The logbook describes a whaling voyage to the South Pacific apparently under a Captain Hardwicke. The voyage began in Sydney and took in Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island, the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), Solomon Islands, Torres Strait, Bismarck Archipelago (Papua New Guinea), Santa Cruz Group, Tikopia and New Zealand. There is a gap in the log from 2 February to 31 March 1857.
Reverend John Geddie (1815-72), a Presbyterian missionary, left Nova Scotia, Canada, for the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) in 1846. He reached Aneityum in May 1848 in the mission ship JOHN WILLIAMS. He was accompanied by his wife Charlotte Geddie (nee MacDonald, 1822-) and Thomas Powell of the London Missionary Society (LMS). Geddie and Powell established themselves on the southern side of the island, but were coolly received by the inhabitants. When Powell left the island after about a year, the Geddies remained with Samoan teachers. In 1852, the mission was joined by Reverend John Inglis and his wife Jessie from Scotland, representing the Reformed Presbyterian Church. They established a station on the northern side of the island. Meanwhile, Geddie had begun printing books in the Aneityumese language - the first being a spelling book, with readings from Scripture, hymns and prayers. During the next few years many similar works and translations of the Scriptures were published. Geddie retired to Australia in 1872, and died soon afterwards.
The diaries provide information about Geddie's activities during his first ten years on Aneityum.
Please see PMB MS 184. These papers comprise part of the records of the Vicariate of Samoa which are designated Oceania Navigatores (ON) in the Marist Archives.
Letters from missionaries in Samoa to Marist headquarters in Lyon filed under 'Correspondence Missionnaires et Adm. Gen. II'.
At the time of copying (1973) Reginald B. Hegarty was curator of the Melville Whaling Room at the New Bedford Free Public Library.
The indexes are as follows:
Voyages begun prior to December 1876 and not completed by January 1877 (gives type of vessel, tonnage, captain, agent, grounds, dates of sailing and return, and catch) (7 frames).
Voyages, 1877-1925 (by year - type of ship, tonnage, captain, agent, where bound, date of sailing, return, catch and notice of extraordinary events) (158 frames).
Average prices for sperm, bone, oil, 1877-1925 (1 frame).
Types of vessels and tonnage, 1877-1925 (1 frame).
Imports into New Bedford of whale oil and bone, 1877-1925 (1 frame).
N.B. Many of the whaling voyages were to the Pacific Ocean.
Isobel Whippy was in Fiji from 1963. She wrote several short plays for school children from 1968 onward. 'Pritchard' was her first major drama, which won a $100 prize in a drama contest for the South Pacific Festival of Arts in Suva in May 1972.
The play concerns the first British Consul in Fiji, William Thomas Pritchard, who arrived in Levuka in September 1858 and was dismissed from his post in January 1863. It is based on a theory that the Consul lost his job because of a love affair with a young woman - possibly a part-European - who gave birth to two children by Pritchard, before he married her in the British Consulate in Levuka a few days after his dismissal. The play is in two acts - the first covering the period from September 1858 to June 1859; the second from November 1859 to July 1862. There is an epilogue concerning the year 1864.
James Valentine Tarte (1837-1918) was born in England and migrated to Ballarat, VIC, Australia in 1857. He went to Fiji in 1869 and took up land on Taveuni where he remained until his death. Some of his descendants still have plantations on Taveuni (1972).
The document is a duplicate typescript. The reminiscences were probably written by hand originally, but the whereabouts of a manuscript is not known. Nor is it known where the original typescript is. The last page(s) of the present copy are missing, and there is nothing to indicate exactly when the document was written. However, the author states on P.17 that he wishes he could 'put the clock back 50 years'; on p.13 he indicates that he was writing in Brisbane; and on p.30 he says; 'I am writing this for my two sons ...' It is an entertaining account of Tarte's early life in England, his journey to Australia, the early years of Ballarat, financial losses and departure for Fiji, his purchase of land on Taveuni and establishment of a cotton plantation, his marriage to Clara Berry in March, 1871 (the first European wedding in Fiji), his purchase of additional land and construction of a sugar mill, his venture into coffee and cattle, and the vicissitudes of plantation life.
All Saints School, Labasa, on the island of Vanua Levu in Fiji, was established by the Anglican Mission in Fiji around 1904. The logbooks are chronicles of the notable events in the day-to-day affairs of the school.
