Joseph Tozaka was associated with the Methodist Mission in the West of the Solomon Islands

Diaries (photographs of the original), 1-7 Jun 1925, 20-26 Feb 1936, 5-11 Mar 1936, 9 Mar-1 Apr 1942, 16 Apr-23 Aug 1942, 16 Apr-23 Aug 1942, 24 Jan-6 Mar 1946, 23-25 Mar 1950?, 21 May-9Dec 1950. <BR> Diaries (Ts. Translations of originals), 1-7 Jun 1925, 20-26 Feb 1936, 5-11 Mar 1936, 26 Mar-15 Apr 1936, 26 Mar-15 Apr 1936, 14 Jan-10 Feb 1937, 9 Mar-25 Mar 1942, 26 Mar-23 Aug 1942,5, 26-27 Sep 1942, 2 Jan 1946, 23, 26 Jan-6 Mar 1946, 23 May-9 Dec 1950.<P><b>See reel list for further details</b>

Captain Hamilton (1852-1937) was born in Scotland and came to Australia at the age of 10. In 1882 - 1883 he made voyages from Brisbane to Vanuatu (at that time the New Hebrides), New Britain and New Ireland (Papua New Guinea) in labour recruiting vessels. For a dozen or so years from the late 1890s, he ran the Hamilton Pearling Co. with luggers operating out of Komuli in the Admiralty Islands and Gizo in Solomon Islands. This company also traded in copra, tortoise shell, black lip and green snail shell. Later, Captain Hamilton had big planting interests in the Solomons, mainly on Choiseul. He died in Sydney in November, 1937.

The papers copied on this microfilm are the most interesting and valuable historically of a large collection (in the Oxley Memorial Library) relating to Captain Hamilton's career. They comprise:

• Diary of a recruiting voyage in the schooner Lochiel from Brisbane to the New Hebrides from September 20, 1882, to December 29, 1882.
• Diary of a recruiting voyage in the schooner Jessie Kelly from Brisbane to the New Hebrides, New Britain and New Ireland from March to September, 1883.
• Two reports on voyages in search of pearl shell in New Guinea and the Solomons in 1899-1900.
• Log of the pearling lugger Nippon from April 20, 1901 to September 24, 1901, kept at the Hamilton Pearling Company's station at Komuli, Admiralty Islands.
• Log of the Hamilton Pearling Company's station at Komuli from September 27 1902 to March 10 1903.
• Logs and diaries kept by William Hamilton in the vessels Canomie, Ysabel, Gazelle and Kambin from January 1 1903 to November 14 1905. These concern the operations of the Hamilton Pearling Company in New Guinea and the Solomons.

For further details of Captain Hamilton's career and of his other papers in the Oxley Memorial Library, see the Bureau's newsletter 'Pambu' October 1968:3, pp.3-6.

Sir Colin Allan was an administrator in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate (BSIP). He first served as District Officer Nggela, Western Solomons, then D.O. and District Commissioner Western (1946-1948), D.O. Choiseul and Ysabel (1948), D.O. Malu`u (1949) and finally District Commissioner Malaita (1950-1952) at the time of the Maasina Rule (also Maasina Ruru and Marching Rule).
After World War II, there were efforts by the colonial administration to extend European use of land. A Special Lands Commission was established to examine local land customs and make recommendations on the use of unclaimed land. He was appointed by the High Commissioner of the Western Pacific to be Special Lands Commissioner on 10 July 1953.

This set of five diaries cover a significant amount of Allan’s BSIP tenure, but not the full period. The diaries begin on 1 January, 1947, with a voyage on board the ‘Myrtle’ through the Western District, where Allan was Assistant District Commissioner, then District Commissioner. The diaries end in 1954 after the Special Lands Commission, however no diary for 1952 was transferred to Pacific Manuscripts Bureau.

Diary 1 covers the periods 1 January – 28 November 1947, 28 June – 11 August 1948, then 1 January – 28 March, 1949. There are brief descriptions for most days indicating professional and personal activities. During 1947, he describes visits to various villages in the Western District noting movement of people and vessels, trade, weather conditions, local disputes and crimes and a word list (language unknown). During 1948, he documents the establishment of the Choiseul office, notes demographic information and bureaucratic matters. From 1949, Allan takes the post of D.O. in Malu’u, Malaita during the period of Maasina Rule (also Maasina Ruru and Marching Rule). His diary entries are brief but make reference to early colonial politics, the Maasina Rule movement and associated raids, arrests and imprisonments. He also refers to land matters, native courts and census collections.

Diary 2 (1948) has only sporadic entries, mostly reporting on village visits and bureaucratic activities. This diary also contains a list of plantations and owners on Isabel/Ysabel, meeting resolutions, lists of fines and accounts. There is also a reference to Belamataga’s Guadalcanal Freedom Movement.

Diary 3 (1949) has only sporadic entries, beginning in April and ending in October. The diary begins in Malu’u, Malaita, with observations about other administrators and missionaries, as well as arrest numbers. Entries from August detail travel in England.

