Alexander and Peter Graham

Alexander Carter Graham (1881–1957) and Peter Graham MBE (1878–1961) were mountaineers, guides and hotel operators in New Zealand. They were instrumental in the establishment of the early New Zealand tourist industry.[1] They earned themselves worldwide reputations as climbers and guides.[2]

Grahams' Hotel at the toe of the Franz Josef Glacier, 1932.
Established about 1911 by the Graham brothers and run by them it was sold to the New Zealand Government in 1947. Note Grahams' Saddle and Alec's Knob. The little church is just in front of the nearest end of the bridge. There is a windsock
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Graham family of Okarito

Peter and Alec Graham were born at Three Mile Beach, Okarito the fifth and sixth children of nurse and midwife Isabella and her husband from Paisley, Scotland, David Graham, a goldminer, storekeeper,[3][4] Three Mile River ferryman[5] and later a baker. The family made a farm at Waiho by Franz Josef Glacier.[6]

After their father died in October 1900[7] four of the six sons moved away from Okarito and the youngest, Alec and Peter, remained at the Waiho / Waiau farm. Widowed Isabella as well as nurse and midwife was postmistress, ran a store and took in paying guests.[1]

Alpine climbers and guides

The two brothers, Alec and Peter, made careers climbing and guiding visitors. Peter joined the New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Department.[1]

St James' church built in 1931 after services outgrew the hotel[8]
location: 43.391696°S 170.181263°E / -43.391696; 170.181263

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 and added another storey. Jim died in 1922 and Peter moved to Waiho to replace him.

The family atmosphere generated by Isabella who died in 1918 followed by Jim's wife and then widow, Rose, on top of the Graham brothers' guiding and climbing expertise gave the 120-guest hotel a special character that became world-renowned.[1]

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.[1][9][10]

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.[11]

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.[12]

References
  1. Biography, Te Ara Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
  2. Otago Daily Times 1 July 1946, Page 4
  3. Townsend and Graham, West Coast Times 3 June 1873, Page 4
  4. West Coast Times 22 December 1873, Page 3
  5. West Coast Times 20 March 1879, Page 2
  6. West Coast Times 13 September 1894, Page 2
  7. West Coast Times 15 October 1900, Page 2
  8. Church in the Alps New Zealand Herald 28 April 1931 Page 10
  9. Evening Star 24 June 1947, Page 4
  10. Gisborne Herald 9 December 1947, Page 5
  11. Franz Josef Hotel "pretty much munted" Otago Daily Times Wednesday, 30 March 2016. Accessed 25 November 2018
  12. "No. 40789". The London Gazette (3rd supplement). 31 May 1956. p. 3144.
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