Photographs documenting Methodist Missions at Kabakada, Watnabara and Vunairima, via Rabaul, New Britain, Papua New Guinea, between 1925 and 1930. Photographs taken by Reverend Francis Trafford Walker and his wife Mrs Emma M. Walker.

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.

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

Photographs of Samarai, Kwato, Abau Island, Port Moresby and elsewhere in Papua New Guinea, documenting Henry Dexter's experiences as a plantation manager.

This collection comprises 39 images black and white photographs taken in the Australian Territory of Papua and New Guinea by Australian Frank Forster in the 4 months December 1949-March 1950.

The photographs record a trip made mainly by boat to the Territory by Frank, a 28 year old honours graduate in obstetrics, surgery and gynaecology of the University of Melbourne, who became as well a medical historian, bibliophile and benefactor. At the time, health care services provided for the local people by the colonial authorities were minimal. In 1947 there were 17 doctors working there, all of whom were expatriates. The first two trained surgeons arrived about 1950, and were based in Rabaul and in Port Moresby. In 1953 the Australian National University, through a government committee, began identifying “gaps in knowledge” in the territory.

Frank’s record of his journey starts in Papua’s Eastern District at Samarai Island and ends as he returns to Brisbane, having visited several other small islands including Kwato in Papua, then to New Guinea where he visited Lae, Goroka in the Eastern Highlands, Madang, and Manus Island.

Frank’s collection is literally a “snapshot” of the times. He shows various types of boats and light aircraft, local people at work, postwar buildings including wharves and railway lines, and equipment. Nine photos relate to the port and town on Samarai Island in the Milne Bay District of Papua, now the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. Six of these show boats at the wharf, including MV Malaita of the Burns Philp Shipping Company, the wharf railway line and men working to move cargo. Two photos show members of the Papua and New Guinea Constabulary presenting arms, and one is of a building displaying an Australian flag and two flags of the United States, a clear reminder of the importance of Samarai to the Allies in World War 2.

En route to Lae in the Morobe District of New Guinea, now the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea, the boat passed Gesila Island and berthed at Kwato Island. On Kwato, Frank photographed the London Missionary Society (LMS) Church. In the port of Lae, Frank photographed landing craft AB2348 with many men, possibly labourers, on board, and the ship MV Malaita again.
In Madang District, four photographs are of the coastline and buildings, one possibly of the administrative headquarters of the district and business establishments, and a detailed scene of a wharf, including men working to move cargo. On the mainland, three photographs show beautiful trees including one of a long archway of trees, and at the cemetery, the 1914 grave of Willi Wohlgemuth, a machinist probably on the mission ship, for the Divine Word Mission at Sek (Alexishafen). In 1913 the Mission sub-divided for sale land on Doilon Plantation just south of Alexishafen, and Wohlgemuth got Block 3, 160 hectares, but died of appendicitis on 1 March 1914. (Amtsblatt 1914, 45, 91.) One photograph captures a well maintained corrugated iron building with “1913” clearly shown and another an aerial view of MV Malaita at a wharf.

Four photographs were taken in or near Goroka, probably at Humilaveka, in the Eastern Highlands District of New Guinea, and all relate to an airstrip – kunai (grass) buildings, fences, people watching and a biplane, a De Havilland 84 Dragon.
The four photographs taken of Manus Island are of the main port of Lorengau. Various types of water craft, possibly pieces of equipment left after World War 2, buildings and the main wharf, are shown in these photos.
Probably on his way back to Australia, Frank took a photograph in the China Straits showing three different types of boat, and one other.

The photographs were given to Helen and Ray Spark in 1976. They met him on a trip with their two daughters to Melbourne from Wewak in Papua New Guinea where they were living, Ray then working at the Wewak hospital. They got talking and Frank told them he had some old photos of New Guinea. He said he took the photos when he was a student doing an internship there in December 1949- March 1950. Under Frank’s care, a son was born to the Sparks in April 1976. Frank gave the photos to the Sparks in the brown manilla envelope. On it in pencil is the note “These pictures were taken Dec 1949 March 1950”: presumably the handwriting is Frank’s.

The brief descriptions on most photos are Frank Forster’s own. Additional information has been added to these descriptions, much of it based on the work Bill Gammage did in 2018 when asked to look at the images by the Bureau.

