Chapter 3 Andrew Goldie's memoir: 1875-1879

Memoirs of the Queensland Museum: Cultural Heritage Series

Volumn 6, Issue , 2012, Pages 39-127

  Moore, Clive ^a   Mullins, Steve ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND   (Australia)

^b CENTRAL QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

Colonisation; Ethnology; Goldie; Imperialism; Natural history; New Guinea

Indexed keywords

EID: 84876865494     PISSN: 14404788     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (52)

1. Lieutenant JJ. F. Bell commanded the 120-ton HM Schooner Sandfly, one of five schooners built in Sydney in 1872-1873 (The Blackbirding Flotilla') to enforce the British Pacific Islanders Protection Act of 1872, 35 & 36 Vict. c. 19 (The Kidnapping Act of 1872). The Act was framed to prevent deception in the recruitment of Pacific Islander indentured labour for the sugar cane plantations of Queensland and Fiji. HMS Sandfly was sold out of service in 1882. If Goldie's memory is correct, his decision to make for New Guinea was indeed a hasty one. Bell arrived in Melbourne from Plymouth to take command of Sandfly on 1 January 1876. By the end of January, Goldie was on his way to New Guinea (Lind, 1988:113-114).
2. 2. Situated between 130° E and 150.5° E longitude along with adjacent islands, New Guinea has a mountainous backbone, shallow, sheltered embayments, the largest of which is the Gulf of Papua, fed with sediment from large rivers, and coral reefs abound around the coast. While tropical, the climate varies enormously from the high mountain valleys to the equatorial coast. New Guinea's vertebrate fauna is similar to that of Australia, the two lands being joined until about 10000 years ago. The flora has a small Australian content but is predominantly Indo-Malaysian in origin. The bird life is spectacular and some of it unique to New Guinea. Humans have lived in New Guinea for over 40000 years, first developing drainage techniques and simple agriculture 6000 to 9000 years ago. Linguists estimate that there are approximately 950 languages spoken today, and social units are usually small (Moore, 2003:15-33).
3. Sir William John Macleay (1820-1891) was born in Wick, Scotland. He migrated to Sydney in 1839, built up substantial pastoral holdings in New South Wales and was elected to the Legislative Council in 1855. He was a trustee of the Australian Museum in Sydney and the first President of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, formed in 1874. In February the next year, at his own expense, he purchased and fitted out the Chevert for a scientific expedition to New Guinea. The expedition sailed between May and September 1875. [See Chapter 2:13-14] The members of the scientific party were quarrelsome and beset by fever. Chevert encountered poor weather and failed to enter the Fly River, its major goal. The expedition returned to Sydney with a range of specimens. The best source on Macleay and his collecting is, P. Stanbury & J. Holland, Mr Macleay's Celebrated Cabinet, Sydney, 1988 (Hoare & Rutledge, 1974; MacMillan, 1957).
4. The London Missionary Society (LMS) was formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists who were largely Congregationalist in outlook. Originally named the Missionary Society, it was renamed the London Missionary Society in 1819 and developed its main outreach in Africa and the Pacific Islands. The LMS's first venture in the Pacific was in Tahiti in 1796, and it became well-established in Polynesia, particularly Samoa, and southern Melanesia, concentrated in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). It commenced activities in Torres Strait in 1871, with British missionaries and Loyalty, Cook and Niue Islander pastors generally known as teachers. Its first station in New Guinea was at Redscar Bay, with a permanent base at Port Moresby in December 1874. The LMS was the dominant mission in Torres Strait and southeastern New Guinea in the 1870s and 1880s. The LMS passed its Torres Strait congregations to the Anglican Church in 1915 but continued in Papua New Guinea until 1961, when staff, buildings and activities were handed over to local congregations, which adopted the name Papua Ekalesia. In 1968 Papua Ekalesia joined with the Methodists to form the United Church in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. The LMS merged with the Commonwealth Missionary Society in 1966 to form the Congregational Council for World Mission, which underwent further name changes until 1977 when it became the Council for World Mission (Moore, 2003:124-125;
5. Somerset was a joint imperial-colonial outpost established on the mainland at the eastern tip of Cape York Peninsula in 1864. A 'harbour of refuge' in the vicinity of Torres Strait had been first suggested in 1845, because of the dangers of the Torres Strait passage and attacks by Torres Strait Islanders on castaways. Queensland's first Governor, Sir George Bowen, expanded on the idea and proposed that the settlement should serve as a coaling station for a steamer route and a staging point for the colonisation of north Australia and New Guinea. Rockhampton Police Magistrate, John Jardine, established Somerset and it became a port of entry in November 1866. However, it had a poor anchorage and was too far off the main shipping channels. When Goldie first saw it in 1875 it was rather down-at-heel. In 1877, the settlement was transferred to Thursday Island (Waibene) in Torres Strait proper. Frank Jardine, son of John, purchased the remaining government buildings (Mullins, 1995:31-56; Moore, 1998:268).
