Niue in Pictures

The installation of a new community water tank. Children playing in shallow waters of a reef. Displays of modern farming equipment and exhibition stalls at an agricultural show. Women showing off their handcrafted goods. The opening of a new community hall. The harvesting of taro. New housing built after destructive hurricanes. Young men taking part in athletic events.

The March 1986 issue of Pacific Islands Monthly gives us a few biographical details about Coleman and his activities in Niue as they reported his retirement and return to New Zealand after 34 years living on the island. Coleman had arrived in Niue in August 1959 to take up a role as a senior clerk in the Public Works Department. Over the next few years he would go on to supervise the establishment of the Community Development Office, which entailed setting up a regular bilingual newspaper Tohi Tala Niue and organising a broadcasting station on the island.

Due for retirement in 1969, he instead went on to establish a radio repair business on the island and at one point served on the Niue Tourist Board. 

Harry Alexander Coleman was born in 1913 and passed away in 1995. A collection of close to 400 of Coleman’s photographic images of life in early 1960s Niue was donated to Auckland Museum in the early 1990s. Although there is a short inventory that describes some of the images, our collection records for these images lack any further information about the people, places, and events pictured in them.

 

Fakaaue lahi to community and family members who made identifications in late 2020.

The two young women have so far been identified as Gagau Sekene (left) and Hikimanogi Tasmania (right).

The nurses are believed to be: Back row left to right - Liliotama (?), Susana Sionetuato, Salamita or Salote Faitala, Nofoaga Vaha, [nurse not identified], Win Perkinson (Hospital Matron), Halosi Ikimau, [nurse unidentified]. Front row left to right - Currently identified as Salome Vaiea, Suiti (?), Maketa Misiuepa. The last two nurses in the front row have not yet been identified.

The majority of Coleman’s negatives have been digitised and are available to view on Auckland Museum’s Collections online.

Auckland Museum holds issues of Tohi Tala Niue (call number: AP7.7 N12 TAL) from the decade of the 1970s to early 1980s which are available to access and view in our Reading Room Tuesdays to Thursdays 10am- 3pm.