About Islands People

Mr. S. G. C. Knibbs, Crown Surveyor and Commissioner of Lands in the Solo mon Islands, arrived in Sydney by the Malaita on March 27.

Mr. M. G. James, senior operator of the Postal and Radio Department of the Western Samoan Administration, arrived in Apia by the Maui Pomare on March 3.

Mr. A. L. Armstrong, First Assistant Colonial Secretary of Fiji, who was acting as Colonial Secretary until the recent arrival of the new Colonial Secretary, Mr.

C. J. J. T. Barton, left for England on long leave by the Niagara on March 13. He was accompanied by Mrs. Armstrong.

Mr. W. Fowler, District Officer in the Solomons Islands, reached Sydney by the Malaita from Tulagi on March 27.

Rev. W. D. Oakes, Methodist Mission ary, of Piniquidu, New Guinea, arrived by the Malaita on March 27 to spend six months’ leave in Sydney.

Mr. Jack Abeam, who for some time has been manager of the Vacuum Oil Company’s branch at Rabaul, arrived in Sydney by the Neptuna on March 27.

Mr. and Mrs. I. H. Grabowsky arrived in Sydney from New Guinea by the Nep tuna on March 27. Mr. Grabowsky is general manager of Guinea Airways Limited at Lae.

Miss Una Mac Andrew, who had been on a 12 months’ visit to her brother, Mr.

J. A. Mac Andrew, of Boris plantation, Bougainville, New Guinea, returned to Australia by the March Malaita.

Mr. E. J. Clymo, the newly appointed Technical Instructor for the Methodist Mission in New Britain, sailed for Rabaul with his wife and daughter by the Mon toro from Sydney on March 19.

Dr. Sylvester M. Lambert, representative of the Rockefeller Foundation in the Western Pacific, returned to Suva, Fiji, from leave in the United States by the Monterey on March 17, Captain H. T. (“Bunny”) Hammond, assistant manager of Holden’s Air Trans port Services Ltd., Wau, New Guinea, arrived in Sydney with his wife by the Neptuna on March 27. They are on a three months’ holiday visit.

Mr. D. Costello, a brother of Mr. Pat Costello, the Fijian goldfields pioneer, arrived in Melbourne at the end of March to attend a meeting of shareholders in Aloha Central of which he is the biggest holder. Mr. Costello is one of the original Koroere shareholders.

Hon. J. Judd, Acting Secretary for Indian affairs and Chairman of the Suva Town Board, Fiji, has been appointed Chairman of the Fiji Publicity Board, in place of Mr. A. L. Armstrong, who has gone on leave.

Dr. T. C. Backhouse, of the New Guinea Department of Public Health, arrived in Hong Kong from Rabaul by the Nankin in March en route to Singa pore to attend the biennial Conference of the Singapore Bureau of the League of Nations.

Mr. Alport Barker, member for the Southern Division in the Fiji Legislative Council, left for England with his daughter, Mrs. F. Ryan, by the Aorangi on March 6. It is Mr. Barker’s intention to take up the question of the proposed change in the constitution of the Legis lative Council with the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Dr. and Mrs. A. G. Irwin arrived in Samoa by the Maui Pomare on March 3.

Dr. Irwin is the new medical officer at Apia Government Hospital.

Miss Vera Syers, a trained nurse from New Zealand, left Sydney for the New' Hebrides by the Morinda early in April to take up duties with the Melanesian Mission at Raga Island.

Miss M. Devitt has returned tem porarily to the New Guinea Anglican Mission, in Eastern Papua, to Write the memoirs of Canon S. Tomlinson, who has been with the Anglican Mission for 45 years.

Mr. and Mrs. G. F. K. Hufnagel- Betham returned to Apia, Western Samoa, by the Maui Pomare on March 3, after a holiday in New Zealand. Mr. Hufnagel-Betham is chief surveyor in the Land and Survey Department of the Administration.

Miss C. M. A. Deck, of the South Sea Evangelical Mission at One Pusu, Malaita Island, in the Solomons Group, arrived on a periodical visit to her relatives in Sydney by the Malaita on March 27. Miss Deck has been attached to the S.S.E.

Mission in the Solomons Islands since 1907.

Mr. and Mrs. W. Firth, of Auckland, N.

Zealand, who passed through Sydney on their way to England to attend the mar riage of their son, Dr. Raymond Firth (formerly Professor of Anthropology at Sydney University, and now of the Uni versity of London), brought the news that his work on Tikopia will shortly appear in two volumes. Dr. Firth’s fiancee is Miss Rosemary Upcott, daughter of Sir Thomas Upcott, the British Auditor-General.

Mr. Russell Robinson, a member of the executive of the Polynesian Club of Sydney, left for the United States by the Niagara in March, where his mar riage will take place in New York to M iss Gertrude Tompkins, of New Jersey.

Mr. Robinson has many friends in Tahiti, which he visited when aero nautical engineer with the Byrd Antarctic Expedition.

Mr. William C. Groves, of Melbourne, w r ell known for his anthropological work in New Guinea and elsewhere, has com pleted his book on native education in the Territory for the Australian Council for Educational Research. It should be published shortly by the Melbourne Uni versity Press. Mr. Groves, who is working again this year under a Fellowship grant from the Australian National Research Council of Sydney, will visit Sydney in May, to deliver a series of lectures on New Guinea anthropology to New Guinea cadets and missionaries at the Sydney University. He will address the Sydney Anthropological Society on the evening of May 19.

