{{Short description|New Zealand mountain climbers}} {{Use New Zealand English|date=December 2024}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2021}} [[File:Emmeline Freda Du Faur with Alec and Peter Graham.jpg|thumb|Alec and Peter Graham with Freda du Faur, the first woman to climb Mount Cook. Peter, du Faur and a chaperone made the climb together on 3 December 1910.]] [[File:New Zealand Railway poster - Franz Josef Glacier c.1932 (10468987545).jpg|thumb|New Zealand Railway poster depicting the Grahams' hotel at the toe of the Franz Josef Glacier, 1932.<br>Note Grahams' Saddle and Alec's Knob. The church is just in front of the nearest end of the bridge. The airfield's windsock is clearly visible]] [[File:The Fox Moth ZK-ADI, 1940's (15948080372).jpg|thumb|Air Travel's scheduled service]] '''Alexander Carter Graham''' {{post-nominals|country=NZL|MM|size=85%}} (1881–1957) and '''Peter Graham''' {{post-nominals|country=NZL|MBE|size=85%}} (1878–1961) were mountaineers, guides and hotel operators in New Zealand. They were instrumental in the establishment of the early New Zealand tourist industry and earned themselves worldwide reputations as climbers and guides.<ref name="teara">[https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3g19/graham-alexander-carter Biography, Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand]</ref><ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT19460701.2.19 ''Otago Daily Times''] 1 July 1946, Page 4</ref>
== Graham family of Ōkārito == Alec and Peter Graham were born at Three Mile Beach, Ōkārito, the fifth and sixth children of nurse and midwife Isabella and her husband from Paisley, Scotland, David Graham, a goldminer, storekeeper,<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WCT18730603.2.8 Townsend and Graham, ''West Coast Times''] 3 June 1873, Page 4</ref><ref>''West Coast Times'' 22 December 1873, Page 3</ref> Three Mile River ferryman<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WCT18790320.2.9 ''West Coast Times''] 20 March 1879, Page 2</ref> and later a baker. The family made a farm at Waiho by Franz Josef Glacier.<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WCT18940913.2.8 ''West Coast Times''] 13 September 1894, Page 2</ref>
After their father died in October 1900<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WCT19001015.2.6 ''West Coast Times''] 15 October 1900, Page 2</ref> four of the six sons moved away from Ōkārito and the youngest, Alec and Peter, remained at the Waiho / Waiau farm. Now on her own, Isabella, as well as nurse and midwife, was postmistress, ran a store and took in paying guests.<ref name=teara/>
Alec and Peter made careers climbing and guiding visitors, and Peter joined the New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Department.<ref name="teara" />
==Accommodation for climbers== Alec and another brother, Jim, bought the small hotel at Waiho in 1911 and five of the brothers together winched the building up to a new site above flood level. They added another storey to the building and opened it under the name Franz Josef Glacier Hotel.<ref name=teara/> Jim died in 1921<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HOG19210915.2.17 Hokitika Guardian] 15 September 1921 Page 2 </ref> and in 1923 Peter moved to Waiho to replace him, leaving his post of chief guide at Mount Cook.<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19221218.2.63 Personal. Evening Star] 18 December 1922 Page 8</ref> They further improved the hotel and generated electricity for it from the river.<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HOG19300521.2.62 Mountaineering. Hokitika Guardian] 21 May 1930 Page 8</ref><ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HOG19380620.2.23 Sunny South. Hokitika Guardian] 20 June 1938 Page 5</ref>
The family atmosphere generated by Isabella, who died in 1918,<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HOG19181204.2.31 Late Locals. Hokitika Guardian] 4 December 1918 Page 3</ref> followed by Jim's wife and then widow Rose, in addition to the Graham brothers' guiding and climbing expertise, gave the 120-guest hotel a special character that became world-renowned.<ref name=teara/> Peter and Alec donated land for St James Church, although a building was not erected until 1931, when services outgrew the hotel.<ref name=":0">[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19310428.2.112 Church in the Alps] ''New Zealand Herald'' 28 April 1931 Page 10</ref>
===Air Travel (NZ)=== Access to Waiho was always tedious.<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HOG19300726.2.11 Waiho Gorge, Peter Graham's Plan. ''Hokitika Guardian''] 26 July 1930 Page 2 </ref> A landing field was completed in 1932.<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19320614.2.66 ''Evening Post''] 14 June 1932 Page 8</ref> The Canterbury Aero Club made open cockpit taxi flights bringing international climbers and tourists from Christchurch. With the leadership of Bert Mercer the Graham family<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS19340526.2.96 Air Transport, West Coast Service. ''Auckland Star''] 26 May 1934 Page 11</ref> founded what became Air Travel (NZ) Ltd to provide a regular passenger service to Waiho in a fully enclosed aircraft, Fox Moth ZK ADI, which began operations in December 1934.<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19341218.2.160.7 ''Christchurch Press''] page 22, 18 December 1934</ref> After the second World War Air Travel (NZ) became part of NAC and then Air New Zealand.
