John Galbraith Graham

John Graham (a.k.a. Araucaria)
John Graham in 2013

The Reverend John Galbraith Graham MBE (16 February 1921 – 26 November 2013) was a British crossword compiler, best known as Araucaria of The Guardian. He was also, like his father, a Church of England priest.

Graham was born in Oxford, where his father, Eric Graham, held the post of dean of Oriel College. The family moved to a country rectory in Wiltshire. After attending St Edward's School, Oxford, he obtained a place to read classics at King's College, Cambridge, leaving to join the RAF when the Second World War began. After the war he returned to King's to read theology. In 1949 he joined the staff of St Chad's College, Durham as Chaplain and Tutor where he worked until 1952. On Graham's departure the Principal, Theo Wetherall, paying tribute to his good nature, wrote that "he squandered his sensitive taste and knowledge of Classics on 1B Greek with unfailing patience enlivened by rare expressions of nausea". He later became a vicar in Huntingdonshire.

Writing his first puzzle for The Guardian in July 1958, he eventually took to compiling crosswords full-time when his divorce in the late 1970s lost him his living as a clergyman (he was reinstated after the death of his first wife). In December 1970, The Guardian began publishing its crosswords under the pseudonyms of their compilers, at which point Graham selected the name "Araucaria".

Besides Araucaria's cryptic crosswords in The Guardian, of which he produced around six per month, he also set around a third of the quick crosswords for The Guardian, cryptic crosswords as Cinephile in the Financial Times and puzzles for other publications. In 1984, he founded 1 Across magazine as a way of providing more of his puzzles to subscribers who wanted them; the magazine still publishes five crosswords monthly: four new puzzles by various setters, and one by Araucaria taken from the extensive 1 Across archive.