Magazine Section

Pacific Islands Monthly

When Gentlemen Wanted To Colonise New Guinea

From Judy Tudor, in London The fact that a move made in London in the 1870’s to colonise the shores of far-off New iiinea with English “gentlemen” didn’t eventuate wasn’t because of any lack of determination the sponsors.

The colonisation move, in fact, caused quite a stir in the London of the day, and at one point leading missionaries petitioned the Colonial Secretary to prevent the gentlemen from being led to the land of milk and honey by one gentleman in particular — Lieut. R. H. Armit, RN (retired).

UT. ARMIT has another claim > fame. He is the probable r of Wanderings in the In of New Guinea, a tale of iry and imagination, whose rship has been disputed since 5 first published in London by nan and Hall in 1875. ; cover of that book gives the - as “Captain J. A. Lawson”, yhen I came to England four ago I was determined to ish once and for all who Captain m was. v, having been hot on a trail :ars’ cold, I’m of the opinion nlikely—failing something turn ) from a private source —that it jver be proved who did the erings job, although circum il evidence is something else is while I have been on this that I have uncovered some sting facts about Lieut. Armit’s Guinea Colonising Association a little known facet of New a history. those who haven’t read May, and July PIMs, Wanderings in terior of New Guinea purported an account of an expedition i from near present-day Daru 3ua. it, J. A. Lawson, alleged that md 32,000 ft mountains, Papuan called moolahs and other nens of flora and fauna which never been equalled. A few “ in London believed what he Others regarded it as a cal joke. o Lawson really was, and ier he had written the book for e or for gain, has remained a 'ing newspaper and magazine ry ever since, first in England, nore recently in Australia.

At the Australian end, there has been a belief that Lawson was, in fact, W. E. Armit, an ex-policeman from Cooktown, Qld., who in 1883 led an expedition into the Astrolabe Ranges of Papua for the Argus news paper of Melbourne. This idea was based entirely on the fact that two people have gone on record that they were told so by a son of W. E.

Armit.

I have always found this hard to believe (a), because it seemed un likely that Policeman Armit, who led a real expedition to Papua in 1883, would have written about an imaginary expedition 10 years pre viously; (b) because it didn’t fit in with the little I knew of W. E.

Armit and his family, who established themselves in Port Moresby after the 1883 expedition; (c) because when the book was published in London and reviewed, the author was right at hand there to answer his critics, and was not being a policeman in far-off Cooktown, Qld.; (d) because in some of the English witch-hunts for the culprit, a Lieut. Robert Armit was said to be the author and that it was the result of a £lOO wager made in his club; and (e) because in an old publication which PIM re cently brought to light, it was stated that around 1875, a New Guinea Colonisation Association was formed in London and that its chief architect was a Lieut. R. H. Armit, RN, who had been “surveying on the coasts”.

As soon as I heard that there was a Lieut. R. H. Armit who was in London at the time Wanderings was published, and who had the necessary background for the job, my money was on the Royal Navy. The point was, of course, that we knew less of Lieut. Robert than we did of Police

man W. E. That was to be my task in London—to try to get some

thing of Robert’s background.

The publishing firm of Chapman and Hall is still in existence at an address near Fleet St., but the last Chapman and last Hall bowed out many years ago and the company is now just one of the Methuen Group.

The Fred Chapman, who in May PIM, is recorded as being a personal friend of “Lawson”, died in 1890, The present executive of the com pany had never heard of Wanderings, or of the mystery that had surrounded Capt. Lawson all these years. Their records didn’t go back to 1875 and they hadn’t a copy of the book they had published 86 years ago.

The Lords of the Admiralty That was the end of the road as far as the publishers were concerned.

My next line of attack was the Admiralty.

It’s easier to get into heaven than get an audience with the Lords of the Admiralty or even one of their minor minions, but after two attempts I got as far as the Press Relations department. This branch may be equipped to dispense news of the latest atomic submarine but not to deal with a case like mine. The period I was interested in was, they said, almost 100 years ago—really!

