86 black and white photographs taken by Reverend T Smaill in the New Hebrides. Subjects are varied, with photographs captured on Epi, Erromanga, Nguna, Paama, Santo, Tangoa,and Tanna. The majority of these images feature missionaries or their family members. Named missionary families include the Smaill, Milne, Paton and Frater families) and there is an image of the Smaill family on furlough in New Zealand. Some photographs were captured at mission synods between 1900 and 1914.

Photographs are mounted on to separated album pages although there is no album cover. Captions were directly written onto the mount and subsequent white labels with captions handwritten in ink have been added.

The New Hebrides Mission from the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand:
The Presbyterian Church began sending missionaries to the New Hebrides (today known as Vanuatu) in the mid-19th Century. The first missionary was Rev. John Geddie of the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia who arrived on the island of Aneityum in 1848. Subsequent missionaries came from the Presbyterian Churches of New Zealand, Canada, Scotland and Australia (Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and New South Wales).

In New Zealand an interest in supporting a Christian mission to the New Hebrides was fostered when Rev. John Inglis of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland toured the country in 1852 following a three month tour of the New Hebrides and Solomon Islands. In that same year, Inglis and his wife joined Geddie on Aneityum. Rev. John Inglis continued to send regular reports of his work to New Zealand, leading to increasing interest from the Church there in sending their own missionaries to the islands.

The Presbyterian Church of New Zealand was at that time divided up into the “Northern Church” and the “Southern Church” (consisting of the Provinces of Otago and Southland). The Southern Church was based on the ideals of the Free Church of Scotland and these principles influenced its mission work for many years. For over 40 years the two Churches worked separately, with mission activities during this time operating independently of each other.

Over several decades the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand sent a number of missionaries to the New Hebrides including the following people. The information below includes the missionaries' date of arrival in the New Hebrides, the name of the missionary and the name of the main island on which they worked:

1866, Rev. William Watt, Tanna
1870, Rev. Peter Milne, Nguna
1879, Rev. Oscar Michelsen, Tongoa
1885, Rev. Charles Murray, Ambrym
1889, Rev. Thomas Smaill, Epi
1892, Rev. Dr. Lamb, Ambrym
1899, Dr. John Bowie, Ambrym
1903, Rev. Thomas Riddle, Epi
1905, Rev. William V. Milne, Nguna (born on Nguna in 1877)
1932, Rev. Basil Nottage, Tongoa
1938, Rev. Ken Crump, Nguna
1941, Rev. J.G. Miller, Tongoa
1944, Rev. Ian Muir, Emae and Epi
1948, Rev. A.G. Horwell, Epi

In the early years there was no organised or reliable shipping service to the individual islands of the New Hebrides so it was important for the Church to have their own vessel to bring regular supplies from Australia and New Zealand. A boat was also necessary for transport to other mission stations. Although the New Hebrides missionaries were responsible for their home churches and allotted areas and islands, they worked closely together on common issues and met annually for a mission Synod meeting. New Zealand Presbyterian Church worked in conjunction with the Australian Presbyterian Church to raise money and purchased a mission supply vessel, the “Dayspring I”. This 115 ton brigantine was launched in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1863. It was lost in a hurricane ten years later and replaced by a second hand schooner, the “Dayspring II” in 1876. The Dayspring II was sold prior to 1890 as she was too small and slow and uncomfortable to sail in. The Australian missionary Dr. John G. Paton raised £6000 during a visit to Britain in 1884-1885 and later increased the donations to £7000. The “Dayspring III” was built on the Clyde in Scotland to the order of the Victorian Presbyterian Church Foreign Missions Committee. She was 157 feet long and arrived in Australia in 1895. On only her fourth voyage to the islands, she sank on the 16th October 1896 after striking an uncharted coral reef near New Caledonia. The decision was made not to replace the vessel.

The New Hebrides Mission shared a practical concern for the everyday needs of island people. In addition to converting local people to Christianity, the missionaries worked to improve education, through the introduction of schools where the training of local mission teachers was initiated. The Tangoa Teachers’ Training Institute opened at Tangoa, South Santo, in 1895. The purpose of the Institute was to train local teachers and it was supported by all the Protestant missions working throughout the New Hebrides. Missionaries also worked to improve health education and services and encouraged the production of arrowroot and island trading as a means to generate revenue. Arrowroot powder was shipped to New Zealand and other countries, where it was initially distributed by women’s missionary groups and later by commercial organisations. The funds from the sale of arrowroot were used to build additional churches in the islands and, in some cases, as a donation towards New Zealand mission funds to be used elsewhere. From 1880 to 1918 on Nguna alone, over 26 tons of arrowroot was produced.

