Ellis, George Izod, 1866-1954

Date: 1896-1908

From: Pacific Manuscripts Bureau : Records of the Pacific Area

Reference: Micro-MS-Coll-08-1175

Description: Correspondence, to and from the London office of the companies, is between J T Arundel, G Ellis and A H Gaze. Correspondence from Arundel in Nova Scotia, Honolulu, Ocean Island, Melbourne, San Francisco, New York, Plymouth, Japan, New Zealand, Sydney, Tahiti; mainly to the London Head Office. Includes general correspondence, shipping details, telegrams, machinery details and financial affairs. Source of title - Transcribed Arrangement: Arranged alphabetically, primarily by addressee. The Pacific Islands Company (PIC), formed in 1897 from J T Arundel and Co, a Pacific trading and phosphate company, had as chairman Lord Stanmore (Sir Arthur Gordon), with John Arundel as vice-chairman. In 1900, Albert Ellis, a company employee, confirmed that Banaba island contained huge deposits of phosphate. The PIC gained an imperial mining licence after British annexation of Banaba. With exclusive mining rights for an annual payment of £50 to the Banabans, the company was soon making up to £125,000 per annum. Eventually the PPC agreed to provide for a trust fund for environmental damage; that committment was never fulfilled. In 1902 the PIC sold its other interests and formed the Pacific Phosphate Company ltd (PPC) with Jaluit Gesellschaft of Hamburg, giving it mining rights on German Nauru. After World War I, the PPC was replaced by the British Phosphate Commissioners (BPC), with the company's former executives becoming commissioners. The BPC was wound up in 1981 with Banaba mined out and almost completely depopulated while Nauru, independent since 1968, had taken over its own phosphate mining. The origins of many of these developments can be traced to the PIC and PPC. Quantity: 15 microfilm reel(s). Finding Aids: Inventory available.

Date: 1892-1904

From: Pacific Manuscripts Bureau : Records of the Pacific Area

Reference: Micro-MS-Coll-08-1174

Description: Presscopy letter books of outward letters from George C Ellis, A F Ellis, H E Denson and J T Arundel of the Australian Office of J T Arundel and Company and the Pacific Islands Company Ltd to business associates, mainly in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. The correspondence documents the early corporate history that led to the environmental devastation of both islands, the diaspora of Banabans to Rabi in Fiji and eslewhere, and the near-bankruptcy of Nauru. Source of title - Transcribed Relationship complexity - See also Micro-MS-Coll-08-1175 and 1176 for further papers of the Pacific Islands Company, and Micro-MS-Coll-08-0480-0495, 0497-0498 for diarie, correspondence and further papers of J T Arundel and A F Ellis. Arrangement: Some books indexed by subject and addressee. All arranged chronologically. John T Arundel, son of a LMS official, worked for a London firm with interests in guano, which took him into the Pacific. In 1892 Arundel formed his own company, J T Arundel and Company, which acquired concessions enabling it to make and market copra and phosphate. The Pacific Islands Company was formed in 1897 and in 1898 took over the assets of Henderson & McFarlane Ltd in the Mid-Pacific. Lord Stanmore (Sir Arthur Gordon, formerly Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner of the Western Pacific) was chairman of the PIC, with Arundel as its vice-chairman. In 1902 the PIC divested itself of non-phosphate interests and merged with the Jaluit Gesellschaft of Hamburg to form the Pacific Phosphate Company Ltd, with exclusive rights to the exploitation of phosphate in Banaba and Nauru. Quantity: 8 microfilm reel(s). Finding Aids: Inventory avilable. Provenance: Donor/Lender/Vendor - Purchase, PMB, 2002

Date: 1910

By: Ellis, Ernest, active 1900-1910

Reference: B-193-005

Description: An illuminated, illustrated address saying goodbye to George I Ellis, with signatures of some of the residents of Banaba (Ocean Island), in the Gilbert Islands group (today known as Kiribati). The address, dated 6 December 1910, reads: 'Dear Sir, We, the undersigned members of the staff at Ocean Island, have heard with great regret that it is your intention to leave the island shortly & we cannot allow you to do so without letting you know how very much the whole community will deplore the loss of both yourself and Mrs Ellis. When you are away and your thoughts at times stray back to "Our Island" we know you will realise how very many good friends and well-wishers of you both there are here. Yours faithfully ...' His brother Albert's signature is the first on the list. The illustrations include male and female figures in native costume, native huts and palm trees, and a trading vessel, probably the 'Archer' George Izod Ellis was the brother of Sir Albert Fuller Ellis, (1869-1951),who was a mining engineer and phosphate commissioner in the south Pacific. He would appear to have lived on Ocean Island between 1900 and 1910. He died in New Zealand in 1954, aged 88 Quantity: 1 watercolour(s). Physical Description: Ink, pencil and watercolour on paper, 465 x 285 mm