Album of 226 photographs taken by Reverend Conrad George Stallan, who was a missionary stationed on Malekula in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) from 1940-1946. The original images are mounted in an album, accompanied by handwritten captions, some of which are now faded. See item PMB PHOTO 110-000 for a PDF of full album layout. Many images are of the Stallan family, particularly in the years 1940-41, as well as a number of named Malekulan adults and children. The album includes photographs captured at the Wintua mission station, and Mindu and Aulua villages, Malekula, as well as on Toman island and several images of Santo.

Supported by the John G Paton Mission Fund, Stallan was based in Wintua, South West Bay, Malekula, with his wife Christina (Chriss) and their children Donovan, Roger, Janet, and Margaret. During his life, Stallan was a keen photographer. He maintained a dark room on Malekula to develop and print his photographs, as well as later while stationed in Georgetown, British Guiana, 1955-1961.

Album of photographs and two loose images taken by Reverend Conrad George Stallan, who was a missionary stationed on Malekula in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) from 1940-1946. Supported by the John G Paton Mission Fund, Stallan was based in Wintua, South West Bay, Malekula, with his wife Christina (Chriss) and their children Donovan, Roger, Janet, and Margaret. During his life, Stallan was a keen photographer. He maintained a dark room on Malekula to develop and print his photographs, as well as later while stationed in Georgetown, British Guiana, 1955-1961.

The original images are mounted in a barkcloth/tapa bound album, accompanied by typed captions. See item PMB PHOTO 109-000 for a PDF of full album layout. The album contains numerous images of the Big Nambas region of Malekula. During the war, regulations forbade Europeans, including Stallan, from entering the Big Nambas area. However, Stallan was lucky enough to accompany a US Army patrol to the area, which included a member of their publicity section. Some of the images are possibly taken by that US photographer. High Chief Nisai of Amokh is one of the named people in those images, and it is likely multiple photographs are from Amokh village itself. The album also includes photographs from South West Bay, Malekula, captured around the Wintua mission. Several young women associated with the mission are named in the photographs (see individual items)

Four manuscripts relating to World War II in Nauru and Ocean Island.

A collection of photographs taken by Reverend Conrad George Stallan, who was stationed on Malekula in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) from 1940-1946. Supported by the John G Paton Mission Fund, Rev Stallan was based in Wintua, South West Bay. During his life, Stallan was a keen photographer. He maintained a dark room to develop and print his photographs in both Malekula and Georgetown, British Guiana, where he was stationed in 1955-1961.

These Patrol Officer field notebooks are about the Worin village of the Huon Peninsular in the Morobe District of New Guinea. Edwin Ernst Styants primarily kept the first register, but during the period 1944-1946, Patrol Officers L. Williams, Stuart Rylands and A.J. Leyden also recorded their observations and findings. The register includes clear instructions and orders on how to compile or record the names of village men and women and their dates of birth if known. Patrol officers recorded the names of all the village and hamlets inhabitants including those who were absent on indentured labour recruitments. The details recorded provided valuable and useful census data for the colonial authorities. This data formed the basis of the inspecting officer of the Department of District Services to crosscheck all births, deaths, migrations or relocations.

This register also lists the names of village or group, hamlets, native district, Luluai, Tultul, Medical Tultul by the Patrol Officer. There are blank pages for patrolling officers to enter their notes and instructions for the inspecting officers of the Department of District Services. The first register lists Uron as the Luluai of the Dopet hamlet and Dingson of the Nakom hamlet. Tultul MUSU of Mumbok served for 24 years and was presented a signed certificate of his services at Mumeng on 22nd October 1962. The Medical Tutul was SIWI of Dopet hamlet.

Of note in the first register is an entry stating that Tultul Dunjiyong wielded considerable power and was instrumental in giving full assistance to Peter Ryan during the Second World War. Ryan was the author of ‘Fear Drive My Feet’, a classic memoir of his time patrolling isolated regions of New Guinea during World War 2/World War II.

The second Village Register is divided into the following columns:
Males, Females, Estimated or known Year of birth. The entries in these columns have their original native names and often lists husband and wife but also whether the adult member of the village lives on his or her own.

