‘Record of my journeyings in the Coral Sea’: Randolph Bedford’s 1906 album of the Solomon Islands

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Quanchi

Albums and scrapbooks are rarely the focus of research. This article examines the motivation and context for a unique and rare album compiled by a ‘special correspondent’ – George Randolph Bedford, an aspiring Federal politician, journalist and writer – who visited the Solomon Islands in 1906 on a personal fact-finding mission. His scrapbook contains 212 photographs and a series of articles on the Solomon Islands that he had published in illustrated weekend newspapers in Australia in 1906 and early 1907. The Australian colonies had just federated, Britain had just passed control of Papua to Australia and, in the New Hebrides, Britain and France were about to announce a condominium had been formed. Tonga, Niue and the Cook Islands were also the subject of imperial manoeuvring. In Queensland, Kanakas were being sent home as the labour trade was abolished. The scrapbook is therefore a window on to imperial diplomacy, colonial expansion and Australian visions of a relationship with the Pacific, the boom in illustrated newspapers, early photography and personal ambition to become an expert on the islands.

Lankesteriana ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Cribb ◽  
Arthur Whistler

Orchids are one of the largest families of flowering plants in the Pacific region, especially in the tropics. Despite the remoteness of Tonga, Niue, and the Cook Islands, orchids have reached them in some numbers. Both terrestrial and epiphytic genera are well represented in the floras of these distant but neighboring archipelagos. Most of the species are found elsewhere in the Pacific, particularly in Fiji, Samoa, and the Society Islands. The affinities of these orchids can be traced to New Guinea and the adjacent archipelagos. New Guinea, with an estimated 3000 species that make it one of the richest orchid floras in the world, is a fertile source of seed for the scattered islands that lie to its east and southeast. The orchids appear to have reached Tonga, Niue, and the Cook Islands in recent times. Only two species, Habenaria amplifolia from Rarotonga and Robiquetia tongaensis from Tonga, are endemic to the islands covered in the present book, and both are closely related to more widespread Pacific species. This guide constitutes the fourth of a series of orchid floristic treatments that have so far covered Vanuatu (Lewis & Cribb 1989), the Solomon Islands and Bougainville (Lewis & Cribb 1991), and Samoa (Cribb & Whistler 1996). A recent, excellent and detailed account of the Fijian orchid flora (Kores 1991) has also been a valuable source for those interested in Pacific islands orchids. These accounts have generated renewed interest in the orchid floras of those archipelagos, leading to new discoveries and re-interpretations of several species. We hope that this small guide will likewise bring a renewal of interest in not only the orchids, but also the floras of these islands as a whole. 


1993 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 333-345
Author(s):  
David Hilliard

Since the beginning of Anglican missionary activity in the southwest Pacific in the mid-nineteenth century, fifteen European missionaries and at least seven Pacific Islanders have died violently in the course of their work. In that same region, comprising island Melanesia and New Guinea, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, and the London Missionary Society [L.M.S.] have each had their honour roll of martyrs. Three of these have achieved a measure of fame outside the Pacific and their own denomination: John Williams of the L.M.S., killed at Erromanga in Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) in 1839; James Chalmers, also of the L.M.S., killed in New Guinea in 1901; and John Coleridge Patteson, Missionary Bishop of Melanesia and head of the Melanesian Mission, killed in 1871. Patteson has been the subject of more than fifteen biographies (several of them in German and Dutch), in addition to essays in collections on English missionary heroes, scholarly articles, and pamphlets for popular consumption. In Anglican churches in England, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and elsewhere he is commemorated as missionary hero in memorial tablets and stained-glass windows.


Author(s):  
Robert Louis Stevenson

The literary world was shocked when in 1889, at the height of his career, Robert Louis Stevenson announced his intention to settle permanently on the Pacific island of Samoa. His readers were equally shocked when he began to use the subject material offered by his new environment, not to promote a romance of empire, but to produce some of the most ironic and critical treatments of imperialism in nineteenth-century fiction. In these stories, as in his work generally, Stevenson shows himself to be a virtuoso of narrative styles: his Pacific fiction includes the domestic realism of ‘The Beach at Falesé, the folktale plots of ‘The Bottle Imp’ and ‘The Isle of Voices’, and the modernist blending of naturalism and symbolism in The Ebb-Tide. But beyond their generic diversity the stories are linked by their concern with representing the multiracial society of which their author had become a member. In this collection - the first to bring together all his shorter Pacific fiction in one volume - Stevenson emerges as a witness both to the cross- cultural encounters of nineteenth-century imperialism and to the creation of the global culture which characterizes the post-colonial world.


2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
KIMBERLEY WARREN-RHODES ◽  
ANNE-MAREE SCHWARZ ◽  
LINDA NG BOYLE ◽  
JOELLE ALBERT ◽  
STEPHEN SUTI AGALO ◽  
...  

