Roy pass away in 2012 and I don't know a huge amount about his working life:
https://thehistoryofmatt.blogspot.com/2018/03/some-info-on-roy-ewer.html
But I do know that he served in the militia during World War 2:
https://thehistoryofmatt.blogspot.com/2012/05/patonga-find.html
Roy spent a lot of family holiday time in Patonga during his life and wrote a recollection of Patonga (mainly pre-WW2) - this article became the most popular article on my blog:
https://thehistoryofmatt.blogspot.com/2010/04/patonga-nsw-history.html
When Roy and I were communicating, Roy shared his Patonga article, and also shared an recollection on a man named Heinrich Walen from his time spent in Papua New Guinea. As this wasn't 'direct' family history, I kept a copy but didn't post on my family history blog. However, this 'random faimly history' blog for miscellany is the perfect place to put this memoir. I canny certify the 'correctness' of the article, but certainly Roy was exposed to the Bismarck Archipeligo and the island of Wuvulu.
From what I can tell, Roy was in New Guinea from around 1949 - 1964. Why was Roy in New Guinea? Roy said: "My first appointment was to the War Damage Commission 1949 assessing the agricultural damage for compensation. Mostly it was coconuts and cocoa and my interests were stimulated by the latter and I joined a research programme to develop new cocoa strains as the original crops were diseased and inbred. This was funded by Cadbury's and Rowntrees from their West African headquarters (at that time). In 1964, the granting of freedom to alcohol to the locals made this work in the South Pacific untenable, and I returned to Australia..."
I can find no biographical details of the life of Heinrich Walen (though I'm sure there are several out there), but what Roy records here is from memory a few decades after the stories he was told in PNG. There may be word and phraseology that may no longer be considered appropriate, but was in common use at the time the story was recorded.
HEINRICH WAHLEN
by Roy Ewer
It is not necessary to tell why and how I visited Mal Island in about late 1948 but from that time, I felt I had to find out more about this most historical establishment .
One must understand that when located on an isolated research station without a radio (for news or transmission), no newspapers, no library, in fact nothing to occupy one’s time, apart from one’s routine daily duties on the research station, one must create something of interest to occupy the mind. Fishing with my boat was my first love, but it cannot be done all the time, so I decided to research the history of Mal Island.
To do this, I had to interview middle-aged Germans who were children at the turn of the 20th century. These men were interned with their parents in World War 1 and again themselves in World War 2. However, between wars, they worked hard and owned substantial plantations and I found them excellent citizens. Bear in mind, they had never been to Germany, they were just descendants of Germans.
These same people very clearly remembered Heinrich Walen and the other source of information was from the local representative of a Federal Government Authority called the Expropriation Board which was part of the Department of External Affairs (now Foreign Affairs). Commonly called the "Ex-pro Board", this department controlled all previous German plantations surrendered after the first war, and was responsible for leasing or selling these properties to Australian ex-servicemen and companies interested. The representative, the late Albert Richards had the history of Mal Island available and greatly assisted my enquiries. The story is as follows:
In 1883, a young German was sent by his employers, the Hamburg Company to the Bismarck Archipelago to survey the areas north of New Guinea for the potential of harvesting trochus shell (used in the manufacture of buttons since the 15th century). Walen was assisted by the German Administration in Rabaul, as his employers were a large shipping company trading in the South Pacific, as well as buyers of all produce available, and considered most important to the German economy .
Walen travelled to his destination by large native sailing canoes as the area consists of thousands of islands and atolls interlaced with coral reefs making other navigation impossible and these islands stretch from east to west all the way to (now) Indonesia before reaching the South China Sea.
After his allowed six months investigation, Walen returned to Germany and while he was preparing his report, he made application to the proper authorities there to lease the area concerned and this was granted. He returned there assisted by the local authorities as well as his former employers as the latter wanted the trochus shell. However, this was not his first priority because during his survey, he noted the natural stands of mature coconut palms, an immediate source of tons of copra.
The area did not have a permanent native population then, but itinerant natives sailed the area, cut the copra, but were faced with a long trip south to sell their produce to traders on the north coast of New Guinea. Now here was Walen, on the spot and open for business. He selected his headquarters on Mal Island adjacent to another island of similar size where he located his stores. Another essential was a store selling trade goods (knives, axes, calico, etc.) and in this way, he not only paid for the goods in question, but recovered a profit through his trade store. He also bought the trochus shell as well as beche-der-mer, all returning excellent profits.
His big problem was large enough shipping to take his produce south to ports such as Madang and Wewak for further sale to buyers. He relied on large sea-going canoes but lost a lot due to rain and bad weather. By this time, he had employed other Germans and the only solution was to dynamite a passage south so that ships could load at Mal. This done, my advisers told me that Walen was literally shoveling up money .
As Walen prospered, his opposition to the south offered higher trade prices. This was immediately countered by his offering equal prices but also, he introduced his own currency throughout his trading stations, rendering the Dutch guilder and the German mark useless. He thus eradicated any further competition from future trade.
With all this and progressing more each day, he yearned for his homeland so he decided to bring a bit of Germany to Mal. He brought out stonemasons, carpenters and others and arranged with the Dutch authorities to quarry limestone from the mountains behind the (then) town of Hollandia (this stone is very similar to what houses are built of at Mount Gambier). Having done this, he replicated a German castle on Mal Island. The foyer was tiled in white Italian marble with a black German eagle in the center and was ballroom size.
It was said that before 1900, Walen was a millionaire and he increased his staff with shipwrights, a butcher, and engineer. The butcher was needed as he had imported deer from Europe and released them on Mal for the German traditional deer shooting as well as continuity of fresh meat. It was also said that visiting ship passengers enjoyed dinner parties at Mal that compared with Government House in Rabaul.
It appears that he made one very big mistake when he took a native wife. She was never allowed to appear socially and she had a daughter. Things progressed until World War 1 approached and he returned to Germany and took a commission in the army, leaving his wife behind, but his daughter was already in Switzerland being educated.
The rest is history. Germany was defeated and Walen lost his property, and though he fought for it through various courts, he never returned. The place soon went into decay with the exception of the home castle. It was taken over through the Ex-Pro Board by the Batt family who traded there, but never the likes of Walen.
After World War 2, the passage through the reefs had regrown and the jungle reclaimed the castle but there was no war damage as the shallow reefs made both the Japanese and allies give the area a wide berth and it also offered no strategic purpose. In the 1920’s, Walen’s daughter apparently returned to find her mother without success and because of her superior education, she was employed by an Australian planter to educate his son and daughter.When World War 2 approached and women and children evacuated, she went to Australia with the family and was in great demand teaching in exclusive private girls’ schools around Sydney.
The last I heard of Walen was about 1952 when, at the age of ninety-four, he was trying to get compensation though the United Nations without success.
The only documented record of what I have put here was done by the late Sir Frank Packer (Kerry’s father) who sent a reporter and photographer by seaplane and reported the story extensively in his magazine PIX. You may recall such a publication. This would have been about 1954.
So ends another story of the South-West Pacific.
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