Places

Date: 1850-1890

By: Harper, Arthur Paul, 1865-1955; Moberly, Patricia, active 1990s

Reference: PA1-f-207

Description: Album probably compiled by the mountaineer and explorer, A P Harper. Harper was also probably the photographer for many of the prints, especially those of mountains and mountaineering. There are Harper and Ackland family photographs which include interior and exterior views and views of the garden, of Ilam, the family mansion in Christchurch. The other main group of photographs relate to A P Harper's activities as a mountaineer and explorer in the Fox and Franz Joseph glacier regions. Some of the climbers active in the Southern Alps during the 1880s and 1890s are depicted. W S Green and his two Swiss guides, and at least one photograph taken by Green during his unsuccessful attempt to reach the summit of Mount Cook in 1882. Fitgerald, Zurbriggen, Mannering, and Dixon were all men that Harper was associated with as a mountaineer. As an explorer he was associated with Charles Douglas, and there are photographs of Douglas, Leonard Cockayne the botanist, and John Roberts of the Westland district survey. There are also many photographs of the mountains, glaciers, rivers, and gorges of the Southern Alps. Some of the English photographs at the beginning of the album may be associated with A P Harper's brother Charles who became an Anglican priest. He may have been the C C Harper who was at Keble College and Cuddesdon theological college, Oxford. There are two interiors of "C C Harper's room at Keble College", and a number of photographs of family groups taken in the grounds of the vicarage at Patea where Charles Harper was vicar from 1894 to 1900. The album ends with A P Harper and his house at Thames, and more British photographs, in particular several pages of Jersey taken about 1897 Quantity: 1 album(s) Album(s).