Deaths Of Islands People

Mrs. M. V. Head Everyone on Niue mourned the death recently of Mrs. Malamatagoloa Viola Head, MBE, a member of a large and well-known family on the island and a tireless worker in the Education Department and for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. She was 81, Mrs. Head’s grandfather was one of the early pastors on Niue. After education in Samoa and Sydney, Mrs. Head returned to Niue in 1915 as the island’s first SDA missionary, and in the same year she joined the Education Department. She married George Allen Head in 1919 and they adopted several children.

Mrs. Head went to NZ in 1953 as one of Niue’s representatives to meet the Queen. Her many years of service to Niue were recognised in 1958 with the award of the MBE.

Bishop Kempthorne

The death occurred in Suva on July 25 of the former Bishop in Polynesia, Rt. Rev. L. S. Kemp thorne. See p. 19 for details.

Father A. Gerstner The Roman Catholic parish priest at Wewak Cathedral, Father A.

Gerstner, died suddenly in Germany recently.

Father Gerstner, who was 66, went to P-NG as a missionary in 1928, and opened mission stations at But, Vanimo and Ulupu in the Sepik dis trict.

Brother Paul Studier Brother Paul Studier, a well-known Roman Catholic missionary who went to Papua-New Guinea 54 years ago, died at the Nazareth Mission, near Port Moresby, in July.

He was born in France in 1887.

He was one of the pioneer mission aries of the Enongi Mission where he worked for about 15 years. Later, he worked at Kubuna, inland from Yule Island.

In 1955, Brother Paul was one of the pioneer missionaries of the Nazareth Mission and assisted with the building of mission residences.

Mr. Herbert Gordon Carter The death occurred in Sydney in July of Mr. Herbert Gordon Carter, who played a prominent part in the development of electricity supplies in New Guinea.

After being chief electrical en gineer to the New South Wales Government when the Burrinjuck

hydro-electric scheme was designed and built, Mr. Carter joined Donohue and Carter, a firm of consulting en gineers to Bulolo Gold Dredging Ltd., which designed and built the first hydro-electric scheme on the Bulolo River in New Guinea.

Later, he was instrumental in float ing a company which became known as Rabaul Electricity Ltd. and which obtained the franchise to supply power to Rabaul in the early thirties.

For some years until his death, Mr. Carter was a member of the board of New Guinea Goldfields Ltd.

Mr. E. A. G. Seagoe Mr. Ernest Arthur Goldfinch Seagoe, MBE, a well known person ality in the New Hebrides for 42 years, died in Sydney on June 9 at the age of 77. Mr. Seagoe went to the New Hebrides in 1906, the year the Anglo-French Condominium was established, and left there in 1948.

He was originally secretary to Com mander Rason, of HMS Royalist, who represented the British Govern ment on the Joint Naval Commission in the New Hebrides. In 1908, he became the first British Agent in the Group, and later he was Com mandant of the British Police. Mr.

Seagoe’s son Geoffrey still lives in the New Hebrides.

Mr. Justice Mac Duff The Chief Justice of Fiji, Mr.

Justice Mac Duff, died suddenly at his home at Suva on July 11. Since the middle of June he had been presiding at the half-yearly session of the Fiji Court of Appeal.

A New Zealander by birth, Mr.

Justice Mac Duff served in Fiji in a number of capacities. At the end of 1944 he became Assistant Legal Adviser to the Western Pacific High Commission.

A month later he took on the addi tional post of temporary Solicitor- General for Fiji.

From 1946 to 1948 he was a Dis trict Magistrate in Fiji, and he was then Chief Magistrate till 1953, when he was transferred to Kenya as a puisne judge.

He returned to Fiji in June, 1962, to succeed Sir George Lowe as Chief Justice.

In World War IT he served with the 2nd NZEF in the Middle East, and won the Military Cross during the 1942 fighting in the Western Desert.

Mr. Justice Mac Duff. who was born in December, 1905, is survived

by his widow, two sons and one daughter. Picture, p. 19.

Mr. H. Bielby Evans Mr. H. Bielby Evans, a well-known personality in New Guinea in pre war days, died at Lindfield, NSW, on July 19, aged 75.

Mr. Evans went to Rabaul in 1921 as chief accountant for the then newly-formed Expropriation Board.

He later became a public accountant in Rabaul, and then took up trading and planting interests at Buka Pass age, Bougainville. In 1934 he re turned to Rabaul, where he lived until he settled in Sydney in 1940.

Mr. Evans is survived by his widow, Mrs. R. C Evans; three sons, Messrs. Hal, George and Keith Evans; and a daughter, Mrs. W. J. (Gwen) Allman.

Mr. Ernest H. B. Britten One of New Guinea’s most highly esteemed “old-timers”, Mr. Ernest H, B. Britten, died at his home in Pymble, Sydney, on July 29, after a lengthy illness, aged 66.

“Ernie” Britten was one of the only two survivors—the other was Jack Thurston—of the Nakanai massacre, of 35 years ago. He weni to New Guinea in 1926, seeking his fortune on the goldfields; and he was with a party of prospectors which hac gone into the interior of New Britain Their camp was attacked in the nigh by Nakanai natives, and Britten anc Thurston escaped by diving into the jungle—all the others were murdered Mr. Britten joined the Administra tion as Overseer of Native Labour and long was known as “Mast Darby”—the name always given thei to the official who occupied the pos first filled by Mr. Darby. When th< war came, Mr. Britten joine.

ANGAU; and in 1946 he went bad to Rabaul as ADO. He served witl distinction in Rabaul, Wau and Lae during the next 10 years, as ADC and magistrate, and as an adviser ii the Native Affairs Department; an* he retired about 1955. He is survive; by his wife, Florence, and hi daughter, Jeanette.

Mr. Maurice Janisel New Caledonia lost a mud respected citizen and pioneer agricu turist in July with the death of M; Maurice Janisel at the age of 86. M: Janisel arrived in New Caledonia i 1901 and became a rice-grower i Pouebo on the then inaccessibl north-east coast. He harnessed nearby waterfall for hydro-electri power in 1915 (a decade befoi Noumea got electricity), and bui two canals from his property to tl sea to ship his rice.