Death of Papuan Pioneer

"Dick" Ede, Discoverer of Wood lark Gold, Passes on at 76

IN a Sydney hospital on April 16, Mr.

Richard Henry Ede, of Woodlark Island, Papua, died peacefully at the age of 76. So passed another of the dwindling band of “old hands ’ who pioneered the way in the Western Pacific islands. .. „ , For several years, “Dick” Ede (as he was known throughout Eastern Papua) had been in ill-health, but he gamely carried on with his copra plantation on Woodlark Island, where he had spent a life-time of 53 years.

When the Japanese began to creep southwards towards New Guinea in January and then turned their attention to Papua, Mr. Ede walked off his pro perty at Glau, on isolated Woodlark, and

made his way to Port Moresby, with his son, Isadore, and then came south to Sydney.

Their journey to Australia was a try ing, hazardous undertaking, during which Jap bombers were active, and the trip took heavy toll of Mr. Ede’s health and strength. Soon after arriving in Sydney he entered hospital, where he died.

An Englishman, Dick Ede went to Papua from Queensland in the late ’Bo’s of last century, with Bill Whitten (who later became a well-known storekeeper in the Territory), in the schooner “Sea gull”. Gold had just been found on Misima Island, so he decided to try his luck on the islands to the north of the Louisiade Archipelago.

With a partner, Charlie Lobb, Mr. Ede left Samarai and wandered in a small boat through the maze of islands to the east of the Papuan mainland. Even tually, he and Lobb agreed that Wood lark (called Murua by the natives), a large densely-foliaged island, nearly 40 miles long, through which ran a suc cession of hills and valleys, was a likely prospect. They commenced fossicking on opposite sides of the island and after an intensive search, Ede discovered good alluvial gold. Within a short time Lobb, too, found traces in his section.

Soon the magic, beckoning word “gold”, had spread to the Louisiades and to Samarai. From two gold-seekers, the population swelled to 800. Some rich areas were located and Woodlark be came the first officially-recognised gold field of Papua. In all, nearly £750,000 worth of gold has been won; and, right up until the outbreak of the Pacific war, miners still were getting gold, mostly by the cyanide process.

With a comfortable “pile” from his mining operations, Mr. Ede went south to Australia and married; then he re turned to his home on Woodlark.

Charlie Lobb, on his way to Samarai, with a small fortune, and plans in mind for a trip to England, was knocked over board by the boom of a schooner and drowned.

Apart from his mining interests, Mr.

Ede branched out into trading and pearl buying. He took over a trading estab lishment in the Laughlin Group, 40 miles east of Woodlark, which had been run for years by a German company. Twice a year the Germans came down to Eastern Papua from their mainland New Guinea stations and ranged further south, trad ing among the seven Laughlin islands, largest of which is Abomat.

In the early days when Mr. Ede began pearl buying in the Trobriands, the natives exchanged pearls, sometimes worth £l5O to £2OO, for mere trinkets.

In recent years, Dick Ede devoted his attention to copra growing, leaving his trading interests in the care of his son, Isadore, who was born in 1905, and grew up in the Territory. But even though he settled down in his home on Woodlark, Mr. Ede, on his 46-ft. schooner “Simonok” (“Mosquito”) still was a familiar figure in the South-eastern Papua islands.

Familiar, too, to Papuan people was the heavy gold ring he wore on his left hand, fashioned from the first gold he took out of Woodlark. His son now wears that ring.

Some five years ago, Mr. Ede’s wife, Mrs. Rachael Ede, died on a BP steamer when on her way to Sydney. Her hus band took her ashes back to Papua and placed them beside the path leading up to his bungalow.

Mr. Ede’s son has promised that when the war is over he will take his father’s ashes back to the plantation on Wood lark and lay them, too, at rest beside the garden path; within the shade of the palms and within the sound of the sea on the island that Dick Ede loved so well.