WESTERN PACIFIC ARCHIVE ARRIVES IN SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

After more than 20 years in the UK, three container loads of Western Pacific history returned to the region on 9 October when the British Government formally transferred its unique and extensive Western Pacific Archives collection to the University of Auckland. The material will be available for consultation in Special Collections from January 2003, having attracted wide publicity both in New Zealand and the Pacific region. 

The Western Pacific Archive captures a century's worth of the life and times of the Western Pacific Islanders through unique records, photographs, maps and other memorabilia covering the period 1877-1978.

The collection is of great importance because of the light it sheds on indigenous communities and colonial policy over a long period. It is an invaluable record of a unique period in the development of the region.

Guests at the ceremony included Heather Yasamee of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British High Commissioner, His Excellency Mr Richard Fell, Mr Stephen Turner (Consul-General), His Excellency Feesago S. Fepulea'i (Samoa), Professor Raewyn Dalziel, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, and Dr John Hood, Vice-Chancellor of the University. The event featured a mihi from Emeritus Professor Dr Ranginui Walker and a Samoan performance by students of the Centre for Pacific Studies.

"Pacific researchers over the years have experienced frustration trying to access this material, and since much of the relevant research is conducted in this region, there are obvious geographical advantages in locating the archive in Auckland," says Stephen Innes, Special Collections Librarian at the University.

The acquisition reflects and will reinforce the University's strength as a centre for Pacific research, which has already seen the creation of the Centre for Pacific Studies in 1990 and the Fale Pasifika, currently under development.

The Archive is complemented by the other Pacific resources of the New Zealand and Pacific Collection and Special Collections at the University. These are second only to the University of Hawaii in comprehensiveness, and together provide a draw card for researchers.

The prospect of the transfer of the Western Pacific Archive has already sparked a lot of interest among researchers, both in New Zealand and abroad. The transfer is the result of several years of negotiation, review and physical preparation, including substantial conservation work by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has recently published a commemorative history of the archive¹, tracing the origins and development of the Western Pacific High Commission and reproducing a selection of documents. Copies of the publication are now available in the New Zealand and Pacific Collection and Special Collections, while an electronic version of the history will be available on the FCO website (www.fco.gov.uk) shortly.

"Much of the value of an archive lies in the use that can be made of it," says Heather Yasamee from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who presented the archive to the University.

"The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's transfer of the Western Pacific Archive and associated collections to The University of Auckland is designed to make this historic archive more readily available for researchers in the region to use and enjoy."

"By returning this archive to the Pacific region, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is returning part of the region's history."

Because of its size (760 linear metres), most of the archive will be housed in a commercial storage facility, but access to the materials will be provided in the Special Collections reading room, part of the University's General Library refurbishment. Unpacking and identification of the records is underway, and they will be available for consultation by the end of this year.

Intended initially to control the more unruly and illegal activities of European traders and settlers (especially the labour traffic), the Commission over time became a vehicle for British imperial expansion in the region generally, taking on general administrative functions in the New Hebrides, Gilberts and Solomons including health, taxation, communications, land policy, and public works. Following the closure of the Commission in 1978, most of the records were returned to the UK pending a decision about accommodation in the Pacific region. The records relating to local jurisdiction in the Solomons were sent to Honiara, and similar Gilbert and Ellice Islands material was despatched to the new states of Kiribati and Tuvalu (although most pre-WWII records relating to the latter remain part of the Commission's archives).

The Archive which was transferred to the University consists of the record groups remaining after this diaspora, except for Pitcairn which remains a British Overseas Territory, i.e.: the records of the Western Pacific High Commission, the British Commissioner and Consul to Tonga, and the New Hebrides British Service.

In 1976, Bruce T. Burne, then Archivist of the Western Pacific Archive, wrote:
"The records form... an entire and integrated whole. As such, not only must they be invaluable and of prime interest to the Governments of the region, but they also constitute by far the most important depository of historical and other information in the entire Pacific region, covering as they do the major part of the South Seas inhabited by a wide variety of Polynesians, Micronesians and Melanesians."

"To historians, anthropologists, political scientists, demographers and other social scientists the value of the documentation they contain is incalculable..."

[October 2002]

contact: Stephen Innes
Special Collections Librarian
General Library / Te Herenga Matauranga Whanui
University of Auckland
Ph. (649) 373-7599 ext. 8062
Fax (649) 373-7565
email: s.innes@auckland.ac.nz

¹ The Western Pacific Archive : selected documents. London : Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 2002. (GENERAL LIBRARY New Zealand & Pacific 990 W52).