Papers of A.B. Brewster

A diary, a scrapbook and a printed book.

Adolf Brewster Brewster (1854-1937), formerly Adolf Brewster-Joske, was born in Australia and educated in England. He went to Fiji in 1870 with a group of settlers granted land with the Polynesia Company. Brewster was one of the founders of Suva, where the family established a sugar plantation. In 1884, he entered the Colonial Service after the plantation failed, serving as Governor's Commissioner in the provinces of Tholo North and Tholo East, Deputy Commissioner of the Armed Native Constabulary, and an official member of Fiji's Legislative Council. Brewster retired to England in 1910. He published two books, 'The hills tribes of Fiji' (1922) and 'King of the Cannibal Isles' (1937), the latter of which discussed King Thakombau (1817-1883), Chief of the Fiji Islands.

Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).

Presented by the Revd Dr D.P. Brewster, great-nephew of Adolf Brewster Brewster, in 2006.

A catalogue of the collection can be found on ArchiveSearch.

This archival description was written by MJC.

Brewster, Adolf Brewster, 1854-1937, anthropologist