Papers of Henry Evans and Honor Courtney Maude
E. Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme
This series has been partially digitised and can be found on the H.E. Maude Digital Archive
Papers relating to the establishment and progress of the Scheme. 1936-40. 8cm.
The colonisation proposal to solve the problems of over-population in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands was first mooted in 1920. Maude reported on the suitability of the Phoenix Islands Group for such a settlement in 1937.
As anyone who reads my essay on 'The Colonization of the Phoenix Islands' will realize, this episode was the romantic
highlight of my life in the islands, and the series, covering in the main the years 1938 and 1939, preserves the source material on the inception and progress of the scheme up to October 1939, when my assistant, G.B. Gallagher, took charge until his death on Nikumaroro, one of the islands being colonized.
1. Reports and correspondence leading to the colonization of the Phoenix Islands, Part I. Comprising notes, copies of reports and correspondence 1936-37, and summary memorandum by Maude in 1942 on the scheme.
2. Reports and correspondence leading to the colonization of the Phoenix Islands, Part II. Notes, report and correspondence, 1937-1938.
3. Preparations for the First Expedition. Notes and copies of telegrams, August 1937 - February 1938.
4. Correspondence and Progress Reports on the implementation of the Colonization Scheme: Maude, December 1938-February 1940, G.B. Gallagher, April 1939 - March 1941. Include reports re Gallagher's administrative visit to Birnie Island, June 1939; building of hospital at Manra (Sydney) Island; and detailed progress reports on the settlement, 1939-40.
5. First Progress Report. Manuscript of First Progress Report, March 1939.
6. Report on Progress and Activities of the First Settlement Party, Sydney Island. Typescript copies of First Progress Report, April 1939.
6a. Second progress report, November 1939. mss and typed copies.
7. Printed material on the Settlement Scheme. Articles by Maude in the Journal of The Polynesian Society, March, June 1952, and the 1939 Report as printed by the Government Press, Suva.
8. “Notes and memoranda” [personal notebook of H.E. Maude], 26 September 1938. 1 v.
see also Series G16 and G45
