[Pacific Content] – Luke, Sir Harry

Omnibus-Letters on the British Pacific Colonies with a multitude of severe Manuscript-Annotations in working-copies of these Omnibus-Letters. These very rare, printed (!) personal and confidential situation-reports from Fiji, Trinidad and Barbados are dated between December 1940 – June 1946, when Luke sent “probably my last ‘omnibus letter’ from the West Indies, as my work here comes to an end in the autumn”. These omnibus letters were all marked “Private and Personal” and are full of details about Luke’s work during his position as “Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner in the Western Pacific” as well as touching on his experiences during his role as “Chief Representative of the British Council in the Caribbean”. See a Full List of the Omnibus – Letters below.

[This item is part of the Sir Harry Luke – Archive / Collection]. Suva (Fiji) / Barbados / Port-of-Spain (Trinidad) /, Government Printing Office etc., 1940 – 1946. Octavo. Original Softcover pamphlets, stapled, loosely inserted in pouch titled: “His Excellency the Governor”. Harry Luke’s (Lukach) personal working copies. Very good condition.

The pouch, with mainly annotated working-copies of Omnibus-Letters includes the following pamphlets:

1. Harry Luke: Three (3) versions of the printed, “Personal and Private” Situation-Report (Omnibus-Letter) from Government House, Suva, Fiji, December, 1940, two of them heavily annotated and one clean example of the final, printed version:

″During the latter part of November duty took me in the R.C.S. (Royal Colonial Ship) “Viti” to Samoa, then to the Kingdom of Tonga and lastly to the Southern Lau Islands, the easternmost part of the Fiji Group”. Luke then continues: “This short account in diary form from my cruise in a part of the world as yet untouched by the Horrors of actual warfare may on that account have an air of unreality about it, but you may for that very reason be able to wade through it as a change from the grim reading of your daily papers”.

Luke writes on 10 pages in this report about his trip from 11th November, 1940 to 27th of November 1940 in wonderful detail about this Samoan-Tongan cruise: Struck good weather for the first time since I have been afloat in the “Viti” and we had a lovely day in the Koro Sea…..arrived 6 am at the islet of Wailangilala (″the beautiful empty water”) on which stands Fiji’s most important Lighthouse….etc. etc. etc.

2. Harry Luke: Three (3) versions of the printed, “Personal and Private” Situation-Report (Omnibus-Letter) from Government House, Suva, Fiji, June, 1941, two of them heavily annotated and one clean example of the final, printed version:
Government House, Suva, Fiji, June, 1941:

″I have recently returned from an inspection in the Solomon Islands, which kept me away from mails for some weeks. As my duties took me to some rarely visited islands and brought me into contact with some curious and almost unknown peoples, you may care to see this copy of my diary of the tour: [Luke then goes on to include 12 pages with diary entries from his trip:

″26th April – After unexpectedly good weather arrived at Tulagi about 1 pm. At the official landing I presented to the Matron of the Hospital, Miss Cleaver, the insignia of a Serving Sister of the Order of St.John of Jerusalem….went out for a day’s fishing, North Island treating me as well as it did two years ago…Went in the “Tulagi” to Savo, an island of Hot Springs and the principal haunt in the B.S.I.P. of the megapode…..after a quick launch, re-ebarked in the flying-boat for the next District of Gizo….″

″Most of us, when we speak of a ‘black man’, are using , consciously or unconsciously, a figure of speech, for the majority of those to whom we refer as “black” are really coffee-or, at the darkest, chocolate-coloured. But in the case of the natives of Shortlands, Gizo and Choiseul the designation ‘black man’ is the literal truth; in fact, it is difficult to visualize such intense blackness as that with which they are pigmented. They are more than black, they are positively blue-black. In the afternoon I had a large meeting with the Gizo people on the football ground and was given specimens of the native money of this region, which takes form of large cut out of the shell of the giant clam……This money, unlike that of Malaita, seems to be dying outand some of the natives were in favour of its active revival” etc. etc.

