The London registered Pacific Islands Company Limited (PIC) was formed in 1897 following the restructuring of J T Arundel & Co, which had copra, phosphate and trading interests in the central Pacific. The first Chairman of the PIC was Lord Stanmore (Sir Arthur Gordon), with John Arundel (1841-1919) its vice-Chairman. In 1900 Albert Ellis (1869-1951), a company employee, travelled to Banaba (Ocean Island) and confirmed that the island contained huge deposits of phosphate. Ellis secured mining rights from island leaders while the PIC was granted an imperial mining license, completed by British annexation of Banaba. The company secured exclusive mining rights for 999 years in return for an annual payment of £50 to the Banaban people. Within a few years the company was making up to £125,000 per annum. This provoked a scandal, and the license was modified to provide for a trust fund and compensation for environmental damage; the later commitment was never fulfilled. So profitable was Banaban mining that the PIC sold all of its other non-phosphate interests in the Pacific. In 1902 it formed the Pacific Phosphate Company Limited (PPC) in collaboration with Jaluit Gessellschaft of Hamburg, giving it mining rights on German Nauru. Following World War I the PPC was replaced by the British Phosphate Commissioners (BPC) with many of the company’s former executives, including Ellis, rolling over their managerial positions to become the new commissioners. The BPC was not dissolved until 1981 by which time Ocean Island had been mined out and almost completely depopulated while Nauru, independent since 1968, had assumed direct responsibility for phosphate mining. The origins of many of these developments can be traced to the PIC and PPC whose correspondence is available here.

Letters of J.T. Arundel, G.C. Ellis and A.H. Gaze, 1896-1901.

Letters of J.T. Arundel to Pacific Islands Co Ltd, London, Letterbook Nos. 1-4, 1899-1908, and enclosures;
Letters of Pacific Islands Co Ltd., Sydney, to Head Office, London, Letterbooks A-F, and enclosures, 1898-1904.
<b>See reel list for further details.</b> See also PMB 1174 & 1176, 1205-1207, J.T. Arundel & Co, Pacific Islands Co Ltd & Pacific Phosphate Co, and PMB 480-495, 497-498, for diaries, corresp. & further papers of J.T. Arundel & A.F. Ellis.