Captain Colombs' Camp, Neiafu, Vavau Islands. One of a series of photographs from the collection ...

Captain Colombs' Camp, Neiafu, Vavau Islands. One of a series of photographs from the collection of Arthur Leslie Swinden who served as telegraphist aboard HMS Encounter during its voyage conveying an expedition organised by the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science to view a solar eclipse at Vavau, Tonga on 29 April 1911. The party comprised astronomers from Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth observatories. According a Report on the Total Solar Eclipse of 1911, April 28 by the Reverand A.L. Cortie, "The Admiralty gave instructions that H.M.S. Encounter should convey the observers and the instruments from Sydney to Vavau and back, and that every assistance should be rendered to the expedition in the erection of the instruments and in the observations. The expedition is greatly indebted to Captain Colomb, and to the officers and men of the Encounter... All the cases containing the instruments were landed ashore by April 5, and a clearing was made of dense undergrowth and of some coconut palm trees on the space reserved as a coaling ground by the Admiralty". Although the weather was cloudy, 45 photographs were taken during the eclipse (see P11503.006).