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Slides from John Baker’s Voluntary Service Overseas placement in Solomon Islands

  • AU PMB PHOTO 114
  • Collection
  • 1964-1965

This collection of 540 colour photographs was taken by John Baker in Solomon Islands in 1964 and 1965, while he was working there as a volunteer under the auspices of the British Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) organisation. He was 18 and 19 at the time and was what was known as a school leaver volunteer. There were 10-15 VSOs in the Solomons in 1964, with most working as teachers in mission boarding schools. However, John was attached mainly to two District Administrations to work on various local projects.

At the time, Solomon Islands was under colonial administration known as the British Solomon Islands Protectorate (BSIP), in which virtually all senior and technical/professional positions were still held by expatriates. Thus VSOs were working within and were very much a part of a colonial culture.

The photographs in the collection were taken with a Voigtlander Vito B camera on Kodachrome 100 colour slides. The camera was stored, including for many canoe trips, in an old Sunshine Milk tin with a bag of silica gel in the bottom. Captions for the photos were written in a foolscap notebook when the slides came back from processing. Thus the names of people and places were all recorded contemporaneously and so are likely to be accurate. These captions, written in 1964-65, sometimes have a colonial tone but have been left unchanged as they are an historical reflection of their times.

John Baker’s first work as a VSO was from August-November 1964 as a teacher at the Geological Department’s survey school in Honiara. Then he transferred to Western District headquarters in Gizo and worked during December 1964 and January 1965 as a surveyor on the Wagina Island Gilbertese resettlement scheme. In February 1965 he transferred to Eastern District headquarters in Kira Kira where he spent six weeks working on local election preparations. He then moved back to Gizo and spent April to August 1965 travelling round, organising the construction of concrete drinking water tanks in various villages in the Roviana and Wana Wana lagoons and subsequently on the island of Ranonnga.

Baker, John R.

The Times of Papua New Guinea

  • AU PMB DOC 516
  • Collection
  • 12 September 1980 – 31 December 1982

‘The Times of Papua New Guinea’ newspaper (also ‘The Times’ and ‘The Times of PNG’) was launched in September 1980 and ran until 1995. It was published by Word Publishing Company, Boroko, Port Moresby. Franz Albert Joku was editor from 1980-1995. Published on Fridays from 1980, a second edition, ‘The Mid Week Times’ was introduced on Tuesdays from August 1982. This run is from September 1980-December 1982 only.

In May 1995, it was rebranded ‘The Saturday Independent’ and later ‘The Independent’.

Word Publishing Company

Diary relating to the New Hebrides

  • AU PMB MS 8
  • Collection
  • 1 January to 15 August 1911

Maurice M. Witts, (1877-1966) an Australian who fought in the Boer War, went to the New Hebrides as a settler in 1904 after a brief sojourn in Fiji. With two cousins, Theo and Arthur Thomas, he planted coconuts in the Hog Harbour area of Espiritu Santo. He returned to Australia about 1913 and lived in the Moss Vale district of New South Wales until his death.

Besides giving a day-by-day account of the life of a copra planter, the diary records Witts' efforts, as a temporary commandant of police, to capture a New Hebridean outlaw named Thingaru who had been terrorising parts of Espiritu Santo.<BR><BR>See also PMB 1 for an earlier diary of Witts, for the year 1905.

Witts, Maurice M.

Papers re visit to Western District, Papua

  • AU PMB MS 916
  • Collection
  • 1923

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).

Hurley James Francis (Frank)

Vocabulary of Kwara'ae, Solomon Islands

  • AU PMB MS 44
  • Collection
  • c.1955

Kwara'ae vocabulary with English translations, followed by three stories in Kwara'ae, also translated into English, by R.N. Gallyon. The Kwara'ae language is is spoken in the north-central of Malaita Island, Solomon Islands.

Gallyon, Roger N.

Solomon Islands photographs

  • AU PMB PHOTO 58
  • Collection
  • c.1890 - c.1920

This collection of Charles Morris Woodford includes photographs of the Woodford family; Solomon Islands, Samoa, British New Guinea (Papua New Guinea), etc.; Photographs were bundled with story as told by Solomon Islands person, 1907 (See PMB MS 1381, item 002).

Woodford, Charles Morris

Diary

  • AU PMB MS 1
  • Collection
  • 1 January - 31 December 1905

Maurice M. Witts, (1877-1966) an Australian who fought in the Boer War, went to the New Hebrides as a settler in 1904 after a brief sojourn in Fiji. With two cousins, Theo and Arthur Thomas, he planted coconuts in the Hog Harbour area of Espiritu Santo. He returned to Australia about 1913 and lived in the Moss Vale district until his death.

The diary gives an account of the life of a copra planter in a remote part of the New Hebrides, and contains numerous observations on the natives of the Hog Harbour area. See also PMB 8 for a later diary by Witts for the year 1911.

Witts, Maurice M.

Slides documenting the Baptist Mission in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea, 1971-1973

  • AU PMB PHOTO 33
  • Collection
  • 1942-

A collection of slides from Papua New Guinea taken by Jill Clingan. The images document her time in Papua New Guinea working as a nurse for the Australian Baptist Mission from 1971-1973. The images cover several 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, gardens, food and cooking, aspects of traditional PNG culture and celebrations including sing-sings, Christmas, health surveys and visits to other nearby missions.
Places visited include Baiyer valley, Baiyer river, Southern Highlands, Kiwinkia, Giimanda, Mt. Hagen, Wewak, Lumusa gorge, Wahgi Valley, Kudjip, Giimanda, Madang, Kar Kar Island, Ramu Valley, Ramu River, Lae.

Clingan, Jill

Dictionary of the language of Talomako, Big Bay, New Hebrides: French-Talomako (A to 'Pere' only)

  • AU PMB MS 658
  • Collection

A Catholic mission at Talomako, Big Bay, was established in 1900 by Father Pierre Bochu, SM. In the following year, Father Casimir Bancarel arrived and remained until 1905. The dictionary is not in the handwriting of either Bochu or Bancarel. For letters by them see PMB 56.

The author of the dictionary is unknown.

Journals of the Melanesian Mission

The Mystery of Guise: Conflict between missionaries, colonial administrators and foreign traders during the British New Guinea Protectorate: a biography of Reginald Edward Guise.

  • AU PMB MS 1288
  • Collection
  • c.1998

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.

Oram, Nigel D.

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