War's Toll

Flying-Officer Moresby Gofton, of New Guinea

ON Friday, May 17, Flying-Officer Moresby Gofton, of the R.A.F., went out in a bombing raid against the enemy, somewhere off the east coast of England, and did not return. He is officially reported “missing”. Thus, war, for the second time, brings tragedy into the life of F. S. Stewart, known throughout the Western Pacific as the strong, capable woman who established the Bulolo Hotel, at Wau, at the very beginning of the New Guinea goldfield, and who still conducts that establish ment.

Mrs. Stewart was married, first, to Mr. Harry Gofton, a man famous in

Northern Queensland for his horseman ship, and loved in Papua for his fine, manly qualities. In 1916, at the age of 35, he left his wife and two children and joined the A.1.F., and in 1918, in France, he was killed in action. His widow mar ried Mr. James Stewart, and together they conducted the hotel at Wau. Mean while, the Gofton children grew up.

Moresby and his cousin, Stan Baldie (son of Mrs. Stewart’s sister) went to Europe in 1936 to see the Olympic Games. Then they both joined the

R.A.F.

Meanwhile, in Wau, in 1938, Mr. James Stewart was killed in a motor accident, and Mrs. Stewart carried on, alone.

When war broke out, Moresby Gofton was with his unit in England, and his sister, Miss Ela Gofton, was on a visit to London. She since has returned to New Guinea.

Moresby Gofton, with his mother, Mrs. F.

Stewart, on Wau aerodrome, a short time before he left New Guinea to join the R.A.F. in 1936.

Moresby Gofton, then a small boy, photographed in 1916 with his father, Harry Gofton,