Edouard Picanon was Governor of New Caledonia.

At the outbreak of World War I, Col. Sir Samuel Augustus Pethebridge took command of the Australian North-West Pacific Expedition, raised to occupy German islands north of the equator. Before the expedition could sail, the British government decided to allow the North Pacific islands to be left in the hands of their Japanese occupiers. Pethebridge suggested that his unit, known as Tropical Force, might be used to relieve the expeditionary force led by Colonel W. Holmes which had captured German New Guinea in the first weeks of the war. This was accepted, and in January 1915, Pethebridge succeeded Holmes as administrator at Rabaul. In January 1917, he contracted malaria which forced his return to Australia, where he died a year later.

Archbishop George Hamilton Pearce was born in Boston. Massachusetts. He was the first Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Apia, Samoa, and first Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Suva, Fiji.

Helen I.M.R. Paton (Nellie, 1877-1905) was a daughter of the Reverend H.A. Robertson, who was a missionary on Erromango, New Hebrides (Vanuatu). Nellie Paton was also wife of the Rev. Frederick J. Paton, a Presbyterian missionary to the New Hebrides.

Reverend Frederick James Paton, the son of the noted Presbyterian missionary John Gibson Paton, was born at Aniwa, New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) on 5 March 1867. After being educated in Australia and serving there for a short time as a Presbyterian minister, Paton returned to the New Hebrides and spent most of the rest of his life as a missionary there. He was particularly associated with Malekula, where he established a mission station in 1895. Paton worked alongside his wife Helen (died 1905) and second wife Christine (died 1914). He also served as a chaplain to Australian forces during World War I. Frederick Paton died on 12 December 1941.

Reverend Frederick James Paton (1867-1941) was son of the Presbyterian missionary the Rev. Dr John G. Paton and born at Aniwa, New Hebrides (Vanuatu). After being educated in Australia and serving there for a short time as a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. F.J. Paton returned to the New Hebrides and spent most of the rest of his life there as a missionary.