Arthur Harper (right) with Charlie Douglas, Weheka Valley, Cook River, in 1894. Credit Alexander Turnbull Library
Lawyer, explorer, businessman, and conservationist, Arthur Harper served as the Society’s president from 1948 for seven years, remaining an active advocate until his death in May 1955, one month shy of his ninetieth birthday. Born in Christchurch in 1865, Arthur had an impeccable Canterbury (New Zealand) pedigree, an Oxford (England) law degree, and was called to the bar at London’s Inner Temple in 1888.1
Taking up mountaineering in Switzerland in 1887, Arthur had climbed in the European Alps. His love affair with mountains and his exploration of the trackless West Coast burnished his own legendary qualities.
He spent several years surveying beside the famed Charlie Douglas on the payroll of Lands and Survey, and later searched for payable gold. Arthur confessed he had once dined with Douglas on kea, while tramping in the Southern Alps.
A co-founder of the New Zealand Alpine Club, in 1891, he went on to set up and preside over the Federated Mountain Clubs (FMC). As its name indicates, FMC is an alliance of trampers, mountaineers, skiers, and hunters. His position as the federation’s patron overlapped his service as Forest & Bird president and over the years the collaboration between both organisations has been a positive one for conservation and recreation.2
Arthur Harper at the foot of the Haast Ridge, Aoraki Mount Cook, Canterbury. Courtesy Sue Maturin
Arthur was awarded the Loder Cup in 1950 and admitted to membership of the Royal Geographical Society. He published two books about the mountains and his expeditions.3
While his climbing orientation has been described as class-based and elitist, his wanderlust was also the making of an old-style naturalist.
Arthur Harper in 1936, Courtesy Sue Maturin
His contributions to Forest & Bird often describe the ‘before’ and ‘after’ perspectives afforded by a lively longevity, revisiting country he loved. Under the nom de plume ‘Kauri’ he upheld the magazine’s policy of nature education for children. Later, he was persuasive in bringing a measure of protection to two of New Zealand’s most iconic birds, the kea and takahē.
Arthur and the FMC presented detailed proposals for the administration of national parks to the government in 1938, and after the war in 1949, thereby laying the groundwork for one of the most important pieces of legislation in Aotearoa New Zealand’s conservation history.
In these proposals, Arthur drew on the national park legislation of Canada, the United States and Great Britain to support the Federation’s arguments.4
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To find out more about Arthur Harper and how he and other conservationists helped establish the game-changing National Parks Act 1952, buy a copy of Force of Nature from the Forest & Bird shop. All the book’s profits go towards the Society’s conservation mahi.
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- Graham Langton. 'Harper, Arthur Paul', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1998. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
- Harper to McGregor, 15 Mar 1950, ATL ms-papers-0444-568; R.W Burrell, Fifty years of mountain federation, FMC, Wellington, 1983, pp 81–86.
- Arthur P. Harper, Memories of mountains and men, Simpson and Williams Ltd, Christchurch, 1946; Arthur P. Harper, Pioneer work in the Alps of New Zealand - a record of the first exploration of the chief glaciers and ranges of the Southern Alps, T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1896, pp.104-105.
- Harper deputation to Minister on National Parks, ATL ms-papers-84-180-41 Folder 38/Act.