This book is rare. The Departmental Standing Instructions were issued to Patrol Officers to assist them to undertake their work in Papua New Guinea. Patrol Officers worked in the field with indigenous people in the administration of Districts. The intention of the publication was to present instructions and advice in a concise and consolidated form.

The first volume encompasses the wide range of duties and tasks carried out by the Department of Native Affairs. As situations changed and stages of development progressed, separate memoranda were issued and Officers were instructed to interleave new instructions into the existing publication. In 1970 there had been so many changes in the conditions and circumstances of the Patrol Officers job that the Department decided to issue a revised, second edition.

Between 1962 and 1970 the Department underwent two reorganisations: from the Department of Native Affairs to the Department of District Administration, to the Division of District Administration within the Department of Administrator.

Departmental Standing Instructions, General Field Administration Vol.1, 1962, with updates, and General Field Administration Vol.1, Revised 2nd edition, 1970.
See Finding aids for details.

O.F. Nelson (1884-1944), a leader of the Mau (Samoan National Movement), was the son of a Swedish sea captain and a Samoan woman of chiefly rank. He founded the firm of O.F. Nelson and Company Limited during World War I. After the New Zealanders occupied Western Samoa in 1914, Nelson's firm flourished and he became a prominent leader of the Samoan community. After Western Samoa was made a 'C' class mandate of the League of Nations in 1921 to be administered by New Zealand, Nelson organised resistance to New Zealand rule. In 1928 he was banished from Western Samoa for five years, during which period he lived in New Zealand.

Correspondence with H.E. Holland, Chairman of the New Zealand Labour Party, Nelson's wife Rosabel, and Mau leaders during Nelson's banishment from Samoa.

Please see PMB 1039 for full entry

Correspondence, 16 October 1873 to 15 October 1878.

John C. Dorrence (pseudonym James Hartley) spent a term as U.S. consul in Fiji. He wrote this study of J.B. Williams and the American claims in Fiji while at the University of Hawaii, basing it largely on unpublished letters in the Peabody Museum, Salem, Massachusetts. A full bibliography is included. The study is dated March 20, 1966.

A study of J.B. Williams' claims against the Fijian chief Cakobau and their impact on Fiji's history in the mid-19th century. Williams (1810-1860) was an official United States representative in Fiji from 1846 until his death in 1860. His claims led ultimately to the Chiefs' Cession of Fiji to Queen Victoria.

The Reverend Frederick James Paton (1867-1941), son of the noted Presbyterian missionary, the Rev. Dr John G. Paton, was born at Aniwa, New Hebrides (Vanuatu). After being educated in Australia and serving there for a short time as a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. F.J. Paton returned to the New Hebrides and spent most of the rest of his life there as a missionary.

The journals give a day by day account of Paton's work as a missionary in the New Hebrides over a period of nearly 18 years. (See also PMB 33 for journals of his wife for 1903 - 1905).

The governments of the United Kingdom and France signed a protocol respecting the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) in 1914 and ratified it on 18 March 1922. The copy here is the ratified version. The protocol superseded the Anglo-French Convention of 1906 which had established the Condominium of the New Hebrides in that year. The protocol strengthened the provisions of the 1906 condominium. It allowed France and the UK to govern jointly in the New Hebrides and establish exclusive sovereignty over their own citizens, subjects and optants (people of another nationality who had to choose between the jurisdiction of France or the UK). Indigenous ni-Vanuatu were placed under the jurisdiction of the condominium. The protocol declared the archipelago a region of joint influence. It confirmed and enhanced the presence of joint services in the territory, including a postal system, courts, finance department and land registry. Other administrative functions such as education, the police and health were the responsibility of the two governments. In some cases there were triplications with the condominium. For example the protocol provided for a joint health service, but there were separate British and French hospitals, clinics and physicians. The distinction between French and British services and growing duplications with some condominium functions became more noticeable as the two governments increased their spending levels in the territory in the 1960s and 1970s. For all practical purposes the Protocol was a kind of constitution for the New Hebrides. It provided the French and British Resident Commissioners with a para-constitutional framework upon which to enact new laws by joint regulation. The protocol remained in place, despite modifications, until Vanuatu achieved independence on 30 July 1980.

The Protocol consists of 83 pages and 68 articles, complete with French and English translations.

Magaret (Maggie) Whitecross Paton was born in 1824. On 17 June 1864 Rev. John G Paton married Maggie Whitecross. She was his second wife. Rev. John G Paton and Maggie travelled to the New Hebrides in August 1866 and established a Mission station on Aniwa Island, near to Tanna. They lived in a small hut whilst they built a house for themselves and two houses for orphan children. Later, a church, printing house and other buildings were erected. Maggie Paton bore 10 children on the island of Aniwa, 4 of whom died in early childhood or infancy. Their first born son was Robert Robson Paton, born in Adelaide on 23 March 1865, Fred, the second born son was born on 5 March 1867. Fred was referred to as the “White chief of Aniwa” as he was the first white child born on Aniwa. Minnie the only daughter was born on 13 December 1868. Their fourth son, Frank Hume Lyall Paton, was born on Aniwa on 26 August 1870. Frank later followed them as a missionary in the New Hebrides. Lena was born on 28 March 1873 but lived only one week. James was born in South Melbourne on Nov 26 1875. Walter was born on 27 Aug 1878 but died at the age of 2 ½ years. Both Lena and Walter are buried on Aniwa. John was born on Aniwa 23 Nov 1880. Alec and Willie were twins and born at Kew but died when 3 months old.Another son, Rev. Frederick James Paton (1867-1941) was also a Presbyterian missionary on Malekula Island in the New Hebrides. Rev. John G Paton learned the local language and later translated the New Testament into the Aniwan language. Maggie Paton taught women and girls craft, singing and reading. Both Rev. John G Paton and Maggie Paton trained native teachers who were later sent to the villages to preach the gospel, translated, printed and taught the Scriptures, ministered to the sick and dying, taught the practical use of tools and held worship services. In 1899 Rev. G Paton saw his Aniwa New Testament printed and the establishment of missionaries on twenty five of the Southern New Hebrides.

