Brown (1835-1917) established the Methodist Mission in New Britain (Duke of York Island) in 1875. Danks (1853-1921) joined Brown in 1878. Rooney (1843-1931) succeeded Brown and was superintendent of the mission, 1881-1888.

The work was published in an extremely small edition in 1882. Only a few copies are known to exist. The copy filmed was once owned by Rooney. The manuscript corrections and additions are probably by him.

For details see PMB Doc 11

Nos. 1123-1200, 30 March 1881 - 20 September 1882

Arthur Charles Hamilton-Gordon, first Baron Stanmore (1829-1912) was born in London and served from 1854 to 1857 as a member of the House of Commons. Gordon served as Governor of Trinidad (1866-1870), Mauritius (1871-1874), Fiji (1875-1880), New Zealand (1880-1882) and Ceylon (1883-1890). From 1877 to 1882 he also served as High Commissioner and Consul-General for the Western Pacific.

Fijian Pamphlets, Volume 1, 1877-1879, Items 1-13: pamphlets on the Polynesian Company’s land claims in Fiji; reports on the commercial and agricultural prospects of Fiji; Gordon’s report on the taxation system in Fiji; Wesleyan Missionary Notices; article from Fiji Times on the departure of Sir Arthur Gordon from Fiji; London Missionary Society report on its mission in New Guinea, et al.
Fijian Pamphlets, Volume 2, 1877-1882, Items 1-10: more pamphlets on Polynesian Co land claims; Church Acts of NSW; Constitution of Tonga; Enquiry into Tongan Mission Affairs; Island Voyage; Dayspring Annual report; extracts from The Aborigines’ Friend, et al.;
Fijian Pamphlets, Volume 3, 1878-1883, Items 1-9: Story of the ‘Little War’; Native Councils in Fiji; Fiji at the Sydney and Melbourne International Exhibitions; Gordon’s Aberdeen address on Fiji; Fiji trade report, et al.;
Fijian Pamphlets, Volume 4, 1870-1880, Items 1-18: constitution of the Fiji Federation of Chiefs; and other publication on colonisation, sovereignty, politics and commerce in Fiji.
Fijian Pamphlets, Volume 5, Fiji Ordinances 1875-1878.
<b>See Finding aids for details.</b>

For details see PMB Doc 11

Nos. 1201-1319, 27 September 1882 - 31 December 1885

For details see PMB Doc 11. According to P. Oreilly, issues 1396-1397, dated between 23 June and 30 June 1866, are entitled Journal Officiel de la Nouvelle Caledonie.

Nos. 1320-1397, 7 January 1885 - 30 June 1886

Please see PMB 1046 for full entry.

1. Journal 6 September 1884 to 4 February 1886
2. Correspondence: Elizabeth to William - 2 letters (1882), William to Elizabeth - 2 letters (1882), Irene (daughter) to parents - 2 letters n.d., John (son) to parents - 2 letters (1892), Mrs Macmillan to Elizabeth - 1 letter (1900), Agnes Watt to Elizabeth - 3 letters (n.d.), 5 letters (1882), 3 letters (1893)

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.

Eleanor J. Walker was a member of the Methodist mission at Dobu in the D'Entrecasteaux Islands of Papua New Guinea (then called British New Guinea). The mission was established in June 1891. For details, see George Brown, D.D., Pioneer Missionary and Explorer : An Autobiography, London, 1908, pp485-92.

The diary describes how the diarist came to join the mission and gives an account of her life at Dobu.

The Rev. Peter Milne (1834-1924) was born in Scotland and went to the New Hebrides as a Presbyterian Missionary in 1869. After a brief stay on Erromanga, he established himself at Nguna on Efate, where he remained, except for short breaks, for the rest of his life.

There are 33 letters. The first four were written in New Zealand, and all but one of the rest from the New Hebrides - mainly Nguna.

William Gray (1854-1937) was born near Gawler, South Australia. He obtained his BA from Adelaide University and graduated in divinity from Union College in 1880, the first Presbyterian student to complete the course. He spent 1881, the year of his ordination, in medical training at Adelaide Hospital and as Minister to the congregations of Goodwood and Mount Barker. He married Elizabeth McEwen in 1882 and shortly after they sailed for Weasisi, Tanna, New Hebrides in the <I>Dayspring</I>. Gray was the first Presbyterian Church of South Australia missionary to the New Hebrides. He produced a grammar, primer, hymnal and translation of Luke's Gospel in the Tanna language. At the age of 71 Gray became head of the Smith of Dunsek Presbyterian Mission which later became the nucleus of John Flynn's Australian Inland Mission. See also PMB 1046, 1047 and 1048.

Rev Gray's manuscripts, phamphlets and press cuttings on the labour traffic; copies of some annual reports of the Queensland Kanaka Mission and the Queensland Department of Pacific Island Immigration; pamphlets by J G Paton, A C Smith and J Inglis 1915; William Watt Erskine's recollections of his childhood on Tanna, lantern slides and photographs of missionary life in the New Hebrides, 1880s. <P> <b>See reel list for further details</b>.