Richard Parkinson (1846-1907) a German national of English descent, went to Samoa in 1878 to work for the trading company J.G. Godeffroy und Sohn. In 1879 he married Phoebe Coe, sister of Emma Coe (later known as 'Queen Emma') and joined 'Queen Emma' in New Britain in 1882. A successful coconut planter with botanical, entomological, ethnological and ornithological interests, he wrote Dreissig jahre in der Sudsee: land und leute, sitten und gebrauche im Bismarck archipel und auf den deutschen Salomoninseln, published in Stuttgart by Strecker & Schroder in 1907, the year of his accidental death. The published German original is widely available. Several unpublished English translations exist, among them the two microfilmed here. For further information see the Bureau's newsletter, Pambu Ser.3(3) 1989 and Ser.3(4) 1989.

Reel 1: Thirty years in the South Sea, the country and the people: habits and customs in the Bismarck Archipelago and on the German Solomon Islands, by R. Parkinson ... 1907, translated from the German by H.A. Thompson (1922) (viii, 102 pp.). Contents page, author's preface, editor's preface, text parts I-VII, separately paged typescript with corresponding page number of the original typed in margins.<BR>AND pp 1-515 of - Thirty years in the South Seas: The Bismarck Archipelago, natives and customs, by Richard Parkinson ... 1907, translated and edited by N.C. Barry, (n.d.) (1), 648, (10)pp. Typescript with contents page and unnumbered part IX in a typeface differing from the rest of the text. Part I = Part XI (Discovery and early history). Does not include prefaces. Corresponding page number of original pencilled at head of text.<P>Reel 2: N.C. Barry translation concluded. Pages 516 - 648, (10)pp.

The Council of Pacific Teachers Organisations, formed in 1982, is an affiliate of the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession. It is based in Suva, Fiji, and its members consist of teachers' industrial organisations from all the South Pacific islands. Its objects include professional development of teachers, development of teachers' organisations and extension of educational opportunities to all peoples in the South Pacific.

Minutes and related papers of 2nd-11th annual and bi-annual conferences, including the activities report to the 11th Conference, 1984-1994<BR>various papers, reports and speeches, 1986-1994<BR>General Secretary's files re CPTO Women's network, 1989-1993<BR>the Solomon Islands Teachers' Association Women's Wing, 1992 <P><B>See reel list for further details</B>

Ella Collins joined the Methodist Mission at Vunairima, New Britain, in 1925, and worked in the region until 1932.

Stories collected from the wives of native mission workers about their tribes.

Sister Merle Farland (1906?-1988) trained at Auckland Hospital. In 1938 she was appointed to a nursing position at NZ Methodist Mission's Helena Goldie Hospital at Bilua, Vella Lavella. Most of the missionaries left the Solomon Islands in January 1942 when the Japanese first attacked Rabaul, however Sister Farland refused to leave on the grounds that a nurse was necessary to attend to the needs of Solomon Islanders and that, as she had just returned from furlough, she was the right person to stay. From Bilua she visited New Georgia, Simbo and Choiseul which were occupied by the Japanese at the time. For a time, Miss Farland ran a coast watching station herself. Travelling a good 100 miles by canoe through enemy lines she was eventually evacuated by Catalina from Sege at the south end of New Georgia. After the War Sister Farland became a tutor sister at Lautoka Hospital where she was presented with a MBE for her services on 12 May 1947. (Fiji Times, 14 May 1947)

Sister Merle Farland: diary, 1938-1940, 1941-Feb 1943(photocopy of the original); index to Sister Farland's diary; The Gizo Scuttle, by Rev. J. R. Metcalfe; press cuttings, 1942-1988; correspondence, 1942-1944. <P><b>See reel list for further details</b>

Thurston arrived in Australia in 1855 and farmed in NSW until 1860 when he became Collector to the Linnean Society, Sydney. In 1869 he became acting British Consul for Fiji and in 1872 became Chief Secretary and Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Cakobau Government. He was Governor and High Commissioner of the Western Pacific from 1887 until his death in 1897.

JBT’s correspondence with his sisters, Eliza West Morton, 1880-1896, and Emily Burrows, 1882-1889; letters received on the death of JBT, 1897; biographical notes on JBT; letters from H C Thurston to Emily Burrows, 1880-87; letters received by Emily Burrows, 1872-1907; letters from Eliza West Morton to Baba, her niece, 1922-23; letters from Amelia Thurston to Baba, 1903-1927; further family correspondence and related papers, 1894-1937; press cuttings, 1876-1939; Thurston genealogical papers; sketch, photographs and illustrations, 1857-1928. <P><B>See reel list for further details</B>

Writings by Dorothy Crozier and related papers, in particular her unpublished edition of Mariner’s Tonga; correspondence; course, conference and teaching files; Pacific Islands social services survey project files; Tonga social services survey files and photographs; WPHC archives administration and working files and related publications. <b>See Finding aids for details.</b>

