Discovery by Europeans In February 1873, the territory was discovered by the crew of
HMS Basilisk, surveying the southern shore of
New Guinea. Captain
John Moresby named the harbour in honour of his father
Fairfax Moresby and called the anchorage off Paga Hill "Port Moresby" on his charts. Europeans estimated the local population to be around 2000 people. The largest settlement,
Hanuabada, consisted of five villages, populated by
Motu and
Koita people. The Motu were originally coastal dwellers, while the Koita came from the hills inland. There was significant intermarriage between these two groups. They were organised into units called
iduhu, which are somewhat similar to clans. In November 1873, four
Polynesian teachers were sent to Port Moresby by the Reverend of the
London Missionary Society. In November 1874, they were joined by the Reverend
William George Lawes, who immediately built a mission house at Metoreia, opposite Elevala Island. Port Moresby was an important centre of trade, visited by distant tribes of New Guinea, which the missionaries hoped would help them reach more people. In September 1877, a Pacific Islander working for the naturalist and collector
Andrew Goldie found signs of gold at the junction of the Laloki and Goldie Rivers, within walking distance of Port Moresby. Anticipating a
gold rush, entrepreneur
William Bairstow Ingham set off from
Cooktown in January 1878 to set up a store at Port Moresby. Around 100 miners arrived since April, but most of them left by the end of the year, finding no gold and suffering from diseases.
Colonisation In March 1883,
Sir Thomas McIlwraith, the
Premier of
Queensland, heard the story that German
SMS Carola was about to leave Sydney for
the South Seas "with object of annexation". On 20 March, he ordered
Henry Chester, the police magistrate at
Thursday Island, to sail for New Guinea and "take formal possession in Her Majesty's name of whole of the Island with exception of
that portion in occupation of the Dutch". On 4 April, the
Union Jack was raised at Port Moresby, and Chester read his proclamation in the presence of thirteen Europeans and about 200 Papuans. However, the settlement continued to be referred to as Port Moresby. By 1912, Port Moresby was linked by radio to Thursday Island. From 1921 to 1925, Papua was under the effect of the Commonwealth Navigation Act, which practically restricted trade to a single company,
Burns Philp, and a single port,
Sydney. In the early 1930s, regular air service was established between
Kila Airfield and Sydney.
World War II department store, in the mid-1990s having been used as a private school building During
World War II, some Papuan men enlisted in the
Papua Infantry Battalion and others as carriers over trails and rough terrains (
porters) as supply support to
Allied and
Japanese armies during long jungle marches. Historian
William Manchester outlines in his biography of General
Douglas MacArthur,
American Caesar, that acting as porters was well down the natives' list of acceptable voluntary activities and that they would fade away without great inducements. Many Papuan residents of Port Moresby either returned to their family villages or were evacuated to camps when the threat of Japanese invasion loomed. By September 1942, the city was an important Allied complex of bases, and thousands of troops were stationed in the area or more often, staged through it, as it was the last Allied bastion on the island and, conversely, a key staging and jumping off point as the Allies began conducting offensive warfare themselves, pushing back the Japanese advances. General MacArthur located his headquarters in Port Moresby from November 1942 to October 1944. In 1945, the
Territory of Papua and New Guinea was formed when
Papua and the former German New Guinea, which had been administered by Australia since 1918, were amalgamated under a single Australian administration though several laws remained in two territories and remain so, which can be complicating with provinces sitting on two sides of the otherwise extinct boundary. Port Moresby became the capital of the new combined territory and a focal point for the expansion of public services. Port Moresby was granted city status in 1972, with
Oala Oala-Rarua becoming the first Lord Mayor.
Independence In September 1975, Papua New Guinea became an independent country with Port Moresby as its capital city. Prince
Charles, Prince of Wales, represented the
Queen of Papua New Guinea at the celebrations. New government, intellectual and cultural buildings were constructed in the suburb of
Waigani to supplement and replace those of downtown Port Moresby. They included those for government departments, including a National Parliament Building, which was opened in 1984 by Prince Charles and blends traditional design with modern building technology. ==Climate==