PITCAIRN ISLANDS - AN ENCAPSULATED HISTORY

by Horace A. Basham - horace@pin.co.nz

Part Five: Toward Modern Pitcairn (1864-1940)

Parliamentary Government in 1893. The missionaries relieved the aging Simon Young in the school and, energenically introduced history, grammer, cooking and nursing; began a newspaper and a kindergarten; and opened a public park. The islanders began to question their social inertia and, putting it down to weakness in their leaders, asked Captian Rooke of HMS Champion to reorganise their system of government. An elected Parliament of seven was introduced and, for the only time in the history of Pitcairn was executive and judicial functions separated. The legal code was also revised to create penalties for, amongst other things, adultery, wife beating, cruelty and "Peeping Toms"; and the system of public work of premigration days was restored. Society was a long way from the simple order of John Adams!

But the reports of the naval officers who visited Pitcairn towards to end of the nineteenth century still continued to reveal how society had deteriorated since the return from Norfolk Island. There was lawlessness and a lack of unity and purpose; and, in 1897 murder. That the community did not deteriorate still further was due largely to the influence of James Russell McCoy, a great grandson of the mutineer.

In 1870, at the age of 25, McCoy had been elected Magistrate and during the next 37 years he was executive no less than 22 times.

A native of Pitcairn McCoy had spent some time in London and Liverpool and, autocratic though he was, he was also, in a real sense, a link between the old Pitcairn and new. By the turn of the century he had restored purpose to the community by enforcing the recently revived laws of public work; and his personal courage and example, which won him respect if not popularity, secured improvements until he began to spend much time overseas on missionary work.

In 1904 R.T.Simons, the British Consul at Tahiti, paid his first visit to Pitcairn and found the parliamentary system too cumbersome for such a small community. He reintroduced the time-honoured post of Chief Magistrate and two committees to take charge of internal and external, that is marine, affairs. All the posts were made subject to election and an additional office of Secretary-Treasurer was created. What was more, the days of representation without taxation were ended; an annual licence fee for the proccession of firearms was introduced which, until 1968 when motor vehicle licences were introduced, was for so long Pitcairn's only tax.

The twentieth century brought the end of European rivalry in the Pacific and naval visits gradually diminished. Fortunately the mission ship Pitcairn, and her successors maintained contact with Tahiti and merchantmen again began to call with increasing frequency, until 1914, the opening of the Panama Canal placed Pitcairn on the direct run to New Zealand. Many of the new visitors were liners carrying hundreds of passengers anxious to have momentoes of the island, halfway rock on the longest regular service in the world. A ship a week, and Pitcairn's isolation was over.

The pattern of life changed, inevitably. More and more men developed an urge to see the world, which money and the visiting ships made possible, and communications grew up in Wellington and Auckland from which some moved to Australia. But even so, the public economy of Pitcairn languished and it was not until postage stamps were issued in 1940 and philatelists came to the rescue, That "shanty town" became the Adamstown of today.

Part One: The First Ten Years (1790-1800)
Part Two: The End of Isolation (1800-1830)
Part Three: The Moves to Tahiti & Norfolk (1830-1856)
Part Four: Return to Pitcairn & Religious Conversion (1856-1864)
Part Five: Toward Modern Pitcairn (1864-1940)

I have reproduced in the main the first part of the "A Guide to Pitcairn" Published by the Government of the Pitcairn Islands. The booklet may be purchased from:

The Office of the Governor of Pitcairn,
Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands.
C/o British Consulate General,
Private Bag 92014,
Auckland, New Zealand.
Phone ++64 9 366 0186,
Fax ++64 9 303 1836.
Price is NZ$8.30 includes surface mail.