deaths

Sir John Gunther Sir John Gunther has died in Melbourne at the age of 73 and a remarkable man has left the scene.

The bare facts of his life are sufficient to indicate his achievements. John Thomson Gunther was born on October 2, 1910, at Sydney, NSW, and was educated at the King’s School, Parramatta, and at the University of Sydney, graduat ing in medicine and joining Lever Brothers’ Pacific Planta tions Ltd., in the British Solo mon Islands Protectorate in 1935. He was chairman of the medical board investigating lead-poisoning at Mt Isa in Queensland from 1938 to 1940 and, in 1941, joined the R.A.A.F. as a medical officer.

He did valuable work in ma lariology in 1943 and was com manding officer of the Ist Aus tralian Tropical Research Field Unit in 1944-45.

In 1949 he was appointed Director of Public Health in the Papua New Guinea Administra tion, and for the rest of his life he was closely involved in the affairs of PNG. He ran P.H.D. until 1957, with fierce effective ness. He saw malaria as his principal enemy, and he fought hard ... he was always a fighter ... for the manpower and funds he had to have if the malaria scourge was to be beaten.

When Sir Paul Hasluck be came Minister for Territories in 1951 he was exceedingly criti cal of the overall quality of the PNG Public Service as he found it, and as he makes very clear in his 1976 book, A Time for Building. He says this of John Gunther; ”he was easily the strongest single driving force in the Administration ... here I had someone who needed no pushing ... Gunther had not yet received any major policy decisions on health and he had been given scant funds, but he had gone ahead without waiting for either...” That was typical of John Gunther.

So effective a director was he that nobody in PNG was in the least surprised when in 1957 he

was appointed to the vital posi tion of Assistant Administrator.

He now had a wider field for his talents. He was a powerful force in the Legislative Council and later in the House of Assembly, and he was one of the first in high places to realise that the pace of constitutional change in PNG was about to accelerate.

Although an obvious repre sentative of entrenched authority, he was still able to forge close links with emerging national figures like John Guise, Gala Oala-Rarua and Matthias Toliman. He was chairman of the 1962 Select Committee on Constitutional Development set up by the Legislative Council to go to the people and seek their views, and which recom mended changes that heralded the beginning of the end of the colonial era in PNG.

The third phase of John Gunther’s official life in PNG began in 1963 with his appoint ment as a member of the Commission on Higher Educa tion in Papua and New Guinea, chaired by Sir George Currie.

The Commission recom mended the immediate estab lishment of a University at Port Moresby. There was tremendous controversy, but the decision to establish the university was taken and, in 1966, Gunther accepted the appointment of Vice-Chancel lor. He virtually created the university as it is today.

There was much speculation in PNG at the time about the real reason for Gunther’s retire ment from the powerful posi tion of Assistant Administrator to that of university vice-chan cellor. Most observers thought that he would naturally succeed Sir Donald Cleland upon his retirement as Administrator, due in 1966. I saw much of John Gunther during his final years of retirement at Buderim, and he told me that he had every reason to believe that had Hasluck remained Minister for Territories he would have been offered the appointment, but in December, 1963, Hasluck left Territories.

I believe that Gunther, al

ways a realist, came to the conclusion that the top Public Service job in PNG would not from then on come his way.

The vice-chancellorship offered him the chance of a new career, in a field in which he pas sionately believed.

History shows that he was just as effective in his new role as he had been in the old. The University of Papua New Guinea owes him a massive debt.

In 1972 Gunther retired. He had been in ill-health for years and had never spared himself physically throughout his time in PNG. Along the way his work had been acknowledged by the award of the OBE and CMG, and in 1973, he was knighted.

He shared his retirement with his beloved wife, Dot, who survives him. A son carries on the Gunther name and there are three daughters.

Few men had a greater influ ence on the affairs of Papua New Guinea than John Gunth er. His interest in the country never flagged, and he was greatly disturbed by the reappearance of malaria on a serious scale after independ ence. The disease, in Gunther’s view, the greatest single scourge of the PNG people, was well on the way to contain ment during the Australian era, but many of the control mea sures were unpopular and after independence were relaxed.

Many times Gunther was urged to write about his years in PNG, for his testimony would have been invaluable to the historians of the future, but strangely enough for a man of his quality and intellect he did not find writing easy, and his health was too fragile.

No-one who knew him is ever likely to forget him.

James Sinclair.

Vivian George Plant Vivian George Plant In Sydney, on March 9, aged 68, following heart surgery. George Plant first settled on Norfolk Island in 1956 with his wife Enid. He managed the Hopkins Store and then joined the whaling station until it closed in 1960.

He was an active member of the Norfolk Island community, serving on the committee of the R.S.L. sub-branch as well as being its welfare officer.

Jane Hammond Usher In San Francisco on February 28, aged 68. Mrs Usher col lapsed and died in her hotel room during a stopover on a business trip. She was the wife of L.G.Usher, of Suva, Fiji, who is among the most prominent figures in Fiji politics and so ciety, and a former executive director and editor of the Fiji Times and Herald Ltd.

Mrs Usher was on her way home from one of her regular buying expeditions to Italy and the United States. She operated the Suva boutique, Crossroads, which specialised in high-qua lity china and crystal.

Born in Oakland, California, Mrs Usher graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree at San Jose State College and qual ified as a certified teacher, working in a number of schools before going to Fiji in 1961.

Adi Lefulefu Talo In San Francisco, reportedly aged 122. Adi Lefulefu Talo was the great grand-daughter of Ratu Seru Cabobau, her father being Ratu Etuate Wainiu, grandson of Ratu Seru. She married an American naval officer at the age of 15 and spent most of her life in Amer ican Samoa. She leaves a fam ily of 112, including many great grand children.

Mrs H. Simmonds In Auckland, on March 26, aged 86. Mrs Simmonds was the wife of Hubert Simmonds who was the government en tomologist in Suva, Fiji, be tween 1919 and 1936, when he retired. They were married in 1924, and lived in Suva until around 1938, returning to Aus tralia. Hubert Simmonds died in 1966 after which Mrs Sim monds moved to Auckland, New Zealand. She died after a period of failing health, leaving two children, seven grandchil dren and four great grand chil dren.