Some reports on the microfilm are as published in the Votes and Proceedings of the Queensland Parliament: others are as published in the Colonial Reports of the British Government. From 1 July 1900, they are from the Votes and Proceedings of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. The Colonial Reports were published without the maps which may accompany identical reports in the Queensland Parliamentary Papers.

A list indicating the provenance of each report appears at the beginning of Reel 1. Reel 1: reports up to Appendix 12 of 1901. Reel 2: the remainder.

This is a dictionary of Lihir language translated into German. There is also a notebook about Christian events in Lihir language and three notebooks on Lihir grammar.

This collection of 36 postcards and photographs was amassed by Sr. Rhoda Ransom. Sr Rhoda Ransom was born in Maryborough Victoria, 29 Dec 1887 and worked as a nursing sister with the Methodist Mission in New Guinea from July 1912 until March 1913 when she returned to Australia suffering from malaria and rheumatic problems in her legs.
The majority of the collection is post card prints from the New Guinea Methodist mission series, some with notes and letters on the reverse side. Some of the post card print labels are in German. There is a family photograph (possibly taken around the time of WWI?), a passport photograph of Rhoda Ransom in 1949 and a photographic print of Rhoda Ransom in old age.

The Reverend Richard Heath Rickard (1858-1939) was a pioneer missionary in New Britain. He published the first New Britain dictionary and grammar in 1889.

Some of the documents in this collection relate only indirectly to the Rev. R.H. Rickard. The documents comprise:

1. A copy of a letter dated May 1, 1882, from Rickard to the Wesleyan Church offering his services as a missionary in New Britain.
2. A fragment of a diary kept by Rickard's wife in the Duke of York Islands from May 19, 1883, to September 24, 1883.
3. Four letters from Mrs C. Phebe Parkinson to Mrs Rickard, written between 1898 and 1939 from various places in the New Guinea Islands. One of the letters, of 1935, was written from the little-known Tingwon Islands, off the western tip of New Hanover, and is one of the fullest descriptions known of those islands. (Mrs Parkinson became a friend of the Rickards during their early years in New Britain. For an outline of her career, see the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, November, 1968:4)

Please see PMB 1039 for full entry
This collection (MS 7080, Box 3) consists of the following:
FOLDER 1 - Letters to Lorimer Fison: Items 9-11; George Taplin, 1873: Meru tribe kinship, Murray River; Items 12-19; R.H. Codrington, 1892-3: New guinea and Melanesian languages; Items 20-22; H.M. Jackson, Government House, Suva, 1903; Items 23-24; Wm MacGregor, 1888: New Guinea ethnology and languages; Items 25-37; Basil Thomson, 1893: Fijian culture; recall to London; Items 38-39; A.W. Howitt, 1905; Items 40-41; J.G. Frazer, 1907: Frazer compliments Spencer and Gillen on their work and discusses his plans for an anthropological fund at Liverpool, UK.; Items 42-48; W. Skeat, 1903-4: Fiji/Tonga linguistics; publication of Fison article; Items 49-59; J.B. Thurston, 1872 (incomplete) and 1893; Items 60-61; W.E. Bennett, 1903; Items 62-63; S.E. Peal (incomplete); Items 64-65; Letter from J. Hall, Fison's secretary, to J.G. Frazer, 1905; Item 65a; List of distinguished acquaintances
FOLDER 2 - Correspondence with J.G. Frazer; Item 66-104; 1896-1907: mostly anthropology of Australian Aborigines
FOLDER 3 - Notes and Tables: Item 105-167; Mostly in Fison's hand, includes 7 returned questionnaires. Principal subjects are kinship and language among the Australian Aborigines, but there is also material on Dobu (New Guinea) and Fijian languages. Includes kinship tables for tribes in the Murray River, SA; Murray/Darling; Yorke Peninsula, SA; Omeo & Gippsland, VIC; Jervis Bay, NSW areas.
FOLDER 4 - Articles: Item 168-208; A signed mss copy of 'Land tenure in Fiji': Item 209-224; Fellows, Rev. S.B. 'Grammar of the Pannieti dialect, British New Guinea, together with comprehensive vocabulary'. Proof copy.; Item 225-233; Sketch maps (2) and comparative lists of the vocabulary of New Guinea dialects: Saibai, Uroi, Baribara, Kaura, Moi, Wapi, Ari, Moipalo, Kubilo, A'loto, Bau, Gaiga, Kaipu, Kaurarega, Gudang; Item 234; Note (incomplete) on numerals of New Guinea dialects; Item 235; A comparative vocabulary of New Guinea languages.
FOLDER 5 - Transactions and proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, vol.X, February 1874; Item 236; On pp.154-179 is Fison's article 'The classificatory system of kinship'. The volume bears the signature of E.M. Curr and his handwritten critique of Fison's article. Also marked in the table of contents is an article, on pp. 100-105, 'Abstract of a paper on Aboriginal art in Australasia, Polynesia, and Oceania, and its decay' by H.E. Pain.