6. Samuel McFarlane (1837-1911) was born in Johnstone, Scotland. He served the LMS at Lifu in the Loyalty Islands from 1859-1870, where he was in constant conflict with the Catholic Marist missionaries and French authorities. He led the first LMS party to Torres Strait in 1871 and briefly visited New Guinea that year. He then went on furlough to England where he negotiated the purchase of the steamer Ellengowan. He returned in 1874 with his wife Elizabeth (née Joyce) and transferred his base from Somerset to Murray Island (Mer) in Torres Strait. He retired from field service in 1886. McFarlane wrote The Story of the Lifu Mission, London, 1873
7. and Among the Cannibals of New Guinea, London, 1888 (Langmore, 1989:286; Dutton, 1985:174-175).
8. Henry Marjoribanks Chester (1832-1914) was born in London. He was an officer in the Indian Navy (1849-1862) and when that service was disbanded he migrated to Queensland. He was Police Magistrate at Somerset (1869-1870, 1875-1877) and Thursday Island (1877-1885). In April 1883 Queensland Premier, Thomas Mcllwraith, ordered him to Port Moresby to annex southeast New Guinea to the Crown, an action that Britain disavowed. Although regarded by white residents of Thursday Island as officious, he established an orderly administration in Torres Strait. After leaving Thursday Island in 1885 he was Police Magistrate in a number of Queensland towns before retiring from his last post at Gladstone in 1903 (Bolton, 1969:386-387;
9. The flamboyant Italian naturalist and explorer Luigi Maria d'Albertis (1841-1910) was born in Genoa. After travels in west New Guinea in 1872, in 1875 he made a preliminary trip up the Fly River on Ellengowan before returning with the New South Wales government steam launch Neva. This 1876 trip took forty-five days and d'Albertis claimed to have travelled 1062 km upstream. He returned in 1877, but on this occasion Neva only managed to travel 725 km and the expedition was a disaster. D'Albertis made extensive natural history collections and was feted when he returned to Europe in 1878. Nevertheless, he had an unsavoury reputation for the mistreatment of his men. After the 1877 trip his crew accused him of beating the Chinese cook to death, though Chester dismissed the allegation as exaggeration and charges were not laid. In 1875 at Somerset, d'Albertis preferred to stay with his two Sri Lankan servants in the dilapidated police 'lock up' rather than at the Residency. John Goode maintains that this was because d'Albertis was having an affair with one of them. D'Albertis wrote, New Guinea: What I did and what I saw, 2 Vols., London, 1880 (Moore, 2001:45-16;
10. W. F. Petterd (1849-1910) was born in Hobart. A self-taught naturalist, he undertook a number of privately funded collecting expeditions, one in 1873 to the Solomon Islands aboard HMS Rosario, before being invited to join the 1875 Chevert expedition. In November 1875, Petterd and Dr W. H. (William) James, who had been Chevert's surgeon, decided to leave Chevert and return to New Guinea. In October 1875, in company with Stone's party on Ellengowan, they made for Port Moresby to try to get away from the coast and into the nearby Owen Stanley Range where uniquely New Guinea flora and fauna might be found. By the time Ellengowan arrived at Port Moresby, Petterd and James had fallen out, so Petterd joined Stone's party and James relocated to Yule Island. Fever forced Petterd to leave Port Moresby in January 1876 and he returned to Hobart where he went into business. However, he retained his interest in science and in 1881 was elected to the Royal Society of Tasmania. He pursued mineralogy and was director of a number of mining companies. His major publications were A monograph of the land shells of Tasmania, Launceston, 1879 and Catalogue of the minerals of Tasmania, Hobart, 1910 (TM, 13 May 1876;
