Deaths Of Islands People

Mrs. A. H. Bunting Mrs. Ella Florence Bunting,a well loved and highly-esteemed resident of pre-War Papua, died in Sydney on May 20 at the age of 83. She was the widow of the late Mr. A. H.

Bunting, of Samarai, and mother of Mrs. Lee Ashton (Meg) of Lae, New Guinea; Mr. R, F. Bunting, for many years a member of the P-NG Legislative Council; and Mrs.

George Hard (Betty) of Sydney.

She was only 22 when, as Miss Ella Challman, of Melbourne, she decided that she would go to the Papuan Anglican Mission field, as a teacher; and there, in East Papua, she gathered a lifetime of interesting memories, and hundreds of friends.

An early memory centred upon a famous person she met when the ship on which she travelled in 1900 called at Rabaul, in New Guinea, and she was taken to Gunantambu, home of the hospitable Mrs. Kolbe —better known as Mrs. E. E. For sayth, and more widely known still as “Queen Emma”. Thus was formed a friendship which endured until “Queen Emma’s” death in 1912.

About 1905, the young mission teacher—she was stationed at Dogura —met a young accountant, Mr. A.

H. Bunting, employed by Burns Philp and Co., and they married in 1906. Thenceforward, young Bunt ing was heartily supported by his wife in his wish to start trading on his own account. One day, he bought the very small business of an old trader, and went to his boss, the BP manager, who was the well known Jack Carpenter, brother of the better-known Sir Walter, for help in stocking-up. Jack Carpenter gave him credit for £3OO worth of goods —and that was the beginning of the Bunting fortune, and the establish ment of the Bunting family on lovely Samarai island.

Mr. Bunting died in 1939, but Mrs. Bunting stayed on there until the Japanese invaded in 1942. She then wanted to return to her old home, the Anglican Mission at Dogura, to undertake nursing; but her family persuaded the 64-years old lady to go to Sydney. In 1946, despite failing health, she returned to Samarai, and then she went to live for a time in Lae, near daughter Meg and son Bob (who by then had extended the Bunting business to Lae and Goroka).

Few of the “old hands” of P-NG passed through Lae in recent years without making a call on the old

lady who was so closely associate with Samarai in its halcyon days. : Povaru Uriarau The death occurred recently in tH Cooks of Povaru Uriarau', who ha an outstanding record of more tha 40 years service with the Coe Islands Administration. He was 61 Povaru, who was a member of tH leading Ngatitane family, was box in Mangaia, and taken to Rare tonga at the age of two and adopte< He was linked, through his wife, wli died in 1958, with Tepaeru Aril! who played a leading part in the is troduction of Christianity into tH Cooks.

Mr. G. W. Johns The death occurred at Taupo, N 2 on May 24, of Mr. G. W. Johm who was well known in Fiji s manager of the Grand Pacific Hote Suva, from 1949 to 1954.

Mrs. Florence Gilmore The death occurred in Brisbane ii May, of Mrs. Florence Gilmore, on of the best known long-term wome residents of New Guinea. She haf been ill for about six months.

Mrs. Gilmore went to New Guine in 1921 to join her husband, J. ' Gilmore, who was then with th Expro Board, and they lived for som years in the Kokopo area and s Mioko, in the Duke of York Grouj Later, Mr. Gilmore successful!! tendered for the Put Put-Warango Plantation when it was released be the Expro Board.

Mrs. Gilmore was best known however, as hostess in several of thr Territory’s hotels, at various periods At one time she managed the Kokop< Hotel (which is now no more) am the Rabaul Hotel. After the end <r the Pacific War, she went into the hotel business herself and built the Madang Hotel in the running o; which she took an active part riglr up to the, start of her illness las year.

She is survived by her husbaneb Mr. J. J. Gilmore, who now lives it Madang; by her daughter, Mrs. G C. Webb, of Madang; her son John L. Gilmore, a planter of Goroka, NG and by another son, Graham, whe now manages the hotel.

