Société Ramond

The Société Ramond is a French learned society devoted to the study of the Pyrenees mountain range that forms a natural border between France and Spain. It is named after the French politician, geologist, botanist and explorer Louis Ramond de Carbonnières and is based in Bagnères-de-Bigorre in southwestern France.

The society was formed in 1865 (although 1864 is also given as its founding date) in Bagnères-de-Bigorre by Henry Russell (1834–1909), a French-Irish eccentric who made many first ascents in the Pyrenees; Émilien Frossard (1829–1898); and Charles Packe (1826–1896).

Their first meeting, at which Frossard (with his two sons Charles and Emilien-Sigismond), Packe and Russell came up with the idea for a society to be modelled on the recently formed Alpine Club in London (1857), was on 19 August 1864 at l’Hôtel des Voyageurs in Gavarnie. Two weeks later at Frossard's house in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, with Farnham Maxwell-Lyte in attendance, the society may be said to have been formed. At this meeting, Russell, a keen mountaineer and along with Packe and Maxwell-Lyte a member of the Alpine Club, argued that all candidates for membership should have climbed at least one Pyrenean peak of three thousand metres or more. Frossard replied that the society was aiming for a large-scale study of the mountain range and not mere acrobatics.

The issue of the society's name was the next subject to be broached. Russell, perhaps still angling for a sporting focus, suggested Le club des isards (the Chamois club). Again Froissard demurred. The society wanted to distinguish itself from traditional academic societies, while still being devoted primarily to the scientific and ethnographic study of the Pyrenees and to the dissemination of knowledge. Ramond, according to Froissard, had excelled in these disciplines and was the best symbol for the new society. This time all were agreed, and so the club was named. The composition of the society's first committee was: Frossard, president; Maxwell-Lyte, vice-president; Russell, secretary; Packe, assistant secretary. Among its earliest members were the geographer Élisée Reclus and the chemist Henry Holy-Claire Deville.

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