Appendix: An Annotated Bibliography of Australian Travel Writing

This appendix contains an annotated bibliography of Australian travel writing on the Pacific Islands from c. 1880 to 1941 (excluding Papua, New Guinea and fictional accounts). Some accounts published after 1941 that describe prior experiences of travel have been included. For further details about these texts and their authors, see the Australian Dictionary of Biography and the Annotated Bibliography of Australian Overseas Travel Writing, 1830 to 1970, edited by Terri McCormack, Ros Pesman, David Walker and Richard White.

Abbott, John Henry Macartney, The South Seas (Melanesia). London: Adam and Charles Black, 1908.

Born in New South Wales in 1874, Abbott worked as a jackeroo in the Hunter Valley until he started writing for The Bulletin in 1897. He fought in the South African War in 1900 and wrote about his experiences in the book, Tommy Cornstalk (1902). His success took him to England as a freelance journalist, where he wrote four books, including The South Seas (Melanesia). This was part of the ‘Peeps at Many Lands’ series for children, which was based on his travels in c. 1907. It was illustrated by Norman Hardy. Abbott spent the rest of his life writing in New South Wales and died in Sydney in 1953.

Allan, William, Homeward Bound, from Australia to Scotland: Impressions by the Way. Helensburgh: Helensburgh and Gareloch Times, 1915.

Born in Scotland, Allan lived in Queensland as a journalist for Warwick Argus. Reprinted from the Helensburgh and Gareloch Times, this short book is an account of a holiday trip to Scotland via Canada and the US, beginning in Sydney on 8 July 1915. On his journey home, Allan visited Hawai‘i and Fiji.

Allen, Percy S, Stewart’s Handbook of the Pacific Islands: A Reliable Guide to All the Inhabited Islands of the Pacific Ocean—For Traders, Tourists and Settlers, with a Bibliography of Island Works. Sydney: Stewart McCarron, 1920.

Born in 1876, Allen was a journalist in Sydney, as well as a librarian for the Sydney Morning Herald. This handbook was reprinted in eight editions, beginning in 1907 and finishing in 1923. It includes descriptions of each Island or Island group, as well as trade statistics, travel advice, lists of residents, photographs and ‘a bibliography of island works’. It also printed contributions from other writers, newspapers and Pacific experts, including Australians. Allen also published Bibliography of Works on the Pacific Islands (1900), Cyclopedia of Fiji (1907), The Pacific Islands: Fiji and Samoa (1908), The Pacific Islands: New Zealand’s Commercial Interests (1908) and The Late Mr. Louis Becke (1921).

Anderson, J Mayne, What a Tourist Sees in the New Hebrides. Sydney: W.C. Penfold & Co., 1915.

This ‘deck observation’ was originally written for family, but was later published in a newspaper series. It is an account of a tourist cruise from Sydney in 1914 for seven weeks, in which the author visited Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island and the New Hebrides.

Arthur, James, 6940 James Arthur Papers, Box 14302, Manuscript Number 6940. Brisbane: Queensland State Library, 1899–1900.

Arthur was an English-born lawyer who moved to Australia with his Irish wife and became a labour recruiter. These papers contain letters to his wife, family photographs and newspaper clippings, with evidence of his time aboard the Lady Norman in 1899 and the Fearless in 1900. While travelling on the Sydney Belle, he was shot dead in Malaita (Solomon Islands) on 19 April 1901 and was buried at sea.

Atkin, Charles Ager, A Trip to Fiji via East Coast of New Zealand. Melbourne: Massina, 1885.

Born in 1829, Atkin was a chemist from Melbourne who went on a two-month cruise on a USSCo. vessel in 1884. Atkin visited New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. He died in 1898.

Baker, HE, World Ramblings: Follow the Trail through Forty-Four Countries with Impressions and Experiences. Brisbane: Globe Printing, 1939.

Baker describes himself as a grazier from Queensland. In this account of his grand tour, he describes Hawai‘i, the Midway and Wake Islands, Guam and Dutch New Guinea.

Baume, Eric, I Lived These Years. Sydney: George G. Harrap & Co., 1941.

Frederick Ehrenfried Baume was born in 1900 in Auckland. He worked as a reporter and broadcaster, first in New Zealand and then in Australia, from 1923 to 1939. Baume was fond of Australia, writing that ‘Australia breathes freedom at a man’. He then spent time in England as a war correspondent, where he wrote two memoirs and several short stories and works of fiction. He returned to Australia in the 1950s and became a television celebrity. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. This autobiography recalls two of his Pacific voyages. The first a trip to San Francisco when he was a child, passing the Cook Islands, Tahiti and American Samoa. The second voyage was in 1937, when Baume passed Fiji and Hawai‘i en route to the US.

Bean, Charles Edwin Woodrow, With the Flagship of the South. Sydney: William Brooks, 1909.

Born in Bathurst in 1879, Bean is popularly remembered for his role as an Australian official war correspondent in World War I. He was also a trained lawyer before he began his journalism career in 1908. In August that year, he was assigned as a correspondent to the HMS Powerful, flagship of the Royal Navy squadron on the Australian Station. In his account of this time, he describes Fiji. He died in 1968.

Beattie, John Watt, ‘Journal of a Voyage to the Western Pacific in the Melanesian Mission Yacht Southern Cross’. Project Canterbury. anglicanhistory.org/oceania/beattie_journal1906.html.

Beattie was born in 1859 in Scotland. He migrated with his family to Tasmania in 1878 and became a professional photographer in 1882. He married in 1886 and had two children. He was appointed Tasmania’s official photographer in 1896 and worked hard to foster tourism there. In 1906, he toured the Pacific Islands aboard the Melanesian Mission ship, Southern Cross. He described New Zealand, Norfolk Island, the Solomon Islands, New Hebrides and Santa Cruz Islands. He died in Hobart in 1930.

Becke, Louis, By Reef and Palm. London: T. F. Unwin, 1894.

Becke, Louis, Notes from My South Sea Log. London: Laurie, 1905.

Born in New South Wales in 1855, George Lewis Becke (later changed to Louis) was a popular Australian travel writer. In 1869, he travelled to San Francisco with his brother, then stowed away to Samoa aboard a ship, taking a job in Apia as a bookkeeper. He was 18 when he met the notorious Captain ‘Bully’ Hayes, who was to become a central character in his later writings. In 1874, Hayes signed Becke on as supercargo on the Leonora, which was later shipwrecked. Becke was arrested for piracy by a British warship, but was later acquitted. In 1880, he worked in the Ellice Islands as a trader, then moved to New Britain and the Marshall Islands. In 1885, he returned to New South Wales, but then worked in New Caledonia from 1890 to 1892. Unemployed, Becke turned to writing, with The Bulletin’s editor, JF Archibald, helping him launch his career. In addition to numerous newspaper and magazine articles, Becke published 34 books (including six in collaboration with WJ Jeffrey). Becke was known for his simple and realist writing style, with By Reef and Palm (1894) becoming one of his most successful texts (it was republished in several editions). After various worldwide travels, he returned to Sydney, moneyless, in 1909 and then died in 1913.

Belbin, Robert James, Papers, 1881–1883, MS 6466. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1881–1883.

Belbin was a master mariner engaged in the Queensland labour trade. These papers contain Belbin’s official log book from 1881 to 1883 aboard the Barough Belle, his ship diaries from 1881, 1882 and 1883, and his last will and testament, dated 1883. He visited the New Hebrides and Solomon Islands from Port Mackay.

Blakiston, J, Seeing the World Today: An Unconventional Travel Book. Melbourne: E.A. Vidler, 1930.

Blakiston was a businessman from Geelong who went on a grand tour to Europe in the 1930s for eight months. He was 78 years old and accompanied by his daughter. His account describes Fiji and Hawai‘i and promotes the Australian Travel Service for organising his itinerary.

Bollard, Arthur Ross Bramwell, Private Record, 3DRL/6061. Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1914.

Bollard was born in 1894 and was a bandsman on HMAS Australia during World War I. In his diary, he describes spending time in Fiji and New Caledonia. He died in 1952.

Bond, Florence, Diaries and Autograph Book, 1904–1955, MS 9196. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1904.

Bond was a wealthy woman from Adelaide who made frequent travels to England, usually via the Suez Canal. One of her diaries describes her trip on the Rotorua from England to Adelaide, during which time she wrote about Pitcairn Island. Her papers include other travel ephemera, such as postcards, photos, menus, pressed flowers, tickets and letters.

Brummitt, Robert, A Winter Holiday in Fiji. Sydney: C.H. Kelly, 1914.

Brummitt was born in England in 1851 and worked as a doctor in Adelaide, living with his Australian wife. He was also a fervent Methodist. His account of a five-week holiday to Fiji in 1912 was based on a series of articles that he wrote for the periodical, Australian Christian Commonwealth. It includes an introduction by Reverend George Brown. Brummitt also published an article, ‘Fiji and Its People’, in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, South Australian Branch (1915). He died in 1927.

Burchett, Wilfred, Pacific Treasure Island: New Caledonia; Voyage through Its Land and Wealth, the Story of Its People and Past. Melbourne: Cheshire, 1941.

Born in Melbourne in 1911, Burchett worked in the travel industry in Europe in the 1930s before returning to Australia in 1939 to work as a journalist. In 1941, he visited New Caledonia and recorded his experiences in Pacific Treasure Island. He also wrote articles for Walkabout, Pix and other Australian newspapers. He was particularly concerned by Australian apathy towards German and Japanese hostility. He later sailed with American naval fleets and reported on the Pacific War (see Democracy with a Tommy Gun, 1946). His autobiography, Passport, was published in 1969 and recalled these travels and a previous sojourn in Tahiti in 1936. From 1945, Burchett lived and worked in Britain, Berlin, Korea, Vietnam, Moscow, South Africa, Cambodia and Bulgaria. He wrote over 35 books, two which responded to the government’s refusal to grant him a passport from 1955 to 1972 due to alleged communist sympathies. He died in Bulgaria in 1983.

Burrowes, JA, ‘Briefs and Associated Papers in Cases Involving Pacific Islanders’. In Crown Solicitor’s Office, Series ID 12102, Item ID 7866. Brisbane: Queensland State Archives, 1883–1884.

Burrowes was a government agent aboard the Ceara and the Lizzie, visiting Papua, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. On the latter journey, he travelled with Captain William Wawn.

Cheeseman, Richard, The South Sea Islands: Notes of a Trip. Brighton: publisher unknown, 1901.

