NORFOLK ISLANDERS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 236, 29 June 1908, Page 7

NORFOLK ISLANDERS.

- . THEIR CLAIMS. «Y TEIiECfaAFH— PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPrniGHT. ■ , . Melbourne, June 27. • Mr. Quintal has arrived from Norfolk Island.:, He is to interview tho' Government with reference to a claim by tho islanders that their houses v.ero given them by a representative of Queen Victoria when thev firiit. landed. >

{ r, N f r r 7 f , ol^ ls J, an( ' (Pacific Ocean) was discovered 5 r l ' Captain Cook, who found it uninhabited, except by birds. A settlement was made by.a detachment from Port Jackson under Governor Phillip, m 1788, in Sydney Bay on the south side of the island. This was at one timr the penal colony of Great Britain. Tho island was abandoned in 1809 , b £ wa * ™- occ,, Pj cd M'a penal settlemont in l°f,- ■ Th® penal. settlement was removed in 1050. The descendants of the mutineers of the Bounty were removed to it in June, 1856, from Pitcairn Island.

jSorfotk Island is now attached to New South Wales, the office of tho administration being at :he Chief Secretary s Department, Sydney. It was given a constitution with a resident magistrate and elective council in 1896. . This was dissolved in 1903, when an executive council of a President, two elected and four appointed members, was constituted. The population in .1905 was—Males 537, females 430; total. 967 ineluuing Melanosians.' The Ecsident Magistrate is Captain C. S. Elliot, E.N. / In 1903 thero :was excitement in tho island' 'find the "Council of Elders" resigned as a protest against', tho absorption of tho island into, tho Commonwealth.