William Penhall (27 October 1858 – 3 August 1882) was anEnglishmountaineer.
The son of Dr John PenhallMRCSLSA (born 1833 atSt Pancras,Middlesex, in 1871 ageneral practitioner inHastings,Sussex),[1] Penhall was educated atTrinity College,Cambridge, where he graduatedBA in 1881.[2][3] At the time of the1881 census, he was enumerated at Trinity, giving his place of birth as Hastings, Sussex, and his occupation as "No Occ."[4]
Penhall made thefirst ascent of a number of peaks and routes in theAlps during thesilver age of alpinism.
Together withMartin Conway, G. S. Scriven and guides Ferdinand Imseng and Peter and M. Truffer he made the first ascent (in two and a half hours) of the west face of theZinalrothorn in August 1878.[5] WithAlbert Frederick Mummery and guidesAlexander Burgener and Ferdinand Imseng he made the first ascent of theDürrenhorn on 7 September 1879.[6]
Penhall was involved in a race with Mummery to be the first to climb the Zmutt ridge of theMatterhorn, a race which Mummery eventually won. According to Penhall, his interest in finding a new way up the mountain had been kindled byEdward Whymper's account of the successful first ascent in 1865 inScrambles amongst the Alps.[7] As Mummery and Burgener approached the mountain to attempt the ridge they met Penhall, and guides Ferdinand Imseng and Louis Zurbrücken, who had retreated from the mountain after a bad-weather bivouac on the ridge. After a brief rest inZermatt, Penhall returned to the Matterhorn, making the first ascent of its west face on 3 September 1879, a harder climb than the Zmutt ridge; his party reached the summit one hour after Mummery's.[8] Penhall wrote an account of the west face climb in theAlpine Journal entitled 'The Matterhorn from the Zmutt Glacier'. The Penhall Couloir on the west face is named after him.[9]
Penhall andMeiringen guide Andreas Maurer were killed by an avalanche high up on theWetterhorn on 3 August 1882. Penhall and Maurer share a double gravestone in theGrindelwald cemetery.[3][10]