This collection of 44 photographs documents time spent by Gwen and Tom Taylor at Buin Area School and Kerema in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea from 1945 to 1961. Most of the photographs relate to Buin Area School and document the physical appearance of the school and various aspects of life there. These include photographs of students in classrooms, making cane furniture, weaving, swimming and gardening. Several photographs show Gwen Taylor holding babies and being pictured with nuns. Tom Taylor is pictured in a classroom and mention is made of his role as the principal of the school at Buin. Some of the photographs depict special occasions and ceremonial events being celebrated by local people. There are good examples of houses, school buildings and a church. One photograph depicts the purchase of a new truck and there are a few photographs depicting canoes, including an outrigger canoe. Also pictured are boats, including the MV Gona. One photo appears to show artillery at Kokopo. A few photographs feature non-local adults and children posing for the camera. One photograph shows a large cloud of smoke and appears to be the burning of garden. Another shows an explosion in the sea.

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).

The mystery of Guise: conflict between missionaries, colonial administrators and foreign traders during the British New Guinea Protectorate, Ts., 29pp., is a biography of Reginald Edward Guise, grandfather of Sir John Guise, G.C.M.G., K.B.E., Hon. Ll.D., the first Governor-General of the independent state of Papua New Guinea. This version of Nigel Oram’s manuscript dates from sometime after 1994. In the late 1990s Oram’s health went steadily down hill, and completing the manuscript was beyond him. After Oram’s death, Janet Fingleton rescued the manuscript from her father’s computer. Donald Denoon has since worked on an edited version of this paper which is to be submitted to the Journal of Pacific History. This is a complete copy of the existing manuscript, but note that the references and some of the footnotes are missing.

Sister Lida Tonkin (Mrs L. Gill), a nursing sister from Young, NSW, first arrived at the Methodist Mission at Raluana in New Britain (Papua New Guinea) in 1916.

The photographs and post cards include events, daily life and traditional customs practiced in Rabaul in the early 20th century. Funerary and marriage customs are represented. There is a good set of photographs on traditional fishing (PMB Photo 1_31 to PMB Photo 1_46). Other images show canoe building and sailing, basket, broom and string making and traditional houses, mission life and the Malabunga hospital. Dances, such as the Kulau dance, carvings used in dances and the

The Cocoa Board of Papua New Guinea was first established under the Cocoa Act 1974 and was then known as the Cocoa Marketing Board of Papua New Guinea. The Act was revised in 1981 and the name changed to the Cocoa Board of Papua New Guinea.

The main functions of the PNG Cocoa Board are to control and regulate the growing, processing, marketing and export of cocoa beans; establish price stabilization, price equalization and stockholding arrangements within the cocoa industry, promote the consumption of Papua New Guinea cocoa beans and cocoa products; promote research and development programmes for the benefit of the PNG cocoa industry; and carry out the obligations of the State under any international agreement relating to cocoa.

The PNG Cocoa Board also collects statistics on PNG Cocoa production, documented PNG cocoa exports, researched international cocoa farming and production practices and distributed educational material to New Guinea farmers on best practice farming methods for cocoa production. The PNG Cocoa Board produced publications and booklets, often in English and Pidgin and sometimes Motu, on various aspects relating to cocoa production.

This collection includes a selection of publications produced by the Papua New Guinea Cocoa Board (1979-1996). It includes Annual Reports (1979-1989), Board meeting papers (1985-1993), administrative, marketing and research papers (1982-1996), statistical reports (1990-1996), market reports (1992-1997), publications by the PNG Cocoa and Coconut Research Institute (1986-1992), manuals and reports from the Cocoa Quality Improvement Project (1987-1993) and other publications on cocoa production and distribution and PNG agriculture in general (1980-1993).

PNG Cocoa most likely came from Samoa in the early 20th Century. In 1844 Germany annexed New Guinea and took large numbers of New Guinea labourers to work on German plantations in Samoa. By 1900 there were well established shipping routes between Samoa and New Guinea. It is likely that a German company based in Samoa transported cocoa seedlings to New Guinea on the boats used for recruiting and returning New Guinea labourers.

Cocoa was primarily grown on plantations until WWII in New Guinea. From the early 1950s cocoa was developed as a smallholder crop and a plantation cop. The most extensive early development was in the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain. Other early cocoa plantations were in North Solomons and the Northern District (Oro Province).

In the early 21st Century, cocoa continues to be the most important export cash crop of smallholder farmers in the wet lowlands. Over 90% of PNG cocoa is produced by smallholders. Many Papua New Guinea women participate in cocoa farming and production in PNG. Although PNG contributes less than 2% to the world cocoa market it has established an international reputation for quality, attracting 90% of a premium for fine and flavor cocoa.

Resources: http://www.cocoaboard.org.pg/

Alfred William Martin (1844-1928) was born in Clarence Plains, Tasmania, first son of William Martin (1805/6-1878), a convict transported to Tasmania, and Hannah Braim (1825/6-1860). Alfred William Martin was educated at Kettering Grammar School in Northamptonshire while his parents were revisiting England. Returning to Tasmania, Martin became a seaman, despite his good education, firstly on the ship Gem sailing out of Hobart and then, while still in his teens, on a whaler, Southern Cross, Capt. Mansfield, sailing out of Hobart to whaling grounds off New Zealand, NSW, and the New Hebrides. He then sailed on the Thomas Brown, Capt T.H. Brown, a freighter working between Melbourne and Adelaide. Subsequently Martin sailed a schooner, Jeannie Darling, 80 tons, owner Darling formerly a boat builder in Hobart, carrying timber and other goods between Melbourne and Schnapper Point (Mornington).

In Melbourne Martin joined the crew of a Brigantine, El Zéfiro (300 tons, Callao), Capt Manuel Diaz Garcias of Peru, smuggling opium to the China trade via Gilolo Island, Surigao and Manila; smoking bêche-de-mer at Ponape; trading in the Marshalls, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Niue, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji; trading for sandalwood in the New Hebrides; sailing onwards through the Banks Islands, Santa Cruz, San Christobal, Malaita, Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and back to Manila via the Moluccas and Celebes. El Zéfiro then sailed for Bougainville, reinforced with Bougainville warriors carried out a blackbirding raid in Aoba (Ambae) in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), then sailed on to South America, touching at the Marquesas and Galapagos Islands, selling the New Hebridean slaves at Mollendo in Peru.

Alfred William Martin gave the manuscript to his granddaughter, Clara Ella Simm (b.1897), who he had brought up as a child after her father, William Simm (1855-1901), died in a flu epidemic in Launceston. When Dr Macnicol received the manuscript from his mother, via his sister, it was in a bundle tied with string. Dr Macnicol passed the manuscript to a conservator who repaired torn and fragmented pages. Dr Macnicol top-numbered the pages consecutively in pencil and transcribed the manuscript. He passed the transcript to Rafael Pintos-Lopez of Michelago, near Canberra, who submitted the transcript to Professor Brij Lal for assessment.

Untitled incomplete manuscript written by Alfred William Martin of Tasmania, written possibly in the 1890s relating his Pacific voyages and adventures in the 1860s, Ms. (gaps), re-paginated, pp.1-202; together with transcript of the manuscript made by Dr Peter Macnicol, Ts., pp.1-251.
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