PMBPhoto 55 is a collection of 927 photographs by Jan Gammage of Papua New Guinea subjects, taken over 10 years from August 1996 to October 2006. The photos can be divided into three sections.
The first and main section has about 600 photos taken between August 1996 and October 2006 and relates to AusAID and some of its development project work. In this period, AusAID was the agency within the Australian government responsible for the overseas aid and development program. Subjects include AusAID staff posted from Canberra or engaged locally, Papua New Guineans engaged in implementation and management, and consultants and contractors. Subject bilateral projects include two in infrastructure - the National Roads Regravelling and Sealing Project (NRRSP) and the PNG Maritime College Project, and two in law and justice - the Correctional Services Development Project (CSDP) and the Royal PNG Constabulary Development Project (known as the Police project).
Other AusAID funded projects involved Papua New Guinean and Australian non-government organisations. Of such projects the Community Development Scheme (CDS), the Church Partnership Program (CPP), the PNG National HIV/AIDS Support Project (PNG NHASP) and the PNG Australia Sexual Health Improvement Program (PASHIP) are subjects. What came to be known as The GoodNews Workshop, organised in Madang by the ANU’s State Society and Governance in Melanesia project (SSGM) in collaboration with the Divine Word University, is also a subject.
AusAID projects worked at the national, provincial and community level across PNG. They are subjects in the National Capital District and the following provinces: Central, Milne Bay, Oro, Morobe, Madang, East Sepik, East New Britain, Bougainville and the Western Highlands. All project documents, including regular reports and reviews, should be available in PNG and Australian Government records. See also the complementary SSGM publication Development Bulletin, No. 67, April 2005, Effective Development in Papua New Guinea, edited by David Hegarty and Pamela Thomas.
PNG beyond the confines of the development project also became a subject including in Port Moresby the Ela Beach Craft Market and PNG Arts, Loloata, Samarai, a birdwing butterfly, birds including hornbills, George the white cockatoo, female and male eclectus parrots, and a goura pigeon. Volcanoes including KarKar off the Madang coast and Tavurvur off the East New Britain coast, were subjects. At Keltiga near Mt Hagen a re-enactment of the coming of the white man to the PNG highlands was a subject and military subjects include the memorial and plaque on Mission Hill, Wewak, and the War memorial and Library Institute on Samarai.
Among the subjects are the following people: Siwi Morep, Sam Inguba, Richard Sikani, Ruby Zarriga, Bart Philemon, Brunie Dangar-Christian, Helen Hakena, Delphine Lesi, Daisy Taylor, Daera Morgan and family, Sir Mekere and Lady Roslyn Morauta, Mike Manning, Relly Manning, Mel Togolo, Anna Ballinger Togolo, Janet Philemon, Pena Ou, Sir Pita Lus, Pauline Doonar (Nakmai), Dorothy Luana, Grace (Isako) Feka, and Nora Brash. Hartmut Holzknecht, David Kavanamur, Loa George, Elizabeth Cox and Regina Paim, Brother Pat Howley, Yerima Taylor, Sarah Garap, Scarlett Epstein, Thomas Webster, and Nono Gideon are also subjects.
The second section (December 1997 to February 1998) comprises over 300 photos. The subject is Operation Bel Isi, a regional initiative initially led by New Zealand, to support Bougainville in its effort to bring peace. The photos are a record from my perspective as a civilian truce monitor, selected from AusAID, over a period of two months. Subjects include the first phase of the Australian contribution to the mission from its beginnings in Sydney, and its arrival in Bougainville at Aropa airstrip, to the living conditions, training and establishment of teams at Loloho, Arawa, deployment to one of four team sites and the life and work of the Buka Truce Monitoring Team. Other subjects include the town and villages of Buka Island, Wakunai and Tinputz on the east coast of North Bougainville, Togerau inland from the east coast with the volcano Mt Balbi looming over it, Kunua, Kuraio and Torokina on the west coast, and Kalil and Balil on Nissan Island.
Among the subjects are the following people: Lieutenant Colonel Mele Saubulinayau of Fiji, Bougainville Transitional Government Minister for Local Level Government Agnes Titus, Sir Paul Lapun, Sister Lorraine Garasu, Major Dave Samuels, Helen Hakena, Getsi Tanahan, Ben Kamda, Joe Pais, Joan Jerome, Monica Smith, Paul Akoitai, Bessie Rerevate, Christine Hou, Eddie Mohin, Elma Kaskas, Josephine Sition, and Mariann Tonsala.
Complementing the photos is a chapter “A Truce Monitor” in Australians’ Experiences Monitoring Peace in Bougainville, 1997-2001: Without a Gun (edited by Monica Wehner and Donald Denoon, Pandanus Books, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, ANU, 2001) and a seminar paper Messages from the Women of Bougainville, given at AusAID for International Womens’ Day 1998. A short version of this paper was published in Amida Australia-Asia, Vol. 4, No.1, Mar-Apr 1998.
In addition, as with the projects in the first section, a large number of reports and reviews of this mission should be available in Australian Government records.
The third section is PNG people and events in Australia (about 16 photos over the period August 1998 to June 2006). Subjects include the launch by Hank Nelson at the PNG High Commission in Canberra of Bill Gammage’s book The Sky Travellers in August 1998, the PNG Mining and Petroleum Conference in November 1998 in Sydney, people who worked on AusAID projects visiting AusAID in Canberra (including December 2002 and May 2006), the visit of John Waiko for a showing of ‘Minister without Money’ a film made by his son Bau Waiko (September 2005) , and the fundraiser for people affected by Cyclone Larry organised by the PNG community in Canberra (June 2006).
This subject area includes the following people: Sir Rabbie Namaliu, Bill Gammage, Bill Searson, Robert Harden, Sir Anthony Siaguru, John Garnaut, Helga Griffin, John Waiko, PNG High Commissioner Charles Lepani, Kathy and Vertanya Lepani, Joe Tauvasa and Aivu Guise Tauvasa, Anna Chikali-Westcott and Hani Dietz.

