A successful certified public accountant by profession, Francis P. Farquhar had a deep passion for mountaineering and environmental conservation. He served twice as president of the Sierra Club and was editor of the Sierra Club Bulletin from 1926 to 1946. Mr. Farquhar was an authority on the Sierra Nevada and wrote the definitive history of the Sierra Nevada. He also served as president of the California Historical Society and as president of the California Academy of Sciences, and in 1967 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from UCLA. Mr. Farquhar ensured that his scholarly interests could be pursued by others through his gift to the UCLA Library of one of the foremost private libraries of mountaineering literature. After her husband passed away in 1974, his wife, Marjory, generously endowed The Francis P. Farquhar Mountaineering Collection and Endowment Fund with a major gift of funds so that the collection's development could continue. The collection of more than 2,000 volumes is international in scope and contains books and journals from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, many of which are considered classics in the field. By forming a strong supplement to the Library's general collections on geography and exploration, The Francis P. Farquhar Mountaineering Collection and Endowment Fund serves a variety of scholarly and recreational interests.
