Deaths Of Islands People

Sir Edward Hallstrom The death of Sir Edward Hallstrom in Sydney, on February 27, closes a chapter on early post-war develop ment in New Guinea.

Soon after the Pacific war, Sir Edward (he was knighted in 1952) set up a sheep-breeding property at Nondugl in the Western Highlands.

About 1,000 Romney Marsh sheep were imported from Australia by air.

The experiment, from the first, met difficulties and in 1950 the establishment was handed over to the Administration, with an endow ment, as the Hallstrom Livestock and Fauna Trust.

Nondugl did no better under Ad ministration control, except that it proved that, in large herds, sheep were not for New Guinea Highlands and eventually the Trust was abandoned. In 1969 Nondugl was turned into a native resettlement area and smallholders are planting tea.

Sir Edward maintained his interest in New Guinea, particularly in its bird and animal life and was in strumental in having specimens ex hibited in overseas zoos, especially in Australia and the United States.

In Australia he was best known

as a philanthropist (he gave millions, in his lifetime, to worthy causes including that of cancer re search), the long-time director of Taronga Park Zoological Trust in Sydney, and as a manufacturer of refrigerators.

His first “Silent Knight” refrig erators, which worked off any heat source—kerosene, gas or electricity —were used in thousands in New Guinea during the war and remained there as relics after it, almost most as übiquitous as the jeep.

The Silent Knight was the direct descendant of an even wilder con traption remembered now only by New Guinea pioneers, which was called an “Icy-Ball”—a sphere of copper containing a chemical which produced ice at the point of chemical-change when heated on a primus stove.

Sir Edward was born m Coonamble, NSW, in September, 1886 and was a self-made man in the best sense. He had only a state school education but made a place for himself in academic as well as commercial circles. He is survived by h : s second wife, one son and three daughters.

Mr. John Stannage Mr. John Stannage, an old-time member of “Smithy’s” famous air crew, died in New Zealand at the age of 65 on March 16. He will probably be better remembered in Fiji as manager of the Fiji Broad casting Commission from 1957 until his retirement.

Mr. Stannage was originally a maritime radio operator, and in 1929 survived the shipwreck of the Manuka at Nuggetts, south of Dunedin. He then joined Sir Charles Kingsford Smith’s air crew after being radic operator aboard the aircraft Can berra, which found Smithy and three companions who had been forcec down in the north-western Australiar desert.

In 1930 Mr. Stannage was radic operator with Smithy when he mad< the first successful North Atlantu crossing from London to New York In all, he made five Tasman flight in the Southern Cross. His las notable flight was in 1935 when h was on board a jubilee mail fligh across the Tasman when the aircraff starboard propeller splintered. P. G (later Sir Gordon) Taylor climbe out beneath the wing to transfer o from the damaged engine to the oyei heated engine under the other wmj