SUMMARYMangroves are an imperilled biome whose protection and restoration through payments for ecosystem services (PES) can contribute to improved livelihoods, climate mitigation and adaptation. Interviews with resource users in three Solomon Islands villages suggest a strong reliance upon mangrove goods for subsistence and cash, particularly for firewood, food and building materials. Village-derived economic data indicates a minimum annual subsistence value from mangroves of US$ 345–1501 per household. Fish and nursery habitat and storm protection were widely recognized and highly valued mangrove ecosystem services. All villagers agreed that mangroves were under threat, with firewood overharvesting considered the primary cause. Multivariate analyses revealed village affiliation and religious denomination as the most important factors determining the use and importance of mangrove goods. These factors, together with gender, affected users’ awareness of ecosystem services. The importance placed on mangrove services did not differ significantly by village, religious denomination, gender, age, income, education or occupation. Mangrove ecosystem surveys are useful as tools for raising community awareness and input prior to design of PES systems. Land tenure and marine property rights, and how this complexity may both complicate and facilitate potential carbon credit programmes in the Pacific, are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry M. Brown

For three months in 1906, John Watt Beattie, the noted Australian photographer – at the invitation of the Anglican Bishop of Melanesia, Cecil Wilson – travelling on the church vessel the Southern Cross, photographed people and sites associated with the Melanesian Mission on Norfolk Island and present-day Vanuatu and Solomon Islands. Beattie reproduced many of the 1500-plus photographs from that trip, which he sold in various formats from his photographic studio in Hobart, Tasmania. The photographs constitute a priceless collection of Pacific images that began to be used very quickly in a variety of publications, with or without attribution. I shall examine some of these photographs in the context of the ethos of the Melanesian Mission, British colonialism in the Solomon Islands, and Beattie’s previous photographic experience. I shall argue that Beattie first exhibited a colonial gaze of objectifying his dehumanized exotic subjects (e.g. as ‘savages’ and ‘cannibals’) but with increased familiarity with them, became empathetic and admiring. In this change of attitude, I argue that he effectively transcended his colonial gaze to produce photographs of great empathy, beauty and longevity. At the same time, he became more critical of the colonial enterprise in the Pacific, whether government, commercial or church.


Author(s):  

Abstract A new distribution map is provided for Elsinoe batatas (Saw.) Viegas & Jenkins. Hosts: Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas). Information is given on the geographical distribution in ASIA, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, AUSTRALASIA & OCEANIA, Caroline Islands, Fiji, Guadalcanal, Guam, New Britain, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, NORTH AMERICA, Mexico, SOUTH AMERICA, Brazil (Sao Paulo, Bahia, Campinas, Algoinhas, Rio Grande).


Author(s):  

Abstract A new distribution map is provided for Cochliobolus heterostrophus (Drechsl.) Drechsl. Hosts: Maize (Zea mays) and other Gramineae. Information is given on the geographical distribution in AFRICA, Dahomey, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Niger, Nigeria, Reunion, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Togo, Zaire, Zambia, Zimbabwe, ASIA, Bangladesh, Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, China (Honan, Manchuria, Nanking, Yunnan), Hong Kong, India (Delhi, Himalayas & S. India, West Bengal), (Bihar, Punjab), (Laccadive Ils), Indonesia (Irian Jaya), (Java), Israel, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, (W) (Sabah), (Sarawak), Nepal, Pakistan (SW), Philippines, Western Samoa, Thailand, Vietnam, AUSTRALASIA & OCEANIA, Australia (New South Wales, NT, Qd), Fiji, Hawaii, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Western Samoa, American Samoa, Solomon Islands, EUROPE, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, USSR (Caucasus), Yugoslavia, NORTH AMERICA, Canada (Ontario), (Quebec), Mexico, USA (Pa to Fla and Tex.), CENTRAL AMERICA & WEST INDIES, Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Guatemala, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Salvador, Trinidad, SOUTH AMERICA, Argentina (Tucuman), Bolivia, Brazil (Bahia), Colombia, Eucador, French, Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Surinam, Venezuela.


Author(s):  

Abstract A new distribution map is provided for Dysdercus sidae Montr. (D. insular is Stål) (Hemipt., Pyrrhocoridae). Host Plants: Cotton, kapok, Hibiscus spp. Information is given on the geographical distribution in AUSTRALASIA AND PACIFIC ISLANDS, Australia, Fiji, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Niue, Papua & New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Wallis Islands, Irian Jaya.


Author(s):  

Abstract A new distribution map is provided for Leptoglossus australis (F.) (=L. membranaceus (F.), L. bidentatus Montr.) (Hemipt, Coreidae) (Leaf-footed Plant Bug). Host Plants: Cucurbits, Citrus and legumes. Information is given on the geographical distribution in ASIA, Andaman Islands, Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nicobar Islands, Bangladesh, Philippine Islands, Taiwan, Thailand, AFRICA, Angola, Annobon Islands, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Canary Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Dahomey, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rhodesia, Rodriguez Islands, Rwanda, Saõ Tomé, Senegal, Seychelle, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Upper Volta, AUSTRALASIA and PACIFIC ISLANDS, Australia, Caroline Islands, Fiji, Mariana Islands, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Papua & New Guinea, Western Samoa, Society Islands, Solomon Islands, Wallis Islands, Irian Jaya, China.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document