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 military 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 very best mountain (29,035 toes [8,850 metres]; see Researcher’s Note: Height of Mount Everest) on the planet. He described the enterprise in The Ascent of Everest (1953).
While serving in India and Burma (Myanmar) within the Nineteen Thirties, Hunt grew to become acquainted with the Karakoram Range in northern Kashmir (1935) and with the Himalayas in Sikkim (1937 and 1939). During World War II he served within the North African and Italian campaigns, after which he was recalled from energetic military duties in 1952 to steer the 1953 British Everest expedition. Hunt retired from the military 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 private adviser to the prime minister, he led the federal government’s mission to assist the ravenous Biafran inhabitants of southeastern Nigeria throughout Biafra’s unsuccessful try to secede from Nigeria (1967–70). He additionally served as chairman of the parole board for England and Wales from 1967 to 1974. His autobiography, Life Is Meeting, was printed in 1978.