Born in 1855, Cheeseman migrated to Brighton, Victoria, in 1867. He became a well-known horticulturist, becoming president of the Royal Horticultural Society of Victoria and a member of the local Brighton council. He died in Victoria in 1916. This is an account of his seven-week tourist cruise through New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, beginning in December 1900. It was also printed in the Brighton Southern Cross.

Chewings, Hannah, Amongst Tropical Islands, or, Notes and Observations Made during a Visit of the S. S. ‘Moresby’ in 1899, to New Guinea, New Britain and the Solomon Islands. Adelaide: publisher unknown, 1900.

Residing in South Australia, Hannah is possibly related to geologist and anthropologist Charles Chewings (1859–1937). This account describes a three-month voyage in 1899 from Sydney to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. It was reprinted from articles that were sent to The Advertiser. Chewings was a devout Christian and noted that Reverend George Brown had chartered the boat.

Coffee, Frank, Forty Years on the Pacific: The Lure of the Great Ocean; A Book of Reference for the Traveller and Pleasure for the Stay-at-Home. Sydney: Oceanic, 1920.

Born in 1852 in the US, Coffee came to Sydney in 1881 and left his journalism career behind to create the Oceanic Publishing Company. He settled in Artarmon and his success in business allowed him to travel around the world several times. These experiences formed the basis of his book, Forty Years on the Pacific. A second edition was published in 1925. His two sons fought in World War I and he published the letters of Frank Jnr, who died at Gallipoli. Coffee died in Sydney in 1929.

Collingridge, George, Round and Round the World. Sydney: George Collingridge, 1925.

George Alphonse Collingridge de Tourcey was born in 1847 in England. He was an artist, historian, teacher and cartographer who lived in the Sydney area from 1879. He was particularly interested in Portuguese maritime exploration, writing books and articles on the subject, as well as novels for children. He sometimes used the pseudonym, ‘The Hermit of Berowra’. This text describes a grand tour that included visits to New Guinea, New Caledonia, Micronesia, Hawai‘i and Easter Island. It is an unusual and frequently incoherent collection of childhood memories and varied travels, some with a fictitious Martian companion. Collingridge died in 1931.

Collins, Dale, Sea-Tracks of the Speejacks Round the World. Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1926.

Cuthbert Quinlan Dale Collins was born in 1897 at Balmain, Sydney. He joined the Melbourne Herald as a reporter and contributed stories to The Bulletin. In 1922, he was engaged by AY Gowen, an American millionaire, to accompany him on a world tour aboard his yacht, Speejacks. This trip inspired Sea-Tracks of the Speejacks Round the World, in which he described New Guinea and the Trobriand Islands. Although moving to London in 1923, Collins returned to Melbourne in 1948, where he died eight years later. He wrote 37 books in total, including the autobiographical Bright Vista in 1946 and 10 novels for children. Other pseudonyms include ‘Stephen Fennimore’ and ‘Michael Copeland’.

Cook, May, Fijian Diary 1904–1906: A Young Australian Woman’s Account of Village Life in Fiji, edited by Leigh Cook. Ashwood: PenFolk, 1996.

Elinor Violet May Cook was born in 1877 in Victoria. She became engaged to Wesleyan minister Richard Osbourne (whom she called ‘Oz’) in 1899. She and Oz travelled from Melbourne to Sydney, and then to Suva. They were married on 15 April 1904, then went to Macuata (near Labasa). She gave birth to her first child there, and moved to Lakeba Island in the Lau Group in 1905. The diaries end abruptly in September 1906 and she does not mention having to return to Australia for the birth of her second child. She did not return to Fiji and died in Victoria in 1958. This edited edition also contains several letters that were published in the Methodist publication, The Spectator, as well as some personal photographs.

Combes, Alice Herminie, Diary of a Trip to the South Sea Islands. Lithgow: T.T. Wilton, 1898.

Combes was a landscape painter who lived in Lithgow, New South Wales. She exhibited with the Art Society of New South Wales during the 1880s. Her account describes a trip in 1895 with her father, Edward Combes, from Sydney on a USSCo. vessel. She writes about Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. She died in 1924 in Sydney.

Coombe, Florence, Islands of Enchantment: Many-Sided Melanesia. London: Macmillan, 1911.

Coombe was an Anglican missionary on Norfolk Island and in the Solomon Islands. In 1907, Coombe visited the New Hebrides, Banks Islands, Torres Islands, Santa Cruz Islands and Solomon Islands. She could speak Motu, a language used by many missionaries in the region. She also wrote Schooldays in Norfolk Island (1907), as well as other books about her schooling experience. This text contains illustrations by John Watt Beattie.

Craig, James Kirkpatrick, ‘Briefs and Associated Papers in Cases Involving Pacific Islanders’. In Chief Secretary’s Department, Series ID 12102, Item ID 861839. Brisbane: Queensland State Archives, 1904.

Craig, James Kirkpatrick, ‘Logbook of Vessels Helena and Lochiel’. In Inspector of Pacific Islanders, Maryborough, Series ID 16998. Brisbane: Queensland State Archives, 1903.

These are the logbooks of Craig, a government agent aboard the Clansman, Helena and Lochiel in the Solomon Islands, New Hebrides, Papua and New Guinea. They also include material relating to Craig’s debarment from the labour trade in 1905.

Cromar, John, Jock of the Islands: Early Days in the South Seas: The Adventures of John Cromar, Sometime Recruiter and Lately Trader at Marovo, British Solomon Islands Protectorate, Told by Himself. London: Faber & Faber, 1935.

John (‘Jock’) Cromar was born in Scotland in 1860 and visited Australia numerous times from 1875 as a sailor working on steamers from London. When he was 23 years old, he joined a labour-recruiting vessel, the Forest King, and continued to recruit in the New Hebrides and Solomon Islands until the end of the labour trade in 1904. He was a crewman aboard the vessels Madeline, Storm Bird, Helena, Fearless and Seashell during this time. This is an account of his encounters as a recruiter, and although Cromar identified himself as a trader in the Marovo area of New Georgia, this book does not record these experiences.

David, Edgeworth, Mrs, Funafuti, or, Three Months on a Coral Island: An Unscientific Account of a Scientific Expedition. London: J. Murray, 1899.

Born in England in 1856, Caroline Martha (‘Cara’) Mallett emigrated to Australia in 1882 to be the principal of a teacher training college in Sydney. Her husband was the chair of geology at the University of Sydney, and she accompanied him for three months on the 1897 Royal Society expedition to bore coral reefs at Funafuti in the Ellice Islands. She also visited Fiji, Tonga and Samoa along the way. Back home, Caroline wrote ‘Mission Work in Funafuti’ for the Australian Christian World (1897) and then published Funafuti, first in 1899 and then as an abridged edition in 1913. The Davids accepted responsibility for educating a Fijian woman, Adi Elanoa, who later died of influenza while holidaying in Fiji. They moved to the Blue Mountains, where Caroline was active in the girl guides, as well as president of the Women’s National Movement for social reform. She also turned her residence into a convalescent home for soldiers. She died in Sydney in 1951.

Dean, Ruth Mansel, Some Memories of Life on Tanna and Norfolk Island, PMB 1022, c. 1911. Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, Australian National University, Canberra.

Dean was born in the Paton Memorial Hospital at Port Vila, Vanuatu, in 1914. She was the daughter of David and Winifred Griffiths and spent her childhood with her sister on her parents’ plantation at Lenakel, Tanna. Due to repeated attacks of malaria, her family moved to Norfolk Island, where they owned a banana plantation for a short time. These papers include Dean’s letters and notes recalling her time in Tanna as a child; notes from when she returned with her husband in 1963; a letter written by her mother on Christmas Day in 1911; a photograph of her parents at Tanna in 1911; and birth certificates for Dean and her sister.

Dickinson, Joseph HC, A Trader in the Savage Solomons: A Record of Romance and Adventure. London: H.F. & G. Witherby, 1927.

Dickinson’s background is unknown. In this book, he describes 18 years that he spent in the Solomon Islands (c. 1908–1926), working as a trader, planter and labour recruiter. In his account, he describes his admiration for Australia when he departs Sydney for the Islands.

Doorly, Gerald Stokely, In the Wake. London: Sampson Low, 1937.

James Gerald Stokely Doorly was born in Trinidad in 1880 and became a seaman and master mariner. Based in New Zealand, he worked for USSCo., commanded New Zealander troop transports during World War I and accompanied an expedition to Antarctica. He then migrated to Melbourne in 1925 and worked as a maritime pilot. He wrote two books, various short stories and articles for Blackwood’s Magazine, The Bulletin, Argus and Herald, and he composed music. This autobiography was primarily written for his daughters and describes Honolulu, Tonga, Samoa and Tahiti. Doorly moved to Wellington in 1951 and died there five years later.

Dyring, Our Island Trip: S. S. ‘Manapouri’, July 1904. Sydney: W.A. Pepperday, 1904.

An account of a round trip aboard the USSCo. Vessel, Manapouri, from Sydney to New Zealand, Suva, Tonga and Samoa in 1904. This text was part of the ‘Manapouri Messenger’, a booklet that was published privately by the passengers onboard the ship. The author is possibly Dr CPW Dyring of Coburg, Victoria.

Ellis, Albert Fuller, Adventuring in Coral Seas. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1936.

Ellis, Albert Fuller, Ocean Island and Nauru: Their Story. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1935.

Sir Albert Fuller Ellis was born in Queensland in 1869 and moved to New Zealand the same year. When he was 18 years old, he joined John T. Arundel and Co. as a phosphate prospector. He spent three years in the Phoenix Islands, then worked on the north Queensland coast. In 1899, he was transferred to Sydney and found phosphate rock from Nauru propping open a door. In 1900, he sailed for Ocean Island and Nauru, confirmed the existence of phosphate and began mining operations there. He managed mines from 1906 to 1911 and returned to Auckland. Ellis was appointed phosphate commissioner for New Zealand in 1920, a position that he held until his death in 1951. Ellis was an avid publicist for the phosphate and fertiliser industries, contributing frequent journal articles and three books. The first two books in 1935 and 1936 described his Pacific voyages from 1887 to 1911, in which he visited Ocean Island, Nauru, Fiji and the Phoenix, Marshall and Gilbert Islands. His other book, Mid-Pacific Outposts (1946), focused on World War II. Ellis was an active member of the Presbyterian Church, as well as a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. It is unclear from his texts whether he considered himself Australian or New Zealander.

Farquhar, WG, Diaries 1870–1872, PMB 496. Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, Australian National University, Canberra.

