Rev. Isaac Rooney (1843-1931) succeeded Rev. George Brown (1835-1917) as superintendent of the Methodist Mission in New Britain (Duke of York Islands), 1881-1888. The Mission had been established by Rev. Brown in 1875. Rev. Benjamin Danks (1853-1921) had joined Brown in 1878.

Manuscripts, Items 1-7: Photographs, press cuttings and letters to Isaac Rooney from Lorimer Fison and Fred Langham, Aug-Nov 1880.

Printed books, Items 1-15: mainly translations of scriptures into the language of the Duke of York Islands, some with inserts and annotations by Isaac Rooney, 1886-1905; and additional pamphlets by Isaac Rooney, including his essays on Darwinism and the origin of the Lelanesian and Polynesian races (1907), and by W.L.I. Linggood.

See Finding aids for details.
See also PMB 614, George Brown, George, Benjamin Danks and Isaac Rooney, Dictionary and Grammar of the Duke of York Island Language, copy owned and probably annotated by Isaac Rooney.

The Niue Centennial album 1846-1946 includes 77 photographs and maps presented as an album to celebrate 100 years of the London Missionary Society (LMS) in Niue, Rarotonga and Samoa. The photographs were taken by a New Zealand LMS delegation travelling on the Maui Pomare. They include pictures of people, life and the environment of Niue in 1946. The photographs document the Centennial celebration on 5 November 1946 and include pictures of students, men and women marching, Mission staff, crowds of people at the celebration, boys and girls dancing, music, sports and tug-of-war games, and feast offerings.
The Rarotongan section include photographs of the arrival in Rarotonga, Churches, the Mission house at Talamoa, children of the Administration School at Avarua and the Ngatangia church.
The Samoa section includes photographs of the London Missionary Society at Malua, chapels, student housing, Papauta Girls’ School and girls’ dancing.
Included in the album is a 23 page account (Items 101-121) describing the geography, people and history of Niue. The account includes a travel diary describing the 1946 NZ delegation visit and Centennial celebrations in Niue, Rarotonga and Western Samoa.
Items 122-32 include typed descriptions of the individual photographs in the album.
Among the photographs of people in Niue, there are photographs of LMS Reverend Caleb and Mrs Margaret Beharell. At the time of the Centenary Celebrations, the Beharells were residents of Niue, having been reappointed there by the LMS in 1945. They had previously lived and worked in Niue from 1920 to 1929, leaving “for the sake of their children.” The Beharells left Niue in 1949 and Rev Beharell died in Brisbane, Australia, in 1951.
Also photographed are Mr and Mrs C.R. Lankshear, of Wellington, New Zealand. The Lankshears represented the London Board of the Society and both played a part on behalf of the Society in the Celebrations. Mr and Mrs Lankshear were well known members of the Terrace Congregational Church in Wellington and of the Congregational Union of New Zealand. Lankshears’s Printing Company Ltd at 22 Harris St had been established by Mr Lankshear’s father, W.J. Lankshear, a Congregationalist and expert in the binding of bibles.
Not photographed but mentioned in the text are the Resident Commissioner and his wife, Mr Hector and Mrs Jessica Larsen. Mr Larsen officially represented the New Zealand Government and was head of the Niue Administration. In 1953, aged 45, Mr Larsen was killed at his residence on the island. Also mentioned is the Official Interpreter, Robert Rex, later to become Niue’s first Premier.
A photograph of the headstone of Robert Henry Head is also included. Head, originally a trader, was appointed in 1879 as Acting Deputy Commissioner to Niue. He lived on the island until his death at age 88 in 1921.
Another headstone photographed is that of the Reverend James Cullen, LMS missionary on Niue at the time of his death in his 55th year, 1919. Rev Cullen was first appointed in 1891 to Niue, then to Mangaia in the Cook Islands. He left Mangaia to work for a short time in Papua, moved to South Africa, returning after a number of years to the mission in Niue. He combined his missionary work with the duties of printer and translator.
Rev Robert L Challis and Mrs Challis are mentioned in the text. Rev Challis was a LMS missionary at Takamoa Theological College on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands during the period 1933-1947. On leaving Rarotonga, he worked in Auckland with Pacific Island people and helped to establish the Pacific Island Church.
Mention is also made of two memorial tablets to Rev Hutchin. Rev John JK Hutchin was principal of the LMS Training College for Native Teachers in Rarotonga 1883-1891, first Principal of the LMS boarding school Tereora College which opened in 1895, and involved in the work of the LMS Takamoa Theological College. Rev Hutchin died in 1912.
All associated with Malua Theological College, Rev JD and Mrs Copp, Rev J Hoadley, Miss Joy Fowles and Mr and Mrs Edwards are mentioned in the Western Samoa section of the diary. Rev Edwards was Principal of Malua Theological College twice, 1941 to 1948 and 1950 to 1952. Rev Hoadley followed Rev Edwards as Principal in 1953, serving until 1955.