Photographs taken in Mount Hagen (Papua New Guinea) during a parasitology survey of the New Guinea Highlands by Dr G. Heydon and Arthur Joseph Bearup for the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, University of Sydney, 1934.

PMB Photo 46 is a collection of 2291 photographs Bill Gammage took of Papua New Guinea subjects over 22 years from March 1966 to September 1988. It can be divided into four sections.
The first section (March to November 1966, August 1968, and March 1970) has about 200 photos. The subjects include: June Valley and the first Preliminary Year of the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG), the Administrative College (Adcol), the buildings at Port Moresby Showground which served as university lecture theatres, students, staff, rugby union football matches between the university/Adcol team known as Aduni and other local teams. Town (Port Moresby) subjects include Fairfax Harbour, the seaplane hangar area, Koki market, Girl Guide Shop, Cuthbertson Street, House of Assembly, Ela Beach, war memorials, Anzac Day, and the suburb of Boroko. Outside Port Moresby subjects include Bomana War Cemetery, Idlers Bay and the villages of Porebada, Hanuabada, Kapa Kapa, and Lea Lea. In the hills behind Port Moresby, subjects include Crystal Rapids, Sirinumu Dam, Hombrom Bluff, Sogeri, Rouna Falls, the Kokoda Trail monument, Owers Corner, Uberi and Goldie River. Other subjects include the Kokoda Trail from Kokoda to Templeton’s Crossing and the Menyamya sub-district of Morobe. Among the people photographed are Tony Voutas, Peter Metcalf, Hank Nelson, Peter Munster, Thomas Tobunbun, Ken Inglis and Leo Morgan.
Complementing the photos of this period are two chapters - “Moresby 1966” in Australians in Papua New Guinea 1960-1975 and “The Boy from Boort” in a book of the same name (both published in 2014) and the article “What Kaindi Expects” published in Nation, Sydney (No. 210, 14 January, 1967).
The second section (February 1972 to December 1976) has about 1500 photos. They show people and places in nineteen of the twenty provinces - Central, East Sepik, East New Britain, Eastern Highlands, Western Highlands, Western, Gulf, Morobe, Madang, Milne Bay, Enga, New Ireland, Manus, Southern Highlands, Bougainville, Simbu, Northern/Oro, West Sepik/Sandaun and the National Capital District.
Subjects include men, women and children, agriculture, cash crops, plantations, mines, infrastructure (roads, bridges, airstrips, communications towers), buildings (houses, offices, spirit houses, schools, aid posts), sing-sings, pig kills and exchanges, mission stations, environment (rivers, mountains, volcanoes, landscapes and seascapes), flowers, birds, animals, insects, and suburban life in Boroko including that of single men from the Highlands who wanted jobs in town. Their story is told in “The Men from Gono” (Overland, Winter, 1975). Other articles include “Moresby or the bush” (Current Affairs Bulletin, 50 (11), April 1974), “Tinmanmale of Taunsip” (Oral History (PNG), 3 (5), 1975 (with Rabbie Namaliu)), and “Maclay comes to Gorendu”, ( Oral History (PNG], 4 (1), 1976).
Other subjects include UPNG, graduations, the Goroka Show, the Hagen Show, the Port Moresby Show, Anzac Day, and the Independence celebrations of 1975. Sites relating to both traditional warfare and to World Wars 1 and 2, individual graves, cemeteries, memorials and plaques, are also subjects. Included among the headstones and memorials photographed are the grave at Lagui, Salamaua, of Corporal Anis of the Native Constabulary Branch of the New Guinea Police, and a memorial to Baros of Sirovi at Kieta. Headstones for Victoria Cross (VC) winners are those of Fijian Corporal Sefanaia Sukanaivalu at Bitapaka near Rabaul, and Australians Private BS Kingsbury at Bomana and Flight Lieutenant Bill Newton at Lae. The sites at which two VCs were won - Mission Hill at Wewak where Private Ted Kenna won his VC and the ground at Sattelberg up which Sergeant “Diver” Derrick attacked - are also subjects, as is the sign marking the place where Mavis Parkinson and Sister May Hayman of Gona Mission Station were executed.
