The Niue Centennial album 1846-1946 includes 77 photographs and maps presented as an album to celebrate 100 years of the London Missionary Society (LMS) in Niue, Rarotonga and Samoa. The photographs were taken by a New Zealand LMS delegation travelling on the Maui Pomare. They include pictures of people, life and the environment of Niue in 1946. The photographs document the Centennial celebration on 5 November 1946 and include pictures of students, men and women marching, Mission staff, crowds of people at the celebration, boys and girls dancing, music, sports and tug-of-war games, and feast offerings.
The Rarotongan section include photographs of the arrival in Rarotonga, Churches, the Mission house at Talamoa, children of the Administration School at Avarua and the Ngatangia church.

The Samoa section includes photographs of the London Missionary Society at Malua, chapels, student housing, Papauta Girls’ School and girls’ dancing.

Included in the album is a 23 page account (Items 101-121) describing the geography, people and history of Niue. The account includes a travel diary describing the 1946 NZ delegation visit and Centennial celebrations in Niue, Rarotonga and Western Samoa.
Items 122-32 include typed descriptions of the individual photographs in the album.
Among the photographs of people in Niue, there are photographs of LMS Reverend Caleb and Mrs Margaret Beharell. At the time of the Centenary Celebrations, the Beharells were residents of Niue, having been reappointed there by the LMS in 1945. They had previously lived and worked in Niue from 1920 to 1929, leaving “for the sake of their children.” The Beharells left Niue in 1949 and Rev Beharell died in Brisbane, Australia, in 1951.
Also photographed are Mr and Mrs C.R. Lankshear, of Wellington, New Zealand. The Lankshears represented the London Board of the Society and both played a part on behalf of the Society in the Celebrations. Mr and Mrs Lankshear were well known members of the Terrace Congregational Church in Wellington and of the Congregational Union of New Zealand. Lankshears’s Printing Company Ltd at 22 Harris St had been established by Mr Lankshear’s father, W.J. Lankshear, a Congregationalist and expert in the binding of bibles.

Not photographed but mentioned in the text are the Resident Commissioner and his wife, Mr Hector and Mrs Jessica Larsen. Mr Larsen officially represented the New Zealand Government and was head of the Niue Administration. In 1953, aged 45, Mr Larsen was killed at his residence on the island. Also mentioned is the Official Interpreter, Robert Rex, later to become Niue’s first Premier.
A photograph of the headstone of Robert Henry Head is also included. Head, originally a trader, was appointed in 1879 as Acting Deputy Commissioner to Niue. He lived on the island until his death at age 88 in 1921.

Another headstone photographed is that of the Reverend James Cullen, LMS missionary on Niue at the time of his death in his 55th year, 1919. Rev Cullen was first appointed in 1891 to Niue, then to Mangaia in the Cook Islands. He left Mangaia to work for a short time in Papua, moved to South Africa, returning after a number of years to the mission in Niue. He combined his missionary work with the duties of printer and translator.

Rev Robert L Challis and Mrs Challis are mentioned in the text. Rev Challis was a LMS missionary at Takamoa Theological College on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands during the period 1933-1947. On leaving Rarotonga, he worked in Auckland with Pacific Island people and helped to establish the Pacific Island Church.

Mention is also made of two memorial tablets to Rev Hutchin. Rev John JK Hutchin was principal of the LMS Training College for Native Teachers in Rarotonga 1883-1891, first Principal of the LMS boarding school Tereora College which opened in 1895, and involved in the work of the LMS Takamoa Theological College. Rev Hutchin died in 1912.

All associated with Malua Theological College, Rev JD and Mrs Copp, Rev J Hoadley, Miss Joy Fowles and Mr and Mrs Edwards are mentioned in the Western Samoa section of the diary. Rev Edwards was Principal of Malua Theological College twice, 1941 to 1948 and 1950 to 1952. Rev Hoadley followed Rev Edwards as Principal in 1953, serving until 1955.

Please see entry for PMB 1065

1. Maori Culture, Rakahanga Island (MS 29). Records of surviving linguistic usages collected in 1956. Given by Apolo Lameka, written by David Alepha, translated by Nooroa Kairenga. (6pp, typescript)
2. Various Acts of the Rarotonga Council, 1893, 1895 (MS 30). Consists of mss drafts and printed versions of Acts in both English and Rarotongan. Includes holograph letter from J.K. Hutchin to F.J. Moss, British Resident, Rarotonga, 26 August 1897 relating to education.
3. English translation of Maretu (MS 28), the story of a London Missionary Society pastor who died in 1880. (n.d., 30 pp, typescript)4. Correspondence of Lionel H. Trenn, Registrar of the Cook Islands, regarding the design of the national flag, 1958 (MS 26). Mss and typescript, in English and Rarotongan.
4. Inventory of the F.J. Moss Papers housed in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington (MS 38). (12 pp, typescript)
5. Death notice for Charles W. Banks, 21.3.1915 at Avarua as published in Torea Katarika, no. 15, April 1915 (MS 36).
6. Folklore tales of the Cook Islands (MS 49). Collected, edited and versified by W. McBirney. (n.d., 135 pp, typescript)
7. Holmes, Susan. Report on Nutrition Survey in the Cook Islands, 1954 (MS 11). (36 pp, typescript)
8. Rules of the Rarotongan Lawn Tennis Club, 1921-22; Proofs of Cook Islands Administration, printed for the Mercants and Planters of the Cook Islands, Auckland, 1920; Typescript notes on the Rarotongan language, author unknown, (MS 78).
9. Correspondence of George Fowlds, 1907-1911.
10. Transcript extracts of London Missionary Society correspondence, 1828-1926, assembled by Resident Commissioner Platts. (typescript)
11. Laws of Aitutaki, 1847 (10 pp) and Blue Laws of Rarotonga, 1879. Printed in Rarotongan. (MS 1)
12. Knight, Mark A. (Otago University), Mangaia: a case study of process and adaptation, 1977 (MS 6). (18 pp, typescript)
13. Savage, Stephen, Iro-Nui-O-Mata (undated holograph mss).