It was in actual fact 86 years ago, and Navy records must go back further than that, but I was finally persuaded to leave and put it down in a letter to the Secretary to the Admiralty.

I did, and their reply was that there had been a Lieutenant Robert H. Armit who served in the Royal Navy between September, 1866 and

March, 1871, at which latter date he was placed on the retired list, from which he was finally removed at his own request in 1883.

While he was on active duty he had served in HMS Challenger and HMS Virago, both of which were “engaged on survey duties on the Australian Station”.

The existence of Lieutenant Armit and his presence in Australia at the right period and in a position to hear about and become interested in the big island of New Guinea, was thus established.

Captain Lawson is known to have written two books, the second in 1880 called The Wandering Naturalist —a Story of Adventure. The British Museum library has both of them listed in its general index; but it took two visits to the library to find that their rare copy of The Wandering Naturalist had been lost during the Blitz.

During my first visit to the Museum, however, it had occurred to me that if Capt. Lawson were Lieut.

Armit, Lieut. Armit might also have written under his own name—and here I struck pay-dirt.

The Museum library has three of his works: The Wind and His Circuits —the Origin and Cause of Circular Storms, etc., published in 1870; Light as a Motive Power —a series of meteorological essays, published in 1875; and the History of New Guinea and the Origin of the Human Race, published in 1876.

The NG Colonising Association The last-named turned out to be, in fact, part of a prospectus issued in 1876 with the idea of getting the Colonising Association Ltd. (New Guinea) off the ground.

The immediate objective of the association was to organise and equip a trading expedition to NG (meaning present day Papua), to set up settle ments there if feasible (making them “model in every respect”), in anticipa tion of NG’s eventual annexation as a British Colony.

The expedition was to consist, in the first instance, of about 50 men under the “guidance of from 10 to 12 gentlemen” and was to be despatched in one or two suitable vessels provisioned for two years.

The expedition would be under the command of Lieut. R. H. Armit, “. . . a gentleman whose personal qualities, attainments and experiences render him eminently fitted for the position”. The expedition was to be “furnished with every requisite” for conducting every kind of scientific survey as well as for trading.

No land was to be occupied unless

through friendly arrangements with the natives to whom the blessings of Christianity and civilisation were to be brought; and missionaries of all denominations were to be allowed to practise in the settlements, so long as they didn’t interfere with secular affairs.

The expedition was to be financed —and here came the rub I imagine— by the sale of 700 debentures at a nominal value of £5O, but issued at £25 (or at a discount of 50 per cent.) and carrying interest of 5 per cent.

In addition, Gentlemen wishing to join the association with a view to taking part in the expedition would be asked to contribute 250 guineas; and Gentlemen or Noblemen who desired to assist the objects of the association could become patrons, presidents or vice-presidents and these should communicate with the sec retary.

There were two London directors; and about a dozen from “abroad” of whom Lieut. R. H. Armit “late Admiralty Asst. Surveyor, formerly employed on the Australasian hydro graphic surveys”, headed the list. (An R. S. Armit, an engineer, was also a director).

All this information took up a few pages fore and aft of the real meat of the 37 page booklet—Lieut.

Armit’s own theories on New Guinea generally, the origin of race, and a letter-by-letter account of his fight with the London Missionary Society which bitterly opposed his colonisa tion scheme.

At the beginning of this booklet, Armit outlined the discovery and exploration of New Guinea up to the survey made by Captain John Moresby, in Basilisk, in 1873—and it probably was the fact that Moresby had recently published the report of this voyage, plus what Armit had himself learned of NG in Australia that was the inspiration behind this attempt to form a colonisation as sociation.

The Antarctic Garden of Eden So far as the discovery of New Guinea was concerned, Armit was accurate enough.