Mr. Robert (“Paddy”) Bentley died in Levuka Hospital, Fiji, on February 22, at the age of 48. He was the second son of the late Mr. and Mrs. R. C. Bentley, and was well-known in Levuka.

Mr. Henry Morley Fenton, a pioneer of Salt Lake district, Vanua Levu, Fiji, died in February at his plantation home, Navava. Born in May, 1872, at Navava. he was educated in New Zealand. Re turning to the Colony he spent prac tically the whole of his life at Navava.

Pastor A. G. Stewart will leave Sydney during the first week in May on a two months’ visit to Fiji and Western Samoa on an inspection tour of the Seventh Day Adventist missions in those territories.

Mr. Stewart is Vice-President of the S.D.A.. organisation.

Mr. Frank C. F. Nelson-Meredith, of Messrs. O. F. Nelson and Co. Ltd., Apia, Western Samoa, married Miss Katherine Cecilia Thomsen at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on February 20.

Rev. Father J. Deihl performed the ceremony.

Mr. Eric Ramsden, a well-known writer on Polynesian subjects, and who con tributes to the Pacific Islands Monthly has had a book on the early missions in New Zealand accepted for immediate publication by Angus and Robertson Ltd., of Sydney, in conjunction with A. H.

Reed, publisher to the University of Otago. The book will cover the last phase of the life of Rev. Samuel Marsden, “father” of the old mission in Tahiti, and a well-known cleric of his day who did much to further missionary enterprise in the Pacific. The book is the result of several years’ research in the Mitchell Library in Sydney. Professor Peter H.

Buck, of the Bishop Museum, Hawaii, has been invited to contribute a preface.

, Mrs,W ' J - Livingstone, of New Guinea arrived in Australia recently to spend long leave. Mr.

Livingstone is a Warrant Officer in the IS.G. Police Force.

Sister Edith Thompson, of the Melaho . has been on furlough m New Zealand, arrived in Sydney by the Makura on March 7 to jom the Southern Cross.. Miss Thompson has been appointed to New Britain, wnere she will be the only European woman member of the mission staff.

Mr. E. H. Griffiths, formerly manager of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company at Penang, Fiji, returned to Suva by the Niagara recently. He later proceeded to Labasa to relieve Mr. G. L. Fenner, who haS departed on 12 months ’ plough.

Mr ' S ' E - Sutcliffe, pilot for Messrs, Holden’s Air Transport Services, Ltd., at Salamaua, New Guinea, arrived in Syd ney by the Macdhui on March 5 to spend three months’ furlough. He was ac companied by his wife and baby son, and Mrs. Sutcliffe senior. They had intended

to leave by the previous steamer, but on the eve of their departure Mrs. S.

E. Sutcliffe was compelled to spend a few weeks in Salamaua hospital.

Captain Lorre has been appointed Con dominium Medical Officer at Efate, New Hebrides, in succession to Dr. Broband.

Mr. R. F. Bunting, of Samarai, who is the son of Mr. Arthur Bunting, member of the Legislative Council of Papua, has been spending holidays in Victoria.

Mr. John Douglas Colclough, son of Mr. J. Colclough, secretary of Bulolo Gold Dredging Co. Ltd., Sydney, sailed for New Guinea at the end of February to join B-.G.D.’s Co.’s staff at Bulolo.

Right Rev. Dr. Stephan Davies, Bishop of Carpentaria, arrived in Sydney with Mrs. Davies by the Marella from Thurs day Island recently to spend three months in Australia.

Pastor A. H. Piper, secretary of the Australasian Union Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, left Sydney on April 9 for San Francisco via Rarotonga and Tahiti to attend an S.D.A. Conference in America.

Mr. H. Hemus, well-known traveller for the Auckland mercantile house of A. B.

Donald Ltd., arrived in Tahiti by the Maunganui recently on one of his periodi cal trips of inspection. He will remain in French Oceania for several months be fore proceeding to the Cook Islands.

Mrs. Emily Undine Joske, widow of the late Mr. Alexander Brewster Joske, a pioneer of Fiji, died at her home at Van cluse, Sydney, on March 14, after having been seriously ill for several months. She left a daughter, Mrs. S. H. Ellis, and a son, Major Clive B. Joske, 0.8. E., M.C., E.D., both well-known residents of Suva.

Mrs. W. Benjamin Norgate died sud denly at Thursday Island on April 7. She had been in indifferent health for years, but her end was unexpected. Mrs. Nor gate and her husband, whom she survived by about four years, were at Booby Island Lighthouse for many years, having pre viously served a short time at Goode Island.

Mrs. M. Grand, wife of the manager of the Societe Commerciale Francaise, of Vila, New Hebrides, arrived by the Mor inda on March 20 on her first holiday to Sydney since she left her former home three years ago. Four months of each year, when Vila experiences terrific heat, Mrs. Grand spends at her Norfolk Island home, where she has now left her daughter, Madeline, under the care of a French governess.

Mr. W. W. Bolton, M.A., of Papeete, who in recent years has carried out historical research in Tahiti and has been respon sible for discovering the graves of several of the early missionaries, recently re ceived a gift from the London Missionary Society. It was one of the original en gravings of the cession of Matavai by Tu, King of Tahiti, to the missionaries of the Duff, and is dated January 1, 1803.

These engravings are now exceedingly difficult to obtain. The Mitchell Library in Sydney has one.