Mr. Norman Izod The death occurred recently of two’ old residents of the Milne Ba] District, of Papua. They were Mr?i

man Izod and Mr. Ernest rison. Both were men of over and both had been residents of ja for many years, r. Izod went to Port Moresby in [ as an engineer. He later led his own engineering business amarai. In the Pacific he served the Americans in charge of re ; of small ships. After the war itarted a sawmill near Samarai. s survived by his widow.

Mr. E. Harrison r. Harrison arrived in Papua be the First War as a layman with Methodist Mission. Later he ed trading and planting. 3 served as a bugler in the Boer was two years in India with the di Forces, and left the Army y to settle in New Zealand. Dur the First World War he joined UF but was later discharged with ria and went back to Papua. In Second World War he saw some ce with ANGAU, in Papua, in I ships, le death of these men sever some le last remaining links with the days of Papua. Their re gions of early days were always jsting and from them it was ising to find just how many of industries now being tried as inal” had been tried earlier.

Mr. J. M. Joyes e accidental death of James ay Joyes in a road accident in nsland on May 30, has shocked s New Guinea friends. Although is early 60’s, “Jimmie” Joyes the energetic sort of person who t have been expected to live to Jvanced age. i was driving one of his three r en back to school at Gympie his station property near /ick, when the car became in d in some mishap that caused overturn with fatal consequences oyes. The boy escaped with a cuts and bruises. . Joyes went to Rabaul in 1921, teller in the Commonwealth 1927 he bought Iwi Plantation, ainville, from the Expro Board ater took over Kekere as well. 37 he married Imgard, daughter . and Mrs. Kroening, of Toboroi, ainville (Dr. Kroening had been :al officer and District Officer in the German era, but was not iated with other German aals after World War I because Kroening was a British subject), ring World War 11, Mr. Joyes

joined the Army and with the rank of Captain was loaned to the US forces as a scout in country he knew so well.

In the difficult post-war period when shipping services in New Guinea were poor, he was one of a group of Bougainville planters who started a private shipping company to shift their own copra. This, the Bougain ville Company, has flourished.

Some years ago he bought a station property near Warwick, Qld., and with his wife and growing family spent most of his time there, visiting his NG properties at intervals. Only in recent months had he disposed of his plantation interests, expecting to devote the rest of his life to his Australian property.

Mr. L. N. Brown The death occurred in Sydney, in May, of Mr. Louis Niven Brown, an ex-resident of Papua and a mem ber of the Papuan Public Service in its early days.

He went to Papua in the early part of this century and joined the Administration service as a Patrol Officer, later becoming an Assistant Resident Magistrate. In this capacity he was instrumental, at one time, in finding Mr. Staniforth Smith and party who had managed to lose themselves in the Purari delta. (Staniforth Smith was an early Commissioner for Lands and Direc tor of Agriculture in Papua; he also compiled the old Handbook of the Territory of Papua, which ran into three editions before World War I.) Mr. Brown served in the 1914-18 war in which he was badly knocked about. He never completely re covered from these war disabilities and it was on this account he became unfit for further tropical service and retired from Papua in the 1920’5.

Group-Captain Garnet Malley

Group-Captain Garnet Malley, MC, AFC, who gave distinguished service in both World Wars, died on May 21, on his island of Nabavatu, Vanua Balavu, Fiji, where he had been living quietly, in poor health, since 1950. He was 65.

Mr. Garnet Malley was born in Sydney, educated in Australia and at Oxford, and served in the Royal Flying Corps in World War I. He then was in the RAAF for a time; but in 1931 he went to China and for several years he was aeronautical adviser to Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek.

When the Pacific War came, he returned to Australia and the RAAF, and soon afterwards his special qualifications (lengthy air service, ad ministration, and knowledge of the Far East) were recognised by Gen eral MacArthur, and he was attached to the personal staff of the US Com mander-in-Chief for the remainder of the Pacific War.

With Mrs. Malley (formerly Phyllis Kathleen Dare, whom he married in 1925) Group-Captain Malley went cruijsing in South Pacific waters after World War 11, and they eventually settled in the Lau Islands. He was very widely known and esteemed.

The late Mr. J. M. Joyes—a Brett Milder profile.