Kiribati - Commerce

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: 1914-1956

From: Pacific Manuscripts Bureau : Records of the Pacific Area

Reference: Micro-MS-Coll-08-1113

Description: Poor quality photocopy of the original. Covers the history of the firm W R Carpenter and Company Ltd, and its trading and shipping activities in Papua, as well as its expansion into copra plantations, until its takeover by Morris Hedstrom and Company in 1956. Source of title - Transcribed Quantity: 1 microfilm reel(s). Provenance: Donor/Lender/Vendor - Purchase, PMB, 2003

Date: 1870-1919

From: Pacific Manuscripts Bureau : Records of the Pacific Area

Reference: Micro-MS-Coll-08-0480-0492

Description: Diaries kept by an early South Seas trader and important figure in the phosphate industry. Source of title - Transcribed Quantity: 13 microfilm reel(s). Finding Aids: Invnetory available. Provenance: Donor/Lender/Vendor - Purchase, PMB, ca 1980

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: 14 Apr 1889-31 Jan 1891

From: Pacific Manuscripts Bureau : Records of the Pacific Area

Reference: Micro-MS-Coll-08-0014

Description: The diary is written in a mixture of Tahitian, Mangarevan and English, the lingua franca of the multi-level community on Flint Island. Details weather conditions, winds, land areas cleared, coconut palms planted, harvested, crushed and cut. Also describes difficult conditions of work, such as fire-ant infections, lack of medical care and food, and relationships with Arundel family. H I N Moouga, of Managarevan descent, was a foreman of a team of coconut plantation workers from French Polynesia and Niue, employed on Flint Island by J T Arundel and Co of London. Quantity: 1 microfilm reel(s). Finding Aids: Full description in inventory, also in "Complete Annotated Catalogue" (Canberra: PMB, 1991) which has in index.

Date: [ca 1952-1962]

From: Pacific Manuscripts Bureau : Records of the Pacific Area

Reference: Micro-MS-Coll-08-1057

Description: Comprise seven volumes of typescript and MS research notes relating to the history of the Gilbert Islands, arranged within the volumes in chronological order. The notes are taken from such sources as the Archives of the Western Pacific High Commission and various newspapers. Interleaved is some of Maude's original correspondence. Topics include missions; the labour trade; copra; customs; trade; health; education; historical events; murders; Ocean Island, and visits of ships Source of title - Transcribed Quantity: 1 microfilm reel(s). Provenance: Donor/Lender/Vendor - Purchase, PMB, 2008

Date: 1865-1909

From: Pacific Manuscripts Bureau : Records of the Pacific Area

Reference: Micro-MS-Coll-08-0493-0495

Description: Correpondence, cashbooks and other papers, kept by a leading figure in the Pacific phosphate industry. Source of title - Supplied Relationship complexity - See also Micro-MS-Coll-08-0498 Quantity: 3 microfilm reel(s). Provenance: Donor/Lender/Vendor - Purchase, PMB, ca 1990