Maggie Paton’s Letters and sketches from the New Hebrides was edited by her brother-in-law Rev. Jas. Paton and published in 1895.
Maggie Paton died at the age of 64 on 16 May 1905 in Kew, Victoria, Australia. Rev. John G Paton died at the age of 82 on 28 January 1907 in Canterbury, Victoria, Australia.

Journal, Sep 1870 – Mar 1872.
Journal, Feb 1874 – Nov 1875.
Correspondence from Minnie Paton to William (Wilfred) Frederick Paton (Oct 1942), includes “some of Fred’s jokes” and small excerpts transcribed from Maggie Whitecross’ journals.

See Finding aids for details.

Fr Francis Hezel came to Micronesia as a Jesuit scholastic in 1963, taught at Xavier High School for three years, and then returned to the US for three years of theological studies. When this was finished, Fr Hezel returned to Micronesia in 1969 to resume teaching at Xavier High School. In 1973 Fr Hezel was appointed principal of the School. He continued as the top administrator there until 1982, when he moved to the mission center to work as full-time director of the Micronesian Seminar which was based in Chuuk for ten years and subsequently on Pohnpei. Between 1992 and 1998 Fr Hezel also served as Jesuit regional superior in Micronesia.

While Fr. Francis Hezel was studying theology at Woodstock College, MD, during the late 1960s, he inherited the then small collection of books that young Jesuits who had returned from Micronesia pored over in an effort to prepare themselves for their eventual return to the islands. During the summer of 1968, one year before his ordination, Fr Hezel was admitted into the East-West Center program where he took courses in Pacific history and wrote a bibliographic essay on the history of the Catholic Church's engagement in Micronesia that was not long afterwards published in Journal of Pacific History (Vol.5, 1970). That kicked off Fr Hezel’s career in local history and motivated him to find still more about church activities in the islands. The result can be found in his files and most of what fills the shelves of the Micronesian Seminar library.

Two series of the files have been microfilmed, as follows:
Series I. General. Bibliographies, archival sources, chronologies, lists of missionaries.
Series I, cont. Jesuit Mission – Marianas, Guam.
Series I, cont. Jesuit Mission – Marianas, Guam.
Series I, cont. Spanish Capuchins in the Carolines, 1885-1905.
Series I, cont. Gilberts, Marshalls and Nauru.
Series II. Documentation of Catholic Missions in Micronesia in the 20th Century.

Most of the early documents in these two series are photocopies from Jesuit and Capuchin archives in Europe and elsewhere, together with English translations of some of the Spanish and Latin originals. There are a number of original mission documents among the more recent material, such as church statistics, mission station reports, the Mission Bulletin, house diaries, records of the Mercedarian Sisters, and accounts of WWII experiences, including the execution of Spanish SJs in Palau. There are also unpublished manuscripts on the history of the mission by Fr Thomas McGrath, Fr. Higinio Berganza, Fr Callistus Lopinot, Fr Faustino Hernández, Fr. John Curran and Fr Hezel.
<b>See Finding aids for details.</b>

Captain William Driver (1803-1886) was born Salem, Massachusetts, USA. He went to sea aged 14, and made his first voyage to Fiji in quest of beche-de-mer in September, 1872, in the ship Clay under Captain Benjamin Vanderford. He spent 49 months in the South Seas beche-de-mer trade before returning to Salem. Given command of the Charles Doggett, he sailed for the Pacific again in January, 1831. He remained at sea until 1837 when he retired to Nashville, Tennessee.

The logbook is for the voyage of the Charles Doggett. It begins on January 30, 1831, when the ship was 2,098 sea miles from Salem en route to New Zealand, and ends in March, 1832, when the ship was gathering a cargo of beche-de-mer in Fiji. In the interval, calls were made at Tubuai, Tahiti (French Polynesia), Pitcairn Island, Samoa, Tahiti and Niuatoputapu (Tonga). Driver's visit to Pitcairn Island from Tahiti was for the purpose of returning 65 descendants of the Bounty mutineers, who had been moved from Pitcairn to Tahiti four months earlier as it was feared that their island was becoming overpopulated. Driver describes this episode in some detail in an 1871 memoir accompanying his logbook of the Charles Doggett.
See also the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, December 1969:17.

Archdeacon Stephen Romney Maurice Gill (1886-1954), from a family of Pacific missionaries, joined the Anglican mission to Papua in 1908. He was ordained at Dogura, in 1910, and his first parish was nearby Boianai, where he remained until 1922. He then moved to the Mamba district, where he established a temporary station at Manau on the mouth of the Mamba (or Mambare) River. Two years later, at Duvira, he began work on what was to be his head station until 1942, when it was destroyed by the Japanese. In 1943, he began building a new mission station at nearby Dewade. He retired in 1952 and died in England two years later.

The letters, written from Papua New Guinea to members of Gill's family in England, are mainly of the period 1922-28. The original letters are owned by members of the Gill family in England. Those on the microfilm are typewritten copies of the originals made available by Mr David Wetherell, of Popondetta, Papua (1969).