Letters of Robert Codrington to his brother Tom Codrington, 1872-1882

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File 2

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The letters were nearly all written in Norfolk Island, apart from a few written on cruises on the Southern Cross or during Codrington's visit to New Zealand and Australia in 1880. Recurring subjects include the receipt of parcels, clothes and books, the slowness of mails, arrivals and departures of vessels, financial matters, family news, general news from England, photography, and Codrington's health. Throughout this period Codrington regularly reported on the design and construction of St Barnabas's Memorial Church on Norfolk Island. He often wrote in great detail about the original plan of the church by Gilbert Scott, the appointment of Thomas Jackson as architect, relations with Miss Patteson (sister of Bishop Patteson), the foundation of the church (1875), donations by Charlotte Yonge for an organ, work on the construction, his despair at the slow progress, the decoration of the church, and its completion in December 1880. The letters also refer to the progress of the Melanesian Mission, Mission finances, the isolation of the Mission and shortages of provisions, relations with Norfolk Islanders, the arrival of John and Clara Selwyn (1873), Codrington's relations with Selwyn (who became Bishop of Melanesia in 1877), other members of the Mission including John Palmer, Charles Bice, Charles Brooke, John Still, Alfred Penny, Richard Comins, Arthur Brittain, William Kendall and Arthur Baker, supporters of the Mission such as Bishop G.A. Selwyn, Bishop Charles Abraham and Sir William Martin, Melanesian students at Norfolk Island, an Islander's account of the killing of Bishop Patteson, cruises of the Southern Cross to the Solomon Islands, Banks Islands and Reef Islands, the Queensland labour trade, the marriage of John Palmer (1876), the death of Clara Selwyn (1877), and relations with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. As well as containing references to collecting artefacts for the Blackmore Museum, the later letters give increasing attention to the languages and anthropology of Melanesia. Codrington wrote of his studies of Mota and other Pacific languages, and also Malagasy and Malayan languages, his speculations on the relationships between languages, the different types of English spoken in the Pacific Islands, his work on grammars, the publication of his anthropological notes, and his correspondence with the anthropologists Lorimer Fison in Fiji and Edward Tylor in England. Amongst the 1877 letters is a letter from Rev. John Palmer (Norfolk Island) to Tom Codrington, 28 June 1876.

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