|
Fred Whibley
Fred Whibley (Fredrick George Whibley, 1855–1919) abandoned a career as clerk in a London bank to escape from the constraints and social expectations of respectability in the Victorian era. He ended up as a copra trader on Niutao in Tuvalu in the central Pacific Ocean. Whibley was born in 1855 in Sittingbourne, Kent, England, the youngest son of Ambrose Whibley, silk mercer, and his first wife, Anne Parkes. Educated at Bristol Grammar School. After the death of Anne in 1855 Ambrose Whibley married Mary Jean Davy, the daughter of John Davy, an iron merchant of Bristol. Fred Whibley was the half-brother of Charles Whibley, journalist and writer and Leonard Whibley, classical scholar and Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge from 1899-1910. Fred’s sister, Eliza Eleanor (Lillie) Whibley, married John T. Arundel, owner of John T Arundel and Company which operated in the Pacific. Early life From 1873 to 1888 Fred Whibley worked as a clerk in a bank. In 1888 at the aged of 33, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sittingbourne
Sittingbourne is an industrial town in Kent, south-east England, from Canterbury and from London, beside the Roman Watling Street, an ancient British trackway used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons and next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey. The town became prominent after the death of Thomas Becket in 1170, since it provided a convenient resting point on the road from London to Canterbury and Dover. Chatham Main Line links to London Victoria and HS1 to St Pancras International, the journey taking about an hour from Sittingbourne railway station. History Sittingbourne owes its name to a modernised version of an observation on its location. The town's name came from the fact that there is a small stream or "bourne" running underground in part of the town. Hasted writing in the 1790s in his ''History of Kent'' states that: The Kent Hundred Rolls of 1274–5, preserved in the National Archives, record Sittingbourne as Sydingeburn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nauru
Nauru ( or ; na, Naoero), officially the Republic of Nauru ( na, Repubrikin Naoero) and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in Oceania, in the Central Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Kiribati, about to the east. It further lies northwest of Tuvalu, northeast of Solomon Islands, east-northeast of Papua New Guinea, southeast of the Federated States of Micronesia and south of the Marshall Islands. With only a area, Nauru is the third-smallest country in the world behind Vatican City and Monaco, making it the smallest republic as well as the smallest island nation. Its population of about 10,000 is the world's second-smallest (not including colonies or overseas territories), after Vatican City. Settled by people from Micronesia circa 1000 BCE, Nauru was annexed and claimed as a colony by the German Empire in the late 19th century. After World War I, Nauru became a League of Nations mandate administered by Austra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fanny Stevenson
Frances "Fanny" Matilda Van de Grift Osbourne Stevenson (10 March 1840 – 18 February 1914) was an American magazine writer. She became a supporter and later the wife of Robert Louis Stevenson, and the mother of Isobel Osbourne, Samuel Lloyd Osbourne, and Hervey Stewart Osbourne. Early life Fanny Vandegrift was born in Indianapolis, the daughter of builder Jacob Vandegrift and his wife Esther Thomas Keen. She was something of a tomboy, and had dark curly hair. At the age of seventeen she married Samuel Osbourne, a lieutenant on the state governor's staff. Their daughter Isobel (or 'Belle') was born the following year. Samuel fought in the American Civil War, went with a friend sick with tuberculosis to California, and ended up in the silver mines of Nevada. Once settled there he sent for his family. Fanny and the five-year-old Isobel made the long journey via New York, the isthmus of Panama, San Francisco, and finally by wagons and stage-coach to the mining camps of the Rees ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'', '' Kidnapped'' and ''A Child's Garden of Verses''. Born and educated in Edinburgh, Stevenson suffered from serious bronchial trouble for much of his life, but continued to write prolifically and travel widely in defiance of his poor health. As a young man, he mixed in London literary circles, receiving encouragement from Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, Leslie Stephen and W. E. Henley, the last of whom may have provided the model for Long John Silver in ''Treasure Island''. In 1890, he settled in Samoa where, alarmed at increasing European and American influence in the South Sea islands, his writing turned away from romance and adventure fiction toward a darker realism. He died of a stroke in his island home in 1894 at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samoa
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono and Apolima); and several smaller, uninhabited islands, including the Aleipata Islands (Nu'utele, Nu'ulua, Fanuatapu and Namua). Samoa is located west of American Samoa, northeast of Tonga (closest foreign country), northeast of Fiji, east of Wallis and Futuna, southeast of Tuvalu, south of Tokelau, southwest of Hawaii, and northwest of Niue. The capital city is Apia. The Lapita culture, Lapita people discovered and settled the Samoan Islands around 3,500 years ago. They developed a Samoan language and Samoan culture, Samoan cultural identity. Samoa is a Unitary state, unitary Parliamentary system, parliamentary democracy with 11 Administrative divisions of Samoa, administrative divisions. It is a sovereign state and a member of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vailima, Samoa