11. Kendall Broadbent (1837-1911) was bom in Horsforth, Yorkshire. He migrated to Victoria in 1852 and began collecting professionally in 1858. His main interest was ornithology. He survived Maria, wrecked in 1872, and in 1873 began collecting at Cape York for the French naturalist Francis de Castelnau. He was supposed to join the Chevert expedition at Somerset, but was away collecting when the vessel arrived. He then accompanied Stone to Port Moresby and remained in New Guinea collecting for E. P. Ramsay of the Australian Museum until 1879. After about a year in Tasmania and South Australia he moved to Brisbane where he collected for the Queensland Museum right across the colony. From 1893 to 1900 he worked at the Museum as an attendant (Stone, 1877:94-100;
12. Octavius C. Stone (1846-1933) was the son of Samuel Stone, a prosperous solicitor and longstanding Leicester town clerk (1835-1872). Octavius was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1874 and on coming into his inheritance made a series of expeditions to New Guinea. In August 1875 he left Somerset, Cape York, with McFarlane on Ellengowan to survey Boigu and Strachan Islands and travel up the Mai-kassa (Baxter) River. Returning to Somerset in mid-September, Stone recruited Lawrence Hargrave and Kendall Broadbent. to go to Port Moresby, where they were later joined by W. F. Petterd. Stone spent three months in Port Moresby between 29 October 1875 and 26 January 1876, and made some short expeditions inland to the Koiari area at the back of the port. He also attempted unsuccessfully to cross the mainland tail end of New Guinea. In the 1870s he had three influential papers published about New Guinea, but after his return to England in 1879 he married Lettice Stirrup and withdrew from ethnography. By 1891 he was living separately from his wife and two children and spent much of his time on the continent. His only other published work was the 1904, Eighteen excursions in the Roman campagna (Dutton, 1985:182;
13. Gucheng (1842?-1884) was born at Lifu in the Loyalty Islands, and was one of the original eight LMS teachers in Torres Strait. He began LMS work in 1859 as McFarlane's servant at Lifu. After 5 years training he took charge of a congregation. He was stationed at Erub (Darnley) in 1871 and in 1873 established the first school in Torres Strait there. In late 1875 he was sent to establish a station at Katau on the New Guinea mainland near Saibai, where his wife died of malaria. Katau was soon abandoned and in March 1876 Gucheng was back at Erub. He adopted two Torres Strait Islander children and was put in charge of Erub, Masig and Ugar. In 1877 he was sent to Logea Pota as part of McFarlane's plan to abandon Torres Strait and move east. His second wife died there, probably in 1878. Gucheng returned to Torres Strait when McFarlane's plan to relocate was thwarted by the LMS Directors. He died in 1884 in the Fly River delta, during another failed attempt to establish a station on the south coast of New Guinea. Gucheng was an effective evangelist and pivotal to the conversion of the Torres Strait Islanders (McFarlane, 1884; Mullins, 1995:132-134;
14. Most Protestant missionary organisations in the Pacific used Pacific Islander evangelists to pioneer new mission fields, because they were less expensive to educate, locate and support. The LMS also believed they were better able to 'get at the heathen of their own class' and that they had a beneficial influence on the morale and Christian zeal of the home communities. Teachers usually were sent out after rudimentary secular and religious training at institutions where the mission was well established. By 1915 more than 200 LMS teachers from the Loyalty Islands, the Cook Islands, Niue, Tuvalu, the Society Islands and Samoa had served in Torres Strait and New Guinea (Mullins & Wetherell, 1996:186-209).
