THE AUTHOR an Honours Graduate in History, and a Trained Teacher, the Rev

A Family Affair by George G. Carter 1973 THE AUTHOR An Honours graduate in History, and a trained teacher, the Rev. George G. Carter served as a nursing orderly in the Forces during World War II. It was this service that took him first to the Solomons thirty years ago. When he went to Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, after the war as a missionary teacher, his medical experience in the tropics was of great value. Accepted as a candidate for the ministry in 1950, he was received into full connexion in 1954. After ten years on Bougainville which had included teacher training. Scripture translation and a circuit superintendency, Mr Carter was transferred to Munda, British Solomons, as Chairman of the then Solomon Islands Methodist District. In 1963 he also became Chairman of the First Methodist United Synod. He took up his post as General Secretary of Overseas Missions (now the Overseas Division) in 1966. In this capacity he has travelled widely in the South Pacific seeing the Church in action and growth. He is currently President of the Bible Society in New Zealand. Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #28(3&4) Page 1 A Family Affair by George G. Carter 1973 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I wish to acknowledge my debt to the many people who have helped me. Friends and relatives of former missionaries as well as the ex-missionaries themselves have been very helpful. The Librarian of the Mitchell Library in Sydney, the Archivist of the Fiji National Archives and the Librarian of the Western Pacific High Commission Archives, and their staff have all been most helpful. Without the patience of my family and the patience and skill of my assistant, Mrs J. Wornell, this book could hardly have seen the light of day. To all of these and many others I say thank you. I set out to lighten up the darker corners of our missionary history and to touch much more lightly on the areas which are either reasonably well known or for which there are other accessible sources of reference. C. T. J. Luxton's book, "The Isles of Solomon", must remain an indispensable source of information and R. G. Williams recent book, "The United Church in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands," is crowded with factual information. In the pre-1940 period I have concentrated on people, and sketched in events only in so far as it seemed necessary for New Zealand Methodists to understand and appreciate their work. In the last thirty years there have been so many people that it has neither been possible nor desirable to comment on each. I have therefore had to be far more selective than I would otherwise have wished to be, and I can only apologise to those whose contributions to the church overseas remain unchronicled. Through the lists at the back of the book I have endeavoured to record the names of as many people as possible. But records are incomplete and if there are any names which should appear there, and do not, I would be glad to know of them so that record can be made. I have documented my sources fairly thoroughly, because I quickly came to realise that there is scope for far more research than I have been able to do and I hope that more competent historians will take up the challenge to explore more thoroughly individual lives and incidents. The spelling of Polynesian and Melanesian names has presented problems. I have endeavoured to keep a uniform pattern, based on the standard spellings accepted for Papua New Guinea. In references to the church in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands I have used the names for the Regions of the United Church rather than their earlier very confusing names, wherever possible. Where the context required the earlier names, I have endeavoured to make clear which area is referred to. It will help if readers remember that the Methodist New Guinea District became the Papua District and then the Papuan Islands Region of the United Church; that the New Britain District became the New Guinea District and then the New Guinea Islands Region of the United Church. The quotation on the title page is from the Methodist Hymn Book, Hymn Number: 1027. — G. G. Carter Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #28(3&4) Page 2 A Family Affair by George G. Carter 1973 CONTENTS A Family Affair Acknowledgements Dedication PART ONE I New Zealanders Abroad The First Adventurers II A Family Affair Chapter 1 The Day Begins in Tonga Chapter 2 A King in Israel Chapter 3 Towards Independence Chapter 4 Hesitation in Samoa Chapter 5 Pity Poor Feejee! III Tension and Expansion Chapter 1 New World — New Britain Chapter 2 The Enigma of Papua Chapter 3 To the Isles of Solomon IV A Field of Our Own Chapter 1 Mission Boards and All That Chapter 2 Finance Chapter 3 Women's Work for Women Chapter 4 Some General Secretaries Appendix I: Copy of a Letter by Mrs Lyth BIBLIOGRAPHY Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #28(3&4) Page 3 A Family Affair by George G. Carter 1973 DEDICATION They crossed the pages of history, men and women, black, brown and white, few rich and many poor, weak and strong, clever and not so clever, perceptive and obtuse, at times humble and at times arrogant, broad minded and bigoted, capable of altruism and self-sacrifice and of near knavery and trickery — a cross section of ordinary people distinguished only by a deep conviction that God called them and that they were not alone because He was with them, and by an infusion of "agape" that had nothing to do with sloppy sentimentality but was a deeply rooted "care and concern" for others — for their souls, their minds, their bodies, their societies and cultures. These distinguishing marks were at once the cause of some of their follies and the source of their highest attainments. They are the missionaries to whom this book is dedicated. Our tale tells of some of those who have gone out from the New Zealand Church family, that is called Methodism, during 150 years, but they are representative of a line which begins with the Apostles, and is not yet ended. It is their story and the story of the Church that sent them, and the Churches to which they went, that this Volume seeks, however inadequately, to tell. Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #28(3&4) Page 4 A Family Affair by George G. Carter 1973 I New Zealanders Abroad The First Adventurers From the day the first "kaipuke"1 came over the New Zealand horizon and the pakeha emerged from its wooden walls, it was inevitable that the fascination of its large sails and its numerous gadgets, together with the ageless lure of faraway places would win a response from young New Zealanders. Ship's masters, with crews decimated by scurvy, and riddled with the disaffection due to long voyages, were in the mood to take the calculated risk of shipping "cannibals" before the mast. Many went willingly; some were kidnapped. The lustful sailors not only were interested in men but also in the women folk and there must have been many tragedies. These were not only individual tragedies, but also, at times, communal disasters. Just as revenge for kidnapping and murder took the lives of the Rev. John Williams, Bishop Patteson and the Rev. James Chalmers in more famous incidents, so the massacres of ship's crews inevitably resulted from such rapacity. Tribal wars could also be caused by the pakeha's crimes. Vennell tells the story of the "Venus" and her evil crew. They captured by force or guile a number of women including the sister and niece of Te Morenga and a relation of Hongi Hika, two of the most powerful Nga Puhi chiefs, and then the daughter of Te Haupa, chief of the Ngati Paoa, in the Firth of Thames. When they had finished with the women, the renegades sold them to Bay of Plenty for slaves. At least one finished her life in the cannibal oven. This occurred in 1807, and revenge was slow to come, but terrible in its results. In 1818, both Te Morenga and Hongi, and Te Haupa also mounted punitive expeditions against the Bay of Plenty people. Hongi alone is said to have burned more than 500 villages and taken hundreds of prisoners, not to mention the slain.2 It was not all evil however. One youth who had left his home in the Bay of Islands was responsible for introducing the first missionaries. Ruatara's services to Samuel Marsden are recorded in every New Zealand history book. By 1830 there must have been a considerable number of New Zealanders who had gone abroad, though probably very few returned. It was noted in that year that some Maoris had been landed on Rotuma by a whaling ship, but they had all died.3 It is probable that the numbers going abroad increased in the next decade, and it is also known that Maoris were recruited to work in Fiji, mainly in the sandalwood trade, to do work the locals would not attempt.4 In 1841 the Rev. T. J. Jagger, missionary in Fiji, records in his diary that, "A New Zealander bought a girl with a musket", and again on the 15th March 1843 he wrote, "Yesterday I certainly saved a poor New Zealander from having his head broken or life taken."5 Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #28(3&4) Page 5 A Family Affair by George G.

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