3. Harry Luke: Two (2) versions of the printed, “Personal and Private” Situation-Report (Omnibus-Letter) from Government House, Suva, Fiji, 12th January, 1942, one of them heavily annotated and one clean example of the final, printed version:

″I append an account from my diary of my recent visit to the Phoenix Islands, perhaps the last cruise to the Territories of the Western Pacific High Commission….In case of the Phoenix Islands…they are eight tiny lonely atolls politically incorporated since 1937 in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony…. / “In March, 1938, the British at Canton were joined by a party sent by the United States Government, who also occupied Enderbury; and in April 1939 the British and United States Governments signed an Agreement for the joint occupation of Canton and Enderbury, to run for 50 years….”

[Pearl Harbour: 6th of December, 1941]:

Luke follows up with diary entries from 19th November 1941 and ends with 6th of December 1941: We took off at 6 a.m. and landed at Suva at 3 pm after a comfortable journey during most of which we flew at 11000 feet….the only land we saw before approaching the Fiji Group was Futuna….the next day (Eastern Time) came the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour – the “Honolulu incident” as its perpetrators will probably prefer to call it – and the name of this ocean became not only climatically but politically a misnomer”.
With a small manuscript correction “Western” (instead of Eastern Time regarding the Pearl Harbour Attack).

4. Harry Luke: Two (2) versions of the printed, “Personal and Private” Situation-Report (Omnibus-Letter) from Government House, Barbados, New Year’s Day, 1944. Both of them with no annotations and both are examples of the final, printed version.

″In sending out andother ‘Omnibus Letter’ I am resuming my Pacific Oslands practice…and this letter is an attempt to give you some account of my movements and experiences since I arrived in the West Indies in the middle of September as Chief Representative of the British Council in the Caribbean, with my nephew Tony Boys as my Personal Assistant. Happily it is a peripatetic job, for my ‘parish’ includes all the British West Indiian Islands together with Bemruda (which is not in the West Indies) and the two mainland colonies of British Guiana and British Honduras…..We landed in Trinidad, which war conditions have made over-crowded and uncomfortable, but were soon in Barbados, where the Governor and Lady Bushe gave us a warm welcome to the Government House in which I functioned as A.D.C. for a very short time 33 years ago…..At the end of October we flew down to British Guiana, where the Governor, Sir Gordon Lethem, showed us many hospitalities, including a 3-day expedition by air to the Colony’s almost unknown hinterland. We saw the Kaieteur (more recently, Kaituk) Falls ….we saw Mt.Roraima, on whose summit British Guiana, Venezuela and Brazil meet.″

″I took advantage of being in British Guiana to visit my olf Trinity friend Robert Smallbones and his family in the adjoining country of Brazil.

5. Harry Luke: Two (2) versions of the printed, “Personal and Private” Situation-Report (Omnibus-Letter) from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, Easter,1944. One of them Luke’s ‘working copy’, which is annotated and one clean example of the final, printed version:

″I have recently spent six interesting weeks in Central America and Jamaica, and you may perhaps care to see tyhe following extracts from my diary: ‘Left Trinidad by air with Tony Boys on our tour to British Honduras and Jamaica. Flew along the north coasts of Venezuela and Colombia and at Barranquilla (Colombia) picked up Paget, British Council Representative in Jamaica….The Barker Benfield’s (Press Attache) gave a pleasant dibber-party for me at the Union Club…..bathed off Fort Amador on Naos Island, Flew via Costa Rica and Nicaragua to Tegucigalpa etc. etc.″

6. Harry Luke: Two (2) versions of the printed, “Personal and Private” Situation-Report (Omnibus-Letter) from Barbados, St.John’s Day,1946. Both are clean examples of the final, printed version:

″This will probably be my last ‘omnibus letter’ from the West Indies, as my work here comes to an end…″

• Keywords: Barbados · British Colonial Administration · British Colonial History · British Foreign Office · British Foreign Policy · British Western Pacific Material / Sir Harry Luke Collection · British Western Pacific Territories · Caribbean Content / Sir Harry Luke Collection · Central America · Central America – Rare · Fiji · Harry Luke – Pacific (1938 – 1947) · Sir Harry Luke · Sir Harry Luke – Personal Archive of Books and Correspondence · Sir Harry Luke Collection · South America · South Sea Material – Sir Harry Luke Collection · West Indies
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 31777AB

EUR 275.000,-- 

We ship per DHL Express