G.A.V. Stanley (Uda Baroma) (b. Sydney, 1904), geologist, biblographer and historian, went to Papua in 1927 and spent most of his life there until his death in October 1965. He graduated BSc from Sydney University in 1926 with first-class honours, a double major in geology and geography and a dissertation on the Jenolan Caves. He undertook postgraduate work in Ontong Java and the Solomons and participated in a University of Queensland survey of the Great Barrier Reef. He worked with a number of oil companies in Papua and New Guinea and was awarded the DSC for his war service with RANVR and the Far Eastern Liaison Organisation (FELO). He married Palu Hehuni and had two children, Artur and Anne. In 1962 he returned to Australia to work with the Bureau of Mineral Resources in Canberra. In 1965 he developed cancer and returned to Port Moresby where he died in October of that year. The material in this collection was left with a colleague in Canberra in 1965 and did not come to light until that colleague's death in 1989.

The material on these five reels mostly relates to surveys undertaken for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), Oil Search Limited (OSL) and the Australian Petroleum Company (APC). The collection consists of folders, notebooks, letterbooks and envelopes. Each has been given an Item number, a total of fifty-one. The material includes letters, reports, maps, equipment and stores lists, indigenous labour arrangements, photographs and other documentation related to geological survey work. A detailed guide has been prepared and is available on request from the Bureau.<BR>Reel 1 Items 1-10 <BR>Reel 2 Items 11-19<BR>Reel 3 Items 20-26<BR>Reel 4 Items 27-42<BR>Reel 5 Items 43-51
See Finding aids for details.

William Charles Groves (1898-1967) was a Supervisor of Education in
Mandated Territory of New Guinea from 1922 till 1926. He carried out
anthropological work in the Western Pacific, including New Guinea,
from 1931 till 1936, as a Research Fellow with the Australian National
Research Council. He was Director of Education in Nauru from 1937
till 1938 and Advisor on Education in the Solomon Islands from 1939
till 1940. After World War II he was appointed Director of Education
in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (TPNG) and remained in that
post till 1958.

The W C Groves Papers were arranged and calendared by John A.
Collier in 1972 in eight parts: 1. Mission education in Melanesia; 2. Papua New Guinea Pre-War; 3. Papua New Guinea Port-War; 4. Nauru; 5. Correspondence and Miscellaneous; 6. South Pacific Commission; 7. Honolulu Conference, 1936; 8. Photographs in the Collection. Parts 2-4 are microfilmed here by the Bureau, together with John Collier’s, Guide to the Groves Papers. <P><B>See reel list for further details</B>

Archdeacon Gill (d.1954), a member of 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.

Typed transcripts of Archdeacon Gill’s letters, Jan 1942-Dec 1944, photocopied for Professor Hank Nelson from the originals held in the New Guinea Collection at the UPNG Library, together with Professor Nelson’s correspondence with Nancy Lutton, the New Guinea Collection Librarian, and Professor Nelson’s notes on the letters.

See also PMB 40: Letters of Archdeacon Gill, 1897-1928.

See PMB MS 432, material relating to Roman Catholic Mission Fiji.

The papers are:

1. 'Quelques Notes sur Fiji, les Fijiens et la Religion Catholique a Fiji'
2. 'Conference sur les Meke fidjiens', by Father C.M. Flaus, SM
3. 'La Culte des Morts a Fiji a l'Ouest et a l'Interieur', by Father J. de Marzan, SM
4. Notes on the Roman Catholic Mission in Fiji, 1925, by Father J. Oreve, SM
5. 'Superstitions Rewiennes', 1891, by E.R. (i.e. Father E. Rougier, SM)
6. Notes on 'Le Deluge ... aux Fijis', by Father J. de Marzan, SM
7. 'Noms des Oiseaux ... de Namosi', by Father J.L. Guinard, SM

Gribble, a Methodist minister, went to Tonga in 1939 as principal of Tupou College. During World War II, the Tongan Government seconded him as Director of Education. Four years after his return to Australia in 1945, he became general secretary for Overseas Missions of the Methodist Church of Australasia. He retired in 1970.

