(JOHN) NORTHCOTE DECK. Born Norwood, London, 12 March 1875. Died 10 May 1957, Toronto, Canada.

[Article by Stuart Braga in Australian Dictionary of Evangelical Biography, 1993.]

Northcote Deck was the second son of Dr John Feild Deck and his wife Emily (née Baring Young). He came to Sydney from New Zealand with his parents in 1877 when J.F. Deck established the Sydney Homeopathic Hospital at Ashfield, then a wealthy suburb, and studied Medicine at Sydney University. In 1908, he visited the work in the Solomon Islands of the South Sea Evangelical Mission conducted under the aegis of his aunt, Florence Young, and felt called to join the Mission. For the next nineteen years, he served as the SSEM's first medical missionary, travelling among the islands of the Solomon group in the mission’s vessel Evangel. Florence Young wrote that Northcote ‘threw himself heart and soul into the work. He took full charge of the vessel, and as Captain, engineer, photographer, explorer, doctor and visiting missionary and teacher has done work of untold value... The moment the anchor is dropped there follows the important and strenuous work of visiting the out-station schools to instruct, encourage and guide the native teachers.’ To the islanders, he was ‘Liutasi’, the man who goes everywhere. In 1910, he became the first white man to cross Guadalcanal, notoriously hazardous for whites since the depredations of the blackbirders. The next year he recovered the skulls of an Austrian party which had been wiped out in Guadalcanal some years before. These exploits, performed at such obvious peril, earned Deck the Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society.

He assisted in the establishment of an outpost at the more remote Rennell Island in 1910, and on returning a little later, was horrified to find the bones of the three native teachers. They had been killed, it appeared, to obtain the nails with which the mission house had been constructed, to use as fish hooks. Writing in 1945, Northcote commented of this setback, ‘at the time the whole tragedy seemed like defeat. In the light of subsequent events it was only victory deferred.’ However, Rennell Island remained closed for many years thereafter; the government forbade the establishment of a mission station until 1934, a policy with which Deck reluctantly concurred.

He married Jessie Gibson, on 19 April 1911 while on deputation work in Dunedin, New Zealand, his parents’ home town, where the mission had a Council of Advice; there were no children. After Jessie died of Blackwater fever in 26 March 1921, Deck married in October 1923 his step-cousin Gladys Deck, from Motueka, New Zealand, who had arrived in the Islands earlier in the year; a daughter and a son were born to them. The losses of his first wife and cousin, Constance Young, strengthened Northcote’s utter commitment to the Lord’s work. Following Constance’s death in 1924, he wrote, ‘we are here to glorify God every day and night, and anything which does not do that must go’. Though Florence Young was the founder and undoubted leader of the SSEM, her nieces and nephews, members of the Deck family, were among its key members in the field for most of the first half of the 20th century. Seven of the eleven children of John and Emily Deck became missionaries: five with the SSEM and two with other missions, most of them for long periods. All had drunk deeply at the fountain of their parents’ faith and piety, solidly based upon Bible study, so characteristic of the Brethren of that period. The seed thus sown bore fruit as the years went by, with the establishment of a strong indigenous church in the Solomons.

Deck’s monthly letters describing his missionary journeyings had an apostolic quality, and gained a wide circulation, 2,000 copies being printed in the 1920s. Like St Paul, he was in danger often, and was no stranger to suffering. He also produced a number of devotional works and accounts of the work of the SSEM, and lived to see the fruit of his labours and those of his fellow workers. Despite the desperate battle for Guadalcanal in 1942, one of the fiercest conflicts of the Pacific theatre of World War II, the work of the mission was unharmed, and continued to grow in subsequent years.

He left the Islands in 1927, and lived until 1935 in England, then in Australia for four years before settling in Canada in 1939. He had a warm and generous personality, and an uncommon gift of combining gentleness and authority as a public speaker: his words were with power. He was a sought-after speaker at conventions, and was an active board member of Christian organisations. Naturally, he maintained a keen and prayerful interest in the work which he had done so much to establish.

