NEW GUINEA EXPLORATION EXPEDITION.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Two illuminated addresses presented to members of the New Guinea Exploratory Expedition. Two elaborately decorated manuscripts presented to Captain Henry Charles Everill, congratulating him and the members of the New Guinea Exploratory Expedition on a successful voyage.The quarto manuscript was presented by the Geographical Society of Australasia who funded the expedition, and the folio by the Victorian Branch of the Geographical Society specifically, 12 members of which have signed it at the end.Everill's party left Sydney on 10 June 1885, and returned home on 3 December 1885, having spent five months in New Guinea. The object of the expedition was to map unexplored territory in the Fly river region, to gather information on local flora and fauna, and to perform an anthropological investigation into the indigenous people. However, the underlying motivations of the expedition were likely linked to Australian state expansion into the Pacific. In 1883 the Colony of Queensland attempted to annex the east of the island of New Guinea, and then again shortly after the federation of Australia in 1901. The expedition left Sydney in the steamer Bonito, journeying to New Guinea and up the Fly river into the Strickland River. The river was named during the expedition in honour of Sir Edward Strickland, the president of the Geographical Society. The Bonito was stranded in the Strickland, at which point Everill led a party another 80 miles up the river in a whaleboat.Purchased by Martin S

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