The papers include a complete list, with biographical notes, of Methodist missionaries to Tonga to 1931; ABC Guest of Honour Broadcast by Prince Tungi, 4 May 1950; Commemorative address on Walter Lawry (1793-1859), 18 April 1971; A review of Tongan Grammar by C.M. Churchward (published in 1953); Koe Havea, 1941; Copy of The Missionary Review for August 1947 covering the Tongan Royal Weddings; An Historical Overview of Tonga by H. Taylor; Articles on Tonga's economic development; Methodist Missions in the South Seas 1821-1909 by Rev. B. Danks; Report of Commission on the Native Church, 1923; Brown Faces. A Missionary Book for Methodist Boys and Girls by J.W. Burton; Articles on the Methodist Church in Fiji, including the Report of the Board of Missions Deputation of 1900 and the Indian Church of Suva; Articles by Gribble including Tonga - A Century of Achievement and The Rim of the Pacific .

Stephan Lehner (1877-1947) arrived in New Guinea as a lutheran pastor in August 1902. He worked mainly among the Bukawa people of the Huon Gulf.

The papers comprise:

1. Der Bukawac-Stamm
2. Die Naturanschauung de Bukawac
3. Spiritismus, Totemismus und Animismus des Melanesierstammes der Bukawac
4. Die Blut-theorie beim Melanesierstammes der Bukawac
5. Psychologie des Melanesierstammes der Bukawac
6. Sitten und Rechte des Melanesierstammes der Bukawac
   No item 7 listed
7. Volksgesundheit und Wachstumsaussicht des Melanesierstammes der Bukawac
8. Der Engolg der Mission beim Melanesierstamm der Bukawac
9. Geschichtliche Skizze des Bukawac-Stammes
10. Jabem-Marchen und Sagen (This work is by H. Zahn)
11. 'Maja'
12. Opa
13. Unidentified. Some of these papers, which were apparently being prepared for publication in a book about 1945, were published earlier in anthropological journals. There may be some variation between versions as published and those microfilmed. See An Ethnographic Bibliography of New Guinea, vol.1, p.150-51 (Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1968).

Nauru's environment has been devastated by 100 years of phosphate mining. Mining of Nauru’s phosphate deposits began in earnest after the First World War under a joint Australian-New Zealand-British venture, the British Phosphate Commission. This mining was carried out with no regard for future rehabilitation and on terms that deprived the Nauruan people of reasonable returns for the sale of its phosphate in world markets.

In 1987-1988 the government of Nauru held a Commission of Inquiry into the rehabilitation of its worked-out phosphate lands. In 1988 the Commission published a 10 volume report which concluded that the island's former administrators - Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom - were responsible for the rehabilitation of worked out areas of the island mined during the period of the Mandate and Trust.

After several unsuccessful requests to the Australian government for financial assistance, Nauru took the findings of its Commission of Inquiry to the International Court of Justice which admitted a case against Australia. The case aroused much interest and controversy with Nauru receiving vocal support from world-wide environmental groups. A Compact of Settlement was reached in 1993 before the substantive hearing took place in the International Court in which Australia agreed to pay the Republic of Nauru a cash payment of AU$57 million and AU$2.5 million annually for 20 years. This money was to be used on development projects. New Zealand and the United Kingdom each agreed to contribute AU$12 million ex gratia towards the Australian out-of-court settlement

Transcript of proceedings, as follows:
Open Sittings, Days 1-33, 35-36, 39-52, pp.1-4191, 23 Feb 1987-30 Jan 1988.
Closed Sittings, Days 25, 30, 33, 34, 37 & 38, pp.1-591, 23 Nov-11 Dec 1987.
See Finding aids for details.

Sr Rhoda Ransom, born Maryborough Victoria, 29 Dec 1887, 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.

• Passport, c.1949
• Diary, Jul 1912-Mar 1913
• Photograph of Sr. Rhoda Ransom
• Map of Duke of York and Ulu Island annotated by Sr Rhoda
• Postcards (36 items), some annotated by Sr. Rhoda: Methodist Mission in New Guinea and Fiji, together with some German New Guinea postcards.
See Finding aids for details. See also PMB Photo 14.

This book is not only rare, but also has been printed on very weak paper. The copy held in the Baker Papers (PMB 1203/227) is disintegrating. The copy held by the National Library of Australia, microfilmed here, is in better condition but the paper is very fragile and has cracked in several places. Other surviving copies are also likely to be deteriorating due to the poor quality of the paper. The PMB also has available a digital version of Baker’s Tongan Vocabulary, scanned from this microfilm, converted to text, and searchable.

Baker’s English and Tongan Vocabulary consists of the following parts:
Preface
List of abbreviations
English-Tongan Vocabulary, pp.1-133.
Tongan – English Vocabulary, pp.1-206.
List of Idiomatic Phrases, pp.207-209.
Errata, p.210.
Addenda, p.211.
List of Pronouns Omitted, p.211.
Grammar of the Tongan Language, pp.1-42.