Captain William Driver (1803-1886) was born Salem, Massachusetts, USA. He went to sea aged 14, and made his first voyage to Fiji in quest of beche-de-mer in September, 1872, in the ship Clay under Captain Benjamin Vanderford. He spent 49 months in the South Seas beche-de-mer trade before returning to Salem. Given command of the Charles Doggett, he sailed for the Pacific again in January, 1831. He remained at sea until 1837 when he retired to Nashville, Tennessee.

The logbook is for the voyage of the Charles Doggett. It begins on January 30, 1831, when the ship was 2,098 sea miles from Salem en route to New Zealand, and ends in March, 1832, when the ship was gathering a cargo of beche-de-mer in Fiji. In the interval, calls were made at Tubuai, Tahiti (French Polynesia), Pitcairn Island, Samoa, Tahiti and Niuatoputapu (Tonga). Driver's visit to Pitcairn Island from Tahiti was for the purpose of returning 65 descendants of the Bounty mutineers, who had been moved from Pitcairn to Tahiti four months earlier as it was feared that their island was becoming overpopulated. Driver describes this episode in some detail in an 1871 memoir accompanying his logbook of the Charles Doggett.
See also the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, December 1969:17.

The Labasa [Fiji] Branch of Burns Philp (South Sea) Co. Ltd. was established in 1920.
The correspondence appears under the following headings - the titles of the individual files: Trocas & Tortoiseshell - 1924-34; Beche de Mer - 1926-33; Insurance Fund - 1929-32; Taveuni Copra - 1933-38; Copra-buying Agreement - 1935-36; Lomaiviti Trade - 1935-36; Shipping Bottoms - 1936; Important Letters - 1939-50; Chairman of Directors - 1948; Suva-Levuka, General - 1948-49; Price Control - 1948-49; South Sea, General - 1948-49; Bua Province, Copra - 1949-50; Moala and Lau Group Clients - 1949-50; Natewa Bay Clients - 1949-50; Savu Savu Clients - 1949-50; Batiki, Nairai and Gau Clients - 1950; Koro Clients - 1950; Taveuni Clients - 1950; Levuka Shipping - 1950

The Labasa [Fiji] Branch of Burns Philp (South Sea) Co. Ltd. was established in 1920.

Managers' Reports on Annual Balances: Reel 1: contains reports for 1920-34; Reel 2: 1935-49; Reel 3: 1950-52.

Isobel Whippy was in Fiji from 1963. She wrote several short plays for school children from 1968 onward. 'Pritchard' was her first major drama, which won a $100 prize in a drama contest for the South Pacific Festival of Arts in Suva in May 1972.

The play concerns the first British Consul in Fiji, William Thomas Pritchard, who arrived in Levuka in September 1858 and was dismissed from his post in January 1863. It is based on a theory that the Consul lost his job because of a love affair with a young woman - possibly a part-European - who gave birth to two children by Pritchard, before he married her in the British Consulate in Levuka a few days after his dismissal. The play is in two acts - the first covering the period from September 1858 to June 1859; the second from November 1859 to July 1862. There is an epilogue concerning the year 1864.

James Valentine Tarte (1837-1918) was born in England and migrated to Ballarat, VIC, Australia in 1857. He went to Fiji in 1869 and took up land on Taveuni where he remained until his death. Some of his descendants still have plantations on Taveuni (1972).

The document is a duplicate typescript. The reminiscences were probably written by hand originally, but the whereabouts of a manuscript is not known. Nor is it known where the original typescript is. The last page(s) of the present copy are missing, and there is nothing to indicate exactly when the document was written. However, the author states on P.17 that he wishes he could 'put the clock back 50 years'; on p.13 he indicates that he was writing in Brisbane; and on p.30 he says; 'I am writing this for my two sons ...' It is an entertaining account of Tarte's early life in England, his journey to Australia, the early years of Ballarat, financial losses and departure for Fiji, his purchase of land on Taveuni and establishment of a cotton plantation, his marriage to Clara Berry in March, 1871 (the first European wedding in Fiji), his purchase of additional land and construction of a sugar mill, his venture into coffee and cattle, and the vicissitudes of plantation life.

All Saints School, Labasa, on the island of Vanua Levu in Fiji, was established by the Anglican Mission in Fiji around 1904.
The logbooks are chronicles of the notable events in the day-to-day affairs of the school.

The author, who is unknown, returned to France in 1929. See also PMB 432

A typescript of 78 pages - a history of the Catholic Church in Fiji (1846 - 1937).

See PMB MS 432, material relating to Roman Catholic Mission Fiji.

Correspondence of Bishop Julian Vidal, SM with Fr Nicolas SM and other priests.

See PMB MS 432, material relating to Roman Catholic Mission Fiji.

The correspondence is in six files:

1. Delailagi, 1919-30
2. Nabala, 1921-30
3. Naidiri, 1930
4. Naiserelagi (Navunibitu), 1923-30
5. Namosi, 1912-30
6. Natovi, 1924-30

The Petits Freres comprised an order of Fijian lay brothers, founded by Mgr Vidal in 1890 to assist in teaching at mission schools and in the maintenance of Catholic mission property in Fiji. See also PMB MS 432

Most of the reports are undated, but several are dated 1919 and one dated 1923.