Rabaul's Untagged History

Just for the heck of it. I took this photo of the Marquis de Rays old mill >ne outside the Commonwealth Bank in Rabaul, recently. This is apparently e approximate site of the old pre-war Department of Works, outside of which e mill-stone was then erected. At that time it had a bronze plaque on it, ying that it was a relic of the de Rays near-criminal colonising effort on ■w Ireland about 1870. The stone was knocked about a bit during the war. d the bronze plaque lost. The New Britain Historical Society has been trying : some time to find a replacement plaque that was lost in a Government jeon-hole. After I took the photo, I went across to the fellow sitting in a ilden car and said, “They evidently haven’t found the bronze plaque for the i mill-stone, yet?” He looked at me in astonishment; didn’t know what I s talking about—obviously didn’t know that it was a mill-stone or why it was ;re. He said he had been in Rabaul for nine years.—JT.