15. Dr William G. Turner (1851-?) was born at Upolu, Samoa, son of LMS missionary George Turner. He gained a medical degree from Glasgow University before being ordained in 1874. Turner married Mary Amelia Colville on 19 August 1875 and then he and his wife set out for New Guinea. Mary Turner died at Somerset on 21 November 1876 and four days later Turner and their infant child left Somerset for England (Langmore, 1989:288;
16. Dr W. H. (William) James born in Loudoun County, Virginia. He completed a year's medical training in Baltimore, before lack of money forced him to leave his studies. James then joined his uncle's medical practice where he received further training. Restless for adventure, in December 1875 he joined RMS Macgregor in San Francisco as ship's surgeon, bound for Sydney. Somehow he lost his position during the voyage and was forced to approach the US Consul in Sydney for help. He put him in contact with Dr Alfred Roberts, the distinguished surgeon and trustee of the Australian Museum. Through Roberts, James was appointed ship's surgeon on the Chevert expedition. At its conclusion he joined Petterd to return to New Guinea, planning to stay at least 18 months. After his split with Petterd, he went to Yule Island accompanied by Felix Knight a young bushman, who also had been on Chevert. When Ellengowan visited them there in January 1876, they were emaciated with fever and short of provisions. However, about £60 worth of supplies was on its way from Sydney, organised by Roberts. When these arrived by Ellengowan in February, Knight left. James was then joined by the Swede Carl Thorngren, who had arrived in Torres Strait in 1871 in the ketch John Knox, sailing with the schooner Surprise, which brought the first LMS teachers. Thorngren's crew deserted and he sold John Knox and purchased the smaller 7-ton cutter Viking, which in 1872 conveyed the second contingent of LMS teachers from Torres Strait to Redscar Bay. By 1875, Thorngren had the cutter Mayri. It was similar to Viking and may have been the same vessel renamed (James, 1875a & 1875b; Gill, 1876:237-263;
17. For a photograph of Fanny Lawes see Chapter 2:33 (Langmore, 1989:3, 65, 75, 81, 82, 166, 184, 190, 207, 277).
18. Neva was a 15.8 m, flat-bottomed screw steamer, that even fully loaded drew only 1.2 m. It had a zinc canopy, but no deck or cabin. There was a wooden partition at the engine that served as a store and sleeping place for d'Albertis and the other Europeans. The crew slept around the engine and boiler. Neva was loaned to d'Albertis by the New South Wales government (Goode, 1977:161).
19. Jimmy Caledonie was a sailor from Mare in the Loyalty Islands who reputedly had experience on the New Caledonian, New Zealand and Australian goldfields. He claimed to have been with the famous prospector James Venture Mulligan on the Hodgkinson, but Mulligan denied this. Jimmy was employed by Thorngren at Yule Island in 1875 and after Thorngren's death joined Ellengoioan. He frequently was employed as a guide and translator, and in 1878 was sent ashore at Brooker Island to negotiate the surrender of Torres Strait Islanders who had mutinied at Redlich's station. At least one of them, Billy, had worked with Jimmy at Yule Island. He was interpreter for Lt. de Hoghton of HMS Beagle after the 1879 attack on the Pride of Logan at Cloudy Bay. On that occasion the press described him as 'the well known New Guinea and Torres Strait pilot'. Jimmy Caledonie died of consumption on 31 March 1882 at Badu, Torres Strait (BC, 16 Mar. 1878; BC, 26 Mar. 1878; BC, 2 Jan. 1880; Shnukal, 1998:38).
20. The correct spelling is Mayri. McFarlane acquired it in controversial circumstances after Thorngren's death at Yule Island in 1875. He then sold the vessel to the LMS for £200 (Mullins, 1995:126).
21. James Chalmers (1841-1901) was born in Ardrishaig, Scotland, the son of a stonemason. He married Jane Hercus, a school teacher, on 17 October 1865 and was ordained two days later. He served at Rarotonga from 1866 to 1876 and arrived in Port Moresby on 21 October 1877. In Rarotonga he acquired the name Tamate', by which he was known in New Guinea. He was stationed at Suau, Toaripi and Saguane. His wife Jane died in Sydney on 20 February 1879 and he later married Sarah Eliza (Lizzie) Large on 6 October 1888. Chalmers and Oliver Tomkins were killed by Papuans at Goaribari Island in the Fly River delta on 8 April 1901. He was a prolific writer, publishing among other things, Adventures in New Guinea, London, 1886
22. Pioneering in New Guinea, London, 1887
23. and Pioneer life and work in New Guinea, London, 1895 (Dutton, 1985:156;
24. Chalmers explains that he and McFarlane were anxious to get back to Port Moresby to conduct Sabbath services the next day (Chalmers, 1895:34).