Diary 4 (1950-51) covers the period 29 May 1950-9 Jan 1951, having returned to Honiara from London to the news he will be posted to Malaita to take over from Acting DC Stanley Masterman. On arrival, and throughout, he writes of his concerns over the Maasina Rule situation. As he tours Malaita, he writes of colonial administrative politics, arguments around tax collection, religious affiliations in different areas, movement of workers/labour, village politics, local infrastructure matter such as schools and hospitals. He goes on tour with the Resident Commissioner. Throughout he discusses Ariari (‘Are’are) and Kwarae people.

Diary 5 (1953-54, 1956) has a typed report (11pp) relating to the Special Lands Commission inserted in the front of the diary. The report covers an investigative visit to the Western Solomons between July-September, 1953. The diary itself contains handwritten notes on the Special Lands Commission investigations, covering the period May-June 1953 in Honiara, before visiting villages throughout the Western District during the period July-September, then October-November, 1953. Allan returns to Honiara in December 1953 to continue work on the report. During 1954, he tours Central Province and Guadalcanal until 2 April, 1954. The diary resumes on 24 July 1956, explaining it was paused while the Lands Commission was suspended and he took leave in England. From July, Allan tours the Eastern District. The diary ends on his return to Honiara on 14 December, 1956.

Bishop Poncet (1884-1973), a priest of the Society of Mary, arrived on Wallis Island in 1925. On his elevation to bishop in March 1936, he became the first Vicar Apostolic of Wallis and Futuna. He retired in 1962. His 'Histoire Succincte de l'Ile Wallis' has been microfilmed as PMB Doc.212. He was also the author of Histoire de l'Ile Wallis, the second volume of which was published by the Societe des Oceanistes, Paris, in 1972.

Diaries of Father (Bishop) Alexandre Poncet:<BR>Reel 1: 5 July 1924 - 3 February 1938<BR>Reel 2: February 1938 - March 1947.

Reverend John Kissack Arnold (1895-1955) was a Methodist missionary in the Dobu circuit of Papua New Guinea. He went to Papua in May 1923 and left in January 1928, but spent some time in Australia on furlough in 1926. He was the author of a grammar of Edgaula, the language of Dobu, and the lingua franca of the D' Entrecasteaux Group and beyond.

The diaries cover the period 1 May 1923 - 5 January 1926. They cover visits to the D' Entrecasteaux and Kiriwina Islands. The diaries are in three volumes and each has its own index.

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.

This collection includes Rev. Peter Milne’s diaries relating to the New Hebrides mission. The diaries contain daily notes, as opposed to the journals which provide a more considered narrative.

Frank Filmer was a missionary with the Churches of Christ on Pentecost Island, New Hebrides from 1908-1919. Frank became engaged to Rosa Jane Fountain and in 1908 left to work as a missionary for the Church of Christ. He returned to South Australia and on 6 April 1909 Rosa and Frank were married in the Grote Street Church of Christ, Adelaide, South Australia. They had five children, four of whom were born in the islands. In 1923 Rosa developed malaria and died. Frank returned with his young children to Australia and worked as a Minister for the Church of Christ in Kadina, South Australia. Frank married Vera Edna Woodward on 2 November 1925 and returned to work on Ambryn as a plantation manager, where he had two more children. In 1929 they returned to South Australia. Frank later bought a dairy farm in Meadows where he and his three sons worked.

Four diaries written by Frank Filmer, 1908-1918

Reel 1:
Diary 1, 29 Feb 1908-31 Dec 1909;
Diary 2, 1 Jan 1910-31 Dec 1912
Diary 3, 1 Jan 1913-31 Dec 1915
Diary 4, 1 Jan 1916-31 Dec 1918

William Gray (1854-1937) was born near Gawler, South Australia. He obtained his BA from Adelaide Uni. and graduated in divinity from Union College in 1880, the first Presbyterian student to complete the course. He spent 1881, the year of his ordination, in medical training at Adelaide Hospital and as Minister to the congre-gations of Goodwood and Mount Barker. He married Elizabeth McEwen in 1882 and shortly after they sailed for Weasisi, Tanna, New Hebrides in the Dayspring. Gray was the first Presbyterian Church of South Australia missionary to the New Hebrides. He produced a grammar, primer, hymnal and translation of Luke's Gospel in the Tanna language. At the age of 71 Gray became head of the Smith of Dunesk Presbyterians Mission which later became the nucleus of John Flynn's Australian Inland Mission. See also PMB 1047 and 1048.

The collection is divided into three parts.