General information on condition of roads, tracks, water supplies, gardens, distances between the villages as well as sanitation and latrines. All are hand written by the visiting Patrol Officers.

Conrad George Stallan was born in Chatteris, England on 31 March, 1904, to parents Edward Stallan, a congregational minister, and Isobel Pratt (?). He was the sixth of seven children; his brother Donovan was killed in action during World War I. When the family moved to Hampshire, Conrad met Christina Cryle Brown (Chriss), whose father had a smallholding, growing fruit and vegetables and running delivery lorries. Conrad met Chriss, whom he would go on to marry, while working as a driver delivering fruit and vegetables overnight to Covent Garden.

In the 1920s, Stallan trained for the ministry at New College, Hackney in East London and Christina attended Stockwell Teachers’ Training College. The couple married on 3 October, 1930 and within a week Stallan was ordained and the couple set sail for Samoa with the London Missionary Society (LMS) on 9 October. The couple had jointly decided to go to the Mission field, and they served in Samoa from 1931-1939. Their two sons, Donovan (1934) and Roger (1936) were born in Samoa. These were happy years for the family, but Rev. Stallan was after more challenging work.

Daughter Janet was born in October 1939 while the family was on leave in England. In March 1940, the family travelled across Canada before sailing to the island of Malekula in the New Hebrides Condominium. Supported by the John G Paton Mission Fund, Rev Stallan was based in Wintua, South West Bay. Several churches had already been established in the area before his arrival, but in nearby communities there had been some violent resistance to European contact and allegations of cannibalism.

Sons Donovan and Roger were sent to boarding school at Geelong College in Australia. Daughter Rachel was born in January 1944 in Vila hospital. Distressed at the thought of sending his young daughters to boarding school, Rev. Stallan requested leave for a possible 5 years, returning to the UK in 1946, collecting the sons from boarding school en route.

In the first diary, written by Rev. Stallan between 1940 – 1943 (though most entries were in 1941), he writes about his life and work in South West Bay. He comments extensively on sickness and death in the local community, including his own periods of illness. Both Rev. Stallan and daughter Janet suffered malaria during this time. Janet was treated by a visiting Missionary GP who administered life-saving quinine. Rev. Stallan had no formal medical training, but had worked as an apprentice chemist/pharmacist for an unknown period, and may have received some basic training for the mission field. He was often called upon for medical and dental help, including giving injections (known as ‘stick medicine’), and daughter Janet recalls there was a room in the family home known as ‘the surgery’. He also comments on school activities, agriculture, local customs and preparations for making contact with the Big Nambas; who had violently rebuffed previous European contact and missionaries were forbidden by Condominium authorities from approaching them (Garrett, 1997 p.75). Rev. Stallan also writes of visiting Tangoa, Tanna, Vila and Tongoa.

The second diary, dated 4 January 1945 – 10 March 1946 includes loose correspondence and photographs, including images of Stallan, the mission house and Wintua School. He also writes about weather, health of self and others, building the copra drier, interactions with workers, school commentary, family matters, a visit by American soldiers (intelligence unit), working in the garden, inter-island travel, carbon monoxide incidents, visiting the US Army Malaria Control Unit, baptisms, christenings and ministry, problems with launches, marriage/exchange customs, malaria surveys/control and reflections on mission. Writing in different hand is possibly that of Chriss Stallan. Some writing is in language – probably the Ninde language of the Meun cultural district where Stallan was located.

Dr and Mrs Miller were missionaries of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand on the Island of Tongoa in Vanuatu from 1941 to 1947 when Miller became principal of the Tangoa Teachers Training Institute on Tangoa Island (as opposed to Tongoa Island in the Shepherd Group) just off the coast of Santo Island. In 1952 the Millers took a parish in Auckland, New Zealand, returning to Tangoa in 1971 to set up the Presbyterian Bible College. They left the New Hebrides/Vanuatu in 1973.

