Museum's glimpse into tragic 1924 Everest expedition

Trekking past the Chomolhari mountain range

Adventures and tragedies at the heart of the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition have inspired a new exhibition.

An "internationally important" collection of photographs, taken by Darlington mountaineer Bentley Beetham, will be displayed to mark the centenary of the failed expedition.

The exhibition of 200 images, which opens at Durham's Oriental Museum on 24 May, gives an insight into Beetham's day-to-day progress.

Bentley Beetham Trust chairman Graham Ratcliffe said the photographs represented "a timeless record of a world that is fast disappearing".

The 1924 expedition set out with the aim of its members becoming the first to reach the top of Everest, but became shrouded with tragedy.

As well as Bentley Beetham, the party included British explorers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, who never returned from the mission.

The pair disappeared on the mountain's north-east ridge, with Mallory's body found in 1999 and Irvine's yet to be discovered.

George Mallory (seated), eating breakfast by Sherpa tents at Camp 2

Reflecting on the importance of the photographic collection, Mr Ratcliffe said: "When the 1924 Everest Expedition packed up and left base camp in the middle of June 1924, leaving behind two of their climbers who had perished high on Everest's North East Ridge, they must have felt weighed down by the sense of loss, that they had not succeeded."

They could not have known how "revered" and "iconic" their expedition would become, he added.

"The internationally important photographic record they left behind leaves us in awe of their audacious undertaking a century ago," Mr Ratcliffe said.

Intrepid schoolmaster

Bentley Beetham was born in Darlington and studied at Barnard Castle School, where he later worked as a biology teacher.

He learned to climb in the Lake District but had never climbed in Asia prior to the expedition.

Artist Stephen Livingstone worked with members of the Bentley Beetham Trust to select the images at the heart of Eternal Ascent: Bentley Beetham and the 1924 Everest Expedition.

"I was able to create a filmic experience where visitors can follow Bentley Beetham’s day-by-day progress from Darjeeling in India, across the arid wastes of Tibet, to within touching distance of the summit of Everest," he said.