Farquhar was a farmer of Maryborough, Queensland. He visited New Caledonia, the Loyalty Islands and the New Hebrides in the schooner, City of Melbourne, from November 1870 to January 1871 to recruit labourers for himself and for other farmers in his region. He made a second voyage to New Caledonia, the New Hebrides and Banks Islands in the schooner, Petrel, from September 1871 to January 1872 as a government agent. These diaries record his two voyages.

Fehon, William Meeke, Six Weeks’ Excursion to the South Seas and Eastern Pacific Islands: Comprising Raratonga, Tahiti, Raiatea, Samoa and the Friendly Islands, by the New Steamer ‘Waikare’, 3,000 tons: (Union Steam Ship Company of N. Z., Ltd) from Sydney, 30th June, 1898. Sydney: S.D. Townsend and Co. Printers, 1898.

Fehon was born in London in 1834 and moved to Melbourne in 1858 to work on the railways. He eventually became the railways commissioner and died in Sydney in 1911. This account describes a six-week trip he took in 1898 on a cruise ship to the Cook Islands, Tahiti, French Polynesia, Samoa and Tonga. Fehon was commissioned by USSCo., and his book contains several promotions and a passengers list.

Fitzpatrick, John Charles Lucas, Notes on a Trip to New Caledonia and Fiji. Windsor: Hawkesbury Herald, 1908.

Fitzpatrick was born in New South Wales in 1862. He worked as a journalist and eventually owned a newspaper. In 1895, he was elected as a New South Wales politician until 1930. He was also a trustee of the Public Library of New South Wales and was passionate about Australian history. He compiled several books of local reminiscences, two poetry volumes and two travel books: Eastward Ho (1905) and A Jaunt to Java (1908). This small pamphlet records his 1907 trip to New Caledonia and Fiji. Fitzpatrick was also chairman of the Lord Howe Island Board. He died in 1932.

Fox, Frank, Oceania. London: A&C Black, 1911.

Fox, Frank, Problems of the Pacific. London: Williams & Norgate, 1912.

Sir Frank Ignatius Fox was born in 1874 in Adelaide. He worked as a journalist for several papers in Tasmania, Bathurst and Sydney, including The Bulletin and Lone Hand. He moved to London in 1909 and wrote several imperialist books, such as Ramparts of Empire (1910), Australia (1910) and The British Empire (1914). He served in World War I and continued writing in England until his death in 1960. Oceania is part of the ‘Peeps at Many Lands’ reference series for children, illustrated by Norman Hardy. It includes personal experiences from Fox’s trip to Fiji and Hawai‘i en route to Vancouver in 1909. There were four editions (1911, 1912, 1913 and 1919), with the second being ‘specifically printed for the Salvation Army, Australasia’. Other publications such as Problems of the Pacific (1912) and The Mastery of the Pacific (1928) focused on the strategic value of the region.

Fraser, John Archibald, Gold Dish and Kava Bowl. London: Dent, 1954.

Fraser was born in Victoria and worked as a miner in Australia from 1927 to 1933, before accepting a position in Tavua, Fiji, prospecting for gold. He stayed for approximately nine months, returned to Australia and then visited Fiji again in 1935 with his brother. He travelled around Viti Levu in search of gold for a Melbourne company. After a year, he went prospecting in Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands and returned to Australia unsuccessful. He served in an anti-aircraft battery in the Middle East and in New Guinea during World War II, and died in 1946. This manuscript was published posthumously by Terence O’Brien at the request of Fraser’s sister.

Gaggin, John, Among the Man-Eaters. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1900.

John Gaggin was a labour recruiter from Melbourne. According to this autobiography, he worked on Fiji cotton plantations from 1871 and then spent six years as a government agent on Australian recruiting ships. He visited Fiji, the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides. Parts of this text were originally published in Chamber’s Journal, The Age, The Argus and The Leader.

Garran, Andrew, ed., Australasia Illustrated. Sydney: Picturesque Atlas Publishing Company, 1886.

Garran was born in 1825 in London. He arrived in Adelaide in 1848, working as a journalist in small newspapers until he joined the Sydney Morning Herald as assistant editor in 1856 and then the Herald in 1873. Failing health forced him to resign at the end of 1885, and he edited three volumes of Australasia Illustrated the following year. He was a member of the Legislative Council from 1887 to 1895 and died in 1901. Under the title ‘Insular Territories’, Garran makes references to Papua and New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands and New Caledonia.

Gay, John J, Through Other Lands. Sydney: Edwards, Dunlop, 1931.

Gay was an Australian journalist and proprietor of the Lane Cove Herald. This text was based on letters that he sent to his sons while he was on a grand tour, presumably in 1930. Gay was elderly at the time and gave descriptions of Fiji, American Samoa and Hawai‘i.

Giles, William E, A Cruize in a Queensland Labour Vessel to the South Seas, edited by Deryck Scarr. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1970.

Giles spent five months on a Queensland labour vessel recruiting in the New Hebrides in 1877 because he was ‘in want of a holiday’. His account was written in 1880 and was probably intended for publication, though the manuscript is anonymous and the name of the boat was concealed. Giles’s background is unknown. In his account, he mentioned that he spent four years working in ‘a back district of Western Queensland’ on sheep stations, where he met many Pacific Islanders. After the voyage, he bought land on Emae in the New Hebrides and grew maize. In 1879, suffering from malaria, he sailed to Levuka and then to New Zealand, arriving moneyless. In 1880, he went back to Fiji and settled at Lomaloma on a plantation, after which he ran a small schooner between the Islands. By 1884, he also had business in Nukualofa, Tonga, and in 1885, he became an agent for USSCo. From 1886 to 1887, he served as British Vice Consul in Tonga.

Grimshaw, Beatrice, From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands. London: Eveleigh Nash, 1907.

Grimshaw, Beatrice, In the Strange South Seas. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1907.

Grimshaw, Beatrice, Tours to the South Sea Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji. Dunedin: Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, 1914.

Beatrice Ethel Grimshaw was born in 1870 in Ireland. She initially worked as a sports journalist in Dublin, before working for various shipping companies and then reporting on the Pacific Islands for the Daily Graphic. In 1904 and 1905, she accepted government and company commissions to write tourist publicity for the Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Niue and New Zealand, as well as on the prospects for settlers in Fiji. She completed three books in Europe before returning to the Pacific. Commissioned by the Times in London and the Sydney Morning Herald, she sailed late in 1907 to report on Papua, intending to stay only two or three months. She lived in Port Moresby for the next 27 years and formed a close friendship with the acting administrator, Sir Hubert Murray. Grimshaw was commissioned by Australian Prime Minister Alfred Deakin to advertise Papua’s need for white settlers and capital. She published pamphlets in 1909 and a book, The New Guinea, in 1910. Afterwards, Grimshaw concentrated on fiction writing (which she preferred), with most of her texts being romances in Pacific settings. One was even produced into the movie: The Adorable Outcast (1928). Grimshaw also managed a plantation near Samarai from 1917 to 1922. She accompanied exploring parties up the Sepik and Fly rivers in 1923 and 1926 and, in 1933, she took up tobacco growing. In 1934, she left Papua, visiting Fiji, Samoa and Tonga one last time before retiring in Bathurst, New South Wales, in 1936. She died in 1953. In total, Grimshaw wrote four travel books, 24 novels, 10 volumes of short stories and countless articles for newspapers and magazines. These included the travelogues, In the Strange South Seas (which focuses on Polynesia); From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands (which focuses on Melanesia and which was also published in New York under the title Fiji and Its Possibilities); a part-autobiography titled Isles of Adventure; and her first Pacific fiction, Vaiti of the Islands.

Grundy, Joseph Hadfield, A Month in New Zealand; A Trip to Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. Adelaide: Hunkin, Ellis & King, 1931.

Grundy, Joseph Hadfield, The New Hebrides Group of Islands. Adelaide: Hunkin, Ellis & King, 1933.

Born in England in 1856, Grundy arrived in South Australia at the age of 19, later founding a jeweller and druggist firm. He travelled in Europe and in the Pacific, writing several travel pamphlets and a book of verse afterwards (some with the help of his nephew as he became blind). A Month in New Zealand: A Trip to Fiji, Tonga and Samoa recalled a month’s holiday in 1914. The New Hebrides Group of Islands described another voyage, though it is unclear when it was undertaken. He also wrote More about Australia and the Pacific in 1929 (with a short reference to his travels to Tahiti) and Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island in 1933.

Gunga, Narrative of a Trip from Maryborough to New Caledonia. Maryborough: publisher unknown, 1878.

This is a collection of letters that were printed in the Wide Bay and Burnett News. The author, ‘Gunga’, occasionally addresses these letters to ‘Mr Editor’. Gunga was sent to New Caledonia to investigate nickel deposits and arrived when the so-called ‘native insurrection’ was at its height. His identity is unknown.

Hamilton, William, Diaries and Pearling Logs, 1882–1905, PMB 15. Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, Australian National University, Canberra.

Hamilton was born in Scotland and came to Australia at the age of 10. From 1882 to 1883, he voyaged from Brisbane to the New Hebrides, New Britain and New Ireland in labour recruiting vessels. From the late 1890s, he ran the Hamilton Pearling Company, with luggers operating out of the Admiralty Islands and Solomon Islands. Later, Hamilton invested in plantations in the Solomon Islands, mainly on Choiseul. He died in Sydney in 1937. These papers include two diaries of recruiting voyages to the New Hebrides (1882–1883); a report and diary on a voyage prospecting for pearl shell in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands (1899–1901); two logs kept by the Hamilton Pearling Company in the Admiralty Islands; and logs and diaries for four vessels in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands (1903–1905).

Hayball, Doris, Strawberries in the Jam: Being Intimate Notes about Interesting People. Melbourne: Sunsphere Press, 1940.

Born in Melbourne in 1909, Doris (‘Ada’) Hayball was a playwright, author and poet. This is an anecdotal account of a one-year grand tour taken in 1937. On the return trip to Australia, she visited Hawai‘i and Fiji. She died in 1948.

Henley, Thomas, Fiji—The Land of Promise. Sydney: John Sands Ltd, 1926.

Henley, Thomas, A Pacific Cruise: Musings and Opinions on Island Problems. Sydney: John Sands Ltd, 1930.

