Death Of "Joe"

Binskin

Varied Career of BSI Pioneer

ON August 17 another of the diminish ing band of BSI pioneers passed to his fathers in the person of Joseph Kitney Binskin.

Mr. Binskin was 71 years old, and des pite nearly a year of ill-health, he may be said to have died in harness as, almost until the end, he supervised the work of the plantation which, many years before, he had carved out of the' virgin forest of Bagga, an island in the western Solomons.

“Joe” Binskin, as he was known to generations of Islanders, had had an un usually varied and adventurous career from early boyhood. Born in the county of Kent, he was taken to NZ in infancy and there, in due course, went to school from which, before he was 13, he ran away and shipped before the mast on a sailing ship.

The lonely, and in those days mostly uncharted, islands of the Pacific have proved the grave of many a good ship, and that on which young Binskin served met her doom in the Caroline Group on a stormy night. The crew managed to get ashore before the vessel broke up, and met with a friendly reception from the is landers. Binskin, the youngest of the crew, attracted the attention of the tribal chief who treated him in all respects as an adopted son.

After some months, the castaways sig nalled a passing ship which hove to and sent a boat ashore.

The ship-wrecked mariners, with the exception of Binskin, rejoiced at the opportunity of returning to their homes, but young “Joe” had no desire to desert his new-found native friends, and they on their part displayed a decidedly hostile attitude towards those who sought to take him away. However, they were per suaded eventually that the boy’s proper place was with his own people.

In the years that followed, Mr. Binskin spent much of his time afloat, sometimes in small vessels trading between NZ and Australian ports; occasionally on overseas ships, but always in sail, for throughout his seafaring career he shared the frue windjammer seaman’s dislike of steamers.

Half a century ago he went to the Solomons, where he entered the service of the late Norman Wheatley, one of the earliest and best known traders in the British Solomons. After gaining local ex perience, he branched off on his own, and for many years, carried on a lucrative trade over a wide radius from his large, well-equipped schooner. The subsequent loss of this fine vessel proved a serious setback to his trading career, but his untiring energy, established integrity, and enterprise served him to overcome this and other obstacles.

In 1910, while Binskin was away trad ing, a tribe of savages bent on plunder, descended on his head station and killed his wife, two young children, and several native employees. Details of this tragic affair and the events which followed it are graphically described in a book writ ten soon after the occurrence by Mr.

Frank Burnett, a Canadian who visited the Solomons.

Mr. Binskin some years later married a daughter of Mr. Norman Wheatley, and is survived by Mrs. Binskin, two daughters, and one son.

“Gizo.”

Rev. and Mrs, A. H. Voyce, of the Methodist Misionary Society of New Zealand, who are stationed at Kieta, Bougainville Island, arrived in Sydney from New Guinea in September, on leave.

They are being relieved at Buin station by Rev. and Mrs. C. Luxton, of Buka.