Did you know that the first official marriage in Fiji by a church minister was held sometime in 1836 on the island of Lakeba?
That record is contained in Fiji’s first marriage register which attracted public attention during display of relics at the Masonic Lodge on Gladstone Rd on July 8, 1964.
According to The Fiji Times, during the exhibition, the register was “yellow with age” and included familiar names such as “Moore, Gibson, Wilkinson, Blakelock, Hedstrom, Whippy and Ryder”.
The first marriage in the register was performed by the Rev David Cargill and the last entry was made in 1923 from when the job of officially listing weddings was taken over by the government’s own registry.
Also on display was an account book used on Lakeba before the use of a common currency.
There were old portraits of Ratu Seru Cakobau, Mr Jaggar’s daughter and Samuela Faubula, the first Fijian who converted to Christianity .
Books included “Memoirs of Mrs Cargill”, “Joeli Bulu”, the “Life of John Hunt”, “The King and people of Fiji”, David Cargill’s diary and the first Bible printed by the Viwa printing press.
Other books were on the careers of Commander Goodenough, Governor Des Voeux and many early missionaries.
There was a letter written by the Rev J.Watkins.
The letter said that in 1836, Fiji was “little known to civilised life except for the extreme dangers to which vessels are exposed to murderous inclinations of the inhabitants”.
The letter was written while appealing to “the sympathies of the Christian public on behalf of the cannibal Feegeeians”.
The letter was included in a comprehensive collection of Fiji’s Christian history on display at the Masonic Hall, showcased to mark the Methodist Church’s first conference celebrations.
Inquiries in 1963, unearthed communion vessels sent to the Rev Cargill.
They were off-loaded in Auckland but did not reach Fiji until December 1963 – 129 years later.
The communion vessels were recovered in an Auckland school. Covering Fijian history before 1935, the displays showed pottery, an oil dish, food vessels, a club, stone axe head and a piece of the wall from Fiji’s first church on Oneata, in the Lau Group.
