Nigel Oram was an ethnologist and academic. In 1946, after military service in World War II, he read history at Oxford University. This was followed by a career in the British Colonial Service in East Africa and Uganda. In 1961, Oram helped set up the New Guinea Research Unit, Port Moresby, which was an offshoot of the Australian National University. His role was to undertake social research. To facilitate his information gathering, Oram learnt the Motu and Hula languages. In 1969, he was appointed a fellow at the University of Papua New Guinea, where he remained from 1969 to 1975. Oram returned to Australia where he taught history for nine years at La Trobe University and where, upon his retirement, he became an honorary senior research fellow. An extensive collection of Oram’s PNG research papers is held at the National Library of Australia (MS 9436).

Papers left outside Nigel Oram’s room when he left La Trobe University, Melbourne, rescued by Professor Martha Macintyre, and transferred to the PMB in August 2011, including the following:
• The Mystery of Guise (a longer draft than that microfilmed at PMB 1288);
• 2 box files, ‘British Solomon Islands Protectorate’, on Honiara town planning and related matters, 1962-1979;
• File, ‘Bougainville” on the Bougainville Copper Project and urban development ion Bougainville, 1969-1974;
• PNG Constitutional Planning Committee, Record of Proceedings, 4 Dec 1972-16 Feb 1973;
• PNG Constitutional Planning Committee, part draft report and recommendations;
• Papers on the PNG Department of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, c.1972;
• Documents on the PNG Department of Public Health, 1972;
• Maps of Port Moresby, c.1965 and Bougainville, c.1970.
See Finding aids for details.

The New Guinea Society was set up at a meeting in Canberra on 31 Jul 1957, following a call for expressions of interest from Ralph Bulmer, Margaret McArthur, Murray Groves and others. It was based in Canberra and drew most of its membership from the Australian National University, the Commonwealth Dept. of Territories and the CSIRO. The meetings were usually held in the Meetings Room, Eastern Annexe, University House under strict Chatham House rules. Professor J.W. Davidson, when Dean of the Research School of Pacific Studies, ANU, required all PhD students in the School to belong to the Society.

There were regular meetings of the Society, at which papers were presented; the texts of some of these are in included in PMB1379/1. Some important policy decisions were aired and discussed by the Minister and others before they were made public.

The Papua and New Guinea Society (not to be confused with the New Guinea Society) was established in Port Moresby, following an initiative by Nigel Oram, on 22 Nov 1962. Some documents relating to this society, including its constitution, are included in PMB1379/6.
Below is a list of Presidents and Secretaries of The New Guinea Society from 1957-1965.

C.S. Christian, President, 1957
Ralph Bulmer, Secretary, 1957
Dudley McCarthy, President, 1958-9
H.C. Brookfield, Secretary, 1958-9
R.D. Hoogland, President, 1960-1
Paula Brown, Secretary in 1960, 1961
J. E. Willoughby, President, 1961-2
J.N. Jennings, Secretary, 1961-2
Francis West, President, 1962-3
D. T. Lattin, President 1962-3, 1963-4
J. A. Mabbutt, in Chair in 1965
Colin A. Hughes, Secretary, 1963, 1964, 1965

New Guinea Society papers presented at meetings in Canberra, Australia (1959-1964)
New Guinea Society: membership and activities (1957-1965)
New Guinea Society correspondence (1962-1965)
New Guinea Society: Notices of meetings (1957-1964)
New Guinea Society: Committee meetings and notes (1957-1962)

New Guinea Society: Constitution (1957-1959)
See Finding aids for details.

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.

Documents in the pre-1975 archives of the Church of Melanesia were deposited on 2-4 Feb 1981 and are now held in the National Archives of the Solomon Islands.

The documents copied include:
-news cuttings of Bishop Walter Badley (1926-1953),
-ephemera (Bishop Chisholm (1967-1972),
-Charles Fox Lord of the Southern Isles),
-Melanesian Mission, Sydney correspondence with Miss H.R. Blake,
-Melanesian Mission miscellaneous correspondence (1860-1940),
-Maps of Melanesia, 1947,
-Melanesian Mission General Secretary’s correspondence ‘English Correspondence’ (1921-1931),
-Melanesian Mission Trust Board (N.Z.) correspondence (1928-1963),
-Honiara Cathedral correspondence (1961-1970),
-Australian Board of Mission correspondence (1931-1974),
-New Zealand Anglican Board of Mission correspondence (1926-1928, 1950-1965),
-New Hebrides correspondence (1955-1970),
-Registers of the Church of St Barnabas, Alanguala, Ugi (1948-1954).
-Church of Melanesia Synod Minutes (1953-1965),
-O Raverare Gagang Melanesian Mission Church calendar in the Mota language (1939-1957),
-O Sala Usuri (issues missing from PMB Doc 215),
-Legal papers (1880’s-1960’s),
-George Hammond Tarr Ten thousand miles away with the Southern Cross (1921-1936).

See Finding aids for details.

See also PMB 549, 550, 554-560, 1301, 1331, 1332, 1333, 1334, 1344 and 1359.

This collection contains research papers of Reverend Dr Sione Latukefu. The papers include articles (by Latukefu and others), copies of archival documents from various institutions as well as handwritten notes and typed transcriptions. Documents relate to governance in Tonga, including the pro-democracy movement, government and royal papers, laws and international treaties. Many documents also relate to the missionary history of Tonga and publications such as newsletters of the Wesleyan Methodist and Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga.

Malua Theological College is a training institute for the ministry of the Congregational Christian Church in Samoa (CCCS). It was established in 1844 in a district of Saleimoa west of Apia on the Island of Upolu.
The aim of the College is to provide quality theological education, and to equip student with knowledge and skills necessary for an effective ministry in the Church. In 1997 Malua Theological College introduced a four year course leading to a Bachelor of Theology or Bachelor of Divinity degree. Students are encouraged to appreciate and write about their beliefs as well as Samoan culture and values in relation to the CCCS Theology and faith.

Some students undertake further study, either Masters or PhDs, at universities overseas. The theses are designed as independent research work where students show their originality, creativity and contribution to theological learning. Many of the students use original source materials for their theses, including interviews and unpublished papers.
The Masters theses and Doctor of Philosophy theses have been microfilmed in separate series in date order.

A selection of Masters and PhD theses, held in the Malua Theological College, by ex-Malua Theological College students, undertaken in various universities throughout the world. Many of the student theses cover both Christian and Samoan values and traditions.

See Finding aids for details.

"Papua New Guinea: Memories and recorded events, 1971-1973" was written by Ms.Clingan to document her memories of her time in Papua New Guinea from 1971-1973. It covers all aspects of her life in the Western Highlands in PNG, including the mission station, her work as a nurse, the hospital, clinic visits, daily living, food and cooking, the weather, census and health surveys, Christmas, visits to other nearby missions and reflections. The manuscript also includes annotated photographs, paintings and drawings by Clingan as well as maps of the area.

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.