Frank Hurley was a well-known Australian photographer and pioneer film producer. His film 'Pearls and Savages' (1924), based in Papua, was a product of his visit to the Western District referred to in these papers.

The papers are believed to have been 'souvenired' by an Australian serviceman in Port Moresby in World War II.<BR>For an obituary of Hurley by Keast Burke, see Australian Popular Photography, 12: 30-35, 48 (March 1962).

Dr Renaud was born in France in about 1900. His medical and administrative career in the French Government service took him to French colonies in Africa, the Antilles, Guiana and the Pacific. In about 1930 he was chief medical officer and surgeon at the Gaston Bourret hospital in Noumea, New Caledonia and between 1931-33 Resident and medical officer in Wallis and Futuna. While in Wallis, Dr Renaud discovered a carbon copy of an anonymous work on Wallisian grammar: Elements de grammaire wallisienne. It may be the grammar by Dr Maxim Viala. According to Paul Privat-Deschanel, cited by Patrick O'Reilly in his Bibliographie ... des Iles Wallis et Futuna (Paris: Musee de l'Homme, 1964). Dr Viala, while Resident and medical officer in Wallis in the early 1900s, compiled a Wallisian grammar and dictionary which was expected to be published. P. O'Reilly notes that to 1964, it had not appeared. Another, possibly the original, copy of the manuscript was owned in the 1950s by Prof. J. Guiart, then in New Caledonia. It was microfilmed under the South Pacific Commission's Preservation of Manuscripts programme and recorded in Deposit Notice 36. It is not clear (Dec. 1989) whether the master negative is held in the National Library of Australia or whether it is of sufficiently good quality for reproduction. Dr Renaud's copy is therefore refilmed by the PMB, together with the text of a lecture Les Iles Wallis et Futuna given in Paris in about 1960 by Dr Renaud but based on his 1931-33 experiences and subsequent researches. See also PMB Doc.399.

Elements de grammaire walliseienne n.d. n.p. 76p; carbon copy of typescript; pp.74 and 75 transposed.<P>Black and white photograph of Dr Renaud<P>Les iles Wallis et Futuna n.d. (1960?) typescript of lecture given in Paris by Dr Renaud; 11p.

Woodford, the first Resident Commissioner of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, established its postal services and designed the first postage stamp used there.

The correspondence includes a 4-page history of the philatelic services of the Protectorate and mentions the design of the first postage stamp and its production.The film also includes correspondence of ERIC MONCKTON 1909-10, describing the establishment of a copra plantation at Ko Ko Nai in the Shortland Islands. The correspondence includes a sketch of his 'native' house and describes how it was built; his efforts in copra production and trading; recruitment of native labour both local and from Malaita; the trochus shell industry; his experiment in the timber trade and his daily life in general. Also mentioned is Eric's brother, Claude (H.C. Monckton) who put money into the Ko Ko Nai venture, and who later became Advisor on Native Affairs in Fiji. It was on Eric's estate that S.G.C. Knibbs, Commissioner of Lands for the Protectorate, did his initial surveys in the Shortlands, 1913-1914 (see Knibb's book, The Savage Solomons as They Were and Are (London: Seeley, Service & Co. Ltd., 1929, pp.115-116).

Ian McCallum Mack (1900-1933), born at Jan Juc, Victoria, was the great-grandson of the pioneer settler, Joseph Gardner Mack and great-great-grandson of the First Fleet surgeon, William Balmain. He was appointed as a Patrol Officer in 1926, stationed at Kokopo and later Talasea. In 1931 he was transferred to the Morobe District and in June 1933, while Acting District Officer, he was attacked by a group of escaped prisoners in the village of Aimontina, Upper Ramu. Severely wounded by arrows, he was taken to Salamaua Hospital where he died on 18 June 1933.

The collection consists of 21 Reports bound into two folders. The first folder contains 20 Reports (a total of 255 pages) covering the areas: Central Bainings; Biag Biag River; Kaliai Sub-District; French Island Group; East Nakanai; West Nakanai; Kilengi; Sahe; Bariai; Wariai; Kaliai; Sub Divisions D & E of Gasmata; Pulie River; Siassi Islands; Wide Bay; Waterfall & Jacquinot Bays; Sub District A of Gasmata; Unea Island, Witu Group; Kombe; Lolo; Lamogai; Biblings. The second folder (182 pages) covers the Western Sub-Divisions of Talasea and unknown country between the Itni River and the Wariai coast. Some of the pages are damaged and in many cases page numbers may be confusing, i.e. the same page number has been used twice. In addition to routine activities of collecting Head Tax, checking or taking census and generally reporting on native conditions, Mack was required to bring natives under government control. Report number 21, the second folder, contains his diary, hand-drawn maps and 45pp of linguistic material as well as general observations on plantations, missions, roads and other aspects of village life. A detailed listing is provided at the beginning of the reel.
See Finding aids for details.