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About

About the Norfolk Island Historical Society

The Norfolk Island Historical Society is a local not-for-profit community body incorporated under Norfolk Island’s Associations Incorporations Act 2005.

Objectives

The objectives of the Society (from the Constitution) are:

  1. To foster an interest in the history and heritage of Norfolk Island and to encourage youth participation;
  2. To collect, classify and preserve any item, record, book, paper or other document pertaining to the history of Norfolk Island;
  3. To obtain and maintain premises as may be required for the purpose of storage of and/or display of the property, and collection of the Society;
  4. To maintain and preserve the collection and any displays of the Society on behalf of and in the interests of Norfolk Island and its general community;
  5. To encourage the preservation and /or display of historical relics, records and other relevant materials, either by their deposit with a Territory or national authority or in such a manner considered appropriate by the Society;
  6. To secure the preservation of places and objects of historical interest by local or Commonwealth authorities, or in any other way considered appropriate;
  7. The promotion of the interchange of information by lectures, readings, discussions, excursions and exhibitions;
  8. The printing, publication and circulation of books, journals and such other documents as may assist any of the objects of the Society;
  9. The identification of places or items of historical interest;
  10. The raising of funds by public prescription or otherwise for the use of the Society in promoting the objects of the Society;
  11. To co-operate or affiliate with any other body whose objects are in whole or in part similar to those of the Society;
  12. To apply the income and monies of the Society wholly in promoting the objects of the Society; and
  13. Any other lawful acts, deeds and things which may be incidental or conducive to the attainment of these objects.

Formation

 

Early Members

About Norfolk Island

For a summary of Norfolk Island’s geography, history and land tenure, check the page “About Norfolk Island“.

History timeline

Click here for a History Timeline.

About this website

Site Map

to be completed

 

Paper or digital?

Securing durable knowledge is challenging!

 

History of the site

On 24 August 2023 the Council of Elders endorsed a proposal by the Norfolk Island Historical Society that it establish an historical library to accommodate documentary and audio-visual materials about the remarkable life stories of the Island’s peoples. This website was activated on 24 January 2024.

The history of Norfolk Island, from the earliest Polynesian occupation through the first and second colonial settlements and the arrival in 1856 of migrants from Pitcairn Island to the present day, is the stuff of numerous books, photographs, magazine articles and oral histories, to identify only some of the formats in which the lives and experience of the humans who have lived here have been recorded.

However, to date there has been no centralised digital repository of the captured knowledge. Bits and pieces are discoverable here and there, but discovering them takes time and effort and, for much material, some skills in research. By this website, the Norfolk Island Historical Society aims to assemble such historical material as the owners are willing to release to the world.

Archiving
Information on a website survives only as long as the website is hosted. Paul Lareau’s archive (on this site) is just one example of a trove of material that has been at risk of loss as his website was no longer being maintained. However, his website has been captured a web archival service based in the USA. The Norfolk Island Historical Society aims to provide a service of that kind to the Island. As well as budgeting to pay the hosting fees indefinitely, the files are backed up on the computers of two members and also an external hard disc drive.

 

The National Library of Australia operates a web archiving service within its Trove search engine. The Library has advised that this website (www.norfolkislandhistoricalsociety.nf) will be harvested once per year, commencing in April 2025. The snapshots are discoverable at https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/tep/216276.

 

Copyright

An explanation of copyright appears on the “Introduction to Resources” page.

Contact

President Mr Mark Hallam (+6723) 52509 or info AT SYMBOL norfolkislandhistoricalsociety.nf

Postal address PO Box 661 Norfolk Island Australia 2899.