Emma, But. ..

They’Ve Remembered Queen

By a staff writer

BEFORE World War I, Mrs. E. E.

Forsayth of New Guinea (better known as Mrs, Kolbe or “Queen Emma”), and her sister, the late Mrs. Phoebe Parkinson, maintained private burial-grounds {matmats) at their respective plantations, Gunan tambu and Kuradui. The headstones over the old graves in those cemeteries provide some valuable data connected with the early history of New Guinea.

In his recent book, Queen Emma, R. W. Robson reported that both of those matmats were overgrown and forgotten. He said he had to fight his way through kunai and scrub to find the headstones and copy some of the inscriptions still decipherable on the headstones.

The other day Mr. Robson received an interesting letter from Mr. L. E.

Clayphan, a director of Coconut Products Ltd., a Carpenter company of Rabaul. Coconut Products now owns Maulapao Plantation, which

once was “Queen Emma’s” famous property, planted in the 1880’s b> Emma Forsayth and Richard Parkin son, Mr. Clayphan reported: “The area containing the historic graves has been cleared up under the able and enthusiastic supervision of oui manager there, Mr. D. P. Veenhuy zen, and the graves restored to as great an extent as possible. A flight of steps has been cut to the cemetery from the Kokopo Road, and thus is now easily accessible to visitors.”

Is it now possible to give the same treatment to the Parkinson cemetery, which is less than a mile from the Queen Emma matmat, and quite close to the Kokopo Road?

The much-loved Phoebe Parkinson (Queen Emma’s sister) died in New Ireland while a prisoner of the Japanese, and is buried in a remote village there; but Mr. R, H. R.

Parkinson, the pioneer of coconut planting in New Guinea, and in his day a famous scientific writer, is buried in the Kuradui matmat.

When R. W. Robson last saw the: matmat , Parkinson’s headstone was lying in the kunai in three pieces.

It would be a graceful act if the: authorities in New Guinea could: restore the Parkinson monument; and an even better thing if a headstone; in memory of Phoebe Parkinsom could be placed beside it.

The Parkinson family cemetery on New Britain as it was about eight years ago Richard (R. H. R.) Parkinson's monument then lay on the ground in four pieces.