25. The existence of gold in New Guinea had long been supposed. Owen Stanley of HMS Rattlesnake found a few grains at Redscar Bay in 1848 and in 1873 John Moresby of HMS Basilisk found gold quartz in Halifax Bay (later Port Moresby) and at Moresby Island. The LMS missionaries also found some gold but chose to keep their discoveries quiet rather than precipitate a rush, as eventually occurred at Laloki. The first Queensland-based prospector in New Guinea was probably Carl Thorngren, who sailed Viking 19 km up Vanapa River at Manumanu in search of gold in late 1872 or early 1873. Gold is now one of Papua New Guinea's most important exports (Oram, 1976:17;
26. Stories about strange New Guinea creatures were common until 1880s. The most infamous source was Captain John, Wanderings in the Interior of New Guinea, London, 1875. Many readers took as genuine its accounts of new species of tigers, longtailed monkeys and great apes. The true identity of Captain Lawson has not been finally settled. In 1877, William Lawes repeated stories about men with tails inhabiting the interior. The only large mammals in New Guinea are pigs and wallabys. The only large bird in this region is the southern cassowary. It is possible that Goldie mistook the marks made by a cassowary or a pig for large animal tracks (Lawson, 1875; Lawes, 1877).
27. In 1871, Thorngren of John Knox lost his way while accompanying John Williams to Torres Strait and strayed to the islands east of New Guinea. He reported favourably on the area around South Cape. In 1874, Port Moresby became the major LMS base on the New Guinea mainland. Then, in 1876 McFarlane proposed establishing South Cape near the eastern end of New Guinea as a new LMS headquarters. The LMS Directors initially rejected the plan because they wanted McFarlane and his Loyalty Islanders to stay in the west. It went ahead during the next year when Loyalty Islander and Rarotongan teachers were landed at villages between Suau near South Cape and Bubuleta at East Cape (Mullins 1995:122-125;
28. The Koita are a non-Austronesian language group that lived on the site of Port Moresby alongside the Austronesian Motu. The language is part of the Koirarian languages family that extends from Port Moresby to Mount Lamington and the Hydrographers Range (Oram, 1976:2).
29. However, early explorers did record pet cucus in Torres Strait, so it seems they featured in trade with New Guinea (McNiven & Hitchcock, 2004:111).
30. New Guinea cedar (Toona sureni) is a species of forest tree in the mahogany family valuable for timber. It is a close relative of Australian red cedar (Toona ciliata), an iconic species in the thriving colonial northern New South Wales and Queensland timber industries, which by the mid 1870s had made its way as far north as the Daintree River near Cairns. Papuans used cedar for canoes and carving and its export was one of New Guinea's first large-scale industries. The first official survey of southeast New Guinea timber trees was undertaken in 1908, and the first regulation imposed in 1909. Timber is now one of Papua New Guinea's largest export industries (Ryan, 1972:1130-1135).
31. HMS Wolverine (1703 tons) was a wood, screw corvette built in 1863. It was flagship of the Royal Navy Australia Station from 1875 to 1882. Before coming to Australia it had participated in Edward John Eyre's controversial suppression of the 1865 Jamaica Rebellion. After 1882, it remained in Sydney as a naval training ship (Lint, 1998:117-119).
32. For a fee, crimps specialised in decoying sailors, often the worst for drink, to vessels in need of crew. In the 1870s, Sydney's harbour-side boarding houses were notorious for this activity and Pacific Islander sailors were especially vulnerable (Mullins, 1995:73-74).
33. Annie was a 15-ton fore-and-aft schooner built in 1868 at Bustard Bay in Queensland. In February 1878, Henry Blakesley, Douglas Pitt and Robert Watson purchased the vessel. After a short but adventurous career Annie was wrecked near Lizard Island on 3 August 1881 (McLeod, 2002:43).
34. This incident occurred on 9 May 1878. The 'nigger' was Douglas Pitt (1844-1933), born in Kingston, Jamaica. He arrived in Torres Strait from New Caledonia with Thorngren's John Knox in 1871. Pitt resided alternatively on Erub and Mer working in the b§che-demer and pearl shell fisheries. His first boat was the condemned Somerset government cutter Alert. By 1875 he was in charge of Christine, which belonged to the then Somerset storekeeper Harry Webb. In 1876 he was working two boats, Rita and John Bell in association with Webb. Because of reports he was abusing Torres Strait Islanders at Erub and Mer, islands that until 1879 were beyond Queensland jurisdiction, Chester persuaded Webb to break off the business relationship. In February 1878, Pitt went into partnership with Blakesley in Annie. He had a third share (Chester, 1876c; MuMins, 1995:73).
