[Maslyn Williams Ocean Island photographs]

PXB 293 (v.4)

series

1901-1959

Graphic Materials, Photographs

52745

Photographs - 138 silver gelatin photoprints

A contents list compiled by Maslyn Williams is available in the Mitchell Library Original Materials Reading Room at PXB 293

"In May 1900, A.F. Ellis, a young man working for a London based company, The Pacific Island Co. Ltd., discovered phosphate deposits on Ocean Island and Nauru in the Central Pacific. At the urging of the Company the British Government annexed Ocean Island to its Gilbert and Ellice Protectorate. Nauru was already included within Germany's Pacific possessions and arrangements were made for the Company to mine the Nauru deposits under license.

The use of manufactured fertilisers was, at this time, underpinning an agricultural revolution and the Company - which had now given up its other Pacific pursuits - made handsome profits.

After the 1914/18 war the Governments of Australia and New Zealand, anxious to ensure their access to the phosphate deposits, insisted that the Company transfer its rights to a Government Commission representing Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain. Thur, in 1920, the British Phosphate Commission came into existence. At about the same time Nauru was transferred from German to Australian rule.

During World War 2 Japan occupied these islands, but after the war the Phosphate Commissioners took over again and a few years later purchased the mining rights on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. In 1970 the mining operation on Nauru was sold to the Government of the newly-independent Nauru, and in 1979 the Ocean Island deposits were exhausted.

The Commissioners continued to mine Christmas Island until 1980 when the Governments handed over the project to private enterprise." - -- Foreward to the contents list

Most are annotated and dated on reverse