John Tyson OBE (1928–2014)

John Tyson died on 10 March 2014 aged 85. A long-serving Fellow of the Society and a former Council Member, Tyson was a respected mountaineer and geography teacher, admired for his exploration and surveying of the Kanjirboa Himal region of West Nepal in the 1960s, for which he was presented with the Society’s Ness Award in 1963. Tyson read geography at Magdalen College, Oxford, leading the first Oxford University Scientific Expedition to the Himalayas in 1952. He went on to teach geography at Rugby School for 17 years, but was granted leave to lead a number of survey expeditions in the 1960s to map the last unexplored areas of West Nepal. Headmasterships at a school in Bhutan (mid 1970s) and at Reed’s School in Surrey (1978-82) followed. Tyson then returned to Nepal in 1982 to a national school, Budhanilkantha in Kathmandu, he helped establish in 1966-69. He served for 6 years as headmaster until retiring 1989. His services were recognised by the award of Prasiddha Prabal Gorkha Dakshin Bahu in 1987 by the Nepalese Government, and an OBE in 1989.