Solf (1862-1936) became president of the municipality of Apia, Western Samoa, in 1899, after serving as a district judge in German East Africa. In 1900 he became governor of Western Samoa when that country became a German colony. He remained in that post until 1911 when he became Secretary for the colonies in the German government. After World War I, he served as German ambassador in Japan. The Solf papers have been filmed on reels PMB 581 - 589.

The papers comprise:

1. letters to family (3 volumes), 1885-1935
2. personal honours, 1927-34
3. congratulations on 70th birthday, 1932
4. publications, speeches, etc. 1886-1932 (Continued on PMB 582)

These documents originally formed part of the archives of the Samoan District Committee and later Samoan District Council of the London Missionary Society, and were formerly held at Malua, Western Samoa. The Samoan district Committee was replaced by the Council in 1928.

Correspondence of the Samoan District of the LMS with the LMS agent, Suva (Fiji).

Minutes of Missionaries' Committee, 1929-1938 and Minutes of the Mission Council, 1935-1951, of the London Missionary Society (Samoan District)

James Lyle Young (1849-1929) was born in Londonderry, Ireland, and went to Australia with his parents in the mid-1850's. After working in Australia as a station hand, Young, in 1870, went to Fiji where he was associated with a cotton-planting venture at Taveuni. In 1875, he left Fiji on a trading voyage to Samoa, and from May, 1876, to October, 1881, he worked as a trader in the Marshall, Mariana and Caroline Islands. In 1882, Young went to Tahiti to become manager of the Papeete trading store of Andrew Crawford & Co., of San Francisco. In 1888, he went into business in Tahiti on his own account. He was closely associated with the Pacific Islands for the rest of his life, as managing director of S.R. Maxwell & Co., of Tahiti, and owner of Henderson and Macfarlane Ltd., of Auckland. He became recognised as an authority on the life and culture of the region.

Letters, notebooks, memoranda, articles, etc. dealing with Young's career and interests from 1878 to the year of his death. Includes a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald on 'The Trouble in Samoa' (31/3/1899), a paper on German expansion in the Pacific (1908), correspondence on the Pitcairn Islanders between Young and the British Consulate in Tahiti (1911-13) and an account by Young of his family's history and his own career (1919, c.1924). Some letters written in Micronesia as well as materials from French Polynesia. A full list of other items in the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, Dec. 1968:5, p.12 and Jan. 1969:6, pp.10-11. See also PMB 21 and 22.
See Finding aids for details.

'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.