Robby Roberts
pp. 29-141 · Read in the full issue
Bids Goodbye
To The Geic
With his black bristly mous tache, skin cooked a deep brown and a grin on his lips, Robby Roberts left the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in May. Typically, he sailed out of Tarawa aboard the recruiter Ninikoria, rather than by air, so he could revisit his beloved Ellice Islands en route to New Zealand.
It was the 26th year, with two only away in the Solomons, for Robby in the Gilberts, and it’s an understatement to say he was by far the GEIC’s most knowledgeable European.
A great loss
The 52-year-old bachelor will be a great loss in GEIC affairs. Robby was one of the very few Europeans who could speak the Ellice and Gilbertese tongues. Harry Maude of Canberra is perhaps the only man alive who knows the colony’s history better; and Robby, with his ex perience at all levels of the GEIC Government, would have been an in valuable advisor on the impending projects and problems likely to come the “forgotten” colony’s way.
Why the colony should have to lose the crusty and seasoned Islands hand at all, when he’s as fit as ever and has another good 10 years work in him at least, is hard to understand.
Maybe it’s between Robby and the
Continued on p. 129
Robby Roberts
ft maligned Commonwealth Office, i London.
I visited the GEIC for a month in te 1968 and I found no one else i government knew more about the rEIC or was more helpful than obby. I guessed Robby was a vital nk between government and Islands aders on significant issues, though f course Robby would have never jnfided this.
Robby should have written more f what he knows of the GEIC and hope, from chilly, grey Auckland as he describes it) in his retirement, p puts pen to paper on more GEIC istory and current problems.
Prodded by his first boss, Professor arry Maude of Canberra, when he as a cadet in the GEIC in 1945,
Robby has had published, from time to time, pieces on GEIC history in publications such as PIM and the Journal of Pacific History.
Certainly, it’s a safe bet Robby will revisit the GEIC. He’s made no secret that he has tried to lease some land at Funafuti and that he would like another job, somewhere. “I am a firm believer in idleness being the quickest way to suicide,” he told me in a recent letter.
For the record, which Robby never did give two hoots for anyway, Robby first arrived in the GEIC in January, 1944, by flying boat. Seconded from NZ forces, he was attached to the GEIC Labour Corps.
He stayed on as a district cadet for the GEIC Government, moving to district officer and district com missioner by 1955, when for two years he was seconded to the Solo mons, as DC, Central District.
In 1958 Robby returned to the GEIC as DC, Gilberts, and in 1963 he was appointed a senior assistant secretary, a top job he held until his May retirement. In the interim, Robby served in many diverse local jobs—government representative on the two legislative bodies, tourism man, overseas investment advisor, helper for the scouts, co-op man and
acting Resident Commissioner.-