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Port Moresby

Capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea

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Overlooking Port Moresby "Town" from Touaguba Hill.
MSchlauch · Public domain

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As of the 2011 census, Port Moresby had 364,145 inhabitants. This grew to 756,754 at the 2024 census. The place where the city was founded has been inhabited by the Motu-Koitabu people for centuries. The first Briton to see it was Royal Navy Captain John Moresby in 1873. It was named in honour of his father, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Fairfax Moresby.

Although Port Moresby is surrounded by Central Province, of which it is also the capital, it is not part of that province but instead forms the National Capital District. The traditional landowners, the Motu and Koitabu people, are represented by the Motu Koita Assembly.

Port Moresby hosted the APEC summit in November 2018. However, there were concerns about security, given the capital's reputation for violent crime.

History

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 Samuel Macfarlane 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.

The annexation was rejected by the imperial authorities, which expected the Australian colonies to share the expenses jointly. In May 1884, the Earl of Derby requested the colonies to provide £15,000 annually for the administration of New Guinea, which they agreed. On 10 October, Commodore James Erskine was cabled orders to proclaim the protectorate over the south-eastern coast of New Guinea. Deputy Commissioner for the Western Pacific Hugh Romilly, who also received a telegram from Lord Derby, proclaimed the protectorate in a short statement at Port Moresby on 23 October. Unknown to him, Erskine was also on his way to the island. Commodore held a grand ceremony of his own on 6 November, leaving Romilly in charge of the protectorate.

Special Commissioner Peter Scratchley arrived at Port Moresby in August 1885, choosing the site as a location for the colonial capital. In September, a plot of land to the south from Hanuabada was purchased for the government bungalow. Twenty-eight locals were paid a tomahawk, a handkerchief and half a pound of tobacco each.

The administration began the policy of segregating non-indigenous residential areas, which continued until the early 1960s, and built a two-mile fence around the government land. In 1886, surveyor Walter Cuthbertson laid out a gridiron plan for townships Granville West, extending between the harbour and Ela Beach, and Granville East, to the south from the government bungalow. However, the settlement continued to be referred to as Port Moresby. Special Commissioner John Douglas wrote in 1887: "Granville West has assumed the appearance of a small township. Mr. Goldie’s store is finished, and so are the Government Buildings, including the accommodation house, the customs house and post office, which at present does duty as a store, as well as the building erected."

After 1888 annexation, urban development continued to be concentrated on the saddle between Paga and Tuaguba hills. There were about twenty residential buildings in 1897. Granville East was practically undeveloped, with a single house at the top of Lawes Road until the late 1920s.

In 1905, the recently federated Australian government passed the Papua Act which came into effect in 1906. The act transferred Papua, with Port Moresby as its capital, to direct Australian rule. From then until 1941 Port Moresby grew slowly. The main growth was on the peninsula, where port facilities and other services were gradually improved. The first butcher's shop and grocery opened in 1909. 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. Electricity was introduced in 1925. In the early 1930s, regular air service was established between Kila Airfield and Sydney. Piped water supply was provided in 1941.

World War II

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.

The Papua New Guinea National Museum and National Library are in Waigani. A mansion was built in Port Moresby just west of the old legislative building but the last pre-independence chief minister and first prime minister of the sovereign state declared it not nearly grand enough; it was made the residence of Australian high commissioners and a mansion suitable to Somare's demands was built in Waigani.

Several of the government buildings have been abandoned due to long-term neglect. Chief amongst these are Marea Haus (known to most locals as the "Pineapple Building") and the Central Government Offices. However, widespread restoration rather than demolition of long-disused office buildings has been highly active since the first decade of the 21st century. The legislative building before independence and the first parliament building is long-gone but the old court house in town Port Moresby remains, bearing its pre-independence label with its previous title.

The population of the Port Moresby area expanded rapidly after independence. In 1980, the census return registered a population of 120,000; by 1990, this had increased to 195,000.

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