Emeritus Professor R.G. Ward was Professor of Human Geography at the ANU from 1971 to 1998, and Director of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies from 1980 to 1993.

He was Foundation Professor of Geography at the University of Papua New Guinea from 1967 to 1971. He has taught at University College London, and University of Auckland and is President of the Pacific Science Association. Professor Ward has been conducting research in the Pacific Islands since 1956, and has done fieldwork in Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.

His books, as author or editor, include "Land Use and Population in Fiji", "American Activities in the Central Pacific, 1790-1870", "The Settlement of Polynesia: A Computer Simulation", "Man in the Pacific Islands", "South Pacific Agriculture: Choices and Constraints", "Land, Custom and Practice in the South Pacific", and "Samoa: Mapping the Diversity".

Professor Gerard Ward took these pictures when his ship stopped for a day in October 1956 at Niue whilst on his way to undertake field work in Western Samoa.

Professor Ward has commented on the visit: “One of the striking things about Niue was the upraised coral nature of the island. It is very difficult to cultivate and this is evident in the photographs PMB Photo 12_14 – 16. There is broken coral everywhere so parts of the land have very little soil and are unusable. These pictures show this, PMB Photo 12_26. Another feature is the lack of beaches, making access to the sea difficult and opportunities for fishing limited.”

This collection of photographs include streets and boat ramps around Alofi in Niue. The collection also includes images of local dwellings that use burnt lime plaster, village scenes, plantations, fishing techniques and outrigger canoes.

Ward died on 16 January 2023 in Adelaide.

Tim Bayliss-Smith served on the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) program in Honiara, Solomon Islands, 1965-1966. He worked as a teacher in the Survey Drafting School in the Lands Department of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate Government and as a librarian in the Geological Survey Department. Though based in Honiara, he travelled around Guadalcanal for work, as well as to Savo, Malaita and Bellona. Tim returned to Solomon Islands in 1971 for his PhD field research into energy use on Ontong Java atoll. He joined the Department of Geography at University of Cambridge in 1973 where he has continued his research in land management in the humid tropics, with particular focus on Melanesia. Professor Bayliss-Smith has made many subsequent visits to Solomon Islands throughout his research career.

This collection of 108 digitised 35mm colour slides are mainly from the period of his VSO placement (1965-1966) and mainly feature Honiara and surrounds. The images depict VSO housing; other VSO volunteers; trainees in the Survey Drafting School; Chinatown; Honiara market; WWII wreckage and other landmarks in and around Honiara. Activities such as sporting events, Easter procession; Queen's Birthday celebrations and gardening also feature.

The first music and voice transmitted by radio in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate (BSIP) occurred in 1923 through the Methodist Mission?s wireless station at Kokegolo in New Georgia. The station often presented choral and band recitals performed in local languages, primarily for the interest of passengers on passing ships which were equipped with wireless sets. However, actual broadcasting in the BSIP began in June, 1944 with radio station WVUQ based in Guadalcanal, and was followed a few months later by WVTJ based in Munda. Both stations were operated by the United States of America military as part of the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) and were primarily sources of news and entertainment for American troops serving in the Pacific. Both stations were part of a grouping known as ?The Mosquito Network?.
In the years after World War II, a radio service was maintained by volunteers in Honiara, primarily for an English-speaking, licence fee-paying, expatriate audience. In 1952, the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service was established as VQO, broadcasting news and music six days a week to local audiences in most parts of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. By the mid-1950s, colonial administrators saw the important role radio was playing for local audiences and invested in programming (including Pijin content), staff, transmitters and new studios. The studios on Mendana Avenue, Honiara, opened in 1959. By the 1960s, SIBS was also providing school services and outside broadcasting of special events, putting a strain on the still new studio facilities. Studio and office upgrades were made in 1965.
In 1976, under the administration of Sir Peter Kenilorea, SIBS became a statutory body, and commenced operations as the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) in 1977. In 1978 the Australian Government committed funds for the upgrade of studio and transmission facilities in Honiara, the establishment of a new regional station in Gizo and correspondents based in more remote parts of the country. Broadcasting House at Rove, Honiara opened on 7 August, 1982.
From 1980-1984, Martin Hadlow was the News/Programme Trainer, then Head of Development and Training at SIBC. During this time the service transitioned from a government broadcasting service to an independent public service broadcasting corporation. This transition meant new management (including a new Board), a complete revamp of programming and news structure, and the new studio building at Rove. Hadlow prepared this booklet for the opening of the studio and was involved with the preparation of the First Day Cover stamp set for the 20th Anniversary of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU).

