South Sea Evangelical Mission map collection

Florence Young commenced mission work among indentured labourers from the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu (New Hebrides) on her brothers' sugar plantation and mill, Fairymead, near Bundaberg in Queensland, in the early 1880s. Steeped in the beliefs of the Plymouth Brethren and influenced by the English Keswick Convention, members of the Young and Deck families established the Queensland Kanaka Mission (QKM) in 1886 and extended it to various centres along the Queensland coast. Converts of the QKM returned to the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu at the turn of the century, among them Peter Ambuofa of North Malaita who appealed to the QKM for help. Two men from Queensland, Charles Pillans and Fred Schwieger, came in response. Both died of malaria. Subsequently, in 1904, the QKM formed a Solomon Islands Branch and established a principal station at Onepusu on the west coast of Malaita in 1905. The Mission changed its name to the South Sea Evangelical Mission in 1907. The Mission continued to operate in the Solomon Islands, and in New Guinea after World War II, until it was localised in the 1980s. In 1997 the SSEM joined with the Asia Pacific Christian Mission to create Pioneers of Australia.