WEDM Armit. Source: State Library of NSW
In 1883, Captain Armit, FLS (Fellow of the Linnaean Society), a special correspondent of The Argus and The Australian, led an expedition to New Guiney, his collection was later presented to the Melbourne Museum. (Evening News) Following the expedition, Armit wrote a sketch titled “A Bora” which was printed in The Australasian, and re-printed in The Argus in 1883. The sketch, signed by a Native Queensland Police Officer (though Armit was dismissed a year earlier), contained observations of a “Bora”, ‘a yearly gathering of one or more tribes for the purpose of initiating their young men, and conferring upon them the rights of manhood’:
A certain tract of country—generally one which abounds in game and water—is strictly preserved for 12 months, so as to insure an abundant supply of food during the week devoted to the performance of the mystic ceremony. Besides the main business of initiation, the tribes…avail themselves of this opportunity to settle any political and social questions which may be necessary for the tribal welfare of one or more of the con-federates. Marriages are arranged, crimes punished, and friendships cemented by the exchange of gifts, trade is also indulged in, and as a rule the meeting is generally marked by one or more pitched battles, especially if one of the tribes is numerically stronger than the others.
‘A Bora by a Native Queensland Police Officer’, The Argus, 30 Jun 1883, p. 13
In 1886, Armit was appointed a member of committee of state schools in Cooktown. (The Telegraph) In 1893, he moved to New Guinea, taking several jobs in public service. Armit features prominently in the dispatches reporting inspections of the coastal tribes of New Guinea. William’s brother, Lt Robert Henry Armit, was also an avid naturalist and collector. The British Museum holds a collection of ethnographic objects, largely spears and arrows, from Queensland, New Guinea and the Torres Strait Islands donated by Robert Armit in 1870.
It is safe to say Armit, blossomed following his leave from the Native Police, an avid naturalist and herbologist, an explorer, author and a cartographer. He mapped out the district lying eastward of Port Moresby and wrote extensively on plants of Queensland. According to Etymological Dictionary of Grasses armitii was named in honour of Armit. A bird, poephila armitiana, a yellow-headed Gouldian finch, was also named after him in 1877 by Edward Pierson Ramsay, an Australian zoologist who specialised in ornithology. Armit died in New Guinea at the age of 53.
Gouldian Finches. Source: AustralianFinches.com
References:
Armit, William Edington de Marguerittes (de Margrat). QSA Staff File A/38710.
Armit, William Edington de Marguerittes (de Margrat). QP Staff File, QPS Museum and Archives.
Annual Reports of British New Guinea, 1984-5.
Clifford, H T and P D Bostock. Etymological Dictionary of Grasses. Springer, 2007, p. 33.
Evening News, 27 Dec 1883, p. 2
Lt Robert Henry Armit. The British Museum.
Sketch maps by Mr. W.E. Armit, F.L.S., F.R.G.S. of district lying to eastward of Port Moresby. Surveyor General’s Office, 1898.
The Telegraph, 11 Jan 1886, p. 2
Whittell, H M. The literature of Australian birds: A history and a bibliography of Australian ornithology. Paterson Brokenshaw Pty, 1954, p. 17.
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This information has been provided by the Queensland Police Museum from the best resources available. The article was written by Museum Volunteer and Crime and Policing Historian Dr Anastasia Dukova.
The Police Museum is open 9am to 4pm Monday to Thursday and 10am to 3pm on the last Sunday of the month (Feb-Nov) and is located on the Ground Floor of Police Headquarters at 200 Roma Street, Brisbane. Contact: E: museum@police.qld.gov.au
“FROM the VAULT – William E.D.M. Armit, the Naturalist and Explorer (Part 2)” by the Queensland Police Service is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (BY) 2.5 Australia Licence. Permissions may be available beyond the scope of this licence.
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