35. Before Pitt went below and began firing, he threatened Blakesley with a cutlass that Jimmy Caledonie managed to wrest from him. Blakesley immediately reported the incident to Ingham, but they decided discretion was the better part of valour and let Pitt sleep it off. Although Blakesley was frightened of Pitt, they reconciled the following day. A few months later, in July 1878, Annie was with Pride of Logan collecting bSche-de-mer near Keppel Point. A dispute occurred with villagers over the purchase of bechede-mer, which led to shots being fired and a local man wounded. A few weeks later several villages combined to attack the shore party during the day, but were driven off with the loss of three or four men. A few nights later a curing house was burned down with considerable loss of plant. Annie and Pride of Logan then moved on (Ingham, 1878a;
36. See Chapter 2, Appendix, for a full listing of E. P. Ramsay's descriptions of Goldie's collections in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales.
37. HMS Sappho (727 tons) was a composite screw sloop launched in 1873. It served on Royal Navy Australian Station from 1876 to 1878. At this time, it was under the command of Lt. Noel Digby (Lind, 1988:118).
38. Chester departed on Ellengoivan on 1 July 1878. Pearl did not arrive at Thursday Island until August 1879 (Chester, 1878a: 7).
39. Treacherous Bay acquired its name after 5 seamen from the ships Chesterfield and Homuzzer were killed there in 1793. Erubian tradition has it that the men were attacked because they were caught washing clothes at a fresh water spring. The attack provoked revenge raids from the ships that resulted in several islanders being killed, as well as 135 huts, 16 sea-going canoes and extensive gardens destroyed. Several islanders were also killed at nearby Ugar (Stephens Island) and a boy kidnapped and a village destroyed as the sailors searched for survivors of the original attack who had escaped in a whaleboat (Mullins, 1995:18-20).
40. The location of the New Guinea LMS headquarters was just one of many contentious issues between McFarlane in Torres Strait and Lawes and Chalmers at Port Moresby. It could only finally be settled by dividing the mission into two divisions. Goldie is here reflecting the view of William and Fanny Lawes, with whom he was close. It is worth noting that by this time, relations between the three senior missionary families were so difficult that the New Guinea Mission Committee, which the three men comprised, was dysfunctional (Langmore, 1989:189-191).
41. Emily was a 44-ton ketch built at Brisbane Water, NSW. It was purchased by the merchant John Walsh of Cooktown in 1876 and put in charge of Alan Craig. Craig and three partners then purchased the vessel in October 1879. He made a number of voyages to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands for pearl shell and beche-de-mer. In September 1886, Craig and his crew of 8 were attacked and murdered while pearl-shelling in the Louisiade Archipelago. The vessel was burned to the waterline and sank (McLeod, 2002:14;
42. The Western Pacific High Commission was established in 1877 and naval officers of the Royal Navy Australia Station held these commissions, which made them part of the High Commissioner's court of magistrates and arbitrators. The northern limit of WPHC authority extended over all of New Guinea and as far as Micronesia and east to 160° longitude. As noted earlier, the Thursday Island Police Magistrate also held a similar commission in 1878, to circumvent his lack of authority over Mer (Murray Island)) and Erub (Darnley Island) in Torres Strait. Queensland's problem was solved when a 1878 Letters Patent, incorporated the next year into the Queensland Coast Islands Act 1879 43 vie. no. l, extended the border to within a few hundred metres of the New Guinea mainland (Moore, 2003:134;
43. HM Schooner Conflict (120 tons) was part of the 'Blackbirding Flotilla', built in 1872-1873. On this cruise it was under the command of Lt. J. C. Musters (Goldie spells the name incorrectly). Conflict served on Royal Navy Australia Station until 1881 (Lint, 1998:114).
44. Goldie spells Kemp-Welsch incorrectly. Kemp-Welsch (Wanigela) River flows from the Owen Stanley Range to Hood Bay just east of Hula. Kalo village is at the mouth of the river. In 1877, Lawes named the river after the treasurer of the London Missionary Society. Lawes recorded the local name as Vanekela (Wanigela). In 1881 Kalo village was described as 'very beautifully situated, and... architecturally superior to any place in that part of New Guinea.' (Whittaker, Gash, Hookey & Lacey, 1975:257-258;
45. Redscar Bay is between Cape Suckling and Redscar Head. It is the site of the third London Missionary Society station on the New Guinea coast, all established in October/November 1872. They all were abandoned by the end of 1873 (Gill, 1876:231-263).
