Add MS 88619

Pitcairn Island. Correspondence and travel journals relating to Pitcairn Island; 1877-1903. The papers give first-hand accounts of the domestic, social and religious lives of the inhabitants of Pitcairn. Presented by Mrs Diana Taylor and Miss Heather Congdon, great great great nieces of Anne Georgina Stevens, October 2008.

Paper.

1. Copy of a letter from Rosalind Young, Pitcairn Island, to the Rev. William Blowen Keen, Acting British Chaplain, Valparaiso;16 May 1879. Rev. Keen sent Young’s letter to the editor of the Sunday at Home, where it appeared in August 1879, to supplement an article on Pitcairn in May’s edition. Rosalind Amelia Young was a schoolmistress on the island and great-granddaughter of Edward Young (b. circa 1762, d. 1800), one of the mutineers from HMS Bounty. With an imperfect 20th cent. typewritten transcript.

2. Cutting from the Daily News, 19 Nov. 1879, reporting of HMS Opal’s visit to Pitcairn in July 1879, when it delivered an organ, the gift of Queen Victoria, whilst en route to Valparaiso from San Francisco. Printed.

3. Letters of Rosalind Young to Miss A[nne] G[eorgina] Stevens, of Plymouth, co. Devon; 29 March 1880 and 18 Feb. 1903. Miss Young and Miss Stevens had become friends during the latter’s visit to the island in 1878 (see below). The earlier letter refers to the organ delivered by the Opal and the enlargement of the island’s church, at which Miss Young’s father, Simon, was pastor. She also writes of her family, and the cotton crop which the island hopes to trade with a Liverpool firm. In her second letter, Miss Young discusses mail deliveries, deaths in her family, her own health, the island’s crops, and reminisces about Miss Stevens’s visit to the island in 1878.

4. 'Diary of travels from Australia to Chile and back' by Anne Georgina Stevens; July 1877 – Aug. 1878. The diary covers Miss Stevens's visit to Pitcairn and contains ink sketches of islands visited, notes on the Tahitian population, Tahitian phrases, and verse by Rosalind Young. With an imperfect, near contemporary MS copy, covering the period July 1877 – June 1878.

5. Notes on a journey from Sydney to the Torres Strait Islands via Brisbane and Townsville; May 1885.

6. ‘A Voyage from Valparaiso to Sydney with a Visit to the Islands of Pitcairn and Tahiti'; 1878. With an imperfect 20th cent. typewritten transcription.

7. Card with a list of family names on Pitcairn Island, the address of Rosalind Young, and other Pitcairn-related facts; 1880s.

8. Transcript, imperfect in parts, of articles 1-5; 20th cent. Typewritten.