By 1910, the work of the New Hebrides Mission was declining. This was partly due to a rapidly decreasing population on the islands and a feeling that little room existed for further expansion of mission work, as by then most areas were adequately covered. The reduction in population was primarily caused by introduced European illnesses and epidemics which decimated the local population. The Queensland labour trade had also had an impact on the local population, with many locals having decided to remain in Queensland.

In 1947 there was a general consensus held among the Island missionaries that the local church was ready to assume control of its own affairs. A constitution was drawn up, and after amendments submitted by the New Zealand and Australian Mission Committees and the New Hebrides Mission Synod, it was adopted. At a Centennial Synod meeting in 1948, the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Rev. John Geddie, the local church was placed fully in charge of its own affairs. The island mission councils for Australia and New Zealand were then limited to the affairs of their immediate mission staff. The New Zealand Church continued to provide a large financial grant to the New Hebrides Presbyterian Church. A continued focus remained on training church leaders and education more generally. The Tangoa Training Institute later introduced a curriculum of advanced theological studies.

In the early 1950s, the New Zealand Missions Committee responded to the request for assistance to establish a High School at Onesua on Efate, along with funds and personnel to set up and run a small hospital on Tongoa. The Committee viewed this project as a practical means by which the New Zealand Church could provide for a social need rather than a means for furthering evangelistic opportunities. This policy shift in Mission funding opened up other opportunities for aid from the New Zealand Church including developing Navota Farm and opening the Maropa religious bookshop in Port Vila, training local islanders to be trades people and undertake the building work. The New Zealand Bible Class volunteer scheme sent out young people during the 1960s to assist with building, administration and nursing. The Mission, at the request of the Presbyterian Church of the New Hebrides, divested itself of all remaining authority in the Islands so that the New Zealand missionaries effectively worked for the New Hebrides Church. In 1965 a memorandum was prepared which defined the terms of “responsible partnership” and sought to define the responsibilities of each partner. The Church continues today as the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu.

For more information about New Hebrides Mission collections at the Archives of the Presbyterian Research Centre, Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa, and New Zealand, see: http://www.archives.presbyterian.org.nz/missions/newhebrideshistory.htm

Dictionaries produced by the Roman Catholic Mission New Hebrides (now Vanuatu):

1. Dictionary of the language of South-West Bay, Malekula, by Father Pierre Chauvel, S.M. (French-South West Bay).
2. Dictionary of the language of Vao, Malekula, by Father Casimir Salomon, S.M. (Vao-French).
3. Dictionary of the language of Olal, Ambrym (French-Olal).
4. Dictionary of the language of Talomako, Big Bay, Espiritu Santo (Talomako-French).
5. Dictionary of the Talomako language of Big Bay, Espiritu Santo, by Father Alphonse Ardouin, S.M., (French-Talomako).

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 German Administration of Samoa.

Richard Thurnwald was born in Austria in 1869, received formal training in ethnology and related fields, went on a fieldtrip on behalf of the Berlin Museum für Völkerkunde to the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands, 1906-1909, returned to New Guinea for a Sepik River expedition, 1913-16, and came back to the New Guinea islands region in the 1930s. He was a great collector of artefacts some of which are held in German museums, others are lost, some possibly incorporated in Australian museum collections. Thurnwald's publications are extensive (c.300 articles and books), but not widely distributed.

Some of Thurnwald’s recordings and photographs, plus Iniet (NG) song texts and tales & 741 Iniet stone figures which he collected, are held in the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. Some of his photographs are held in the Berlin Institute of Ethnology which Thurnwald founded in 1948. Some further Thurnwald papers are held in the Stirling Memorial Library, Berkeley California.

