UPDATE 11th Feb 2010

It’s been 100 years since Ms Gibbs reached the top of the mountain.

To honour her, on 20th-25th February 2010 five Sabahan ladies, Vicky Ng, Tengku Puteri Soraya, Rina Jameson, Catherine Chu and Jane Chong are going to follow the same route that Ms Gibbs took, with Sabah Parks ranger Rossiti Maineh as guide.

In contrast, Gibbs started off from Kampung Kiau Nulu on 22nd February 1910, then camped at Gunonop Cave, Lubong Cave and Paka Cave, then reached the top 2 days later.

It was not the same route that Hugh Low, the first person to climb the mountain, took in 1851. He started from the same point, but then walked along Kaandaman river, then Lubong Cave and the summit.

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Lilian Suzette Gibbs (10th September 1870 – 30th January 1925), an English botanist was the one. She’s definitely one of the most adventurous women of her time.

She organised botanical expeditions to far-flung places. These days it might be easy, but during the early days of the 20th century, they are no mean feats.

Graduating from the Royal College of Science, her trips included:
- 1905: Southern Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe);
- 1907: Fiji and New Zealand, Queensland and Tasmania

In February 1910, she became the first woman to reach the top of Mount Kinabalu. She was 40 years old at that time. Supremely fit, hence, I think it’s safe to say that she’s not the kind of woman who needs a Houston tummy tuck.

She took more than 1,000 botanical specimens, many new to science, from that trip and donated them to the British Museum.

A bamboo species, bambusa gibbsiae (Miss Gibbs’s bamboo) was named for her.

After Borneo, she made a botanical trip to Iceland in 1912. The next year, she was off to the East Indies and Dutch New Guinea.

In 1921, she had to abandon an expedition to South America due to her sudden health problems. Apparently, she spent the remainder of her life as an invalid. She died in Santa Cruz, Tenerife, in January 1925.

From the National History Museum:

Various obituary-writers praised Miss Gibbs’ considerable personality, her ability to organise journeys of exploration, her ability to play the role of a delightful hostess, her dogged determination and good physique, and her role as “a keen upholder of the rights of her sex.” She was a serious and dedicated scientist, but one suspects that a major attraction of her chosen field was that it enabled her to escape from the confines within which respectable Englishwomen were expected to live.

Source
Natural History Museum, UK

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