valuable guide to

People And Their Books

Metcalfe's papers, a valuable guide to life in Solomons

The largest collection of

papers kept by a single indivi

dual yet to come into the hands of the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau for microfilming is a record of the lifetime-work of a noted Methodist missionary in the Solomon Islands, the Rev.

John R. Metcalfe, who died in Melbourne on January 1.

His papers, which include day-by day diaries for the period from 1911 to 1969, synod reports, unpublished articles, press-clippings, copies of radio broadcasts, newsletters and correspondence, were made available to the bureau by Mr. Metcalfe’s widow, Mrs. Joy Metcalfe, of Frank ston, Victoria.

Mr. Metcalfe was born in York shire in 1889, and served as a home missionary in Great Britain before moving to Victoria in 1914, He be came a candidate for the Methodist ministry in 1916, and after being ordained was appointed to the Solomon Islands in 1920.

Following a brief period at Roviana, he was appointed to Choiseul as assistant to the Rev. V.

LeC. Binet. Apart from four years at Teop, Mr. Metcalfe served on Choiseul until 1951, when he was appointed chairman of the Methodist Mission in the Solomons. He retired in 1957 after 38 years’ service, but continued to take an active interest in the work at the mission.

Mr. Metcalfe’s first task on Choiseul was to help bring peace between the Vunulata and Sengga people, who were hereditary enemies.

In 1921, he conducted the first thanksgiving service at Choiseul and guided a ceremony of reconciliation.

During the Japanese invasion of the Solomons in 1942-43 Mr.

Metcalfe assisted Coastwatchers in his area. He was awarded the OBE in 1958 for “valuable contributions to

the social and educational advance ment of the Solomon Islands”.

The Metcalfe papers will constitute an invaluable mine of material for scholars interested in the modern history of the Solomon Islands.

THE field notes and early writings of the late Sir Arthur Grimble are shortly to be published in a new book, Migrations, Myth and Magic from the Gilbert Islands.

It’s being produced by Sir Arthur’s daughter, Rosemary Grimble, who includes memories of her own child hood and illustrates the book. In her selection of material she has been helped by H. E. Maude and David Lewis, of the Department of Pacific History at the Australian National University.

The book will include references to recent work on the origins of Pacific Island races many of which support Sir Arthur’s own beliefs.

There are also chapters on can nibalism and head hunting, on astronomy and on the lives of people from birth to death.

Rosemary Grimble has reproduced the myths in the language in which

they were first written down by her father, from oral interviews with Island storytellers, more than 40 years ago, DR. W. G. COPPELL, formerly of the Cook Islands, is shortly to produce a Bibliography of the Cook Islands. It will be published by the Australian National University Press.

The bibliography contains some thing like 7,000 to 8,000 references to the Cooks, including references in articles. For instance, everything PIM has ever reported on the Cooks is listed in the bibliography.

Dr. Coppell received his Ph.D. last year for a thesis he wrote on the development of education in the Cook Islands. He was Deputy Director of Education there from 1962-67, and for two years previous to that he was in Fiji as vice principal, Nasinu Training College. He now lives in Sydney and is Lecturer in Education at Macquarie University.

Dr. Coppell is also working on a bibliography of Niue and the Tokelaus, and is revising Camilla Wedgwood’s Education in the Pacific Islands, a selected bibliography. This was first published in 1956.