Richard Thurnwald’s widow, Hilda, transferred these papers to Professor Stephen Wurm, Linguistics Department, RSPAS, in about 1963. They were handed over to Don Laycock (the second appointee in the Department, after Wurm) for work on a Buin dictionary. After Dr Laycock's early death the papers were held in the Dept for some years where Lois Carrington, then a Research Assistant in Linguistics, worked on them from time to time. In 1993 the Thurnwald papers were transferred to Tania Laycock, Dr Laycock’s widow, who continues to hold them to date (Feb 2005) but is considering transferring them to the National Library of Australia. A complete list of the papers is available from the Bureau. The documents on the microfilm consist of a typescript of Thurwald’s Buin-German Dictionary, which was to have been published as the second volume of his Forschungen auf den Salomon-Inseln and word lists, comparative word lists, a phrase book and grammatical notes for the Baining, Gazelle, Buin, Alu, Lambutxo, Bambatana, Vellalavella, Panone and Tambatamba languages (spoken in New Britain, Bougainville, the Shortlands and other north Solomon Islands). Also microfilmed are files and word lists for Tjimundo (Lower Sepik) and Banaro/Ramunga (upper Keram River, Sepik District, New Guinea) languages. <b>See Finding aids for details.</b>
Note: Material was copied as found on microfilm reel and delivered in digital in same order. Some pages on reel 1 are not in order, but are clearly numbered at top of page.

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

This collection includes Rev. Peter Milne’s missionary sermons, synod addresses and copies of correspondence (not copied), papers relating to the ‘Kakula Affair’, 6 unrecorded tragedies and a notebook (not copied).

For details see PMB Doc .199

1908-1917 impf. Lacks issues 38-50 (Jan. 1909 - Jan. 1910): 121-32 (Jan. - Dec. 1916)

These papers comprise part of the records of the Vicariate of Samoa which are designated Oceania Navigatores (ON) in the Marist Archives. The documents comprise:

1. Letters from the Soeurs T.O.R.M. (Sisters of the Third Order Regular of Mary) to the Administration General of the Society of Mary. (APM III ONC, Dossier classified as 'ONC 498 T.O.R.M. Epistolae ad Adm. Gen.', 1914-1918. Continued from PMB 183.)
2. Letters in Samoan, 1860-83 (from Samoa)
3. Ethnographical material in French and English, undated
4. O le Bulla Ineffabilis no liliu i le upu Samoa, 1869
5. Letters in French and Samoan, 1861-91
6. A letter concerning Samoa, 1910 (Gubernatores, ON 181)
7. Laici Individualiter (ON 198)
8. An article, 'Samoa et Tonga' from Bibliotheque Illustree des Voyages Autour du Monde, 1898(?)
9. Newspaper clippings on Samoa, 1918
10. 'Une Nuit Macabre en Oceanie', by P. Goupillard, undated
11. Lists of letters written from Samoa, 1836-66
12. Letters from Samoa, 1845-65

Frank Filmer was a missionary with the Churches of Christ on Pentecost Island, New Hebrides from 1908-1919. Frank became engaged to Rosa Jane Fountain and in 1908 left to work as a missionary for the Church of Christ. He returned to South Australia and on 6 April 1909 Rosa and Frank were married in the Grote Street Church of Christ, Adelaide, South Australia. They had five children, four of whom were born in the islands. In 1923 Rosa developed malaria and died. Frank returned with his young children to Australia and worked as a Minister for the Church of Christ in Kadina, South Australia. Frank married Vera Edna Woodward on 2 November 1925 and returned to work on Ambryn as a plantation manager, where he had two more children. In 1929 they returned to South Australia. Frank later bought a dairy farm in Meadows where he and his three sons worked.

Four diaries written by Frank Filmer, 1908-1918

Reel 1:
Diary 1, 29 Feb 1908-31 Dec 1909;
Diary 2, 1 Jan 1910-31 Dec 1912
Diary 3, 1 Jan 1913-31 Dec 1915
Diary 4, 1 Jan 1916-31 Dec 1918

The records are in a series numbered D100 to D137. Some items could not be located for microfilming; others were not microfilmed because of their minimal historical value. The contents of the two reels are:

Reel 1: D100 - College diary, 1899-1901
D109 - mark book, 1868-71
D110 - mark book 1880-91
D111 - mark book 1893-96
D114A - History of Britain 'Bilitonia' by Dr J.E. Moulton
D115 - E.E.V. Collocott papers comprising Pita Vi's narrative (30pp.) typescript
D116 - Collocott papers, beings songs, poems, stories (Tongan)

Reel 2: D117 - original notes (in several hands) from which Collocott transcribed
D118 - examination papers 1898
D120 - daily meteorological records 1874-78
D129 - diary, notebooks of J.E. Moulton and E.E. Crosby re Wesleyan-Free Church conflict, 1885
D130 - Diary, notebooks of J.E. Moulton - 1887, Wesleyan-Free Church conflict
D131 - diary, notebook, J.E. Moulton, 22 January - 14 May 1887.