Sir Thomas Henley was born in England in 1860 and migrated to Sydney in 1884. Beginning as a building contractor, he eventually became a state politician in 1904. In Fiji—The Land of Promise, Henley describes a trip to Fiji that he took in 1926, specifically focusing on the strategic value of the country to Australia. It includes a preface by John Wear Burton. In A Pacific Cruise, Henley describes a circuit of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa in 1928. He also wrote a book titled New Guinea and Australia’s Pacific Islands Mandate in 1927, as well as some articles commenting on Samoan politics. He fell from a Manly ferry and drowned in 1935, leaving money from his estate to the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches.

Hickson, JC, Notes of Travel: From Pacific to Atlantic, with Description of the World’s Fair at Chicago; Also Travels by Sea and Land round the World. Parramatta: Fuller’s Lightning Printing Works, 1894.

This is an account of Hickson’s ‘hurried trip round the world’ in 1893 on the Monowai with his eldest daughter. The letters he sent home during the trip were published in the local paper, The Australian Currier. He describes Samoa and Hawai‘i. His identity is unknown, though the preface refers to his residence in Enfield, New South Wales.

Hill, Alfred William, A Cruise among Former Cannibal Islands, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa: A Glimpse at the Countries, People, Customs and Legends. Adelaide: W.K. Thomas, 1927.

Hill was born in 1863 in Adelaide and was trained as a doctor in England. He was an officer in the First Australian Imperial Force and a surgeon in Adelaide from 1897 to 1922. This text describes his 30-day steamer trip in the Tofua to Fiji, Tonga and Samoa in 1927. He died in South Australia in 1933.

Holmes, Charles Henry, A Passport round the World. London: Hutchinson, 1937.

Born in 1891 in Melbourne, Holmes was an editor of the magazine Walkabout and the managing director of the Australian National Travel Association from c. 1930 to 1957. Holmes spent three months on a grand tour in the 1920s visiting Hawai‘i, American Samoa and Fiji on his way back to Sydney. He also wrote a travelogue titled We Find Australia in 1932.

Hore, Edward Coode, S. S. John Williams: Captain Hore’s Narrative of the Leading Incidents of Voyage no. 2. Sydney: William Brooks & Co., 1895.

Hore was born in 1848 in London and arrived in Australia in 1890. He was a Congregational missionary and seaman, working with the London Missionary Society in Africa in 1877 and on the mission ship, John Williams, from 1893 to 1900. This is a report of a six-month visit in 1895 to 36 missionary stations in the Pacific, including New Guinea, Niue, Samoa, the Ellice and Gilbert Islands and the Cook Islands. Hore wrote one other book about his African mission work and died in Hobart in 1912.

Hoskin, Aaron, With Other Races. London: Watts, 1913.

Born in South Australia in 1862, Hoskin was a grazier and archaeologist who lived in Mitchell, Queensland. This is an account of his 1910 grand tour to London via Fiji and Hawai‘i. His other publication, My Trip Round the World (1917), described a journey from the Philippines to San Francisco via Hawai‘i.

Ievers, William, Fifty Years after, or, Old Scenes Revisited A. D. 1890. Melbourne: Ford & Son, Printers, 1894.

Born in 1818 in Ireland, Ievers arrived in Australia in 1855. He worked as a merchant, sailor, auctioneer and estate agent. This is a travel diary that was published for private distribution. Ievers describes his nine-month grand tour with his eldest son, beginning in 1890. He visited Honolulu and American Samoa aboard the Mariprosa. He died in Melbourne in 1901.

Irwin, Edward Way, and Ivan Goff, No Longer Innocent. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1934.

Bill Irwin and Ivan Goff were shipping reporters living in Fremantle, Western Australia. Only 18 years old, they travelled to Fiji and across the US and Canada in the 1930s with little money, apart from the commission earned from submitting articles to the Western Mail newspaper. This is an account of their journey.

Jamieson, A, With the Scottish Delegation: Impressions of the Sea Voyage, Egypt, Great Britain, the Continent, the Battlefields of France, America, Honolulu, Fiji and New Zealand. Ashfield: A. Jamieson, 1929.

This is a report of a pilgrimage by Scottish descendants carrying samples of Australian products to Europe to ‘tell the people of the Old Land the wonderful possibilities and achievements of Australia’. Miss A Jamieson left Sydney in 1928 on the liner Hobson Bay. On the journey home, she visited Hawai‘i, Fiji and New Zealand.

Joseph, Alfred, A Bendigonian Abroad: Being Sketches of Travel Made during a Ten Months Tour through Europe and America. Melbourne: Reardon & Mitchell, n.d.

Born in 1848 in London, Joseph was a financier, stockbroker and self-proclaimed ‘Bendigonian’. This account of a seven-month grand tour in March 1890 was originally written for publication in the Bendigo Advertiser. His book was privately circulated. In it, he describes Hawai‘i and American Samoa on the journey home.

Kingsford-Smith, Charles, My Flying Life: An Authentic Biography Prepared under the Personal Supervision of, and from the Diaries and Papers of, the Late Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith. London: Andrew Melrose, 1937.

Born in Brisbane in 1897, Kingsford-Smith served in the First Australian Imperial Force and later became a famous aviator, breaking several records in his inter-country plane trips. This autobiography was published posthumously after Kingsford-Smith’s plane, Lady Southern Cross, disappeared in 1935. This account describes the first trans-Pacific flight from San Francisco to Australia in 1928, including stopovers in Hawai‘i and Fiji.

Kirkcaldie, Rosa Angela, In Gray and Scarlet. Melbourne: Alexander McCubbin, 1922.

Kirkcaldie was born in Sydney in 1887 and worked as a nurse at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. She served as an army nurse in World War I, then returned to nursing duties as a matron in Sydney afterwards. This is an account of her trip on the hospital ship, Grantala, which went to Fiji and German New Guinea from August to December 1914. She died in Sydney in 1972.

Lane, James, ‘Briefs and Associated Papers in Cases Involving Pacific Islanders’. In Crown Solicitor’s Office, Series ID 12102, Item ID 7866. Brisbane: Queensland State Archives, 1883–1884.

Journal of a government agent aboard the Lizzie and Ceara in 1884. He visited the Solomon Islands, Papua and New Guinea. His captain aboard the Ceara was William Wawn.

Lees, William, Around the Coasts of Australia and Fiji Illustrated: A Handbook of Picturesque Travel and General Information for Passengers by Steamers of the Australasian United Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. Brisbane: Robert McGregor & Co. Printers, 1916.

Lees was a proprietor and editor of the Queensland Pastoral Gazette. He published guides to the Queensland goldfields and railways in the late nineteenth century. According to this illustrated handbook, ‘An effort has been made to place before the reader the scope of operations of this Company and a guide to the various places around the coast of Australia and Fiji, with which the Company’s steamers have regular communication’. He died in 1939.

Lewis, Aletta, They Call Them Savages. London: Methuen, 1938.

Aletta M Lewis was born in England in 1904. She trained as an artist and arrived in Sydney in 1927, where she taught at the Sydney Art School. She was a regular exhibitor in Sydney, winning the Archibald prize in 1928. In 1929, the director of the Macquarie galleries funded Lewis to go to the Pacific Islands and fulfil her desire ‘to paint brown people’. She recorded her six-month sojourn in American Samoa in this 1928 account. She also exhibited her paintings at a solo show in 1929 before returning to London (the artwork has since been lost). Although British, Lewis frequently questioned her own nationality while attempting to become a part of the Samoan communities in which she lived.

Littlejohn, George Stanley, Notes and Reflections ‘on the road’. Sydney: Swift Print, 1911.

Born in 1862 in London, Littlejohn arrived in Sydney two years later and studied at Sydney Grammar School. He became a successful businessman until his death in 1923. Littlejohn travelled to the US via Fiji and Hawai‘i in 1909 for four months on doctor’s recommendations. This account was based on daily diary entries, with only 250 copies being printed for private circulation.

Livingston, John, John Thomson and D Livingston, Three Australians Abroad. Mount Gambier: publisher unknown, 1912.

John Livingston (1857–1935) was a stock agent, station manager, auctioneer and politician. His brother was a station manager in New South Wales. John Thomson (1862–1934) was a New South Wales politician. They travelled from Melbourne to ‘the old country’ in 1911 as part of a political delegation to attend the coronation of King George V. On the way home, they visited Hawai‘i and Fiji.

Lloyd, M, Wanderings in the Old World and the New. Adelaide: Vardon and Pritchard Printers, 1901.

Lloyd was a South Australian and self-professed ‘true Britisher’. This travel account describes Lloyd’s grand tour with his wife in 1901 for six months. On the way to the US, he visited American Samoa and Hawai‘i.

Lucas, Thomas Pennington, Cries from Fiji and Sighings from the South Seas. Melbourne: Dunn & Collins, n.d.

Lucas, Thomas Pennington, Shall Australasia Be a Nation. Brisbane: Edwards, Dunlop and Co., 1907.

Lucas was born in Scotland in 1843. His father was a Wesleyan minister, and Lucas was convinced in his youth that he had a divine mission to save humanity. He studied medicine and joined the prestigious Linnean Society. After the death of his wife and his contraction of tuberculosis, he moved to New South Wales in 1877 and briefly visited the Methodist missions in Fiji the same year. Cries from Fiji defended the Methodist missionaries there and opposed the Queensland labour trade. Afterwards, he established a medical practice in Melbourne, then moved to Brisbane in 1886, where he promoted pawpaw ointment as a medical treatment. He was considered quite eccentric in his later life, until his death in 1917.

Mahlmann, John James, Reminiscences of an Ancient Mariner. Yokohama: Japan Gazette Printing & Publishing, 1918.

Mahlmann lived in Australia and worked as a second officer on a trading ship between Sydney and Auckland. This text is the only source of information about his life. After a failed gold prospecting expedition to New Zealand in 1864, he joined a trading ship that took him to Japan, China and the Micronesian region (including the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, Ponape and Hawai‘i). His reminiscences include being shipwrecked in the Marshall Islands, living in Ponape for two years, touring Hawai‘i with a Japanese government delegation in 1885 and visiting his daughter in Europe. He lived in Japan from 1871 for 47 years.

Marks, Ernest George, Pacific Peril, or, Menace of Japan’s Mandated Islands. Sydney: Wynyard Book Arcade, 1933.

Marks was born in New South Wales in 1885. He was a journalist for the Australian Star from 1903 and for the Sun from 1909 to 1935. He was an amateur military historian, showing particular interest in the Napoleonic Wars. Marks authored six books, contributed articles on naval subjects to the Navy League Journal and was a founding member of the Australian Journalists Association. He died in 1935 in Sydney. This text warned readers about the Asian threat in the Pacific, and it is unclear whether it was based on his personal experience of travel in the region.