Research trips including to Bulldog Landing, Misima and Woodlark Islands, Wau and Bulolo, East New Britain and New Ireland are subjects. Complementing the photos of the East New Britain and New Ireland research trip are “The Rabaul Strike 1929” (Journal of Pacific History, Vol 10, No. 3 (1975)) and the Australian Dictionary of Biography entry on Sumsuma. The trip to Misima and Woodlark contributed to Hank Nelson’s Black, white and gold: gold mining in Papua New Guinea, 1878-1930 (ANU Press, 1976). Walks are also subjects and include Kaintiba to Menyamya, Kosipe to Tapini, and (by others) Efogi to the Koiari access road.
Among the people photographed are Ken Inglis, Tony Voutas, Hank Nelson, Elton Brash, David Hegarty, Jim Fingleton, Mike Manning, Chris Gregory, Mary Jane Mountain, Michael Somare, Gough Whitlam, Rabbie Namaliu, Kateo, Manning Clark, Dymphna Clark, Peter Munster, Nora Brash, Zedekia Ngavirue, Bertha Ngavirue, John Kaputin, Margaret Loko, Martha and Grandma George, Albert Speer, Rhys and Dorothy Healey, Bill Standish and John and Tim Moresby.
The third section (July 1980 to December 1985) has about 200 photos. Subjects include Port Moresby, the South Pacific Arts Festival, the Eastern Highlands, Chimbu, Western Highlands, Enga including Porgera gold mine, East Sepik, Western, Madang and Gulf provinces. Among the people photographed are patrol officers and explorers Jim Taylor and John Black and their wives Yerima and Dawn, and Sione Latukefu. John Black was also photographed with explorer Ivan Champion. See Australian Dictionary of Biography entries for Taylor, Black and Champion.
The fourth section (September 1987 to September 1988) has about 370 photos. The main subject is field research for work on the 1938 Hagen-Sepik Patrol. In part, this work involved retracing the route that the patrol had taken, plus visiting provinces from which police or carriers were recruited. Copies of photos taken in 1938, most by Pat Walsh, were shown to relatives and other people along the route and also helped locate key sites on the 1938 journey. People who took part in the patrol, mostly as carriers or police, were interviewed and photographed. Sites include the camp site at Hoiyevia, the Strickland Gorge crossing, the Telefomin camp, and Porgera gold mine. Recent developments in the area including the newly opened mine at Mt Kare are also photographed.
Among the Papua New Guinean subjects are policemen Bus of Yuringo, Manus, and Kowuwu of Aro, Morobe, cook Aire Onesa and carrier Sepeka both from Lower Bena, Eastern Highlands, Nifinim at Telefomin, West Sepik/Sandaun, and Suni at Olsobip, Western Province. Kwarima Ubuma of Hoiyevia is photographed as is Meta near Mt Hagen and Mainch of Karo near Ramdi. Meg and Daisy Taylor are also photographed.
A film My Father, My Country was produced in 1989 and the book The Sky Travellers: Journeys in New Guinea 1938-1939 published in 1998 (Melbourne University Press). Other related publications are a commentary ‘John Black’s “Anatomy of a Hanging: Malignant Homicidal Sorcery in the Upper Markham Valley…”’, (Journal of Pacific History, 33 (2), December, 1998) and an article “Sorcery in New Guinea, 1938 and 1988”(Journal of Pacific History, 41, June, 2006).