This collection includes printed papers and reports relating to forestry and logging in the Solomon Islands up until around 1999. They are mainly of a technical nature by specialist assessors, non-Government organisations or governmental reviews.

PMBPhoto 62 is a collection of 209 photographs of Solomon Islands subjects taken between 30 November and 13 December 2001. The main subject area is the 2001 Solomon Islands General Election, the first post-conflict election held.

The photographs are a record of Jan Gammage's experience as a member of an international team of election observers, the International Election Observation Mission (IEOM) to the Solomon Islands. Members of the Mission included Australian public servants from AusAID and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and representatives from New Zealand, Fiji, Cook Islands and Japan. Organisations including the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat were also represented.

Subjects include the Solomon Islands Government welcome to the Mission, the IEOM's briefing and organising of teams, deployment by helicopter to Tulagi in Nggela constituency of Central Province (nine candidates, 9,000 registered voters living on five large and about 50 small islands, and 24 polling stations), and aspects of the electoral process. Subjects include electoral officials and police involved in the conduct of the election, and others including boat drivers, and the women who ran the guesthouse on Tulagi in which the observers stayed. Women in the market, Mboli Passage, ship wrecks, the site of the house occupied by Charles Woodford, the first Resident Commission of the British Solomon Island Protectorate, and the "cut road" are also subjects.

In Honiara and surrounds, the Electoral Commission, hotels, the Peace Monitoring Council, the market, Mission members, Parliament House, the Anzac memorial, World War II sites and memorials both American and Japanese, and the Solomon Islands Government farewell to the Mission are among the subjects.

Margaret was born in Maryborough Qld in 1925 and educated in local schools except for one year at Sommerville Brisbane. She has worked as a bank clerk, as a private tutor on a cattle property and did a year at Queensland University and a year of nursing. Margaret and James Tedder lived in the Solomon Islands from 1952 until 1974. During the last years of her residence there, after the children went to Australian schools, Margaret did a lot of bush touring carrying out research on plants used by the Islanders for medicines, cures and other purposes. Most of Margaret Tedder’s plant identifications were checked in the now defunct Forest Herbarium where she lodged duplicates of the plants. These may now (2011) held in the University of South Pacific Herbarium, Suva. On retirement to Australia in 1975 Margaret did a bachelors degree in University of Adelaide majoring in anthropology and Pacific history. Cf. Margaret & James Tedder, Gardening: album of photographs of subsistence gardening in Eastern and Central Solomon Islands, 1955-1974. PMB Photo 48. M.M. Tedder and J.L.O. Tedder, Yams, a description of their cultivation on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, SPC Technical Paper No.169, Noumea, South Pacific Commission, 1974; 85 pp., illus. by B. House. Judith Hoye, “Custom medicine in Moli District, Guadalcal”, n.d. (1973?). Ts., roneo, 23pp., at PMB 1365/55.

Index cards on medicinal and other useful plants in the Solomon islands, A-Z, arranged by plant family. The cards record: Name; Family; Habitat; Constituents; Therapeutic activity; Local names; Sources of information; Preparation and use; Regions reporting use; Other locations reporting use. They are coded as follows, Dx = Diagnostic; Rx = Pharmaceutical (‘recipe’). Margaret Tedder undertook some comparative follow-up research in NSW in 1982 which is marked on some of the cards. Additional documents consist of :
• Plant uses, arranged by family A-Z. Excerpts from index cards arranged by plant use.
• Most of the information has been obtained from Central and Makira /Ulawa Province, Most of the plant vernacular provided is not placed into a specific language group or dialect. The main language groups include: Temotu, Malaita-San Cristobal, Gela-Guadalcanal and New Georgia
• List of Informats.
• Codes for Index cards.
See Finding aids for details.