Marshall, Alan John, The Black Musketeers: The Work and Adventures of a Scientist on a South Sea Island at War and in Peace. London: William Heinemann, 1937.

Marshall, Jock, The Men and Birds of Paradise: Journeys through Equatorial New Guinea. London: Heinemann, 1938.

Alan John (Jock) Marshall was born in 1911 in Sydney. Despite having lost an arm in a shooting accident at the age of 16, he was active in several natural history expeditions as a zoologist. The Black Musketeers describes seven months that he spent with his colleague, Tom Harrison, living in Espiritu Santo (the New Hebrides) in 1934 on an Oxford University Expedition trip. Their goal was to research the effects of climate on animal reproduction. The Men and Birds of Paradise described Jock’s travels through Papua and Dutch New Guinea in 1936, in which he conducted reconnaissance for a scientific expedition. He also published other books about Australia, such as Australia Limited (1942). He had a distinguished service record during World War II in New Guinea and worked in academia afterwards, becoming a Professor of Zoology at Monash University. He died in Victoria in 1967. A biography of his life was written by his wife, Jane Marshall, and is accessible online.

Matters, Charles Henry, From Golden Gate to Golden Horn, and Many Other World Wide Wanderings: Or 50,000 Miles of Travel over Sea and Land. Adelaide: Vardon & Pritchard, 1892.

Born in 1847 in England, Matters moved to Adelaide in 1853, where he worked as a land agent and manager. This is an account of his year-long grand tour to the US in 1891, in which he describes American Samoa and Hawai‘i. Parts of his ‘rapid sketches of travel’ were published in the Advertiser, Register and Christian Weekly. He was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and gave public lectures on his travels.

McGuire, Paul, Westward the Course: The New World of Oceania. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1942.

Born in 1903 in South Australia, Dominic Paul McGuire was a journalist, writer, literary critic and diplomat. He worked as an overseas correspondent in Europe for several newspapers in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and was a diplomat in Europe in the 1950s. This text describes McGuire’s travels in the Pacific and South-East Asia in the 1940s, including his visits to Hawai‘i and Fiji. He frequently commented on the expansion and influence of Western empires, including Australia. He died in 1978.

McKay, Thomas Allan, Seeing the World Twice 1926–1935. Melbourne: Robertson & Mullens, 1936.

McKay was born in 1887 in New Zealand and worked in Melbourne as a publisher and businessman from the 1880s. He identified himself as a ‘British–Australian’ in his account of two grand tours in 1926 and 1935. He visited Hawai‘i and Fiji in 1926, and Papua in 1935.

McLaren, Jack, Gentlemen of the Empire; The Colourful and Remarkable Experiences of District Commissioners, Patrol Officers and Other Officials in Some of the British Empire’s Tropical Outposts. Melbourne: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1940.

McLaren, Jack, My Odyssey. London: Jonathan Cape, 1923.

John (Jack) McLaren was born in Melbourne in 1884. He ran away from school when he was 16, working in various jobs in north Queensland, Papua and New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Fiji—including mining, driving, pearling, trading, prospecting and labour recruiting. He described these experiences in the autobiography, My Odyssey. From 1911, he settled on a coconut plantation in Cape York and wrote articles for The Bulletin and other fiction and non-fiction books under the pseudonym ‘McNorth’. In 1925, he moved to London for 30 years, where he remained publishing books, broadcasting radio and writing government propaganda during World War II. He died in 1954 in England. Of his many other books, Gentlemen of the Empire was devoted to Pacific subjects, describing the lives of patrol officers in Melanesia.

McMahon, Thomas John, Pacific Islands Illustrated. Sydney: McCarron, Stewart and Co., 1910.

Born in 1864, McMahon was a journalist for the Cairns Post and Northern Herald, and later a freelance author, photographer and speaker. He first visited Papua and New Guinea in 1915 and then spent the next seven years visiting the Pacific Islands, taking over 1,000 photographs that were published in newspapers, magazines and books between 1915 and 1924. Historian Max Quanchi has argued that McMahon’s images promoted Australian colonialism in the Pacific. Pacific Islands Illustrated consisted of three photographic albums titled ‘Gilbert & Ellis’, ‘Ocean Island’ and ‘Nauru’. Each album had between eight and 13 black and white images with short captions. They documented the phosphate mining industry and the indigenous people. The date of publication does not correspond to McMahon’s actual travels, and it is more likely that these images were published in the 1920s rather than in 1910, as listed by the Barr Smith Library at the University of Adelaide. McMahon died in Brisbane on 12 August 1933.

McMillan, Robert, There and Back: Or Notes of a Voyage round the World by ‘Gossip’. Sydney: William Brooks, 1903.

McMillan was said to have been born in Scotland in 1848, but he ran away from home at age 14. He lived in the US as a journalist, then returned to England before moving to New South Wales in 1890 for health reasons. He became editor and proprietor of the Blue Mountains Express, and further worked for another journal, Stock and Station. He often wrote under the pseudonyms ‘Gossip’ and ‘Globe Trotter’ and dedicated many books to children and to his beloved Stock and Station readers. He was also a founding member of the New South Wales Institute of Journalists, before he died in Sydney in 1929. In this text, ‘Gossip’ describes his travels to Hawai‘i and American Samoa on an 11-month grand tour in the 1900s.

McWilliam, Henry Hastings, Private Record, 1DRL/0467. Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1914–1915.

Sub-Lieutenant McWilliam was born in 1894 and served on HMAS Australia during World War I. A carbon copy of his diary from 27 July 1914 to 28 January 1915 is held by the Australian War Memorial. It records McWilliam’s journey from Sydney to German New Guinea, New Caledonia, Fiji and Samoa as the ship patrolled for German vessels.

Meagher, Richard Denis, American Impressions. Sydney: Gordon & Gotch, 1925.

Born in 1866 in New South Wales, Meagher worked as a solicitor and state politician. This text describes his trip to the US in 1924, when he was Lord Mayor of Sydney. He visited Fiji and Hawai‘i. Meagher published two other books about his political career, before his death in Sydney in 1931.

Meek, Albert Stewart, A Naturalist in Cannibal Land, edited by Frank Fox. London: T.F. Unwin, 1913.

Meek was born in London in 1872. He was a bird collector and naturalist who travelled across Australia, Papua, Dutch New Guinea and the Solomon Islands from 1889 to 1913. Many of the specimens were donated to the Rothschild Natural History Museum in England. Meek returned to England ‘weary of the South Seas life’, where he published this book with Frank Fox. Meek may be considered Australian because he spent six years working as a jackeroo on Queensland cattle stations, and because he uses Australian slang in his writing. He also visited Australia regularly between his travels in the Pacific and was married in Cooktown in 1898 (to whom it is unclear).

Melvin, Joseph Dalgarno, The Cruise of the Helena: A Labour-Recruiting Voyage to the Solomon Islands, edited by Peter Corris. Melbourne: Hawthorn Press, 1977.

Melvin was born in 1852 in Scotland. He worked as a journalist in Perth, then as one in Melbourne for the Argus. He was sent as a correspondent to report on the Sudan War in 1885 and on the Queensland labour trade in 1892, publishing 13 articles on the labour trade. His experience aboard a recruiting ship was positive, and he failed to observe any offences committed. He was an active Congregationalist and rebutted Australian missionaries who attacked his interpretation of the trade. He continued working as a reporter for various Australian newspapers, until his death in 1909.

Mercer-Smith, Sydney, OM76-04 Sydney Mercer-Smith Diaries 1892–1900, OM76-04. Brisbane: State Library of Queensland, 1892–1900.

Born in Sydney in 1857, Captain Mercer-Smith was appointed as a government agent onboard labour recruiting vessels from 1893 to 1902. These diaries record the author’s recruiting experiences from 1893 to 1900. They were also personal diaries rather than official logs. He died in Brisbane in 1933. Carol Edmondson published an introduction to Mercer-Smith’s diaries in 1984.

Meudell, George, The Pleasant Career of a Spendthrift. London: G. Routledge, 1929.

George Dick Meudell was a stockbroker and accountant, born in 1860 in Victoria. This autobiography is a disorderly collection of anecdotes and reminiscences of his life, including his visits to Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti, Hawai‘i, New Caledonia and New Guinea. He reprinted a second edition in 1936, but removed references to certain prominent Melbourne families due to his controversial exposé of the Victorian land boom. He also published a book about banking and kept documents and souvenirs from his American and European travels. He died in Melbourne in 1936.

Mickle, Alan Durward, Of Many Things. Sydney: Australasian Publishing Company, 1941.

Born in 1883 in Melbourne, Mickle was a poet, novelist, playwright and literary critic. This book is divided into three parts: ‘autobiographical’, ‘of places and people’ and ‘travel’. The travel section described his visits to Fiji in 1908. He visited Samoa on a later journey in 1935, on a grand tour to Europe with his wife. He died in 1969.

Millican, J, Notes of Our Rambles. Charters Towers: J. Millican, 1906.

Born in England in 1855, Millican was a businessman involved in Queensland mining, who later owned a Sydney hotel. This text was based on diary notes and a collection of press interviews from The Northern Miner and North Queensland Register, in which he offered his impressions of the British and American economies. The year-long journey was undertaken in 1905 with his family, for both a holiday and a trip to encourage investment in Queensland mines. They visited Hawai‘i and American Samoa. Millican died in Sydney in 1934.

Mills, Christopher, ‘Briefs and Associated Papers in Cases Involving Pacific Islanders’. In Crown Solicitor’s Office, Series ID 12102, Item ID 7876. Brisbane: Queensland State Archives, 1884.

Mills was a government agent aboard the Ethel in 1884, which visited the New Hebrides, Solomon Islands and German New Guinea. These papers include files relating to a case of alleged kidnapping by Captain John Loutit and First Mate George R Burton.

Mitchell, Janet, Spoils of Opportunity: An Autobiography. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc., 1938.

Janet Charlotte Mitchell was born in 1896 in Melbourne. She graduated from university in London in 1922 and was education secretary of the Young Women’s Christian Association in Melbourne from 1924 to 1926. She was active in the League of Nations Union and was an Australian delegate to conferences of the Institute of Pacific Relations in Honolulu (1925) and China (1931). In her autobiography, she describes her trip to Hawai‘i, during which time she was ‘keenly interested in the immigration question’ and explored Japanese attitudes to the White Australia policy. She also briefly mentioned a trip to Rarotonga and Tahiti the following year, en route to England as part of her frequent lecture tours for the Institute. Mitchell published a novel, Tempest in Paradise (1935), based on her life as an English teacher in Manchuria, which she dedicated to her cousin, George Ernest Morrison (‘Chinese George’), who was a popular reporter on the Queensland labour trade. She died in Melbourne in 1957.