Rev. John Williams (1796-1839) went to Tahiti (French Polynesia) as a missionary in 1816 and was active in the Society, Hervey, Southern Cook and Samoan Islands. In 1839, he moved to Fasitoouta, Upolu, in Samoa and began a station there. On November 20th of that year, he was killed at Erromango, New Hebrides (Vanuatu). Rev. Robert Bourne (1793-1871) went to the Society Islands as a missionary in 1817. In 1822, he began the mission at Tahaa. He left Tahiti in 1827 and retired to England in 1829.

The principal item on the microfilm is a journal describing a voyage made by the Reverends John Williams and Robert Bourne from Raiatea to Aitutaki, Mangaia, Atiu, Mitiaro, Mauke and Rarotonga, Cook Islands, in July-August 1823, to propagate the Gospel. The journal appears to have been written, or written up, by Bourne. There is a subscription in ink by Williams on the last page. Some passages in the journal are the same or similar to those in William's 'A Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands', London, 1837. Other items on the microfilm are:

• A letter from Williams to his family from Raiatea, dated November 9, 1822.
• A copy of a letter from Tamatoa, chief of Raiatea, to the President of the United States, dated Raiatea, September 10, 1829.
• A letter from Williams to A. Birnie, dated Raiatea, February 27, 1830.
• A letter from Williams to his sister Mary, dated Portsea, June 17, 1836.
• A letter from Williams to his sister, dated Cape Town, July 14, 1838.
• Copy of an extract from the minutes of a meeting of the London Missionary Society in Samoa on March 30, 1840, concerning news of the murder of Williams in the New Hebrides and his associate James Harris.

The author of this manuscript, generally known as Gordon Thomas, was born in Chicago, USA, in 1890 and died in Sydney in 1966. After schooling in England, Germany and Switzerland, he began a newspaper career in Canada. In 1911 he joined the Methodist Mission in New Guinea as a printer, and later worked as a planter, trader and oil driller in that territory. He was editor of the 'Rabaul Times' from 1925-27 and 1933-42. An obituary of Thomas was published in 'Pacific Islands Monthly' for August, 1966, pp. 9-10.

When the Japanese invaded Rabaul, New Britain, in January 1942, they captured about 300 European civilians. All but half a dozen of these were removed from Rabaul in the 'Montevideo Maru', which was sunk with all hands before reaching her destination, Japan. Thomas was one of the few Europeans who was kept back by the Japanese - to work as a rouseabout at the freezer and power station. 'Rabaul - 1942-45' is an account of Thomas' life as a prisoner-of-war in New Britain, Papua New Guinea.

See also PMB 600.

This collection includes a significant sequence of journals covering Peter Milne's early years and ministry training, before giving an extended account of the mission in the New Hebrides at Nguna (Hocken Collections MS-0432/16 to MS-0432/23). They differ from the diaries in that they are written later as a more considered narrative, rather than daily notes. There are several numbered volumes, with consecutive pagination.

Father Bernard Baldwin spent several years at the Sacred Heart Mission in the Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea.

In an introduction to his work, Father Baldwin says that Biga Boyowa is the language of the district commissioner's office (in the Trobriands area), mission translations, school programmes and the anthropological works of Malinowski, Powell, Uberoi, and others. He goes on: "Mastery of the Biga Boyowa will enable conversation with people of the Lousancays, Marshall Bennets, Woodlarks, Laughlans, Amphletts and a goodly number of those living to the south, upwards of sixteen thousand people. To know the Boyowan language and culture is to know in a way the better half of the language and culture of the rest of the Massim people. Contact with these is frequent and familiar, and the evidence of the interpenetration of their language and culture with Boyowan abundant..."
See also PMB 63 and PMB 64.

For details see PMB Doc 11

Nos. 941-1027, 3 October 1877 - 25 May 1879