Biographical entry: Rich, John

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John Rich was from Purepure, south Guadalcanal. He was born too late to work in Queensland, although some of his brothers had been there, and he laboured on plantations within the Protectorate. He accumulated capital by producing copra with the help of his three wives, and later worked for a Chinese trading ship. Rich paid off a £100, 3-ton launch and used it to transport pigs and produce to Burns Philp's (q.v.) Makambo depot. He also employed Malaitans to dive for shell off Isabel Island for two years. His boat was destroyed when the Japanese bombed Makambo in 1942. Rich practiced his ancestral religion. (Bennett 1987, 271)

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  • Bennett, Judith A., Wealth of the Solomons: A History of a Pacific Archipelago, 1800-1978, University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, 1987. Details