Mordaunt, Elinor, Sinabada. London: Michael Joseph, 1937.

Mordaunt, Elinor, The Venture Book. New York: The Century Co., 1926.

Evelyn May Mordaunt was born in 1872 in England. In 1897, she went to Mauritius with her cousin and married a sugar planter the next year, though she suffered from malaria and returned to England alone. She then left for Melbourne in 1902 and, in 1903, gave birth to her son, Godfrey, in Australia. In Australia, she refused all offers of help and lived in cheap lodgings, earning money by sewing and painting. She briefly edited a woman’s monthly magazine. In 1909, she and her son left for England, though she continued writing to support herself. She published over 40 volumes, mainly novels and short stories. Her reputation as a travel writer resulted from her around-the-world trip for the London Daily Mail in 1923, which was later published in The Venture Book and The Further Venture Book in 1926. The first book described Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji, while the second explored Dutch New Guinea and the East Indies. Her autobiography, Sinabada, recounted her Pacific travels, with additional descriptions of the Trobriand Islands and Papua. Mordaunt continued to travel throughout her life, and died in England in 1942.

Muspratt, Eric, My South Sea Island. London: Travel Book Club, 1931.

Muspratt was born in England in 1899 and, after travelling across Europe and North America, he joined the First Australian Imperial Force, from 1917 to 1919. He subsequently purchased a pineapple farm in Queensland in 1919, then moved to San Cristoval in the Solomon Islands the following year to work as a plantation manager for six months. My South Sea Island recounts his temporary stay in the Solomons. Muspratt continued to travel the world as a seaman and vagabond, returning to Australia twice before serving with the Australian forces during World War II. He recounted these experiences in several other books, including in his 1948 autobiography, Fire of Youth (with descriptions of American Samoa, Tahiti and Hawai‘i). He died in 1949 in Sydney.

Napier, Sydney Elliott, Men and Cities: Being the Journeyings of a Journalist. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1938.

Napier was a lawyer, journalist and poet born in Sydney in 1870. He served in World War I and contributed articles to the Sydney Mail, Sydney Morning Herald and BP Magazine in the 1920s and 1930s. This text was one of his contributions, describing his voyage to the Panama Canal via Tahiti in May 1938. He also published some books of verses and travel books about Europe and the Great Barrier Reef. He died in Sydney in 1940.

Nicoll, George Robertson, Fifty Years’ Travels in Australia, China, Japan, America, Etc., 1848–1898. London: George Robertson Nicoll, 1899.

Nicoll, George Robertson, The Life and Adventures of George Robertson Nicoll, 1824–1890, MS 3292. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1824–1890.

Nicoll, JB, ‘A Cruise through Some of the Pacific Islands in 1902 by Mr and Mrs J. B. Nicoll’. In The Life and Adventures of George Robertson Nicoll, 1824–1890, MS 3292. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1902.

George Robertson Nicoll was born in Scotland in 1824 and settled in Sydney in 1848. He was a wealthy shipwright and businessman. Nicoll privately printed a narrative of his worldwide travels for his family in 1899, containing descriptions of Tahiti, Hawai‘i, Fiji, Wallis Island, Niue and Samoa. The manuscript was written in 1890, and the file contains another piece that was written in 1902 by his son and daughter-in-law, Mr and Mrs JB Nicoll, which described Norfolk Island, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, Solomon Islands and Santa Cruz Islands. George Nicoll died in Sydney in 1901. Information about his son is unknown.

Nixon, A, ‘Inwards Correspondence’. In Colonial Secretary’s Office, Series ID 5253, Item ID 846982. Brisbane: Queensland State Archives, 1877.

This diary belonged to a government agent aboad the Bobtail Nag, which visited the New Hebrides in 1877. The papers also include a newspaper clipping from the Courier on 23 January 1878, titled ‘The True Story of a Recruiting Voyage’, presumably written by Nixon.

Nossiter, Harold, Southward Ho! London: Witherby, 1937.

Nossiter was an eminent yachtsman who sailed with his two eldest sons around the world from 1935 to 1937. They became the first Australians to circumnavigate the globe in a yacht. Nossiter was aware of the historical nature of their voyage and wanted to document the trip in two books. The first, Northward Ho!, recounted the initial voyage from Sydney to London. Southward Ho! described the homeward journey via the Marquesas Islands, Tahiti, French Polynesia, Rarotonga and Tonga. Both books were published in the US and UK.

Osborne, Ernest, Through the Atolls of the Line. Five Dock: publisher unknown, 1900.

Details of Osborne’s life are sketchy. He worked in the Pacific phosphate trade, was in Fiji in 1917 and was a trader in the Gilbert Islands in the 1930s. He also published several fiction novels for the New South Wales Bookstall Series, as well as short stories for The Bulletin and Lone Hand from 1905 onwards. In this unpublished typescript, Osborne describes a leisurely cruise through the Gilbert Islands in search of a copra trading post in the 1930s.

Paterson, Andrew Barton, ‘The Pioneers’, Talks—AB Paterson, Australian Broadcasting Commission, Sydney: ABC, 1935. Series no. SP 1558/2, 629, National Archives of Australia.

‘Banjo’ Paterson was an Australian poet and journalist, born in 1864 in Orange, New South Wales. Paterson began writing for The Bulletin in the 1880s and his first collection of poems, The Man from Snowy River, and Other Verses, made him famous throughout the country in 1890. Paterson served as a war correspondent during the Boer War in 1899, and then travelled to China in 1901 as a journalist. Less well known is his trip to the New Hebrides in 1902 to report on a newly established settlement scheme by Burns, Philp and Company. His impressions were published in the Sydney Morning Herald, and later in unpublished radio broadcasts with the Australian Broadcasting Commission. He died in 1941 and was remembered as a great Australian ballad writer.

Paton, Frank Hume Lyall, Glimpses of the New Hebrides. Melbourne: Foreign Missions Committee, Presbyterian Church of Victoria, 1913.

Paton was born in Aniwa, the New Hebrides, in 1870, son of the Reverend John Gibson Paton. Educated in Melbourne and Scotland, he then worked as a missionary in the New Hebrides. His years on Tanna from 1896 to 1902 are described in Lomai of Lenakel (1903), and he further published several religious texts and translations. From 1902, he worked in administrative roles for the Australian Presbyterian Church, travelling extensively throughout Australia and the region. He also served overseas as a chaplain with the First Australian Imperial Force from 1918 to 1919. Paton published many books, magazines and pamphlets for children and adults on Pacific issues, taking a more moderate line than his father on the labour trade and on French influence in the New Hebrides. His publications included Quarterly Jottings from the New Hebrides (the magazine of the Paton mission fund published from 1895 to 1961), Glimpses of the New Hebrides (1913, based on his visit in 1913), Kingdom of the Pacific (1913, a reference book for children), Slavery under the British Flag (1914) and Australian Interests in the New Hebrides (1919). He died in 1938.

Pearse, Albert William, Recent Travel. Sydney: John Andrew, 1914.

Pearse, Albert William, A Windjammer ‘Prentice. Sydney: John Andrews & Co., 1927.

Pearse was born in 1857 in London and moved to Australia in 1891. Initially an accountant, he went to sea in 1875 and worked with the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and the Orient Steam Navigation Company, becoming a master mariner. He moved to Sydney in 1891, where he worked as an editor for several agricultural journals. He was politically ultra-conservative and hostile to unionism, writing several pamphlets on White Australia and state-owned railways. He was also a devout Anglican and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Recent Travel describes a six-week cruise in 1911 to Tahiti, French Polynesia and the Cook Islands, as well as a visit to Fiji and Hawai‘i en route to the US in 1913. His autobiography, A Windjammer ‘Prentice, incorporated stories about the Pacific from the previous book. It was reprinted with an additional 13 chapters in 1932 due to popular demand. Pearse died in Sydney in 1951.

Phillips, George, Notes on a Visit to New Caledonia. Brisbane: Brisbane Telegraph, 1903.

Born in England in 1843, Phillips was a civil engineer and surveyor in Australia from 1851. This is a collection of six letters that he sent to the Brisbane Telegraph, describing his trip to New Caledonia in April 1903. He died in 1921.

Philp, John Ernest, A Solomons Sojourn: J. E. Philp’s Log of the Makira, 1912–1913, edited by Richard Allen Herr and E Anne Rood. Hobart: Tasmanian Historical Research Association, 1978.

Born in 1869 in Tasmania, Philp was a railway surveyor before he left his wife and family in 1912 to work as a labour recruiter in the Solomon Islands. This is an edited copy of his private log that described his two years in the region. During his travels, he encountered other travel writers and famous personalities in the area, including Joseph HC Dickinson, Eric Muspratt, Osa Johnson and Clifford Collinson. Philp was also interested in collecting and sailing, and he occasionally wrote for the Tasmanian Mail. He returned to his family in December 1913, intending to take them back to the Solomon Islands; unfortunately, the outbreak of war changed these plans. He died in 1937.

Ponder, Harriet Winifred, An Idler in the Islands. Sydney: Cornstalk Publishing, 1924.

Ponder (1883–1967) was originally a vocalist in England before she came to Australia in search of health when her voice broke down. She lived in Queensland for a time before travelling around Australia and the world, establishing a reputation as a journalist and author. She wrote several books about Java and Cambodia, as well as a biography of the singer, Dame Clara Butt. This account describes Fiji, Tonga and Samoa and includes parts that were published in the Melbourne Herald and Adelaide Register.

Powell, Sydney Walter, Adventures of a Wanderer. London: Jonathan Cape, 1928.

Powell, Sydney Walter, A South Sea Diary. London: V. Gollancz, 1942.

Powell, Sydney Walter, ‘Each to His Taste’. In Papers of Sydney Powell [circa 1920–1950], MS10012. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1920–1950.

Powell was an Australian writer who is remembered for his descriptions of Gallipoli, where he fought in World War I. Born in England in 1878, Powell spent his childhood in South Africa, but was educated in England. He moved to Australia and worked in various jobs around the country until he joined the artillery. He was posted to Thursday Island, where he began writing for The Bulletin and developed an interest in the Pacific Islands. He visited Tahiti in 1912, where he (allegedly) married a Tahitian. He returned to Tahiti in 1916 after serving in World War I. He moved to England in c. 1926, where he became a prolific fiction and poetry writer. Many of his stories were about South Africa, but he also wrote Pacific fiction as well as three travel accounts of the same experience in Tahiti, one of which that was never published. There are inconsistencies between these three accounts regarding his marriage, the number of visits he made and the reasons why he left Tahiti. He died in 1952.