SELECT PUBLICATIONS
J.N. Deck, South from Guadalcanal: the romance of Rennell Island (Toronto, 1945)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
H.J. Gibbney & A.G. Smith, "Deck, John Field" [sic] in A Biographical Register, 1788-1939 (Canberra, 1987)
A. Griffiths, Fire in the Islands! (Wheaton, Illinois, 1977)
F.S.H. Young, Pearls From the Pacific (London, n.d. [1925])

• Pamphlets by J. Northcote Deck;
• Articles by JND published in the evangelist press, 1951-1957;
• Island Letters (SSEM circular letters) by JND, 1909-1928;
• J. Northcote Deck, Circular Letters, 1909-1928;
• Manuscripts by JND, folders 1-36;
• Typescripts of articles by JND mainly published in Not in Vain and the SSEM circular Island Letters, 1915-1956;
• Manuscripts on the Solomons by JND; Draft book on the Solomons by JND;
• Jessie Deck (wife of Northcote Deck), letters to her parents, Mr and Mrs Gibson, 1911-1918;
• General letters and prayer circulars received by JND, 1918-1946, including letters of Margaret Grant, Norman C. Deck, Joan B. Deck, Kathleen M.A. Deck, V.M. Sullivan, and others;
• JND, Letters-out, 1908-1934;
• JND, Letters to Florence Young, 1908-1924;
• Letters received before and after the death of JND, Jan-Oct 1957;
• Last articles by and obituaries of JND, Jun-Nov 1957;
• SSEM materials amongst the JND’s papers; and sundry papers.

See Finding aids for details.

Funded by the Hawaiian Evangelical Society, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and by the Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society, the mission commenced when B.G. Snow, A.A. Sturges and Luther H. Gulick and their wives sailed out of Boston in November 1851. In Honolulu Rev. Ephraim Clark, Secretary of the Hawaiian Missionary Society, Rev James Kekela and two other Hawaiian missionaries, Daniela Opunui and Berita Kaaikaula and their wives joined the party which sailed for the Carolines, Marshalls and the Gilbert Islands on 15 July 1852. Mission stations were established in Kosrae and Ponape in August and September 1852. In 1857 George Pierson opened the first Protestant mission station on Ebon in the Marshalls. In the same year Hiram Bingham Jr. with his wife set up a mission station on Apaiang in Kiribati (then the Gilbert Islands), but poor health forced Bingham to return in 1864. He was replaced by two other American missionaries, Horace Taylor and Alfred Walkup, and several native Hawaiian pastors. In all nineteen Hawaiian families went to Kiribati – more than twice the combined number who travelled to the Marquesas, Marshalls and Carolines. The missionary work was gradually given up owing to changes in sovereignty in the Micronesian islands. The last missionary to work in Kiribati was Daniel P. Mahihila who went to Maiana in 1892 and returned to Hawai’i in 1904. (From notes by Kanani Reppun, Librarian, Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society Library, Honolulu.)

These English language translations of Hawaiian language documents in the Micronesian Collection consist of: correspondence of Hezekiah Aea, 1861-1871; J.D. Ahia, 1871-1872; S. Alika, Sep 1857; Daniel P. Aumai, 1862-1867; Samuela P. Kaaia, 1871-1875; Berita Kaaikaula, 1853-1858; Samuela Kamakahiki, 1855-1857; Simeon Kanakaolr, 1858; J.W. Kanoa, 1858-1879; W.B. Kapu, 1863-1879; George Leleo, 1868-1879; Joel H. and Olivia Mahoe, 1858-1868; Robert Maka, 1865-1877; Henry B. Nalimu, 1877-1881; Samuela Nawaa, 1877-1881; Z.S.K. Paaluhi, 1887-1898 ; together with Mary Kaaialii Kahelemauna, A reminiscence of her life as a missionary at Mille Island, 1877; a descriptive report of Kusaie (Kosrae) or Strong’s Island, 1867; Church reports for Apaiang, Kuma and Makin, Maiana and Noto, Makin and Butatitari, Marakei, Nonuti, Tapiteuea and Tarawa, 1866-1892; reports and minutes of Church general meetings, 1867-1895, and committee meetings, 1870-1881; reports of missionaries, 1880-1890; reports from the Marshall islands, 1864-1875. See PMB 1120 for complete set of original Micronesian Collection documents on microfilm. See Finding aids for details.

Charles Basil Norton (1887-1968) was born in Worthing, Sussex. He joined the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class on 13 January, 1902. On 22 January 1909 he transferred to HMS Challenger and the Australian Station. The ship was on a tour of duty for training exercises with the Royal Australian Navy.

The journal (3 volumes) covers the period May 1909 to November 1910. The ship visited all the Australian State Capitals, many New Zealand ports (carrying out survey work around the west coast of the South Island), the Cook Islands, the Kermadecs and Fiji. Daily life aboard ship is described in great detail including: regular 'drills'; gunnery practice and equipment (there is a detailed illustration of a torpedo and its mechanisms); communications; diseases; religious observance; 'coaling'; parades and social events. Descriptions include the distances between various ports on each voyage, and notes on the climate and geography of the countries and island groups they visited. Also described are visits to museums, churches, botanic gardens, ceremonial arrivals and departures etc. and other activities during shore leave. Lord Plunket, Governor of New Zealand, was aboard during the Cook Islands visit and Sir Joseph Ward, Premier of New Zealand, returning from the Imperial Defence Conference, was a passenger from Fiji to Auckland. During the second voyage to New Zealand in August/ September of 1909, the ship was sent in search of the Clan Macpherson, reported missing in the vicinity of the Kermadec Islands. The search was unsuccessful but mention is made of Raoul Island and the pioneering Bell family. All three volumes are illustrated by Charles' own remarkable art work which incorporates local postage stamps, programme cards and newspaper clippings of notable or interesting events, as well as numerous photographs taken by himself or other members of the crew. The first volume contains an index to subjects and illustrations (see page 279). The last section of the third volume describes, in detail, life in a Naval Prison as it was then: the punishments, food allowances, work details (with oakum) and general conditions.

