An exhibition preparing to set out from Port Moresby

Abstract

An exhibition preparing to set out from Port Moresby in 1885 for the crest of the Owen Stanley Ranges. Port Moresby was discovered and named by Captain John Moresby, R.N., in 1873. The next year, the first permanent mission station on the island of New Guinea was established there by the Rev. W.G. Lawes of the London Missionary Society. By 1855, with a European population of about 70, Port Moresby was also a Government station and developed as the administrative centre of British New Guinea and, from 1906 (when Commonwealth took over full control of the Territory from Britain and changed its name) of the Australian Territory of Papua. It is now the capital of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea.