An English Girl in New Guinea

By Kathleen Haddon
Edited by Virginia-Lee Webb and Jonathan Fogel
In the autumn of 1914, Alfred Cort Haddon, a towering figure in the development of modern anthropology,
embarked on an expedition to southern New Guinea, the third and final one he was to
make to that region of the world. Intent upon furthering his studies on indigenous canoes as well
as documenting the rapidly transitioning cultures there, he chose his twenty-six-year-old daughter,
Kathleen Haddon to be the expedition photographer and research assistant, in addition to pursuing
her own studies in invertebrate biology and string figures, commonly known as cat’s cradles.
Together they traveled for two months from Thursday Island just north of Australia to Daru, around
the Gulf of Papua to the southern side of the Bird Tail Peninsula, and back again. They traveled
with no set itinerary, transported by missionary vessels, canoes, and government launches and
staying in planters’ houses, patrol stations, missions, and, most frequently, on the decks of the
various vessels they sailed in. Along the way, they visited innumerable settlements, photographing
the people and places they saw and taking detailed notes. Upon their return, Kathleen typed her
notes into a narrative journal titled An English Girl in New Guinea, which lay dormant among her
belongings until it was found by her children in 1999, nearly forty years after her death. Engaging,
detailed, and insightful, her journal is presented in full here for the first time, with the entries
paired with scores of her photographs, most never before published. This is a unique and visually
beautiful account of adventurous travel and cultural encounters impossible in today’s world that
will be of interest to contemporary Pacific communities, anthropology specialists, art historians,
and enthusiasts of traditional cultures alike.