Background annexed the southern part of New Guinea In November 1882,
Allgemeine Zeitung published an article calling for the German annexation of New Guinea. Concerned with such a prospect, Sir
Thomas McIlwraith, the
Premier of
Queensland, cabled to London in February 1883, urging the government to annex New Guinea to Queensland, but received no answer. On 20 March, hearing the story that
SMS Carola was about to leave Sydney for
the South Seas "with object of annexation", he telegraphed
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". Chester made the proclamation at
Port Moresby on 4 April, but the imperial British government disapproved of the annexation: the British
Colonial Secretary Lord Derby emphasised in a despatch to the Queensland government that such an action was beyond Queensland's constitutional powers as a British colony. On 6 November 1884, after the Australian colonies had promised financial support, the territory became a British
protectorate. On 4 September 1888 the protectorate was annexed by Britain, together with some adjacent islands, which were collectively named
British New Guinea.
Australian acquisition and "interregnum" period On 18 March 1902, King
Edward VII issued
letters patent placing "our possession of British New Guinea under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia" and authorising the
governor-general of Australia to exercise all authority previously held by the governor of Queensland until the
Parliament of Australia provided otherwise. The Territory of Papua was not formally constituted until 1 September 1906, when the provisions of the
Papua Act 1905 came into effect pursuant to
section 122 of the constitution. This four-year gap has been described as an
interregnum, where Papua was under Australian sovereignty – holding a status similar to an
unorganised U.S. territory – but the existing institutions of government of British New Guinea largely continued in place. There were several reasons for the delay in the Australian parliament passing legislation to organise the territory, including interruptions from changes of government and elections, the need to make administrative arrangements, and debates over intended government policy in the territory. The
Barton government began preparation of legislation in February 1903 and presented a draft bill in July 1903, intending for its provisions to come into effect on 1 January 1904. However, the initial draft was abandoned shortly before the
1903 federal election. A major sticking point in parliament was the attempt of
temperance advocates to impose universal
prohibition of alcohol in the territory. The
Papua Act 1905 was eventually passed in November 1905, with the
Deakin government compromising by introducing a
local option for liquor licences and prohibiting the sale of alcohol to natives. In June 1903, the Australian government appointed
Christopher Stansfield Robinson as acting administrator of the territory. Robinson led a
punitive expedition to
Goaribari Island in March 1904, seeking to recover the bodies of missionaries
James Chalmers and
Oliver Fellows Tomkins, who had been murdered in 1901, and punish the perpetrators. Several Papuans were shot dead by the expedition, which received considerable attention in Australia after local missionary
Charles Abel wrote to the press alleging a massacre had occurred. The Australian government called a
royal commission in response to the allegations, which led to Robinson's suicide. A further royal commission was called in 1906 following allegations of administrative misconduct, the report of which "recommended the immediate removal of most senior officials of the colony including the administrator who had asked for the enquiry" and led to the appointment of
Hubert Murray as lieutenant-governor, who would remain in office until 1940.
Early administration and World War I Meanwhile, the northern part of New Guinea was under German commercial control from 1884, and from 1899 was directly ruled by the German government as the
colony of
German New Guinea, then known as
Kaiser-Wilhelmsland. At the outbreak of the
First World War in 1914, Australia invaded Kaiser-Wilhelmsland on 11 September 1914 with 2000 volunteers of the
Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force. After several skirmishes, the Australians succeeded in capturing the German colony, which they occupied for the rest of the war. The
Treaty of Versailles in 1919 transferred German New Guinea to Australia, which administered it as the
Territory of New Guinea.
World War II during
World War II at the
Battle of Milne Bay of August–September 1942. Shortly after the start of the
Pacific War, the island of New Guinea was invaded by the
Japanese. Papua was the least affected region. Most of
West Papua, at that time known as
Dutch New Guinea, was occupied, as were large parts of the
Territory of New Guinea (the former
German New Guinea, which was also under Australian rule after
World War I), but Papua was protected to a large extent by its southern location and the near-impassable
Owen Stanley Ranges to the north. Civil administration was suspended during the war and both territories (Papua and New Guinea) were placed under
martial law for the duration. The
New Guinea campaign opened with the battles for
New Britain and
New Ireland in the
Territory of New Guinea in 1942.
Rabaul, the capital of the Territory, was
overwhelmed on 22–23 January and was established as a major Japanese base from where the Japanese landed on mainland New Guinea and advanced towards Port Moresby and Australia. Having had their initial effort to capture Port Moresby by a seaborne invasion disrupted by the
U.S. Navy and Australian navy in the
Battle of the Coral Sea, the Japanese attempted a landward attack from the north via the
Kokoda Track. From July 1942, a few Australian reserve battalions, many of them very young and untrained, fought a stubborn
rearguard action against the Japanese attack, over the rugged
Owen Stanley Ranges. The militia, worn out and severely depleted by casualties, held out with the assistance of Papuan porters and medical assistants, and were relieved in late August by regular troops from the Second Australian Imperial Force, returning from action in the
Mediterranean Theatre. In early September 1942 Japanese marines attacked a strategic Royal Australian Air Force base at
Milne Bay, near the eastern tip of Papua. They were beaten back by the Australian Army, and the
Battle of Milne Bay was the first outright defeat of Japanese land forces in the Pacific theater during World War II. The offensives in Papua and New Guinea of 1943–44 were the single largest series of connected operations ever mounted by the Australian armed forces. The Supreme Commander of operations was the United States General
Douglas Macarthur, with Australian General
Thomas Blamey taking a direct role in planning, and operations being essentially directed by staff at New Guinea Force headquarters in Port Moresby. The act provided for a
Legislative Council (which was established in 1951), a judicial system, a public service, and a system of local government. Notwithstanding that it was part of an administrative union, the Territory of Papua at all times retained a distinct legal status and identity; it was a Possession of
the Crown, whereas the Territory of New Guinea was initially a
League of Nations mandate territory and subsequently a
United Nations trust territory. This legal and political distinction remained until the advent of the
Independent State of Papua New Guinea in 1975. Under
Australian Minister for External Territories Andrew Peacock, the territory adopted self-government in 1972 and on 15 September 1975, during the term of the
Whitlam government in Australia, the Territory became the independent nation of
Papua New Guinea. ==Government and administration==