46. Edward Rolles arrived at Port Moresby from Cooktown on Emily in 1878 with the second party of miners to the Laloki goldrush. He stayed on for three years after the rush and prospected the Astrolabe Range and the Kemp-Welsch River with a few other miners, including Connor. Goldie regarded him as an experienced bushman. He worked regularly for Goldie between 1879 and 1882 (Dutton 1985:183-184;
47. Mortality rates among LMS teachers had been controversial since the first years of the mission. In 1872, Moresby of HMS Basilisk sent a critical report to the Queensland Governor that it forwarded to the LMS Directors, highlighting their lack of provisions, including necessary medicines. In 1876, Police Magistrate Chester wrote to the Queensland Government that since 1871, 17 of 34 LMS teachers had died, also referring to a 'want of proper nourishment'. Even McFarlane referred to the death rate at Port Moresby as, 'evangelical manslaughter', although this has to be seen in the light of his antipathy towards Lawes and the choice of Port Moresby as mission headquarters. The controversy continued into the 1880s and by 1888, of the 201 LMS Pacific Islanders of both sexes brought to Torres Strait and New Guinea, 103 had died. Goldie shared the common view that the LMS was deeply culpable for this loss of life (ARBNG, 1888:18-20;
48. Moresby visited Dinner Island (Samarai) in 1873. In 1878 McFarlane established a base there after the LMS purchased the island from Dilomi, headman of Bwasakauri village on nearby Logea Island, for 3/6s worth of trade and the prestige of having the LMS nearby. In 1886 it was transferred to the British New Guinea government and became its major eastern headquarters. A small island, IK km long, 0.5 km wide and about 60 m high, it lies between the islands of Logea, Rogeia (Kwato) and Sideia (Sariba), to the south of Basilaki Island in the China Straits just off the mainland of southeast New Guinea. The LMS moved to nearby Kwato Island (Quanchi, 2006:3-4;
49. This was Carl Hunstein (1843-1888). He was bom in Friedberg, Germany, and arrived in New Guinea with the 1878 gold rush. Hunstein collected with Edwin Redlich until Redlich's death in 1880. He met the eminent German naturalist Otto Finsch in Cooktown, probably in January 1882, before Goldie conveyed Finsch to Port Moresby in Alice Meade. He collected with Goldie in 1882 and 1883 then set out on his own. In 1885, after Germany annexed the northwest of New Guinea, he joined the Deutsche Neuguinea-Kompagnie (German New Guinea Company), perhaps under the patronage of Finsch. Hunstein worked for the Company until 1888. While exploring for coffee plantation land, he was killed in the 13 March 1888 tsunami that struck New Britain. In an 1885 paper, Finsch and A. B. Meyer, suggested that Hunstein was responsible for the 'discovery of most of the new birds transmitted by Goldie to Australia and England'. While Hunstein's collection of new bird of paradise species was impressive, it is difficult to see how this statement could be justified, given the short time that Hunstein and Goldie worked together (Finsch & Myer, 1886:237;
50. The first English whalers arrived in the Pacific in 1789 and along with Americans moved into waters around New Guinea and the Solomon Islands from the 1820s and 1830s. Sperm as well as a few Killer, Bowhead, Humpback and Southern Right whales migrate through the Louisiade Archipelago, and in the 1830s whalers were beginning to hunt around the Trobriands and Louisiades. The average whaling ship carried 25 to 30 men. Most processing was done at sea, but this required firewood that was obtained from close-by islands. The whaling industry waned in the 1860s as many American ships were recalled for the Civil War, and it became easier to access petroleum oil, along with technical advances with processing copra for oil (Moore, 2003:117-122;
51. The most substantial and infamous attempt to colonise New Guinea occurred in New Ireland between 1879 and 1882. Charles M. B. du Brile, the Marquis de Rays, first floated the scheme in 1872, a plan to create a permanent settlement at Port Praslin, southern New Ireland, renamed Port Breton. Four expeditions to Nouvelle-France with 800 French, Belgian, Italian and German settlers left Europe. A few of the settlers landed at the Laughlan Islands, but most disembarked at New Ireland in January 1880. Poorly equipped, they fell victim to fever, many dying. Most of the survivors soon left for Australia and New Caledonia, although a few joined German traders on New Britain (Moore 2003:137;
52. Whittaker, Gash, Hookey & Lacey, 1975:339-344