Eleanor Jane Walker (1863-1940) (Nellie) was born in Harrogate, North Yorkshire on 1 March 1863. She was the third child and first daughter of the eight children of Thomas Walker (1833-1903) and Ellen (also) Walker. Her parents were drapers, hoziers and milliners in Harrogate.

Thomas left his family in 1872 and Ellen reared her children alone while maintaining the family business. The adult children all left for Australia at different times. Eldest son John Arthur (Arthur) died when Maitland was shipwrecked off Huon Island, Queensland in 1874. Alfred sailed for Australia on Harbinger ex London on 19 August 1882. Eleanor was 22 when she arrived in Sydney on the Chimborazo on 1 December 1885.Her occupation was documented as dressmaker. After their mother died in February 1887, her siblings Annie, Gertrude Eliza (Gertie), Mary Emily (Emmie) and Edmund Cromwell (Eddie) sailed for Sydney on RMS Orizba on 24 November 1887. Thomas Ernest (Ernest) was the last of the family to leave England and arrived in Sydney on 6 August 1888.

On arrival in New South Wales Eleanor resided in the New England area where her brother Alfred and family had settled. Family reminiscence is that her fiancée Anthony died on the eve of their wedding, and in 1891 Eleanor responded to an appeal for women missionaries in British New Guinea. Eleanor and Jane (Jennie) Tinney from Ballarat became the first two Wesleyan missionary sisters appointed for foreign work. The two women departed Sydney on the Borough Belle for Dobu Island in British New Guinea on 23 April 1892.

In June 1896 Eleanor returned to Sydney on furlough and returned to Dobu for at least a further four years before joining a Mission in India. She then joined the Aboriginal Mission at Bulgandramine in New South Wales and also worked on other Missions in Australia. By 1928 she had returned to Sydney and in the early 1930's visited England. Her letters and memorabilia are held by extended family. These include the Journal, shells, a wooden club, a dingy oar and photographs.

Eleanor was a member and office bearer of the Women's Auxiliary to Foreign (Overseas) Missions and a supporter of missionary work for the rest of her life.

Jane Tinney was born in Ballarat, Australia, on 30 June 1867. She went to British New Guinea (later Papua) as a Methodist missionary in 1892 and was stationed at Dobu. She resigned owing to ill health in 1902. Later, she did mission work in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Nicolai Michoutouchkine is from a family of Russian emigres based in Paris. He started travelling in 1953, before a brief period of conscription and work in New Caledonia. Michoutouchkine settled in Port Vila in 1961 with Aloi Pilioko, an artist from Futuna. They collected more than 6,000 indigenous art objects from right across the South Pacific which have been exhibited, with their own works, in Noumea, French Polynesia, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Japan, Sweden, Russia and Central Europe, Taiwan and Indonesia.

Amy Constance Heussler (nee. Henry) was a prominent feminist and a founder of the United Associations (the association formed by the merging of Women's League of N.S.W. and the New South Wales Women Voters' Association). She was married to William James Heussler on 23 November 1892. They had two sons and two daughters. Amy is the granddaughter of London Mission Society (LMS) minister Revered William Henry.

William Henry was born in Sligo, Ireland, in 1770. He was a carpenter and joiner before joining the London Missionary Society. He married Sarah Maben and together they had four surviving children. In August 1796, they joined a group of missionaries aboard the 'Duff' in sailing for Tahiti. After deciding it was too dangerous, the missionaries continued on to Sydney, Australia aboard the 'Nautilus'. Along with shipmate James Fleet Cover, Henry established three congregations in Sydney, including at Parramatta, Toongabbie and Kissing Point, which later became St Anne's in Ryde.

In 1811, the family returned to Tahiti and Henry was inducted as a minister in a Tahitian church. His wife, Sarah, died in 1812. On a return visit to Sydney in 1813, he remarried, to Ann Shepherd. They went on to have ten children together. They remained in the islands until retiring to Sydney in 1848. William continued to preach at Kissing Point. He died in 1848, and Sarah in 1882.

Neil Murray was born in 1937 and raised in Mackay, Queensland, where his parents ran a milk bar. Murray’s father was a communist and often hosted international communists in the family home. Neil was rejected for a Queensland Teachers Scholarship because of his father’s political views. Instead, Neil worked for a time as a cadet draftsman for the Queensland Irrigation and Water Supply Commission.

In 1955, Murray was accepted as a Cadet Education Officer to serve in the Territory of Papua New Guinea. He commenced his training at Bathurst Teachers’ College on 5 March 1956, as well as attending courses at the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA). He arrived in Port Moresby on 17 January 1958 for orientation, before taking on a challenging post in the one-teacher Sogeri Primary A School. After the first term, Murray was transferred to Sogeri Secondary School to teach a combined Papua New Guinean Grade 8 class where many students were older than him. Murray continued to teach at Sogeri Secondary School until 1962, teaching future Prime Ministers, Governors General, heads of government departments and senior public servants.

In 1962, Murray was involved in running a special Queensland Junior Certificate class for twenty promising public servants. Many of these men went on to play critical roles in the transition to Papua New Guinean independence. Murray visited many students in their home villages and taking photographs. He self-published a book documenting this period called, ‘Education officer, T.P.N.G.: a story of my first five years teaching in the territory of Papua and New Guinea, 1958-1962’.

In 1963, Murray was appointed to Malabunga High School in Rabaul, East New Britain Province, before taking up the post of Headmaster at Hutjena High School in Buka, Bougainville in 1967. Murray remained at Hutjena until 1973, during which time he oversaw major construction work at the school as classrooms, staff housing, water tanks and furniture were built to accommodate the new high school grades being added each year. The school site had been a Japanese base during the Second World War and students would often bring war relics to school. Murray documented these major social changes, as well as his many visits to students’ home villages. He self-published a book about this period, ‘Hutjena High School Buka: a story of my seven years as headmaster at Hutjena High School in Buka 1967-1973’.

Murray was appointed School Inspector in the East Sepik in 1973 and was later promoted to Superintendent Secondary & Vocational Inspections. Towards the end of his career, Murray served in the Materials Section of the Curriculum Unit in Port Moresby, where he wrote a set of Social Science booklets and cultural maps.

In 2001, Murray retired to Australia, first in Mackay, then later Cairns where he died in 2025. Murray developed strong friendships during his 43 years in Papua New Guinea which continued until the end of his life.

After graduating from Manchester University, Roy Davies joined the British Overseas Civil Service in 1944. He served first as a cadet with the British Solomon Islands Protectorate and later became a Solomon Islands District Commissioner on Malaita. From 1957 to 1962 he was Secretary of the Government of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony. He retired in 1972.

Reverend Francis Edwin Lawes served with the London Missionary Society missionary in Niue from 1868 until he retired in 1910. Lawes died in London in 1917.