The Reverend Richard Heath Rickard (1858-1939) was a pioneer missionary in New Britain. He published the first New Britain dictionary and grammar in 1889.

Some of the documents in this collection relate only indirectly to the Rev. R.H. Rickard. The documents comprise:

1. A copy of a letter dated May 1, 1882, from Rickard to the Wesleyan Church offering his services as a missionary in New Britain.
2. A fragment of a diary kept by Rickard's wife in the Duke of York Islands from May 19, 1883, to September 24, 1883.
3. Four letters from Mrs C. Phebe Parkinson to Mrs Rickard, written between 1898 and 1939 from various places in the New Guinea Islands. One of the letters, of 1935, was written from the little-known Tingwon Islands, off the western tip of New Hanover, and is one of the fullest descriptions known of those islands. (Mrs Parkinson became a friend of the Rickards during their early years in New Britain. For an outline of her career, see the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, November, 1968:4)

The Reverend Richard Heath Rickard (1858-1939) was a pioneer missionary in New Britain. He published the first New Britain dictionary and grammar in 1889.

Some of the documents in this collection relate only indirectly to the Rev. R.H. Rickard. The documents comprise:

1. A copy of a letter dated May 1, 1882, from Rickard to the Wesleyan Church offering his services as a missionary in New Britain.
2. A fragment of a diary kept by Rickard's wife in the Duke of York Islands from May 19, 1883, to September 24, 1883.
3. Four letters from Mrs C. Phebe Parkinson to Mrs Rickard, written between 1898 and 1939 from various places in the New Guinea Islands. One of the letters, of 1935, was written from the little-known Tingwon Islands, off the western tip of New Hanover, and is one of the fullest descriptions known of those islands. (Mrs Parkinson became a friend of the Rickards during their early years in New Britain. For an outline of her career, see the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, November, 1968:4)

The Reverend Richard Heath Rickard (1858-1939) was a pioneer missionary in New Britain. He published the first New Britain dictionary and grammar in 1889.

Some of the documents in this collection relate only indirectly to the Rev. R.H. Rickard. The documents comprise:

1. A copy of a letter dated May 1, 1882, from Rickard to the Wesleyan Church offering his services as a missionary in New Britain.
2. A fragment of a diary kept by Rickard's wife in the Duke of York Islands from May 19, 1883, to September 24, 1883.
3. Four letters from Mrs C. Phebe Parkinson to Mrs Rickard, written between 1898 and 1939 from various places in the New Guinea Islands. One of the letters, of 1935, was written from the little-known Tingwon Islands, off the western tip of New Hanover, and is one of the fullest descriptions known of those islands. (Mrs Parkinson became a friend of the Rickards during their early years in New Britain. For an outline of her career, see the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, November, 1968:4)

Captain Hamilton (1852-1937) was born in Scotland and came to Australia at the age of 10. In 1882 - 1883 he made voyages from Brisbane to Vanuatu (at that time the New Hebrides), New Britain and New Ireland (Papua New Guinea) in labour recruiting vessels. For a dozen or so years from the late 1890s, he ran the Hamilton Pearling Co. with luggers operating out of Komuli in the Admiralty Islands and Gizo in Solomon Islands. This company also traded in copra, tortoise shell, black lip and green snail shell. Later, Captain Hamilton had big planting interests in the Solomons, mainly on Choiseul. He died in Sydney in November, 1937.

The papers copied on this microfilm are the most interesting and valuable historically of a large collection (in the Oxley Memorial Library) relating to Captain Hamilton's career. They comprise:

• Diary of a recruiting voyage in the schooner Lochiel from Brisbane to the New Hebrides from September 20, 1882, to December 29, 1882.
• Diary of a recruiting voyage in the schooner Jessie Kelly from Brisbane to the New Hebrides, New Britain and New Ireland from March to September, 1883.
• Two reports on voyages in search of pearl shell in New Guinea and the Solomons in 1899-1900.
• Log of the pearling lugger Nippon from April 20, 1901 to September 24, 1901, kept at the Hamilton Pearling Company's station at Komuli, Admiralty Islands.
• Log of the Hamilton Pearling Company's station at Komuli from September 27 1902 to March 10 1903.
• Logs and diaries kept by William Hamilton in the vessels Canomie, Ysabel, Gazelle and Kambin from January 1 1903 to November 14 1905. These concern the operations of the Hamilton Pearling Company in New Guinea and the Solomons.

For further details of Captain Hamilton's career and of his other papers in the Oxley Memorial Library, see the Bureau's newsletter 'Pambu' October 1968:3, pp.3-6.

Section I – General Description
Section II – Native Customs and Social Structure
Section III – Native Agriculture
Section IV – Retrospect and Conclusion
Section V – Patrol Diaries

PART I
Section I – General Description
Section II – Native Agriculture
Section III – Live Stock
Section IIIA – Fisheries
Section IV – Drug Plants
Section V – Nutrition
Section VI – Economies

PART II
Section I – Description of Government Plantation, Kokoda
Section II – Rubber Production at Government Plantation
Section III – Notes on Rubber

Contains photographs and hand drawn maps.