Capt. A. Liston Blyth, F.R.G.S., F.R.A.I., F.R.C.I., Resident Magistrate, Delta Division Papua and Native Constabulary

205 x 160 mm. A loose black and white print. Captain Blyth posed among native policeman armed with rifles and bandoliers. A. Liston Blyth appears in Colonial Officers records for Papua from 1915, when he was a patrol officer, until 1930. He was Resident Magistrate in the Delta Division, from 1926-1930.

Please cite as Cambridge University Library: Royal Commonwealth Society Library, Capt. A. Liston Blyth, F.R.G.S., F.R.A.I., F.R.C.I., Resident Magistrate, Delta Division Papua and Native Constabulary, Y3084D

A substantial amount of material regarding Blyth's work and activities in New Guinea is included in Hope, Penelope (1979), 'Long ago is far away', Canberra: Australian National University, from which the following extract is quoted (p 132):

A new Resident Magistrate was appointed to Kikori in October 1924. He was A. L. Blyth who had joined the service early in 1914. He was a retired English military man with a standard of colonial service hitherto unknown in the Delta Division. He had a gammy leg - whether it was an old assegai wound, as was hinted, or a tropical ulcer inflamed by alcohol, as the teetotallers scornfully suggested, never became clear. It meant that he made no long exploratory patrols -he sent the lower ranks on those. He also loathed canoes and whaleboats and would have liked a smart cabin boat with uniformed crews so that he could sweep up to village wharves lined with cheering populace ... Yet though he insisted on forms and ceremonies to an extent which irritated his immediate subordinates Blyth had a quality which the villagers recognised. His reports show a new attitude towards the people - less schoolmaster and policeman in tone and more attentive to their reasons for their behaviour which they were ready to explain to a sympathetic ear.

Indexed

This collection level description was entered by WS using information from the original typescript catalogue.