In 1854, at the recommendation of Bishop George Augustus Selwyn, Melanesia was created as a separate "See" which Bishop Selwyn toured in 1857 in the mission ship Southern Cross, visiting sixty-six of the islands. John Coleridge Patteson was consecrated Bishop of Melanesia in 1861. Patteson and several of his companions were killed on 20 September 1871 on the island of Nakapu, in the Santa Cruz group, after slave-raiders had visited the area. In 1867, the Mission college at Mission Bay, Auckland, moved to Norfolk Island. In 1919 it moved to Siota, Gela Island, and in 1970 to Guadalcanal where in became known as Bishop Patteson Theological Centre (later college), Kohimarama. The first Melanesian to be an ordained priest was George Sarawia from Mota Island, New Hebrides (Vanuatu) in 1873. Charles Elliot Fox joined the staff of the Anglican Melanesian Mission in 1903. During more than seventy years of service as a missionary and teacher, Fox lived and worked in most of the islands of the Solomon chain, on the Banks, and in the New Hebrides. Ini Kopuria formed the Melanesian Brotherhood in 1925. The first two Melanesian bishops were Dudley Tuti from Ysabel and Leonard Alufurai from Malaita. They were consecrated in Honiara in 1963. The Church of Melanesia was inaugurated in 1975.

CONTENTS: Documents held in the pre-1975 archives of the Church of Melanesia at the National Archives of the Solomon Islands. Some of Rev. Fox’s diaries were re-filmed due to problems with some exposures at PMB 550.
Rev. Dr Charles E. Fox, Diaries, 1950-1963 (gaps); Southern Cross, voyage journal, 28 May-2 Oct 1866
Mission Schooner Southern Cross, J. Jacob, Master, Auckland to the South Sea Islands, Log book, 27 Jun-25 Nov 1873; Southern Cross, Log book, 19 Apr-18 Jul 1900; Envelope marked. ‘Letters of Bishop J.C. Patteson’; ‘Papers Relative to wreck of the Southern Cross VI’, 1932; Rev. Dr Charles E. Fox, Arosi Folk Tales, A881-A978; Dedication of the Mission Ship, Southern Cross: press cuttings, Jul-Sep 1932; Captain Jessie Jacob: illuminated scrap album, 1930; Melanesian Mission Medical Officer’s Annual Reports, 1930-1932.
See Finding aids for details.
See also PMB 549, 550, 554-560.