Hunt, John Hunt, Baron

John Hunt, Baron Hunt, in full Henry Cecil John Hunt, Baron Hunt of Llanfair Waterdine, (born June 22, 1910, India—died November 7 or 8, 1998, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England), British army officer, mountaineer, and explorer who led the expedition on which Edmund (later Sir Edmund) Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Mount Everest, the highest mountain (29,035 feet [8,850 metres]; see Researcher’s Note: Height of Mount Everest) in the world. He described the venture in The Ascent of Everest (1953).

Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary

While serving in India and Burma (Myanmar) in the 1930s, Hunt became acquainted with the Karakoram Range in northern Kashmir (1935) and with the Himalayas in Sikkim (1937 and 1939). During World War II he served in the North African and Italian campaigns, after which he was recalled from active army duties in 1952 to lead the 1953 British Everest expedition. Hunt retired from the army in 1956 and later served as rector of the University of Aberdeen from 1963 to 1966. He was made a life peer in 1966. As personal adviser to the prime minister, he led the government’s mission to aid the starving Biafran population of southeastern Nigeria during Biafra’s unsuccessful attempt to secede from Nigeria (1967–70). He also served as chairman of the parole board for England and Wales from 1967 to 1974. His autobiography, Life Is Meeting, was published in 1978.