The reports and photographs describe missionary work carried out by Rev Barnard in Fiji 1929-1930, and the work of his wife, Winifred Barnard, who ran health clinics.

• Lewis E. Barnard, “Experiences by Land and Sea, August 30, 1929 – Feb. 11, 1930”, Nabouwalu, Fiji, Feb. 1930, Ts., 21pp.
• Lewis E. Barnard, “The Sixty Mile Tramp. Bua Circuit, Fiji. Feb. 1930”, Ts., 9pp.
• 2nd copy: Lewis E. Barnard, “A Sixty Mile Tramp. On tour of inspection of work in Bua Circuit, Fiji. Feb. 1930”, Ts., 9pp.
• Menu, SS Sonoma, en route from San Francisco to Sydney, 3 Mar 1930.
• Photograph album, Sydney and Fiji, 1929-1930. Photographs include: George Brown Methodist Missionary Training College, Sydney; Ah Tam, Health Centre Store; Lautoka, 1929; Davne; Nabouealu Mission House; On the Moraki ; Suva; W. Barnard, first white woman here – Narawai; Peni; Josesi; Ratu George, Willie, Alice; Moraki at Noumea.
• Photograph album. Damaged. Photographs include: On the Moraki; Lautoka Mosque; Win & Lewis; Adi Keva; Nabouwalu; Kabouwalu; Mission House, Nabouwalu; Nabouwalu village; Nabouwalu; View from front door; Mission House – Kolino, Gorieka & Salosi; Native Ministers, Nabouwalu and welcome to us; front verandah, Ratu George and family; Scouts; Santa; Baby Health Centre; Baby health Nabouwalu; Ah Tam; Baby Health Centre; Adi Lagi Lagi & Alice Brown, Toganivalu; Peni, Israli, Sukdao; Scouts; Marioni & Beni Keli; Narawai – 1st white woman there; after the hurricaine; Avenue of mango tress leading to the Mission House; after the wreck; Manasa who gave me the big conch shell; Mecki – Penni; Israle, Joni, Sukdao; Nabouwalu; Joe & Willy; L.E.B.; On Raicakacaka (tour of work): Williami; Luki and family – Native Minister; Esau & Maciea; Esau – Native Minister’s House (bed I slept on); On Raicakacaka; Guard of honour for us; Bua; SS Tui Labasa; Davilevu Fiji; Suva Hospital 1929-30; The Wharf, Suva; Bau; Nabouwalu Post Master and family.
See also PMB Photo 23, BARNARD, Rev. Lewis E., Photographs from the Methodist Mission in Fiji, 1929-1930.

The papers consist of:

1. A miscellaneous collection of 30 letters written between 1900 and 1936 by and to missionaries at Vunapope, Poporang, Koromira, Buka Passage, Mussou [Mussau], and Shortland.
2. Reports to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, Rome, on the history and progress of the Roman Catholic Church, North Solomons, dated 1921 to 1936.
3. A history of the Roman Catholic Mission at Buin, Bougainville, 1903-1916, by Father Francois Allotte. It is entitled 'Notice sur Buin'.
4. A daily journal kept by Father Jean-Baptiste Poncelet from May 24, 1937 to May 22, 1940 at Turiboiru, Buin, Bougainville.
5. An account by Father Maurice Boch of his arrival and early days in the Solomon Islands, April - June, 1908. Father Boch was stationed at Poporang.
6. A miscellaneous collection of documents comprising: A history of Koromira mission station, 1907-1923; a list of baptisms at Koromira, 1908-1924; a history of Choiseul, 1768-192?; a history of Choiseul, 1911-1927; a report of the Marist mission to the Committee of Inquiry into Mission Affairs, Keita, 1929; a resume of the Committee of Inquiry's report, n.d.; a history of Timbutz mission station.
7. Correspondence of Father E.M. Babonneau, S.M., of Wainoni Bay, San Cristobal [Makira], 1915-1920. (Many of the letters have been damaged or partly destroyed).