It was when he attempted to explain the origin of the races—and how black New Guinea man got there— that he employs the same imaginative talents as did Capt. Lawson. Armit was evidently a Fundamentalist —that is, he believed in the literal interpreta tion of the Bible—and he went to great lengths to fit the story of the Garden of Eden into a very badly assimilated idea of the recurrent ice ages and intervening “hot” periods that the Earth has undergone. (Over)

arting,” said Armit, “with the thesis that the account in the Bible is a correct account of ion as far as the Caucasian, istoric race, is concerned . . . nd that in the Northern Hemis one white man and one white in were created, but no mention ide of a black man or a black m. . . ;nce had recently proved, he on, that the North Pole had at stage been semi-tropical and that st of the world had been frozen It was reasonable to suppose, ore, that the warm North Pole irst called life into existence, lat this was, so far as the white 'as concerned, where the Garden ;n was located. a similar line of reasoning, he it, it was reasonable to suppose ic South Pole—being completely jd in order from the North -would be the cradle of the races—in fact, their Garden of He went on to enlarge on nique theory to show how the ces could have met and mingled 1 the equator about the time he e interested in New Guinea, was able to assure prospective >rs that the part of New Guinea his association intended to was “salubrious” (although early missionaries had already riven out by fever); and stated ley expected to find gold, tin, , iron, sulphur, seed and pearl beche de mer, Indian teak, wood, cotton, nutmegs, cinna ago, coconuts and breadfruit— which would have a ready ; in Australia and Asia he t. he fauna he reports; “Captain )y saw only wallaby in a wild and pigs and dogs in a tame He noticed, however, the spoor tne large animal which he es to be rhinoceros”, ven’t read Capt. Moresby’s ac of his voyage, but he didn’t a be the sort of man to suppose ig of the sort; but Lieut. Armit n: “The Basle missionaries re 'ild hogs and leopards in the coast. The Dutch mention bones having been brought to it Triton Bay. Mr. M’Farlane 5 missionary stationed on Cape Peninsula who made several ons to the Gulf of Papua], having seen the spoor of in the mud along the river • . His party also saw, without 1 of magnifying glasses, a bird ! be capable of carrying away ton of dugong in its claws”.

(Continued next page)

If Mr. M’Farlane really said this, it appears that, as a liar, he was in the same class as Captain Lawson, whom Armit also quotes in his description of the fauna of early Papua: “Lawson reports having shot a tiger or leopard which he calls a moolah. He also shot buffalo, deer, monkeys. . . .

Truly, New Guinea is a wonderful land if all these accounts be true”.

The proposals of the Colonisation Association soon had the LMS up in arms. They were led by two doughty fighters in William Wyatt Gill and A.

W. Murray whom Armit accused, with some truth probably, of wanting to keep the islands the sole preserve of missionaries.

They were joined by the Anti- Slavery Society and other do-gooders and from late 1875 well into 1876 there seemed to be a continual ex change between these gentlemen and Lieut. Armit in two publications— the Anglo-Australasian and the Hour.

At one stage, the LMS organised a delegation to the Colonial Sec retary of the day, and petitioned Lord Carnavon to prevent Armit leading a party to Papua.

Nothing came of this attempt to form a colonising company, but I don’t know why.

I have searched through the files of the Times for the years 1875, 1876 and 1877 and there is no men tion that I can find of Lieut. Armit or why this first organised attempt to settle New Guinea was abandoned.

This theorising, while proving noth ing, leaves us at least with the con viction that there were certain re markable resemblances between Captain Lawson and Lieutenant Armit and that their writing styles were almost indistinguishable. It has never been certain whether Lawson’s Wanderings was published as a joke or as an attempt to cash in on the interest there then was in strange lands.

Lieut. Armit’s prospectus for the Colonising Association Ltd. (New Guinea), was written with the inten tion of interesting investors.

He knew, even if his potential customers did not, that most of it was based on hearsay, wishful-thinking and theorising. In the light of present day knowledge of Papua, Lieut.

Armit’s account of that country was only slightly less ridiculous than that of Lawson.

Whether Armit and Lawson were one man or two, looking back on it after 86 years, their conduct seems odd for Officers and—as they would have described themselves —Gentlemen.