Correspondence, cont. 16 July 1899 - 1903

Correspondence, cont. 1904 - 1908

Correspondence, cont. 1909 - 1 August 1910

Correspondence, cont. 4 August 1910 - 21 December 1911

H.I.N. Moouga appears to have been of Mangarevan descent and foreman of a team of coconut plantation workers from French Polynesia and Niue, employed on Flint Island by J.T. Arundel and Co. of London.

The names of the workers are listed in the opening pages of the diary. The mixture of languages in which the diary is written may have been the lingua franca of the multi-lingual community on Flint Island. Moouga details daily weather conditions, prevailing winds, land areas cleared, coconut palms planted, coconuts harvested, crushed and cut. He describes also the difficult conditions under which the group worked - fire-ant infections, lack of medical care, lack of food, food contaminated by rust - and the often difficult relationships between the workers themselves and between them and the Arundel family. In the concluding pages of the diary, Moouga says that he has had more than enough of the life and asks to be repatriated.

Ellis (1869-1951) was born in Queensland and educated in New Zealand. In the 1890s he became an employee of the Pacific Islands Company Ltd of London, which was involved in the guano industry on islands in the Coral Sea and the Phoenix Group (Kiribati). In 1900, he became curious about a rock which was used as a doorstop in the Sydney office of his company and this led to the discovery of the phosphate deposits on Ocean Island and Nauru. He was a prominent figure in the Pacific Phosphate Company Ltd in 1902. After the phosphate company was bought out by the British, Australian and New Zealand governments after World War I, he became commissioner for New Zealand on the British Phosphate Commission, which was established to exploit the phosphate deposits on Ocean Island and Nauru. He was the author of three books, Ocean Island and Nauru (1936), Adventuring in Coral Seas (1937) and Mid-Pacific Outpost (1946).

The documents on the microfilm include: 1. Ellis' diary for May 1900 when he went to Banaba (Ocean Island) in Kiribati to establish the phosphate industry there; 2. Clippings on the phosphate industry from various newspapers and journals; 3. Correspondence covering the period 1920-51.

Diary, miscellaneous papers and correspondence 1900 - 1943

Diary, miscellaneous papers and correspondence 1945 - 1951