Alec, Rose and Peter ran the hotel for another 25 years before selling it to Tourist and Publicity (this section of Tourist and Publicity was later renamed the Tourist Hotel Corporation) and retiring in 1947.<ref name=teara/><ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19470624.2.20 ''Evening Star''] 24 June 1947, Page 4</ref><ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GISH19471209.2.69 ''Gisborne Herald''] 9 December 1947, Page 5</ref> Tourist Hotel Corporation built a new hotel on the site in 1965, "the grandest on the West Coast". In March 2016 the river flooded and sent water up to two metres deep through the buildings, effectively destroying them.<ref>[https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/franz-josef-hotel-pretty-much-munted Franz Josef Hotel "pretty much munted" ''Otago Daily Times''] Wednesday, 30 March 2016. Accessed 25 November 2018</ref> Little of the physical evidence of the Graham's life work remains beyond the little church.
== Recognition and legacy == Mount Graham, beside Mount Cook, was named on 18 January 1938 by S.B. Thompson, G.L. Clark, and Jack Cox for Peter and Alec Graham.<ref name="Puku">[https://gazetteer.linz.govt.nz/place/1768 Mount Graham, New Zealand Gazetter]</ref> In the 1956 Queen's Birthday Honours, Peter Graham was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire, in recognition of his services as a mountaineer and alpine guide.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=40789 |date=31 May 1956 |page=3144 |supp=3}}</ref>
Peter Graham had an interest in New Zealand alpine botany, sending plant specimens to Donald Petrie<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Petrie |first=Donald |date=1914-01-01 |title=Descriptions of new native phanerogams |url=https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q121075289 |journal=Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand |language=English |volume=46 |pages=32–39}}</ref> and taking botanists such as H.H. Allan and G.H. Cunningham into the field.<ref name="auto">{{Cite journal |last=Cunningham |first=Gordon Herriot |date=1928-01-01 |title=Sixth Supplement to the Uredinales and Ustilaginales of New Zealand |url=https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q121075509 |journal=Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand |volume=59 |pages=491–505}}</ref> Some of Peter Graham's collections are type specimens,<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Peter Graham MBE {{!}} Collections Online - Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa |url=https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/agent/22176 |access-date=2023-08-01 |website=collections.tepapa.govt.nz}}</ref> and he has at least three flowering plants named after him, namely ''Ranunculus grahamii, Helichrysum grahamii,'' and ''Veronica grahamii,'' as well as one rust, ''Puccinia grahamii''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=International Plant Names Index |url=https://ipni.org/?q=grahamii%7CPetrie |access-date=2023-08-01 |website=ipni.org}}</ref><ref name="auto"/><ref>{{Cite web |title=Graham, Alexander Carter and Graham, Peter |url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3g19/graham-alexander-carter |access-date=1 August 2023 |website=teara.govt.nz}}</ref>
Alec's daughter Dorothy Fletcher compiled his mountaineering photographs into the Alec Graham Photographic Collection and donated this to the Macmillan Brown Library at the University of Canterbury.
==References== {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, Alec And Peter}} Category:Mountain guides Category:Tourism in New Zealand Category:New Zealand mountain climbers Category:20th-century New Zealand businesspeople Category:People from the West Coast Region