Guide to the Diaries and papers of Sir John Thurston (as filmed by the AJCP)
M691
National Library of Australia View Catalogue Record
Created: 2018
Collection Summary
- Creator
- Thurston, John Bates, Sir
- Title
- Diaries and biographical papers of Sir John Bates Thurston (as filmed by the AJCP)
- Date Range
- c.1840-1897
- Collection Number
- M691
- Extent
- 18 items
- Language of Materials
- English
- Repository
- Australian Joint Copying Project
- Sponsor
- The Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP) online portal was created with the assistance of the Australian Public Service Modernisation Fund, 2017-2020. The National Library of Australia gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the other foundation AJCP partners, the State Library of New South Wales and The National Archives of the UK, and all other organisations which supported the work of the AJCP, the world's most extensive collaborative copying project, operating from 1948 to 1997.
Introduction
Scope and Contents
1. Biographical papers, including manuscript biographical notes and newspaper obituaries collected and compiled by various members of the Thurston Family.
2. Diary of a voyage from Sydney to England 1854-55 with descriptions of Australia and New Zealand, and a diary February-March 1863 of a trip to the Swan River, Western Australia, and Mauritius, with a short description of Perth. There is also an account of a 'Ramble on Rotumah' 1865, and various other notes on that island.
3. Commonplace book 1840s-1860s including remarks on primitive man, apparently written by Thurston, and a diary of his voyage from Rotuma to Fiji in 1865.
4. Diary and notebook 1874 concerning the cession of Fiji.
5. Diary 1894 with comments on law cases and referring to the murder of Bishop J.C. Patteson.
Conditions Governing Access
Available for Access.
Conditions Governing Use
Many of the records digitised as part of the AJCP are still in copyright. Readers wishing to publish or reproduce documents should seek permission, in the first instance, from the owner of the original material.
Preferred Citation
Acknowledgement of use of this material should refer to the location of the original material and to the Australian Joint Copying Project.
Items from this collection should include references to the location of the original material and to the AJCP nla.obj number, which serves as the online identifier for the digital copy.
Example: M Series: Journal of Capt. James Cook, 18 February 1770, British Library Add. MS 27885 (AJCP ref: http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1234)
Archival History
Filmed as part of the Australian Joint Copying Project, 1967 (AJCP Reel: M691) filmed at the private residence of Mr J. Millington, Roger Manwood School, London. Original microfilm digitised as part of the NLA AJCP Online Delivery Project, 2017-2020.
Existence and Location of Originals
The Thurston Papers filmed by the Australian Joint Copying Project were acquired by the National Library of Australia. Collection reference: MS 1914. For further information, see Sir John Thurston at the National Library of Australia (https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1259299).
Existence and Location of Copies
The original AJCP microfilm of the records filmed from this collection is available at the National Library of Australia [https://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn2247999] as well as other institutions holding AJCP microfilm.
Finding-aid Notes
This finding aid is a revised online version of the original finding aid prepared by the Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP), published by the National Library of Australia in 2018. The original AJCP finding aids were unpublished typescripts or photocopies available from libraries that held copies of the original microfilm.
Dates used in this finding aid refer to the date range of the reords selected for filming rather than to the date range of the Series or Files.
Obituaries and other articles about Thurston are listed, but were not filmed. They are among the original papers now held in the National Library of Australia.
Subjects
Anthropology; Fiji; Governors and Governors General: Fiji; Linnean Society of New South Wales; Mauritius; New Zealand; Officials; Patteson, John C., Bishop; Perth, Western Australia: visits to; Rotuma Island, Pacific Ocean; Sydney, New South Wales ; Thurston, Sir John B.; Western Australia; Western Pacific High Commission
Bibliography
Originally cited in Australian Joint Copying Project Handbook. Part 8: Miscellaneous (M) Series. Third Edition, published 1998. Entry 461, p180.
Biographical / Historical
Sir John Bates Thurston (1836-1897) was born in London and spent his early years in London and Jersey. His father died in 1847 and in 1849 he was apprenticed to Liverpool shipowners and went to sea. He made voyages to India and Australia and in 1853-54 spent a short time on the Victorian goldfields. He was subsequently a mate on a Sydney schooner trading in the Pacific Islands. In 1865 a botanical voyage to Rotuma ended in shipwreck and on arriving in Fiji Thurston found work as a clerk with the British consul. Within a short time he took over as the consul and soon became involved in disputes between the Indigenous Fijians and the growing number of European cotton planters. In 1872 he joined the government of Ratu Seru Cakobau as chief secretary. He played a central role in the negotiations that led to the Cakobau Government making an offer of cession to Britain, on condition that Fijian land ownership was protected.
Fiji became a British Crown colony in 1874 and in 1875 Sir Arthur Gordon arrived to take up the position of governor. From 1877 onwards Thurston was Colonial Secretary of Fiji and Assistant High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. He was knighted in 1887, having acted as governor in the previous two years. In 1888 Thurston was appointed Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner for the Western Pacific and he remained in those positions until his death in 1897. He was the longest-serving governor in the history of the colony.
Reference: Deryck Scarr. The majesty of colour: a life of Sir John Bates Thurston, 2 vols. (Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1973, 1980).
Item Descriptions
Series 1. Biographical papers
4 items
Series 2. Diary of a voyage from Sydney to Mauritius, 1863
In the same volume is an account entitled 'Ramble in Rotuma'. (15pp)
Series 3. Diary of a voyage from Sydney to England, 1854 - 1855
The volume is a mixture of shipboard diary and notebook, recording conversations, historical accounts, anthropological notes and other reflections.
In the same volume are notes on Rotuma Island, the government of Rotuma, Benai Littoral, and the 'respect entertained by most natives for the posts of their houses'.
Series 4. Commonplace book, 13 March 1865 - 1 August 1865
10 itemsThe book contains short diaries, essays, poems and extracts from publications.
Series 5. Diary of the cession of Fiji to Britain, 1874
A Letts diary (three days per page) for 1874, with detailed entries for January-April and occasional entries for April-July. The entries in the first four months record the negotiations and deliberations of Thurston and the Cakobau Government, the Fijian chiefs, and the British commissioners, Commodore J.G. Goodenough and E.L. Layard, concerning the annexation of Fiji by Britain. Cakobau made a final offer on 21 March, which the British accepted. The discussions ended in unconditional cession on 30 September 1874.
Series 6. Diary of a cruise to the Solomon Islands, 1894
The southern Solomon Islands had come under the jurisdiction of the Western Pacific High Commission in 1893 and Thurston undertook the cruise in his capacity as High Commissioner. He visited many islands including Guadalcanal, Savo Island, New Georgia, Russell Islands, Santa Cruz Islands and Tikopia. The diary, which is quite detailed, records his meetings with chiefs and other Islanders, traders and missionaries and also Cecil Wilson, the Anglican Bishop of Melanesia. Thurston wrote about conversations, such as an account of the murder of Bishop John Patteson in 1871, disputes and litigation, and his observations of villages, houses, churches, boats and crops. He also made notes on his reading, including G.L.D. de Rienzi's Oceanie (1836-37), Hernan Gallego's account of the voyage of Mendana in 1567-68, and Peter Dillon's Narrative and successful results of a voyage in the South Seas (1829).
At the end of the diary are notes of an inquiry by Thurston into the actions of Peter Edmund Pratt, a French trader based at Simbo Island, who was accused of shooting an Islander.