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Fanning
Island, known
locally as Tabuaeran,
it is
one of the main Line Islands located about 1,600 miles east of
Tarawa and about 150 miles north west of Christmas Island, now part of
Kiribati.
The Fanning Island Plantations, Limited issued a 1£ banknote to alleviate a shortage
of Australian dollars. According to World War II Remembered, "... in 1942
an American army task force moved onto the island......soldiers rapidly
absorbed the available supply of Australian currency in circulation."
A quantity of
3,000 banknotes were ordered printed in Honolulu by plantation manager R.
G. Garrett but not all may have been issued.
According to a specialist in these items "very
few were probably issued as complete notes but were later cut in half and used
as theatre tickets. We are pretty sure but not positive that the numbers
on the notes started at 1000. Therefore the original shipment probably had serial
numbers from 1000 to roughly 4000."
The left half of the bi-sected note was hand written with the value of 1
Shilling (1/-) while the right half became a 2 Shilling (2/-) value. These
theater tickets are scarce, however the complete un-bise cted notes are
rare with only about 12 pieces reported. One of the reported pieces,
serial No.1437 has just come on the auction block at
Lyn Knight
Currency Auctions as
lot #131 with an estimated value of $400 - $600 and an opening bid of
$200.
Fanning was discovered on 11.6.1798 by Edmund Fanning,
at 3 a.m., while he was on his way to China. It remained
unpopulated until 1846 when British Tahitians, Lucett and Collie landed with a
group of natives to harvest coconuts. They laid claim to the island and
later sold
the rights in 1851 to C.B.Wilson who later sold it to Captain Henry
English. On 7.4.1857 English received consent from the British Consul in Honolulu
to hoist the British
flag on the island. Formal possession of the island was
taken in 1861 by HMS Alert and annexation by HMS Caroline took place in
1888 when plans were being drawn up to lay a cable across the Pacific.
The
Station buildings, Pacific Cable Board, Fanning Island
Kenneth P.
Emory describes (in 1934 and 1939) stone ruins, adzes, a fishhook and
other ethnological specimens found on Fanning Island. He concludes that
the island was populated by people from Tonga about the 15th century.
Captain Fanning's narrative of near shipwreck and his
description of the island make good reading. Several whalers visited
Fanning Island. One commanded by Captain Mather, called it American Island
in 1814. An account of the island is given by Captain Legoarant de
Tromelin, of the French corvette La Bayonnaise, which visited the
island in 1828. At least four vessels arrived at Honolulu from Fanning
between 1843 and 1853.
A short time
prior to 1855, Captain Henry English, with 150 natives from Manihiki
(Humphries) Island, settled on Fanning and commenced the production of
coconut oil. He placed the island under British protection when Captain
W.H. Morshead visited it in H.M.S. Dido, October 16, 1855.
Shipping records in The Friend, The Polynesian , and The
Gazette (all published in Honolulu) give some idea of the amount of
coconut oil produced. In 1859 two vessels
arrived at Honolulu with 15,000 gallons; in 1860, one vessel with 10,000
gallons; 1861, three vessels with 30,000 gallons; 1862, four vessels with
44,000 gallons; and 1863, four vessels with 10,800 gallons.
About 1857, a
whaling ship brought to Fanning an Ayrshire Scotsman, William Greig. A
short time later he was joined by an American, George Bicknell. Both
married native islanders. Greig's wife was Teanau Atu (1842-1917), sister
of the king of Manihiki. Both men died on Fanning, Gr eig on July 17 1892.
The three sons of Greig remained on Fanning; but the descendants of
Bicknell gradually moved away. His heir sold his share of Fanning and
Washington Islands to a man in Suva, from whom it was acquired by Father
Emmanual Rougier.
A firm, Fanning
Island, Limited, was formed which operated Fanning and Washington Islands
until 1935. Due to low price of copra, in that year it was sold to a
subsidiary of Burns, Philip and Co., Ltd., operating under the name of
Fanning Island Plantations, Ltd.
According to
shipping records in Honolulu, there was a guano digging boom on Fanning
between 1877 and 1879, for ships of many flags sailed there to load guano.
Some vessels were wrecked, such as the British barque Crosby, in
1879. In 1885 guano still was being shipped. But in 1887 lumber was taken
there to make copra drying and storage sheds, and from then on copra was
the chief industry on the island.
Fanning was
formally annexed to Great Britain by Captain William Wiseman, of
H.M.S. Caroline, March 15, 1888. A cable relay station was
established in 1902. This breaks the stretch from Bamfield, Vancouver
Island, to Suva; 3,300 miles,
 Bamfield to Fanning; 2,200 miles, Fanning to
Suva. Up to 1931, Union S.S. Co. freighters stopped with supplies. Since
then the island has been supplied from Honolulu, the S.S. Dickenson
making quarterly trips.
Many comforts
are provided, such as radio, refrigeration, electric lights (from Diesel
generators), a doctor, tennis court, library, even a branch of the New
Zealand Savings Bank, to make pleasant the two year tours of duty of the
cable station personnel and their wives, numbering about 20 white people.
Storage tanks hold about 8,000 gallons of rain water, and well water also
is reported to be both good and plentiful.
In September,
1914, the German cruiser Nurnburg slipped up to Fanning, flying
the French flag. They landed and wrecked the cable station, cut the cable,
and destroyed a cache of spare instruments. With the assistance of Hugh
Greig, who dived for the several ends of the cable, communication was
re-established within two weeks. In 1939, it was reported that the island
was being fortified against a repetition of this but the report was
later denied, it being stated that an undefended island of purely commercial
importance was safer.
At English
Harbour, headquarters of the copra plantation, there are 3 or 4 more white
people and between 100 and 150 Gilbert Island workmen. It was reported in
1939 that 300 new Gilbertese recruits were being taken to Fanning. At that
time, Fanning Island was administered from Ocean Island (Banaba) 1880
miles away, but there was a resident agent immediately in charge. New
Zealand stamps had been used for postage.
In 1859 English entered into a
partnership with William Greig and George Bicknell and these three were
joined by William Owens, owner of Washington Island, in 1860. Owens left
the following year and English retired in 1864. Messrs. Greig and Bicknell
were confirmed as lawful owners of both Fanning and
W ashington Islands by the British Consul in Honolulu on 2 September 1864.
The Greig Bicknell partnership lasted until 1906 when they sold out to
Father Rougier who in turn sold it on to Fanning Island Plantations Ltd.,
a Burns Philp subsidiary.
Like Cocos, Fanning Island
received a visit from the German Navy. On 7 September 1914 the cruiser SMS
Nurnburg, accompanied by SMS Leipzig, approached Fanning Island, flying
the French flag. Landing an armed party the Germans set about wrecking
equipment and cutting the two cables. They also took 3000 gold sovereigns
from the safe, used to pay the staff, plus £71 in stamps and cash from the
Post Office. Shortly after this incident the Nurnburg was sunk, with all
hands, in an engagement with the Royal Navy known as the Battle of the
Falkland Islands.
The decision to land COMPAC at
Hawaii instead of Fanning Island brought about the closure of the cable
station at the end of 1963. In 1964 it was taken over by the Hawaiian
Oceanographic Institute as a Pacific Equatorial Research Laboratory for
the study of Equatorial Currents.
Fanning Island (Kiribati) currently uses the Australian Dollar as its
currency. |
