This collection depicts the life and work of Australian missionary school teacher Richard Arbon in Samoa, and his work
predominantly on the island of Savaii on behalf of the Uniting Church World Mission – formerly the Central Methodist Mission.

'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 Writings and Drawings of Handley Bathurst Sterndale’ (2020) is an unpublished digital edition edited by J.J. Overell.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.

Alfred William Martin (1844-1928) was born in Clarence Plains, Tasmania, first son of William Martin (1805/6-1878), a convict transported to Tasmania, and Hannah Braim (1825/6-1860). Alfred William Martin was educated at Kettering Grammar School in Northamptonshire while his parents were revisiting England. Returning to Tasmania, Martin became a seaman, despite his good education, firstly on the ship Gem sailing out of Hobart and then, while still in his teens, on a whaler, Southern Cross, Capt. Mansfield, sailing out of Hobart to whaling grounds off New Zealand, NSW, and the New Hebrides. He then sailed on the Thomas Brown, Capt T.H. Brown, a freighter working between Melbourne and Adelaide. Subsequently Martin sailed a schooner, Jeannie Darling, 80 tons, owner Darling formerly a boat builder in Hobart, carrying timber and other goods between Melbourne and Schnapper Point (Mornington).

In Melbourne Martin joined the crew of a Brigantine, El Zéfiro (300 tons, Callao), Capt Manuel Diaz Garcias of Peru, smuggling opium to the China trade via Gilolo Island, Surigao and Manila; smoking bêche-de-mer at Ponape; trading in the Marshalls, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Niue, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji; trading for sandalwood in the New Hebrides; sailing onwards through the Banks Islands, Santa Cruz, San Christobal, Malaita, Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and back to Manila via the Moluccas and Celebes. El Zéfiro then sailed for Bougainville, reinforced with Bougainville warriors carried out a blackbirding raid in Aoba (Ambae) in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), then sailed on to South America, touching at the Marquesas and Galapagos Islands, selling the New Hebridean slaves at Mollendo in Peru.

Alfred William Martin gave the manuscript to his granddaughter, Clara Ella Simm (b.1897), who he had brought up as a child after her father, William Simm (1855-1901), died in a flu epidemic in Launceston. When Dr Macnicol received the manuscript from his mother, via his sister, it was in a bundle tied with string. Dr Macnicol passed the manuscript to a conservator who repaired torn and fragmented pages. Dr Macnicol top-numbered the pages consecutively in pencil and transcribed the manuscript. He passed the transcript to Rafael Pintos-Lopez of Michelago, near Canberra, who submitted the transcript to Professor Brij Lal for assessment.

Untitled incomplete manuscript written by Alfred William Martin of Tasmania, written possibly in the 1890s relating his Pacific voyages and adventures in the 1860s, Ms. (gaps), re-paginated, pp.1-202; together with transcript of the manuscript made by Dr Peter Macnicol, Ts., pp.1-251.
See Finding aids for details.

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

Please see PMB 581 for full entry.

The documents comprise:

1. Official and political papers and correspondence re presidency of the municipality of Apia, 1899
2. Miscellaneous papers and press clippings, re presidency of the municipality of Apia, 1899
3. -9. Official and political papers and press clippings re governorship of Samoa, 1900-1906 (7 vols). These include an unpublished paper by Dr Erich Schultze on 'The development of the political situation in Samoa'. Dr Schultze was Solf's successor as governor.

Please see PMB 581 for full entry.

Official and political papers re governorship of Samoa, 1906-13 (7 vols). One volume for 1908-09 concerns the Lauaki revolt.

Please see PMB 581 for full entry.

Documents relating to his ambassadorship in Japan, 1928, and papers written in retirement, 1929-32. The latter include 'Refutation' of Count Bulow's memoirs, a proposal to appoint Solf German Foreign Minister, Solf's mission re minorities in Hungary and German committee on Palestine. (Bulow was Foreign Minister of Germany in 1899 when the acquisition of Western Samoa was negotiated as a German colony).

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)