This collection of 60 postcards and photographs of German New Guinea, all dated 1912-1916, were transferred to David Kaus at the National Museum of Australia by Merrell Davis and Catherine Evans, included with the papers of Ellestan Dusting. Dusting served as private secretary to Australian Minister for External Territories, Sir Paul Hasluck, and as Vice President of the Pan Pacific and South East Asia Women’s Association (PPSEAWA). Mr Kaus transferred the photographs to the PMB on 28 January 2011.

Though these postcards were collected by Dusting, the envelope in which they are held is signed by R.G. Bowen and a number of the photographs are marked as having been taken by, or given to Bowen by a Col. Pethebridge, or ‘administrator’. It is possible the photos were given to Sir Paul Hasluck as some of his paper were amongst those of Dusting.

Lieutenant R.G. Bowen, RAN, was amongst the first Australians to fight German troops in World War I. On 11 September 1914, Lieutenant Bowen landed at Kakabaul in New Britain with No. 6 Company of the Naval Battalion of the Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force, to destroy the main German wireless station in the area. At the outbreak of war, Col. Sir Samuel Augustus Pethebridge, believed to be the photographer or sender of some of these images, took command of the Australian North-West Pacific Expedition, raised to occupy German islands north of the equator. Before the expedition could sail, the British government decided to allow the North Pacific islands to be left in the hands of their Japanese occupiers. Pethebridge suggested that his unit, known as Tropical Force, might be used to relieve the expeditionary force led by Colonel W. Holmes which had captured German New Guinea in the first weeks of the war. This was accepted, and in January 1915, Pethebridge succeeded Holmes as administrator at Rabaul. In January 1917, he contracted malaria which forced his return to Australia, where he died a year later.

The photos contained in this collection show people and infrastructure of German New Guinea (Deutsch-Neuguinea) including the Bismark Archipelago (hotels, churches), Rabaul (wharf, naval headquarters, hospital, China Town, ship building yard), the Bita Paka wireless radio station at Kabakaul and the wireless station and at Morobe (along with the District Officer’s residence and police quarters). The photos also feature Herbertshoe (naval signal post, hospital and German soldiers). There are also images of people (police, singsing, traditional headdress) and landscapes, including volcano Mt Mother, Mt Daughter, the beehive rock, plantations and a giant fig tree.

Sources:
Naval Historical Society of Australia, The Navy in New Guinea in 1914, http://www.navyhistory.org.au/the-navy-in-new-guinea-in-1914/
Australian Dictionary of Biography

Jean Chambers was a commercial artist who commenced work designing screen slides for Whitford Theatre Ads in Sydney. She then worked for Vivian Art Studios which carried out all branches of advertising and display for many large buisiness firms in Sydney, including Bonds Hosiery, Berley’s and Nestles. In 1935 she married Keith M. Chambers and moved to New Guinea with her husband. They were evacuated in 1941, returned to Madang in 1946, where Keith Chambers was the Customs Officer, then moved to Rabaul in 1948. In 1948 a Maternal and Child Health (MCH) service was established in the TPNG Department of Public Health by Dr Joan Refshauge. The MCH commissioned Mrs Chambers to design posters on infant care. (See posters marked “Rabaul”.) The original paintings were sent to Sydney for lithographic block making in 3 or 4 colours. Thousands were printed and returned for distribution by the Public Health Department as teaching aids in villages throughout the Territory. The couple moved to Port Moresby in the mid 1950s where Keith Chambers eventually became Chief Collector of Customs. In Port Moresby Jean Chambers designed and completed film strips for the Commonwealth Film Unit on women’s club training, and worked for Burns Philp (NG)Ltd for 18 months during 1958-59 on display and newspaper advertising. Mrs Chambers also received more commissions for posters and eventually acccepted a full-time appointment with the Department of Information where she trained New Guinean staff in silk screen printing, using her designs and stencils for posters, mainly on health education but also for the Departments of Agriculture, and Post and Telegraphs. Mrs Chambers left PNG when her husband retired in 1965 or 1966.

34 lithographic and silk screened posters on health education in PNG, 1948-1965(?); 13 posters on the introduction of decimal currency in PNG, 1965.