Vailima is the name of a village about four miles south of Apia, the capital of Samoa. The population is 769. Vailima is part of the electoral political district Tuamasaga. Origins The name Vailima means "water in the hand", according to an old Samoan tale. A woman gave some water (vai) in her hand (lima) to help her thirsty companion. A widely quoted misinterpretation states that the name means "five waters", as the word "lima" means both "hand" and "five" in Samoan. Connections with Robert Louis Stevenson The village is most known as the location of the last residence of Robert Louis Stevenson, named "Villa Vailima", which is now the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum. The estate has had a varied past with it functioning further as the residence for the governor of German Samoa, the administrator of the New Zealand mandatory authority and the Samoan head of state. It is now a museum in honour of Stevenson and has been substantially restored. Stevenson is buried in a tomb on Mount ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nanumea
Nanumea is the northwesternmost atoll in the Polynesian nation of Tuvalu, a group of nine coral atolls and islands spread over about of the Pacific Ocean just south of the equator and west of the International Date Line. Nanumea is with a population of 512 people (2017 census). Geography Located along one edge of the so-called Polynesian triangle, Nanumea lies just south of the Gilbert Islands, which are Micronesian in language and culture. Nanumea is a classic atoll, a series of low islets sitting on a coral reef shelf surrounding a lagoon. About long by wide in overall size, the dry land area is about . The two largest islets Nanumea and Lakena, which comprise 90% of the dry land area of the atoll. Since the early 1990s, the use of nets and spearing has been prohibited in all parts of the lagoon and the Nanumea Conservation Area was established in 2006. The Nanumea Conservation Area covers about of the central lagoon and consists of about 10% of the reef area of the atol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palagi
Pālagi (pronounced – ''singular'' ) or papālagi (''plural'') is a term in Samoan culture of uncertain meaning, sometimes used to describe foreigners. Tent and Geraghty (2001) comment that the origin of the Western Polynesian ''Papālagi~Pālagi'' and the Fijian ''Vāvālagi~Pāpālagi'' remains a matter of speculation.Tent, Jan and Paul Geraghty, Paul, 2001, "Exploding sky or exploded myth? The origin of Papalagi", ''Journal of the Polynesian Society'', 110, No. 2: 171–214. ''Papālagi~Pālagi'' is a word in the Samoan language describing non-Samoans, usually white foreigners of European or American descent. In Samoa the term is used to describe foreigners. The word is both a noun e.g. ''a Palagi'' (European person) or an adjective e.g. ''Palagi'' house (non-traditional Samoan house). The word is a cognate in other Polynesian languages and has gained widespread use throughout much of western Polynesia, including in Tokelau, Tuvalu, 'Uvea and Futuna Island, Wallis and Futuna, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Buckland
John Wilberforce "Jack" Buckland (1864–1897), also known as "Tin Jack", was a trader who lived in the South Pacific in the late 19th century. He travelled with Robert Louis Stevenson and his stories of life as an island trader became the inspiration for the character of Tommy Hadden in '' The Wrecker'' (1892).Hadden is described as being based upon Jack Buckland ("Tin Jack") a well-known remittance man and copra trader in Sydney. ''Selected Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson'', ed. by Ernest Mehew (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2001) p. 418, n. 3.''Robert Louis Stevenson: A Critical Biography, 2 vols.'' John A. Steuart, (1924). Boston: Little, Brown & Co.''Treasured Islands: Cruising the South Seas With Robert Louis Stevenson.'' Lowell D. Holmes, (2001 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gilbert Islands
The Gilbert Islands ( gil, Tungaru;Reilly Ridgell. ''Pacific Nations and Territories: The Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.'' 3rd. Ed. Honolulu: Bess Press, 1995. p. 95. formerly Kingsmill or King's-Mill IslandsVery often, this name applied only to the southern islands of the archipelago, the northern half being designated as the Scarborough Islands. ''Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary''. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam Webster, 1997. p. 594) are a chain of sixteen atolls and coral islands in the Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. They constitute the main part of the nation of Kiribati (the name of which is a rendering of “Gilberts” in the phonology of the indigenous Gilbertese). Geography The atolls and islands of the Gilbert Islands are arranged in an approximate north-to-south line. The northernmost island in the group, Makin, it is approximately from southernmost, Arorae, as the crow flies. Geographically, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kiribati
Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati ''The World Factbook''. Europa (web portal). Retrieved 29 January 2016. is an in in the central . The permanent population is over 119,000 (2020), more than half of whom live on |
Fiji
Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about 110 are permanently inhabited—and more than 500 islets, amounting to a total land area of about . The most outlying island group is Ono-i-Lau. About 87% of the total population of live on the two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. About three-quarters of Fijians live on Viti Levu's coasts: either in the capital city of Suva; or in smaller urban centres such as Nadi—where tourism is the major local industry; or in Lautoka, where the Sugarcane, sugar-cane industry is dominant. The interior of Viti Levu is sparsely inhabited because of its terrain. The majority of Fiji's islands were formed by Volcano, volcanic activity starting around 150 million years ago. Some geo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