Manuscripts catalogued at MS in Father Amerigo Cools' Repertoire des archives de l'archidiocese de Papeete, 1970, including: Pierre-Felix Ribourt (comp.), Dictionnaire Maori-Francais, n.d. [1847-49?]<BR>Abbe<BR>Abbe Tryphon Mama Taira Putairi, <I>E atoga Mangareva mei te ao eteni roa</I>story of Mangareva since the pagan era], n.d., Mangarevian text, Ms. Parts 1-16, 18-21<BR><I>Atoga no Magareva mei te ao eteni kite ao Kiritiano nei</I> [History of Mangareva from pagan to Christian times], n.d. Managrevan text with some pages of French translation by P. Honore Laval<BR><I>Na Takao Turega Mangareva - Dictionnaire Paumotu</I>[French-Tuamotu], 4,800 words<BR>Mgr. Jaussen, <I>Vocabulaire Pomotu-Francais. c. 350 words<BR> Paraua mui</I>[list of words in Tuamotu]<BR>Tuamotu vocabulary [list of Tuamotu words without translation]<BR>Arorai-French vocabulairies, grammars and conversations<BR> P. Latuin Leveque, <I>Catehisme Arorai</I> [Arorai text with French translation]<BR> P. Latuin Leveque, <I>Examen de conscience pour les Arorai</I> [Arorai text]<BR><I>Un petit abrege de la grammaire kanac</I> [in the Hawaiian language]<BR> Fr, Alexandre Andre <I>Cahier a l'usage du f. Alexandre</I> n.d. [1872?]<BR><I>Aritemetika</I>[in Tahitian]<BR><I>Plan de la 'Maris-Stella', Takume</I>

<b>See reel list for further details.</b>

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 includes copies of London Missionary Society birth records from 1849 – 1951, Minutes of the Cook Islands Christian Church General Assembly 1950-1972, Baptism and Burial Records Avarua Church 1977-1987, Baptism, Marriage and Burial Records Arorangi Church 1949-1978, Baptism and Burial Records Arorangi Church 1976-2003, Baptism and Burial Records Arorangi 1994-2008, Baptism and Burial Records, Titikaveka 1973-2009, Baptism and Burial Records, Matavera 1978-2008, Notice of intention to marriage records, Akakiteanga Akaipoipo, Avarua 1919-1974.

'A Paradise of the Gods. Writings and Drawings of Handley Bathurst Sterndale’ (2020) is an unpublished digital edition edited by J.J. Overell. In 1870, Handley Bathurst Sterndale worked as a surveyor on the island of Upolu, Samoa, for the German trading company Goddefroy & Sohn. In this capacity, he made an expedition across Upolu, making notes and sketches about the journey as he went. In 1871, on Motu Kotawa on the islet of Pukapuka atoll in the Cook Islands, he worked these notes into the manuscript ‘Upolu; or, A Paradise of the Gods’, and worked his sketches into finished drawings. Some accounts are not his first hand observations and others are demonstrably wrong. Sterndale sought to have the manuscript published, but was unsuccessful in finding a publisher before his death in 1878. After his death, it was listed in a catalogue among the publications of Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington of London, but the manuscript never made it to print. It is now available as PMB MS 1442.

The original notebooks have since been lost, but the surviving manuscript and drawings have been passed down to Sterndale’s descendants. This collection brings together 73 of Sterndale's drawings of Samoa, Cook Islands and other islands of the Pacific. The images were digitised by photographer Rod Howe. The images are of scenes witnessed or imagined on his journey, including plants and animals, people, nature and village life.

Please see PMB 738 for full entry.

Continued from PMB 757 - Volume 17: correspondence 1900-09.
Volume 18: Reports, estimates, financial statements and correspondence, 1910-19, from mission stations on Abaiang, Kusaie, Guam, Ocean Island, Nauru, Majuro and Jaluit. The correspondents are Elizabeth Baldwin, Jane Baldwin, Herbert E.B. Case, Irving Channon, Salome and Philip Delaporte, Richard Grenfell, Carl Heine, Jessie R. Hoppin, Effa Lanbach, Charles Maas, M.S. Maas, Alya Meitzner, C. Rife, Marion P. Wells, Louise Wilson, T.J. Woodward, and Marion Woodward (continued on PMB 759 and 760).

Please see PMB 738 for full entry.

Continued from PMB 752 - Volume 13: correspondence, 1890-99.
Volume 14: Reports, minutes, estimates, cables and statistics, etc., 1900-09, relating to mission stations in the Gilbert Islands and on Guam, Kusaie, Ponape, Truk, the Mortlock Islands and Nauru (continued on PMB 754).

This collection by Charles Morris Woodford includes two albums of photographs taken during a voyage to and residence in the Solomon Islands from April to October 1886, as well as additional loose photographs.
The collection includes images from the villages Aola and Fauro in the Solomon Islands. Images include village life, canoes, native animals, customs and the natural environment as well as Charles Morris Woodford’s life and Government residence in Tulagi, Solomon Islands.
Additional photographs from Rabaul, Madang, New Britain and New Ireland in Papua New Guinea.