The material on this reel is presented in two parts: Part I, The Tongaon Dictionary and Part II, Languages of the Central Islands. The Dictionary, which is incomplete, was compiled during field service (1941-73). Miller describes the dictionary as colloquial rather than ecclesiastical, making use of material produced by the Reverends Oscar Michelsen and Peter Milne, missionaries in the New Hebrides in the late 1800s. Much of the explanatory material in the dictionary is in Tongoan. Part II begins with a grammar and word list for the Makatea language (Polynesian) of Emae and continues with brief grammars of four of the seven dialects of Efatese identified by Miller:<BR>Lelepa (Efate)<BR> Erakor (Efate)<BR>Emau (Efatese) and Epau-Fuari (Eastern Efatese). Miller has provided a detailed introduction to the dictionary and to each of the grammars in Part II.

Robert Melrose was born in Hay, NSW, on 5 April 1890. He served as a Telegraphist in the Royal Australian Navy on HMAS Yarra in New Guinea waters. He joined the civil administration of the Mandated territory of New Guinea as a Patrol Officer on 9 May 1921. He served initially as an Assistant District Officer to Colonel John Walstab in Kavieng, New Ireland, 1921-1924, than became District Officer at Manus 1924-1926, Aitape 1926-1931, Kavieng 1931-1933, Rabaul and Salamaua until 1936/37, and then at Rabaul till late 1941, when the Department of District Services and Native Affairs was transferred to Lae with the Administrator. At that time Robert Melrose was Assistant Director, then Director, of the Department.
Robert Melrose returned to the Territory after the War as Government Secretary based in Port Moresby. He sufferred a massive heart attack and returned to Australia in April 1949. During his retirement, Melrose served on a Committee interviewing applicants for government posts in PNG and also served as Honorary Secretary/Treasurer of the newly formed Retired Officers Association of PNG till his death in September 1959.
<BR><P>(Note by Geoff Melrose.)

In January 1942 two parties evacuated Lae and Salamaua in front of the appoaching Japanese forces. One group of young fit people, led by Nick Penglase, went via Wau, Waria valley to Buna and Kokoda. The remaining group of 34, led by Robert Melrose, travelled by pinnace and canoe to Morobe and Buna and then overland to Kokoda.
<BR>Diary of escape from Salamaua, Territory of New Guinea. Ms (faint pencil and pen), 22 Jan-19 Feb 1942
<BR>Transcript of diary, 22 Jan-19 Feb 1942, by Geoffrey Melrose. Ms., p/c.
<BR>Notebook and letterbook (letters-out), Apr-Jul 1941, Feb 1942
<BR>Notebook: list of personnel, stores, provisions and expenditure, n.d.

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.

These photographs were taken by Charles S. Powell, an American doctor sent to Tongareva (Penrhyn) around 1942, which is the setting for all the images (except 001 - annotated 'Fiji Islands'). After construction of the airstrip was completed shortly thereafter, the U.S. Army left roughly 10 men, including Powell, behind for a few years. During his stay (2-3 years), Powell delivered many babies, helped to build a church and a boat.

The collection includes digital copies of black and white photographs, many of which have hand-written labels on the back (also digitized). Digital versions were created by a third-party organization for the PMB based in the United States of America.

Charles Powell had access to equipment, and is said to have developed the photographs himself, possibly with an x-ray machine. Several images are duplicates under different exposures and settings, etc.

Robert Dean Frisbie and his daughter Florence “Johnny” Frisbie are pictured in at least one photograph, and Charles Powell is mentioned in Frisbie’s book Miss Ulysses of Puka-Puka (1948:230).

Photographs include portraits of Powell and the other servicemen, including Powell’s “hut-mate” Roger Roper, as well as Dr Ngai Tou, a local doctor and graduate from Fiji Medical School. The collection includes photographs of village scenery, women weaving, an outrigger canoe, the small hospital setup, the Catholic church (Powell calls the Catholic church the the London Missionary Sunday School & Church), a picnic celebration, and processional dances. A few images include the aeroplane “Kangaroo Kate”, as well as a visit from New Zealand Prime Minister Peter Fraser in December 1944.
The large schooner “Tiare Taporo”, built for island trade is featured in several photographs, captained by Viggo Rasmussen, Phillip Woonton, and Andy Thomson between 1918 and 1945. In many of the labels on the photographs, he is referred to as Captain Powell. The home in Penrhyn of “Papa” Viggo Rasmussen, a Danish captain that spent much of his life around the Cook Islands and French Polynesia, is also the subject of a photograph.