Caleb George Cash
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Caleb George Cash (1857–1916), honorary fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society (FRSGS), was a geographer, passionate mountaineer, and music and geography teacher, known for his work on preserving the maps of medieval Scotland made by Timothy Pont (c.1560–c.1627), which formed the basis for the Blaeu Atlas of Scotland, and for organizing and publishing a bibliography compiled by Arthur Mitchell throughout Mitchell's life. Born in Birmingham, England, educated in London, and having worked in the North of England for a while, in his 30s he settled in Scotland and pioneered climbing in the Cairngorms, a mountain range in the eastern part of the Scottish Highlands.
Cash was born in poverty, in a working class family living in Ladywood, Birmingham, in June 1857. He attended St John's in Ladywood and chose a career in teaching. He attended St Mark's College in Chelsea, London, and then London University. He taught school in Sheffield, and there met Alice Octavia Randell; they married in July 1881 and in 1886 moved to Scotland. For 30 years, he taught music and geography at the Edinburgh Academy,[2] and spent his summers in Aviemore, then a popular holiday resort which gave access to the Cairngorms.[3]
In 1891, he started walking through the hills and climbing the mountains of the Cairngorms (which wasn't to be visited by the Scottish Mountaineering Club until 1902). He joined the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in 1892;[2] he became a fellow in 1895.[3] His first recorded climb in Cairngorm was in August 1894, when he ascended Cairn Toul, followed by many more of Cairngorms' highest peaks, particularly Braeriach, which he climbed a number of times. He published a list of 2000+ ft mountains of the range in 1897, and two years later a list of mountains in Scotland that are visible from the ancient volcano called Arthur’s Seat, near Edinburgh.[2] His publications found praise: Alexander Inkson McConnochie, one of the founders of the Cairngorm Club and the editor of the club journal's first 36 issues, said that Cash had "a familiarity with, and a knowledge of the Cairngorm Mountains almost unequalled". From the early 1890s on, Cash and McConnochie pioneered climbing in the area.[3]
His wife Alice accompanied him on a rare few of his climbs. He makes no mention of her doing so after 1894, although she accompanied him on a walk to view an eagle's nest in 1903 and cycling up Glen Nevis in 1907. She also accompanied him on his tours of chambered cairns and standing stones around Killin and Aberfeldy. Hill-walker Kellan MacInnes suggests, from experience that he characterizes as common to "every mountaineer", that Cash's mention of the "occasional disaster of over late return" in Nights and Days may refer to Alice waiting anxiously at home for his return and being worried when he is late. He further suggests that Cash's experiments with moonlight excursions were perhaps a way of avoiding being away all day from, or late returning to, Alice, saying that "while Sir Hugh Munro sometimes climbed at night to avoid disturbing landowner's sport, Caleb climbed at night to avoid upsetting his wife."[4]
He was interested in the ecology of the land as well, and in 1907 published (privately) an account of the local history of the osprey and their persecution.[5] In an article in The Geographical Teacher in 1904, Cash related one of his ideas for teaching geography: drawing a panorama of the landscape viewed from a point, including all visible mountain peaks, crags, and skylines, and recording angular measurements between them taken with a protractor. He provided an example in the article, a panorama taken from the iron footbridge at Aviemore railway station.[6]
Cash died in August 1917 after a short period of illness.[5][7] The Edinburgh Academy Chronicle had reported only that summer that he would not be working that term "owing to ill health" and that "we hope a term's rest will enable him to return with renewed vigour in October".[7]