Solomon Islands languages collection: Manuscripts and old prints collected from Malaita. The Marist missionaries involved in the collection of these documents are:
Father Donatien Coicaud (1884-1957), born in Nantes, France, was in the Solomon Islands from 1912 to 1957. He founded the mission of Buma on Malaita in 1914 from where he was active in the whole of Central and North-Malaita until his death in 1957. He left lots of material behind, among other things on the languages of Langalanga, Kwaio and Lau. He understood Kwara'ae but did not use it much. After his death, Fr. Kamphuis took the material on Lau and other North-Malaita languages, the material on Langalanga and Kwaio stayed in Buma.
Father Christian Kamphuis (1916-2006), born in Oldenzaal, the Netherlands, was in the Solomon Islands from 1947 to 1996. He lived in Takwa, North-East Malaita, from 1948 to 1965 where he worked in the languages of Lau and Baegu'u. He was famous for his knowledge of the Lau language. He lived in Dala from 1972 to 1993 where he learned the Kwara'ae language.
Father Rinaldo Pavese (1886-1955), born in Italy, was in the Solomon Islands from 1910 to 1933, first on San Cristoval and from 1912 in Tangarare, South-West Guadalcanal. He had the reputation of having been an exceptional good Gari speaker.
Father Alois Brugmans (1899-1985), Dutch, was in the Solomon Islands from 1929 to 1942 and in Visale, West-Guadalcanal, 1936- 1942.
Father Jan Snijders (1928---), Dutch, was in the Solomon Islands 1954 to 1970, and in Dala, Kwara'ae, from 1956 to 1967. He was attached to the Marist Headhouse in Rome, 1970-1982, visiting and traveling in the pacific a lot, and then lecturer in philosophy at Holy Spirit Seminary, Bomana, PNG, 1983-1987.

The French Marist priest Donatien Coicaud joined his brother Jean in the Solomon Islands in 1912. In 1914 Donatien founded the mission of Buma, Central Malaita, where he stayed until his death. He was active all over North and Central Malaita. In the 1930's boys from all the villages he visited came to the boarding school in Buma. Father Coicaud taught them to read and write in their own languages and he had them write down the stories they had heard at home, each in his own language. They also at times translated parts of the catechism, Christian doctrine or Bible stories, probably from texts in the Gari language from Guadalcanal. Fr. Coicaud kept the best manuscripts carefully as source material for his study of the Malaita languages. Some were typed out later on. He had also collected other language documents from the other churches active in the area.

After Fr. Donatien's death Father Chris Kamphuis, who worked in North Malaita from 1948 to 1964, inherited the material from the North Malaita language areas. He kept it during the years when he was in Tanagai (Guadalcanal, 1965-1971) and Dala (Kwar’ae, Malaita, l972-1993) and took it with him when he retired to the Netherlands in 1996.

Documents gathered by Fr Jan Snijders and supplied to Dr Darrell Tryon, as follows:
Stories (Histoires) 1-7. “Put together in seven large envelopes just as they have been found among the papers of Father Kamphuis in 2006.” Consisting of word and phrase lists, folktales, customs, etc., in the languages of Lau, Kwara'ae, and others, written by Ben. Lusitaemu, Paulo Misiga, and others.
Docs. 1-4. Documents found among the papers of Fr. Kamphuis: Gari and Kwara'ae dictionaries and Kwara'ae spelling list.
Docs. 5-18. Kwara'ae, Gari, Lau, Malu (To’a Ba’ita) texts (catechism, scriptures, traditions, geography) and Kwara'ae grammars.
See Finding aids for further details.

This collection of Charles Morris Woodford includes photographs of the Woodford family; Solomon Islands, Samoa, British New Guinea (Papua New Guinea), etc.; Photographs were bundled with story as told by Solomon Islands person, 1907 (See PMB MS 1381, item 002).

A Solomon Islands Branch of the Queensland Kanaka Mission was formed in 1904. It established a principal station at Onepusu on the west coast of Malaita in 1905 and changed its name to the South Sea Evangelical Mission in 1907. The Mission continued to operate in the Solomon Islands, and in New Guinea after World War II, till it was localised in the 1980s. Post-war issues of 'Solomon Soldiers’ News' cover the political events in Malaita.

Nos 1-163, 1945-1966

The Solomon Star was originally published as a regular Government Information Service newsheet. In 1975 it was turned in to a weekly newspaper called The Solomons News Drum. In mid-1982 it was taken over by five Solomon Islanders and renamed the Solomon Star, and has run as a private newspaper ever since.

<b>Reel 1 </b>
Nos.1-11, 28 May-6 Aug 1982
Nos.13-31, 20 Aug-23 Dec 1982
Nos.32-82, 7 Jan 1983-23 Dec 1983
<b>Reel 2</b>
Nos.83-133, 6 Jan 1984-21 Dec 1984
Nos.134-152, 11 Jan 1985-17 May 1985
<b>Reel 3</b>
Nos.153-183, 24 May 1985-20 Dec 1985
Nos.184-207, 10 Jan 1986-20 Jun 1986
<b>Reel 4</b>
Nos.208-233, 27 Jun 1986-19 Dec 1986
Nos.234-256, 9 Jan 1987-11 Jun 1987