Kenneth Hewitson Thomas was born in Adelaide in 1904. In 1927 he was accepted as a Cadet Patrol Officer to serve in the Territory of New Guinea. He was stationed in Rabaul from late May till November 1927, then transferred to Aitape. In April 1928 he was sent to Wutong on the border with Dutch New Guinea for two months. He then returned to Aitape where he remained posted until he was recalled to Rabaul in January 1929. Thomas spent most of 1929 at the University of Sydney attending lectures in anthropology, given by Professor Radciffe Brown and Camilla Wedgewood, and other courses. He married Constance Taylor in Adelaide in January 1930 before returning to the Territory where he was posted to Vanimo in March 1930. He was stationed at Aitape from October 1930 till March 1932 and then went to Adelaide on leave, April till July 1932. When Thomas returned to New Guinea in August he was posted to Marienberg. In February 1933 Thomas was transferred back to Aitape, but was there only one month before being appointed Acting Assistant District Officer in Wewak where he remained for the next 15 months. Thomas’ wife arrived in Wewak in August 1934, but the climate did not agree with her. Thomas left New Guinea with his wife in August 1934 to take leave. While on leave Thomas resigned from the Territory Administration for the sake of his marriage and did not return to New Guinea. (From Barry Craig, “ ‘Stranger in aStrange Land’: Kenneth Thomas in the North Sepik Region of PNG”, in Robert L Welsch (ed.), Proceedings of a Special Session of the Pacific Arts Association, Working Papers, Hanover NH, PAA, 1999.)

General records books, notes on customs, barter and weapons, notes on legends and folklore, 1927-30; diaries and patrol notes, 1932-35; anthropology and other course notes & essays, 1929 & 1931; New Guinea notes and articles, 1927-1940; correspondence, 1926-34, 1940; File 1, Patrols: Coast Road, Aitape-Wewak, 1928-33; File 2, Inland Sissano, n.d.; File 3, Aitape Inland, 1928-31; File 6, Inland Yakamal, 1931-32; File 8, Wewak West, 1933-34; File 9, Wewak East, 1933; File 10, Maps and route maps; further patrol reports and related documents, 1927-34; Vanimo Village Book, May 1930; Boik vocabulary; photograph album; wedding photograph. See Finding aids for details.

Fred Palmer Archer was born in Melbourne in 1890 and died in 1977. He was with the first Australian Imperial Force, came to New Guinea in 1923 and later took over Jame Plantation, Buka Passage, in the Bougainville District of the Territory of New Guinea. Jame Plantation was one of the ex-German plantations sold by the Commonwealth Government in 1926/27 to returned soldiers. He was appointed a civilian coast watcher in the Buka-Bougainville area at the outbreak of the War in the Pacific and evacuated to Guadalcanal and then Australia in 1943. He joined the British Solomon Islands Defence Force in September 1943 and transferred to ANGAU in early 1945. After the War he returned to his plantations in New Guinea where he became one of the Territory’s most successful and influential planters.

The papers include: letters from Fred Archer to his family and friends, mainly from Wuvulu Island, Manus District, and from Jame Plantation in Buka, 1923-1928; Report on coast watching activitiy, Bougainville Island, 1941-1943, by W J Read; Archer’s Solomon Islands war-diaries, 1943. There is also a series of subject files, A-Z, arranged by Mrs Mary Roberts from the Archer papers for her biography of Fred Archer. The files cover many aspects of Archer’s post-War career, including some material on the Planters Association of Bougainville and the history of the Planters Association of New Guinea. A series of files of correspondence and other documents relating to Hakau Plantation in Bougainville, 1935-1967, is also microfilmed.

See Finding aids for details.

The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (MSC) were founded in France in 1854. In 1881 the Sacred Heart Missionaries relocated to Hiltrup in Germany, having been expelled from France, and in the same year the first MSC South Seas Missions were established. In 1884 German protectorates in Melanesia and Micronesia were proclaimed. The Congregation of Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was recognised in 1900. Pioneer MSC Sisters worked in the Marshall Islands from 1902 till 1919 when they were expelled by the Japanese. MSC Sisters also travelled to New Britain in 1902, but five were killed by Baining tribesmen in August 1904. Nevertheless the MSC Sisters’ activities in New Guinea expanded well beyond the Vunapope Mission in New Britain to New Ireland, Tanga, Lihir and Anelaua Islands where they were in charge of schools, hospitals, dispensaries and baby welfare clinics.

Photocopies of documents held in the MSC Hiltrup Archives (Archiv Missionssch-western vom hist. Herzen Jesu, Hiltrup, Westfalia), together with English translations, including:
Reports on the volcanic eruption in Rabaul, May 1937, when the Vunapope Mission station was used to house many evacuees, by Gordon Thomas, Fr. H, Nollen MSC, Sr. Potentiana MSC, Sr. Karola MSC, and Sr. Plazida MSC.
Reports on experiences of the Sisters in New Ireland during the Japanese occupation by Sr. Gustave MSC and Sr. Brigitta MSC.
Reports on other Sisters’ experiences in New Guinea during World War II by Sr. Theodoretis MSC, Sr. Theodeberta MSC, Sr. Dorothea MSC and the MSC Sisiters at the Leper Station at Anelaua, together with extracts from the MSC journal Montaschefte and some photographs taken at the Ramale Japanese prison camp in New Ireland.
The documents are translated from German and Dutch by Sister Brendan, Sister Brigid Kissane, Dymphna Clark and Mrs Olga Watters. See Finding aids for details.