Please see entry for PMB 1065

1. Maori Culture, Rakahanga Island (MS 29). Records of surviving linguistic usages collected in 1956. Given by Apolo Lameka, written by David Alepha, translated by Nooroa Kairenga. (6pp, typescript)<BR>2. Various Acts of the Rarotonga Council, 1893, 1895 (MS 30). Consists of mss drafts and printed versions of Acts in both English and Rarotongan. Includes holograph letter from J.K. Hutchin to F.J. Moss, British Resident, Rarotonga, 26 August 1897 relating to education.<BR>3. English translation of Maretu (MS 28), the story of a London Missionary Society pastor who died in 1880. (n.d., 30 pp, typescript)<BR>4. Correspondence of Lionel H. Trenn, Registrar of the Cook Islands, regarding the design of the national flag, 1958 (MS 26). Mss and typescript, in English and Rarotongan.<BR>5. Inventory of the F.J. Moss Papers housed in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington (MS 38). (12 pp, typescript)<BR>6. Death notice for Charles W. Banks, 21.3.1915 at Avarua as published in Torea Katarika, no. 15, April 1915 (MS 36).<BR>7. Folklore tales of the Cook Islands (MS 49). Collected, edited and versified by W. McBirney. (n.d., 135 pp, typescript)<BR>8. Holmes, Susan. Report on Nutrition Survey in the Cook Islands, 1954 (MS 11).(36 pp, typescript)<BR>9. Rules of the Rarotongan Lawn Tennis Club, 1921-22; Proofs of Cook Islands Administration, printed for the Mercants and Planters of the Cook Islands, Auckland, 1920; Typescript notes on the Rarotongan language, author unknown, (MS 78).<BR>10. Correspondence of George Fowlds, 1907-1911.<BR>11. Transcript extracts of London Missionary Society correspondence, 1828-1926, assembled by Resident Commissioner Platts. (typescript)<BR>12. Laws of Aitutaki, 1847 (10 pp) and Blue Laws of Rarotonga, 1879. Printed in Rarotongan. (MS 1)<BR>13. Knight, Mark A. (Otago University), Mangaia: a case study of process and adaptation, 1977 (MS 6). (18 pp, typescript)<BR>14. Savage, Stephen, Iro-Nui-O-Mata (undated holograph mss).

Laws of Aitutaki, 1847 (10 pp) and Blue Laws of Rarotonga, 1879. Printed in Rarotongan. (MS 1)

In 1854, at the recommendation of Bishop George Augustus Selwyn, Melanesia was created as a separate "See" which Bishop Selwyn toured in 1857 in the mission ship Southern Cross, visiting sixty-six of the islands. John Coleridge Patteson was consecrated Bishop of Melanesia in 1861. Patteson and several of his companions were killed on 20 September 1871 on the island of Nakapu, in the Santa Cruz group, after slave-raiders had visited the area. In 1867, the Mission college at Mission Bay, Auckland, moved to Norfolk Island. In 1919 it moved to Siota, Gela Island, and in 1970 to Guadalcanal where in became known as Bishop Patteson Theological Centre (later college), Kohimarama. The first Melanesian to be an ordained priest was George Sarawia from Mota Island, New Hebrides (Vanuatu) in 1873. Charles Elliot Fox joined the staff of the Anglican Melanesian Mission in 1903. During more than seventy years of service as a missionary and teacher, Fox lived and worked in most of the islands of the Solomon chain, on the Banks, and in the New Hebrides. Ini Kopuria formed the Melanesian Brotherhood in 1925. The first two Melanesian bishops were Dudley Tuti from Ysabel and Leonard Alufurai from Malaita. They were consecrated in Honiara in 1963. The Church of Melanesia was inaugurated in 1975.

Documents in the pre-1975 archives of the Church of Melanesia were deposited on 2-4 Feb 1981 and are now held in the National Archives of the Solomon Islands.

The documents copied include:
-news cuttings of Bishop Walter Badley (1926-1953),
-ephemera (Bishop Chisholm (1967-1972),
-Charles Fox Lord of the Southern Isles),
-Melanesian Mission, Sydney correspondence with Miss H.R. Blake,
-Melanesian Mission miscellaneous correspondence (1860-1940),
-Maps of Melanesia, 1947,
-Melanesian Mission General Secretary’s correspondence ‘English Correspondence’ (1921-1931),
-Melanesian Mission Trust Board (N.Z.) correspondence (1928-1963),
-Honiara Cathedral correspondence (1961-1970),
-Australian Board of Mission correspondence (1931-1974),
-New Zealand Anglican Board of Mission correspondence (1926-1928, 1950-1965),
-New Hebrides correspondence (1955-1970),
-Registers of the Church of St Barnabas, Alanguala, Ugi (1948-1954).
-Church of Melanesia Synod Minutes (1953-1965),
-O Raverare Gagang Melanesian Mission Church calendar in the Mota language (1939-1957),
-O Sala Usuri (issues missing from PMB Doc 215),
-Legal papers (1880’s-1960’s),
-George Hammond Tarr Ten thousand miles away with the Southern Cross (1921-1936).

See Finding aids for details.

See also PMB 549, 550, 554-560, 1301, 1331, 1332, 1333, 1334, 1344 and 1359.