Janus: Papers of A.B. Brewster

RCS contains:
<-- See earlier
RCMS 349	Papers on W.A.I.T.R. service
RCMS 350	Dorothy Grace Wilkinson Collection
RCMS 351	Sir John Spry collection
RCMS 353	Empire Settlement Tour
RCMS 354	Jamaican ants
RCMS 355	Papers of A.B. Brewster
RCMS 356	Letters of Hugh Drummond Pearson
RCMS 357	Tennant family papers
RCMS 36	Sir Henry Hesketh Bell Collection
RCMS 37	Childers papers
RCMS 4	Log of the 'Houghton'
See later -->

More information

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Papers of A.B. Brewster

Title	Papers of A.B. Brewster
Reference	GBR/0115/RCMS 355
Creator	Brewster, Adolf Brewster, 1854-1937, anthropologist
Covering Dates	1870–1903
Extent and Medium	1 box; paper; mixed scripts
Repository	Cambridge University Library: Royal Commonwealth Society Library

Content and context

Adolf Brewster Brewster (1854-1937), formerly Adolf Brewster-Joske, was born in Australia and educated in England. He went to Fiji in 1870 with a group of settlers granted land with the Polynesia Company. Brewster was one of the founders of Suva, where the family established a sugar plantation. In 1884, he entered the Colonial Service after the plantation failed, serving as Governor's Commissioner in the provinces of Tholo North and Tholo East, Deputy Commissioner of the Armed Native Constabulary, and an official member of Fiji's Legislative Council. Brewster retired to England in 1910. He published two books, 'The hills tribes of Fiji' (1922) and 'King of the Cannibal Isles' (1937), the latter of which discussed King Thakombau (1817-1883), Chief of the Fiji Islands.

A diary, a scrapbook and a printed book.

Presented by the Revd Dr D.P. Brewster, great-nephew of Adolf Brewster Brewster, in 2006.

Access and Use

Please cite as Cambridge University Library: Royal Commonwealth Society Library, Papers of A.B. Brewster, RCMS 355

Further information

This archival description was written by MJC.

Index Terms

Oceania

Fiji

RCS/RCMS 355 contains:

Diary. The diary describes Brewster's official duties, which included administration, legal affairs, finance, surveying construction and agricultural projects, visiting isolated communities, and commanding the native constabulary. Brewster also gives a brief account of his colleagues and social life (100 sheets).
one volume; paper; typewritten.

19 Jan. 1902–2 Mar. 1903

Scrapbook. The album contains newspaper articles on the history of Fiji, including the subjects of banana, rubber and cocoanut planting, cannibalism, wildlife, native canoes and seamanship, the participation of the Fijian Armed Native Service Constabulary in the coronation of Edward VII in 1910 (commanded by Brewster), the visit of Fijians for the Imperial Exhibition at Wembley in 1924 and the discovery of Thakombau's war club in the Royal Collection. Many of the articles were written by Brewster, some reporting lectures he had given to the Torquay Natural History Society. Several obituaries of Brewster have also been pasted in (94 pages).
one volume; paper; mixed scripts.

1898–1937

Moss, F.J., 'A planter's experience in Fiji: being a concise account of the country, its present condition, and its prospect as a field for emigration' (Aukland, 1870).
1 volume; paper; printed.

1870