chang La (North Col) to within 800 feet of the summit. It was then generally assumed that, benefiting from the lessons of those expeditions and inspired by the tragic failure of Mallory and Irvine to return from a point high on the N.E. ridge in 1924, one further effort would carry the day."

"Yet the expedition which returned to the mountain in 1935 received a cautious brief from the Joint Committee; a further reconnaissance was required, to look for alternative routes to the summit, and to test conditions of wind and weather during and after the monsoon. There were valid reasons for this caution; but I myself, on my first big Himalayan expedition that year at the far, N.W. end of the range, was thankful to be engaged on a more challenging role. I shared the disappointment felt by many others, especially those outside mountaineering 'circles', that a determined assault was not to made on Everest that year. In correspondence I received from Edwin Kempson, my closest climbing companion in those years, who was on the Everest reconnaissance, it was clear that he envied me on Peak 36 (Saltoro Kangri) in the Karakoram. However, excerpts from his diary in this book show how much he enjoyed the great forested ridges and the wealth of bird and butterfly life in the Tista valley, which so attracted my wife and myself during our own trek in Sikkim. As was the case with Howard-Bury's "Reconnaissance of Mount Everest 1921", such perceptions greatly enhance the reading of Tony Astill's record of the reconnaissance in 1935."

"THE 1935 EVEREST RECONNAISSANCE", Foreword by Lord Hunt of Llanfair Waterdine, "Mount Everest : The Reconnaissance 1935, The Forgotten Adventure" by Tony Astill : http://www.mounteverest1935.co.uk/foreword.html

"Mount Everest : The Reconnaissance 1935. The Forgotten Adventure", Lord Hunt (Foreword), Tony Astill (Author), Sir Edmund Hillary (Introduction), Tony Astill (28 Feb 2005), ISBN-13: 978-0954920104 : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mount-Everest-Reconnaissance-Forgotten-Adventure/dp/0954920104

Answer 2

nobody climbed the mountain in the 1930's