These slides were taken by John Baker while he was undertaking fieldwork for a PhD at the Australian National University (ANU) on the relationship between shipping transport costs and patterns of spatial development in Fiji and Tonga. John and his wife Liz (Elizabeth) lived in Suva and Nuku’alofa and were fortunate to travel extensively by ship around Fiji, as well as visiting the Vava’u Group in Tonga. The collection mostly includes ships and other vessels (including Japanese fishing boats, punts and whaleboats), as well as shipping infrastructure. It also includes landscapes, street scenes and personalities encountered.

In Fiji, shipping infrastructure includes Queen’s Wharf, Suva Wharf and the CSR (Colonial Sugar Refinery) wharf/jetty in Lautoka. Cargo is loaded and unloaded, including sugar, cars, timber and copra. Businesses include Pacific Fishing Co. and Morris Hedstrom. People photographed are Barry Shaw, Bill Erich, Dorothy Toussaint, Ian Fairbairn and Heidi Fairbairn and their son John Fairbairn, Liz Baker and John Baker, as well as the ANU House caretakers Manuele and Asenat. Places photographed are Sigatoka, Walu Bay, Deuba, Mualevu village and Lomoloma at Vanua Balavu / Mbalavu Island, Munia Island, Cikobia Island, Korotoga, Levuka, Yacata Island, Kanacea Island, Nayau Island, Naivaka Village, Bua coast of Vanua Levu Island, Nadura, Macuata coast, Undu Point, Somosomo, Taveuni, Taveuni coastline at Naikelemusu, Rewa Delta and Laucala Bay, Suva. There are general views of sugar cane / sugarcane fields and other agriculture (including rice, copra and use of bullocks), coral reefs, Suva housing, including new and informal housing, as well as the ANU house at 30 Beach Road.

In Tonga, photographs include shipping and other vessels (including steel barges, cutters, landing craft, sailing boats and others), as well as shipping infrastructure at Faua Harbour, Touliki Harbour, Neiafu wharf and Queen Salote Wharf at Nuku’alofa. Ships carrying passengers and cargo. Places photographed are Makaha'a Island, Pangaimotu Island, Tokulu Island in Ha'apai Island Group, Ha'afeva Island, Pangai village on Ha'apai Island, Vava’u Island (including abandoned airstrip), Onetale Bay and Neiafu town. People photographed are Liz Baker, Bill Toussaint and Elizabeth Toussaint. Scenes include coral blocks for Langi tombs, lakes, horses, vanilla gardens, Wesleyan church and Burns Philp store, amongst others.

Selection of slides for digitisation was made by John Baker.

Fison (1832-1907) a university-educated man, with a keen interest in anthropology, was born in Suffolk, England. He migrated to Australia in 1856, joined the Methodist Church, and went to Fiji as a Wesleyan missionary in 1864. He remained in Fiji until 1884, when he returned to Australia and became editor of the Spectator, a Melbourne church paper.

Copies of letters, notes on Fiji customs and personalities, sketches of life in Fiji, and an early draft of Fison's book 'Tales of Old Fiji' (London, 1907). The wording of some of the tales, as recorded in these papers, has been much worked over and occasionally differs in its final form from that in the published versions.

The Oceania Marist Province Archives Series (OMPA) is the result of a special project during which records of the Catholic Church in islands of the Western Pacific were copied by Father Theo B. Cook, SM in collaboration with the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau. (Cook was born Theodorus Bernardus Wilhelmus Kok but chose to go by the name Cook in Australia: Povey, 2010). The OMPA series covers the Diocese of Tonga (OMPA 1-25), Diocese of Samoa and Tokelau (OMPA 26-74), Marist Fathers, Rome (OMPA 80-100), Diocese of Wallis and Futuna (OMPA 101-126), Diocese of Port Vila (OMPA 127-178), Archdiocese of Noumea (OMPA 179-360) and the Oceania Marist Province Archives (OMPA 361-400).

Detailed indexes were prepared for the six diocese and those records copied in Rome. These can be found at http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/pambu/collections/microfilm.php or compiled in The Catholic Church in the Western Pacific: a guide to records on microfilm (Robert Langdon, ed.), Canberra, 1986.