Part I - Personal Diaries (seven) (Please see PMB 1047 for diaries 1882-84)1 September 1884 to 31 August 1885<BR>1 September 1885 to 31 March 1887<BR>1 April 1887 to 28 April 1889<BR>1 May 1889 to 12 September 1891<BR>12 September 1891 to 31 July 1893<BR>1 August 1893 to 11 March 1898<BR>Medical diary containing case notes, including his wife's confinements, 1882-94

Part II - Miscellaneous Papers<BR>1 - Diary of Andrew Gray, typescript copy, 1794-1816, 10pp; newspaper clipping ?1935 by J.D. Allan Gray (grandson).<BR>2 - Genealogy of the Gray family prepared by William Gray, 15pp handwritten and a 14-page typescript copy<BR>3 - Photograph of Bishop John Gray with notes on reverse; brief history, 1p; photograph of William Gray's mother, Elizabeth Milne<BR>4 - Marriage certificate of William Gray and Elizabeth McEwen, 1882<BR>5 - Birth certificate of William Watt Erskine Gray, 1888<BR>6 - Birth certificate of Winifred Nellie Turner, 1898<BR>7 - Marriage certificate of William W.E. Gray and Winifred N. Turner, 1917<BR>8 - Short history of William Gray on his death in 1937, handwritten (author unknown); press clipping from The Banner, article entitled 'A Bush Batism'<BR>9 - 5 letters to William W.E. Gray, Winifred Gray and the S.A. Caledonian Society Inc. from William Gray re the disposition of books, manuscripts and papers, 1931, 1932 and 1937<BR>10 - Brief history of Church's partici-pation in mission fields in the New Hebrides, William Gray, 1936, 6pp 11 - Typescript article entitled 'Tanna', by William Gray, 3pp<BR>12 - Typescript article entitled 'The New Hebrides, news from Tanna: A Natives' Conference' by William Gray, 5pp<BR>13 - Account of the wreck of the Ferdinand de Lessops, by William Gray, handwritten, 10pp<BR>14 - Notes by clerk of Synod on New Hebrides Mission Synod, 1882, 2pp<BR>15 - Extracts from letters from British and Foreign Bible Society, 1895<BR>16 - Extracts from Journal of Rev. Oscar Michelson, 1897, 10pp<BR>17 - Notes from Minutes of New Hebrides Synod, 1899<BR>18 - Typescript copy of letter written in English by Nuvau, a man on Tanna, dated June 29th 1932 to Thomas Watt, son of William Watt a missionary on Tanna for forty years, 1p<BR>s19 - 'Some Notes on the Tannese' in Internationales Archiv fur Ethnographie, Bd. VII. 1894, pp 227-241, illustrated. Reprint of article by William Gray, 1892<BR>20 - 'William and Elizabeth Gray, Life on Tanna, New Hebrides' draft of a family history begun by William Watt Erskine Gray, incomplete, 1953<BR>21 - Correspondence from Queensland re whereabouts of missing Kanakas

Part III - Correspondence to William Gray<BR>The correspondence has been arranged in alphabetical order by the owner. The correspondents are:<BR>Annand, 1894; Australian New Hebrides Company Ltd, 1894; Braithwaite G., 1882-88; British and Foreign Bible Society, 1896; Connell W., 1887; Copeland J., 1887; Cosh J. 1885-94; Cronstedt A., 1894; Forlong H., 1895-96; Fraser R., 1886; Freeman R., 1884; Goodlet and Smith Ltd, 1893-96 (for church at Aniwa); Gunn W., 1883-1902; Ingliss J., 1888; Johnson C.F.; Leggatt Watt F., 1887-94; Landel J., 1894; Lawrie J., 1894; Lyall J. and Lyall H., 1885-88; Macdonald D., 1884-85; MacKenzie J., 1888-1902; Macmillan T., 1894-1911; Martin A., 1894; Michelsen O., 1884-95; Milne P., 1884-95; Morton A., 1887; Murdo R., 1887; Murray C., 1886-87; Paton D., F. and J., 1882-94; Presbyterian Church of South Australia, 1894; Presbyterian Church of Victoria, 1894; Rolland N., 1894; Smaill T., 1894; Steel R., 1882; Watt Agnes, 1893-94; Watt W., 1887-1902There are also 3 letters by the same correspondent whose name is difficult to read, E.J. Suraski?, written from Whitesand January/February 1886. The correspondent and another (Mr Collins?) were shot at by natives and their house broken into and robbed. William Gray offered refuge at his home if the correspondent was unable to get a ship to take him off. See reference to this incident in Elizabeth Gray's journal, PMB 1048.The last item is a letter signed by the Commander of the Raven, Frank Murphy?, 1887

Maurice M. Witts, (1877-1966) an Australian who fought in the Boer War, went to the New Hebrides as a settler in 1904 after a brief sojourn in Fiji. With two cousins, Theo and Arthur Thomas, he planted coconuts in the Hog Harbour area of Espiritu Santo. He returned to Australia about 1913 and lived in the Moss Vale district until his death.

The diary gives an account of the life of a copra planter in a remote part of the New Hebrides, and contains numerous observations on the natives of the Hog Harbour area. See also PMB 8 for a later diary by Witts for the year 1911.