Rannie, Douglas, My Adventures among South Sea Cannibals: An Account of the Experiences and Adventures of a Government Official among the Natives of Oceania. London: Seeley, Service & Co., 1912.

Rannie, Douglas, Notes on the New Hebrides. Brisbane: Queensland Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, 1890.

Rannie was born in Scotland in 1860, but went to Brisbane in 1883 after the death of an acquaintance in the Solomon Islands; to ‘make myself acquainted as well as I could with the particulars of the Queensland Labour Traffic’. He served as a government agent on Australian labour vessels from 1884 to 1892, then worked as an inspector at Mackay and Charters Towers and then finally worked as a librarian at the Queensland museum. During his time as a government agent, he visited the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Bougainville and New Ireland. He died in Brisbane in 1915. His papers and photographs are kept by the University of Queensland Anthropology Museum.

Ravenscroft, Stan H, A Trip Round the World. Sydney: E.H. Hume, 1914.

Ravenscroft was born in Australia and lived in Sydney. He visited Fiji and Hawai‘i on RMS Niagara in April 1914, during his grand tour to Europe. The National Library has a collection of letters, photographs and biographical cuttings related to his trip.

Rebell, Fred, Escape to the Sea: The Adventures of Fred Rebell, Who Sailed Single Handed in an Open Boat 9,000 Miles across the Pacific in Search of Happiness. London: Murray, 1939.

Born in 1886 in Latvia as Paul Christian Julius Sproge, Rebell changed his name and fled to Germany to avoid military conscription, before stowing away to Sydney in 1909. Until 1928, he worked as a railway construction worker, sawmiller, farmer and carpenter. He was also married and divorced. In Sydney, on the dole and desperate, Rebell decided to emigrate to the US. He bought a derelict 18-foot boat and left Sydney on 31 December 1931. He reached California in 1933, his voyage being the first recorded lone crossing of the Pacific Ocean from west to east. He was deported to Latvia, where he completed his book, and then returned to Australia in 1937. His account explains how the voyage prompted his conversion to Christianity, and he joined a Pentacostal church soon after. He was naturalised as an Australian in 1955 and died in Sydney in 1968.

Robertson, Macpherson, MacRobertson Abroad: A Reprint of Mr. Mac. Robertson’s Diary Written during His World Tour of 1926–1927. Melbourne: ‘Welcome Home’ Committee, 1927.

Robertson was born in 1859 in Ballarat. He was a confectioner, industrialist and philanthropist, as well as a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a knight. This travel narrative was privately published by Robertson and describes a trip to the US and Europe via Fiji and Hawai‘i in 1926. Robertson died in Melbourne in 1945.

Robson, Robert William, ed., The Pacific Islands Yearbook. 1st ed. Sydney: Pacific Publications Ltd, 1932.

Robson, Robert William, ed., Handbook of New Guinea, Papua, British Solomon Islands, Norfolk Is., Lord Howe Is., New Hebrides, New Caledonia, 1933. Sydney: Pacific Publications, 1933.

Robson (1885–1984) founded the Pacific Islands Monthly (PIM) in 1930—the Pacific’s oldest news magazine—which continued until June 2000. It accepted contributions from many Australian travellers in the Pacific. Robson was a New Zealander who moved to Sydney during World War I. He published several handbooks about the Pacific Islands, including five editions of the Pacific Islands Yearbook (1932, 1935–1936, 1939, 1942 and 1944). These handbooks contained many articles of interest to planters and traders, and Robson publicly advocated for the formation of a regional organisation to benefit the European settlers in the Islands. Judy Tudor (1910–1997) joined his team in 1942 as assistant editor of PIM, then became sole editor from 1955 to 1962. Together, they published other books on Pacific subjects, such as Where the Trade-Winds Blow (1946), a compilation of stories taken from PIM.

Runcie, James, Diary of James Runcie, 1869–1892, MS 8984. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1869–1892.

Born in Scotland, Runcie was a ship builder who first visited Australia aboard the John Williams II, and then again on the John Williams III. Later, as captain of the missionary schooner, Ellengowan, he accompanied Samuel McFarlane and Luigi D’Albertis on their trip to the Fly River, New Guinea, in 1875. After returning to Australia, Runcie spent the remainder of his career commanding cargo ships in the Pacific Islands for companies such as Burns, Philp & Company and the ANHC. Runcie died in Sydney, aged 80. This collection comprises the diary written aboard the John Williams III, on the voyage to Sydney from 1869 to 1870. It includes entries written while Runcie was at sea in 1878 and 1890 and account records for 1892.

Safroni-Middleton, Arnold, A Vagabond’s Odyssey: Being Further Reminiscences of a Wandering Sailor, Troubadour in Many Lands. London: Grant Richards, 1916.

Safroni-Middleton, Arnold, Sailor and Beachcomber: Confessions of a Life at Sea, in Australia and amid the Islands of the Pacific. London: Grant Richards, 1915.

Safroni-Middleton, Arnold, South Sea Foam: The Romantic Adventures of a Modern Don Quixote in the Southern Seas. London: Methuen, 1919.

Safroni-Middleton, Arnold, Tropic Shadows: Memories of the South Seas, Together with Reminiscences of the Author’s Sea Meetings with Joseph Conrad. London: Richards Press, 1927.

Safroni-Middleton, Arnold, Wine-Dark Seas and Tropic Skies: Reminiscences and a Romance of the South Seas. London: Grant Richards, 1918.

George Arnold Haynes Safroni-Middleton was born in England in 1873. He wandered around Australia and the Pacific Islands as a teenager, earning a living principally as a violinist. During this time, he met Robert Louis Stevenson and Joseph Conrad, who inspired him to write. He wrote several novels, poems, travel books and an autobiography, in addition to composing music. In his travelogues, he focused on Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti and New Zealand. He died in England in 1950, the same year that he published his autobiography, In the Green Leaf. Safroni-Middleton was included in Edmund Morris Miller’s bibliography of Australian literature and in the AUSTLIT database, presumably due to his formative experience as a youth in Australia and his detailed descriptions of the country.

Smith, William Ramsay, In Southern Seas: Wanderings of a Naturalist. London: John Murray, 1924.

Smith was born in Scotland in 1859. Initially a school teacher, he studied natural sciences at university in England, then moved to Adelaide in 1904. In 1913, he qualified as a medical physician. He worked at the Adelaide Hospital from 1896 and was a specialist in infectious diseases (publishing in multiple medical publications), before retiring in 1929. He also served in the South African war in 1901 and commanded the First Australian Imperial Force hospital in Egypt in 1915. Smith belonged to the Royal Anthropological Society and recorded Aboriginal folklore in Myths and Legends of the Australian Aborigines (1930). In Southern Seas contains many anthropological observations of New Caledonia, the New Hebrides and northern Australia. In fact, Smith devoted several chapters to discussing methodological issues that are associated with anthropology and photography (five photo albums are held at the South Australian Museum). Smith died in 1937.

Somer, Henry Montague, Amazing America. Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall, 1923.

Born in Victoria in 1860, Somer was a journalist and a newspaper editor. This travel account is reprinted from Daily Telegraph reports and describes Somer’s journey to the US in 1923 for five months via New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Tahiti. He was sent to conduct research for the Royal Agricultural Society. He died in Sydney in 1924.

Stephens, Alfred George, A Queenslander’s Travel-Notes. Sydney: Edwards, Dunlop, 1894.

Stephens was born in 1865 in Queensland and worked in various Queensland and New Zealand newspapers as a writer and an editor. He was an influential literary critic for The Bulletin from 1894 to 1906. This account, reprinted from articles in the Cairns Argus and the Darling Downs Gazette, describes a nine-month grand tour to the US and Europe in 1893 via Samoa and Hawai‘i. He died in Sydney in 1933.

Stephens, William John, Samoan Holidays. Bendigo: Cambridge Press, 1935.

Born in England in 1873, Stephens moved to Victoria as a child, where he worked in the mines from age 12. He later became an accountant and eventually became a managing director and editor of the Bendigo Advertiser newspaper. He describes a round trip from Melbourne to Fiji, Samoa and American Samoa on the Mariposa, with his wife. He died in 1943.

Stock, Mabel M, The Log of a Woman Wanderer. London: William Heinemann, 1923.

Mabel was the sister of Ralph Stock and likely resided in England. It is unclear whether she stayed in Australia for an extended period of time, like her brother. She describes a yacht cruise from Europe to the Pacific Islands with her brother and his friend in 1914, visiting the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia, Tahiti, Cook Islands, Niue and Tonga. In Tonga, her brother sold his boat and they caught a steamer to Sydney via Samoa and Fiji (which she did not describe in further detail).

Stock, Ralph, The Chequered Cruise: A True and Intimate Record of Strenuous Travel. London: Grant Richards Ltd, 1916.

Stock, Ralph, The Confessions of a Tenderfoot: Being a True and Unvarnished Account of His World-Wanderings. London: Grant Richards Ltd, 1913.

Stock, Ralph, The Cruise of the Dream Ship. London: William Heinemann, 1921.

Ralph Stock was born in 1881 in New South Wales, according to Edmund Morris Miller’s 1940 bibliography of Australian literature. However, the AUSTLIT database has identified this as incorrect, stating that he was actually born in London. In 1901, Stock worked his way across Canada and the Pacific Islands, before returning to Australia and buying a pineapple farm in Queensland. Confessions of a Tenderfoot describes this voyage. In 1914, he went on another Pacific voyage with a companion and his sister, Mabel, which he described in The Chequered Cruise. After a stay in England (invalided due to war service in France), he made yet another voyage to the Pacific Islands via Panama in 1920. This was recorded in The Cruise of the Dream Ship. These three travelogues mentioned the Marquesas and Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Niue, Tonga, Norfolk Island, Fiji, Hawai‘i and Samoa. Stock also published three novels and four volumes of short stories that were set in Fiji, Queensland, Thursday Island, Papua and Hawai‘i. Stock was better known for his short stories than his larger works. He contributed to the Captain and the Wide World Magazine, with some of Stock’s stories having been adapted into screenplays from the 1930s to the 1950s. He died in London in 1962.

Syvertsen, Chris, Private Record, PR01438. Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1917–1918.

