Deaths of Islands People

Mr. H. W. Champion, CBE The death, at the fine old age of 92, of Mr. Herbert William Cham pion, CBE, one of Papua’s best respected former public servants, oc curred in Sydney on May 12.

He was born in the South Island, NZ, in 1880 and was only 18 when he first went to Port Moresby to join the then infant firm of Burns Philp and Co. Although the Lieut.- Governors of the day soon had their eye on him, it was not until 1902, under Le Hunte, that he joined the service as Government Storekeeper.

Later he became Treasurer and a member of Executive Council, a position he held continuously for 40 years.

In 1913 he was appointed Govern ment Secretary by then Lieut.- Governor Hubert Murray, and thus began the great Murray-Champion partnership that endured until Sir Hubert’s death in 1940. Two years later the Japanese invaded Papua New Guinea, civil administration ceased and Mr. Champion retired to Sydney.

As Government Secretary he was head of Papua’s “outside service”— the Magistracy and Police. He was also interested in the struggling town of Port Moresby. In those days, before a public water supply was available, it was a dry and barren place for nine months of the year.

Mr. Champion planted trees where he could—including the casuarinas along Ela Beach—and after office hours personally saw that they were watered until they were established.

He also named many of the new streets beyond Cuthbertson’s original town plan.

Today Mr. Champion himself is remembered in Champion Parade which runs from Cuthbertson’s boundary of the town to Hanuabada.

Mr. Champion married in Port Moresby a young widow, Mrs. H. N.

Chester, and they had three sons, Ivan, Alan and Claude, who also became Murray men and subsequent to World War II achieved high office in the Administration of PNG.

On Mr. Champion’s retirement in 1943 the then Administrator, Mr.

Leonard Murray, paid warm tribute “to Sir Hubert Murray’s friend and confidante”, referring to his “natural dignity, kindliness and modesty” and the “machine-like impartiality with which he used his powers, always ready to accept responsibility, with

his instructions always crystal clear, with never a trace of any selfprotective ambiguity”.

H. W. Champion is survived by his second wife, Haidee, his three sons, and daughters Jan and Margaret.

Mr. Rudolph Berking

A legendary figure in Samoan history, Mr. Rudolf Peter Berking, died recently at the Apia General Hospital. With his death one of the last remaining links with the German pioneering days in Western Samoa was severed.

It is a pity that such a notable figure has passed away without leaving his memoirs. He is known to Samoan history as the man who turned away a group of Indian immigrants, against orders from top German authorities. What exactly were Mr. Berking’s reasons, as Collector of Customs, for turning away the immigrants are not quite clear, but it is practically certain that a thriving Indian colony would now exist in Western Samoa if the immigrants had been allowed to land during the German era, 1900 to 1914.

In those days Western Samoa’s plantations depended for labour on Chinese coolies and Solomon Islanders, many of whose descendants remam there to this day.

Born in Hanover, West Germany,

on April 1, 1880, Mr. Berking left for the Hawaiian sugar plantations in 1897 where he worked until 1900, when he decided to join the German Navy. That same year, he went to Western Samoa to catch a German man-o-war, but for some reason or other, the warship did not turn up and Mr. Berking was forced to re main there.

In 1905, he was appointed Col lector of Customs, a position he retained until New Zealand forces invaded and seized the undefended German possession in 1914. From 1916 to 1920 and from 1940 to 1946, he was interned by the New Zealand authorities. In the more halcyon days, he was a planter at Letogo and Utumapu in Western Samoa.

Mr. Berking is survived by three sons, Peter, Ron and Heinrich George, daughter Elizabeth Helene and widow Helen Telesia. He is buried alongside his second wife at the Magiagi cemetery.

A German away from home, Mr.

Berking will always be remembered by Samoans as one of the fathers of the Samoan nation.

Mr. H. Me. Roemmele Mr. Hugh McCrea Roemmele, CBE, who retired last October as Establishment Secretary in the GEIC, has died at his home in Ballynahery, Co. Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

He was 56. 111-health forced his retirement after 33 years in the Colonial service.

Educated at Haileybury and Brazen ose College, Oxford, Mr. Roemmele

started his Colonial service on the Gold Coast in 1938 and during World War II served as a lieutenant in the Gold Coast Regiment of the Royal West African Frontier Force.

He became a district commissioner in 1945 and left the Gold Coast in 1956 when independence came, serv ing in Northern Nigeria, Bechuana land and Swaziland before returning to London where he worked in the Commonwealth Secretariat for a few months, after which in 1970, he was appointed to GEIC’s newly-created post of Establishment Officer. He was made a CBE in 1968 while civil service chief in Swaziland.

He leaves a widow and three children.

Mr. Makain Mo Mr. Makain Mo, who was a mem ber in the first PNG House of Assembly from 1964 to 1968 has died at the age of 46. Mr. Mo was a traditional leader of the Lumi people in the West Sepik District, and was a successful businessman, owning a trade store, truck and a cattle farm. He was also a former president of the Wapei-Lumi I nral Government Council.

Mr. John Tin Fook Wan A respected member of the PNG Chinese community, Mr. John Tin Fook Wan died in Sydney on April 5 at the age of 42. He was suffering from leukemia. He was born in Rabaul, attended Thornburgh College, Charters Towers, and opened his own business, a general store, in Wau in 1957. Later he moved to Lae, and it was there that he was buried.

He is survived by his wife, Sally, and five children.

Nei Mereta Auatabu The first Gilbertese woman to qualify as a nurse, Nei Mereta Auatabu has died at the GEIC’s Central Hospital at Bikenibeu at the age of 61.

Born on Onotoa, she served as a nurse at Abaikoro in North Tarawa before going to the Central Hospital.

She retired in April, 1968 after nearly 23 years service. lan H. Grabowsky The death has occurred at his home in Victoria of lan Grabowsky, known affectionately as “Grab”, who was one of the pioneers of New Guinea aviation. He was 72. For the last 20 years of his life he was in pain; his right leg was amputated in 1934, and years later his left leg.

Failing health drove “Grab” from New Guinea, and in Australia he became planning and development manager for the old Australian

National Airways. He leaves a wife, Helen. A longer tribute to “Grab’s” outstanding aviation career will ap pear in PIM July.

Ratu Niko Komaitai An expert on Fijian ceremonial and customs, Ratu Niko Komaitai has died in Fiji at the age of 67 years after a long illness.

The son of Ratu Aisai Komaitai, of Bau, he served in the Fijian adminis tration for many years, retiring in 1966 when he was Roko Tui Ba (native officer at Ba). He was a Fijian magistrate for 10 years and

served another 10 years as a roko in different provinces.

After his retirement in 1966, the Fijian administration decided to utilise his knowledge of Fijian ceremonial to protect ceremonial standards. The Secretary for Fijian Affairs gave him the job of ceremonies supervisor with the task of arresting the decline in the standards of dress and perform ance among Fijian entertainment groups performing in the Suva and Nadi hotels and tourist resorts.

He also served as matanivanua (herald) to the Governor.