OBITUARY. Mrs. H. B. Richenda ParhamAuthor(s): C. R. H. T.Source: The Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 56, No. 4 (December, 1947), p. 418Published by: The Polynesian SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20703132 .

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418

OBITUARY.

Mrs. H. B. Richenda Parham.

It is with regret that we record the death of a member of long standing, and one who has made substantial con

tributions to the lore of the Pacific. Mrs. Parham was born in London on 18th November,

1862, and died at Suva, Fiji, on 18th December, 1947. In 1896, as Miss H. B. Richenda Taylor, she married at Bloem

fontein, Charles J. Parham, a mining engineer, whose

profession took him and his family into many parts of the world, till he became a planter in Vanua Levu, Fiji. Since

her residence in Fiji, dating from 1921, she has studied and written actively, mainly on the flora of the islands. But

before this she had a varied career as a writer in London,

Madeira, Africa and New Zealand, writing travel books

and novels as well as lesser contributions in various journals and newspapers. A quantity of good poetry has likewise come from her facile pen. Her usual pseudonym was Haine

Whyte.

For the Society, however, she produced a notable

memoir, "

Fiji Native Plants, their Medicinal and other

uses," and it is likely that other papers that she has left in MS. will yet be published. A few years ago she deposited in the Turnbull Library copies of her many contributions to

the Fiji Times on matters of Fiji culture and botany.

Edited, these could make a useful volume.

Her two daughters, Misses Helena and Beatrice

Parham, bid fair to follow in their gifted mother's steps,

and have aided her in a number of her more recent studies.

?C. R. H. T.

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