Syvertsen served on HMAS Fantome during World War I. This diary was kept from 27 October 1917 – 3 April 1918, containing daily entries. HMAS Fantome was a sloop based in Suva during the end of the war, which performed police duties in the Islands. Syvertsen describes the islands of Fiji, Tonga, Niue, Palmerston Island and Tahiti.

Taylor, George Augustine, There!: A Pilgrimage of Pleasure. Sydney: Building Limited, 1916.

Born in 1872 in Sydney, Taylor worked as a cartoonist and journalist in the 1890s, and was also a town planner, inventor, engineer and draughtsman. He served in World War I and was a fellow of the Royal Geographical and Astronomical Societies. This account details a business journey to the US when he was a town planner in 1914. With two companions, ‘The Master Builder’ and ‘The Engineer’, Taylor visited Fiji and Hawai‘i on the initial journey, and Tahiti on the return trip. He died in Sydney in 1928.

Taylor, Patrick Gordon, Pacific Flight: The Story of the Lady Southern Cross. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1935.

Sir Patrick Gordon Taylor was born in 1896 in Sydney. He was an aviator and navigator for Charles Kingsford-Smith, breaking several flight records. Pacific Flight describes the first Australia–US flight in the Lady Southern Cross by Taylor and Kingsford-Smith in 1934. Taylor recalled visiting Fiji in 1933 in preparation for the following year (as Fiji and Hawai‘i were refuelling stations). The 1963 autobiography, The Sky Beyond, recalls similar events. He died in Honolulu in 1966.

Thomas, Julian, Cannibals and Convicts: Notes of Personal Experiences in the Western Pacific. Melbourne: Cassell & Company, 1886.

Thomas, Julian, ‘On the War-Path in New Caledonia’. Victorian Review 8, no. 40 (1883): 357–66.

Julian Thomas was one of many pseudonyms that were used by John Stanley James. Born in England in 1843, James moved to Australia in 1875 and found work with newspapers in Melbourne and Sydney for three years. During this time, he became popular under the pseudonym, ‘The Vagabond’, for his stories about a life of poverty, as they were based on real experience (see The Vagabond Papers). James made several trips to the Pacific Islands: in 1878, he went to Noumea to report on native rebellions against French colonial rule; in 1883, he went to the New Hebrides to report on blackbirding; in 1884, he travelled to Port Moresby, accompanying an exploration party; in 1887, he went to the New Hebrides; and in 1889, he travelled to Samoa and Tonga to report on political events. He published several books about his Pacific travels before his death in Sydney in 1896.

Thomson, James Park, Round the World. Brisbane: Outridge Printing Co., 1904.

Thomson was born in 1854 in Scotland and moved to Australia in 1877. He was a seaman, surveyor, geographer and civil servant. He was also founder of the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland and worked as a land surveyor in Fiji from 1880 to 1884. In 1884, he travelled around the Pacific before settling in Queensland. He published three books on British New Guinea in the 1890s, three on Fiji and several papers for the Royal Geographical Society. Round the World describes a business trip to the US via American Samoa and Hawai‘i in 1903, with Thomson’s brother. It is dedicated to the Australian Commonwealth, which the author calls ‘my adopted country’. Thomson died in Queensland in 1941.

Thomson, TAG, ‘Briefs and Associated Papers in Cases Involving Pacific Islanders’. In Crown Solicitor’s Office, Series ID 12102, Item ID 7866. Brisbane: Queensland State Archives, 1884.

Thomson was a government agent aboard the Heath who visited the Solomon Islands, Papua and New Guinea with Captain William Wawn in 1884.

Tichborne, Henry, Noqu Talanoa: Stories from the South Seas by Sundowner. London: European Mail Ltd, 1896.

Tichborne, Henry, Rambles in Polynesia by Sundowner. London: European Mail, 1897.

Tichborne, Henry, Told by the Taffrail by Sundowner. London: Chatto & Windus, 1901.

According to his accounts, Tichborne (also known as ‘Sundowner’) was born in England, but spent some time in Australia. There is evidence that he considered himself Australian, such as calling the British ‘new chums’ and writing that he wanted to be buried ‘with my own folk under the old gum trees on the Kolarendabri [in Australia]’. It is likely that he worked as a journalist, as his name appears in several Australian newspaper columns. Some of his Pacific texts were composed of anecdotes and short stories, many of which had appeared in other periodicals and were randomly ‘thrown together’, according to the author. It is difficult to tell which tales are based on Tichborne’s personal experience, but he claimed to have visited Fiji, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Hawai‘i, the New Hebrides, Tonga, Yap, Tahiti, French Polynesia, Samoa and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.

The Vagabond, Holy Tonga. Melbourne: publisher unknown, 1890.

The Vagabond, South Sea Massacres. Sydney: ‘The Australian’ Office, 1881.

The Vagabond, The Vagabond Papers, edited by Michael Cannon. Melbourne: Hyland House, 1983.

Also known as John Stanley James or Julian Thomas. See entry for Thomas.

Villiers, Alan John, Cruise of the Conrad: A Journal of a Voyage around the World, Undertaken and Carried Out in the Ship Joseph Conrad, 212 tons, in the Years 1934, 1935 and 1936 by Way of Good Hope, the South Seas, the East Indies and Cape Horn. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1937.

Villiers, Alan John, Stormalong: The Story of a Boy’s Voyage around the World in a Full-Rigged Ship. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1937.

Villiers was born in 1903 in Melbourne. He worked in several ships since he was 15 years old, including a whaling ship, with a short stint as a journalist when he was injured. These texts are accounts of his voyage around the world in the Joseph Conrad from 1934 to 1936, which aimed to train young boys to sail. He passed through New Guinea, the Trobriand Islands, the Solomon Islands, the Caroline Islands and Tahiti. Villiers served in the Royal Navy reserve during World War II and later worked in a maritime museum, commanding sailing ships for famous films and re-enactments. He died in England in 1982.

Wawn, William Twizell, The South Sea Islanders and the Queensland Labour Trade: A Record of Voyages and Experiences in the Western Pacific, from 1875 to 1891, edited by Peter Corris. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1973.

Wawn was a mariner and cartographer, born in England in 1837. In 1868, he made his first visit to the Pacific Islands (probably Samoa). From 1870 to 1900, he worked as a labour recruiter (for Queensland and Fiji, from 1876–1894), as a trader and as a salvager in the Pacific. This is an account of his labour-recruiting experiences, which were first published in London in 1893, with stories of shipwrecks, storms and violent encounters. Wawn mainly recruited in the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, Papua and New Guinea, but also visited Fiji, Samoa, New Caledonia and the Caroline, Marshall and Gilbert Islands. The original manuscript was lost at sea in 1890 and had to be rewritten. The final published account argued that labour recruiting was not slaving, but an equably beneficial trade. Wawn died in Sydney in 1901. His manuscript is held at the National Library of New Zealand and his journals are at the State Library of New South Wales.

Wickham, William A, Impressions Abroad. Adelaide: Hunkin, Ellis & King, 1931.

Wickham was born c. 1882 in New Zealand and arrived in Australia c. 1896. He was a businessman in Adelaide. This is an account of his grand tour in 1929, with descriptions of Hawai‘i on his journey home.

Wilkins, William, Australasia: A Descriptive and Pictorial Account of the Australian and New Zealand Colonies, Tasmania and the Adjacent Lands. London: Blackie & Son, 1888.

Born in 1827 in London, Wilkins moved to Sydney to recover from bronchitis. His wife and child died on the voyage, but he arrived in Sydney in 1851 and remarried the next year. He worked as a headmaster and teacher and helped reform the state’s school administration, eventually becoming a public servant. This is one of several school textbooks that were written when Wilkins was under-secretary for the Department of Public Instruction in New South Wales. It is unclear whether he had visited the Pacific Islands. This book includes a ‘catalogue of educational works specially adapted for elementary and higher schools’. Wilkins died in 1892.

Wirth, George, Round the World with a Circus: Memories of Trials, Triumphs and Tribulations. Melbourne: Troedel and Cooper Printers, 1925.

Wirth was born in 1867 in Victoria. He joined Ashton’s circus with his father and brothers in 1876, and later established Wirth’s Circus. This account of a seven-week circus tour in 1888 includes a description of the journey from Sydney to New Caledonia. Wirth died in 1941.

Wood, Casey Albert, Letter, 1923–1924, MS 3526. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1923–1924.

This is a letter to Wood’s friends, describing a journey across the Pacific from Chicago to Sydney in 1923–1924. The account is in no particular order, containing descriptions of Fiji (where he stayed for six months), Tahiti, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Hawai‘i and New Zealand. Wood was an ornithologist, so there are many observations about the local fauna in his letter.

Woodburn, M Kathleen, Backwash of Empire. Melbourne: Georgian House, 1944.

Woodburn’s background is unknown. This is an account of a holiday with her young son, Jack, to the New Hebrides on a doctor’s recommendation that the climate would be good for restoring Jack’s health. They travelled to Vila via Lord Howe and Norfolk Island on the Morinda and then lived on a coconut plantation on Erromango for several months. They likely made the journey in the 1930s, as Woodburn does not mention the Pacific War in her account. Woodburn was well educated and incorporated botanical, anthropological and linguistic observations throughout the account, as well as collected natural history specimens to take home. She also published articles in Walkabout.

Woodroofe, William, There and Back: Australia to London. London: Elliot Stock, 1915.

Woodroofe was born in 1856 in Dublin and arrived in Australia in 1876. He was a legal clerk and cordial manufacturer. This text describes a grand tour via American Samoa and Hawai‘i in 1913. He died in South Australia in 1915.

Wragge, Clement Lindley, The Romance of the South Seas. London: Chatto & Windus, 1906.

Born in 1852 in England, Wragge was trained as a maritime navigator and moved to Australia in 1876, where he joined the South Australian survey department and studied meteorology. He founded the Meteorological Society of Australasia in 1886 and started observatories in New Caledonia, Tasmania and New South Wales. He worked as the Queensland government’s meteorologist from 1887. This text is based on separate trips to New Caledonia and Tahiti c. 1893, with the intention for the former being to establish an observatory in Noumea. The text contains photographs taken by Wragge and advice that was offered to tourists who visited Tahiti. Wragge also published an Australian Weather Guide and Almanac (1898), as well as a short-lived serial called Wragge: A Meteorological, Geographical and Popular Scientific Gazette of the Southern Hemisphere (1902). Having advocated for the creation of a national weather bureau, he was bitterly disappointed in 1907 when he was not appointed head of the Commonwealth Meteorological Bureau. Wragge then moved to Auckland, before dying in 1922.