William Hugh Watson - William Oliver, yeoman a narrative of the South Seas, 19--

PMB 518

fonds

Canberra : Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, [19--]

440729

Microfilm : PMB 518

2 microfilm reels 35 mm

Watson (1899-) was born at Fife, Scotland. He went to the Cook Islands in 1930 after working in New Zealand and Australia. He established a firm of clothing manufacturers in Rarotonga which later became United Island Traders Ltd. He was a member of the Rarotonga Island Council for seven years, a member of the Cook Islands Legislative Council for six years, and a member of the Cook Islands Legislative Assembly from 1957 to 1960

Watson says in an introduction that William Oliver left Devonshire, England, to seek his fortune in Australia in the early 1860s. The narrative is an account of his adventures taken almost word for word from a diary kept between 1862 and 1892. The narrative gives an informative account of life in Rarotonga and the Society Islands. The history of the diary is obscure, but is referred to in an article in the Pacific Islands Monthly for July 1936, p. 30. Oliver died in the Cook Islands in 1906

PMB (Australian National University. Pacific Manuscripts Bureau) ; 518
Available for reference
Microfilm copy of original held by Pacific Publications (Aust.) Pty Ltd, Alberta Street, Sydney, N.S.W.