Palmerston Island is a coral atoll in the Cook Islands

Cook Islands

The Cook Islands is a self-governing parliamentary democracy in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand...

 in the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

 about 500 km northwest of Rarotonga

Rarotonga

Rarotonga is the most populous island of the Cook Islands, with a population of 14,153 , out of the country's total population of 19,569.The Cook Islands' Parliament buildings and international airport are on Rarotonga...

. It was discovered by James Cook

James Cook

Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...

 on 16 June 1774.

Overview

A true atoll, Palmerston Island consists of a number of sandy islets on a continuous ring of coral reef

Coral reef

Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...

 enclosing a lagoon

Lagoon

A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...

. The largest of the islets include Palmerston, North Island, Lee To Us, Leicester, Primrose, Toms, and Cooks. The total land area of the islets is approximately one square mile (2.6 km²). The coral reef covers about 3,600 acres (15 km²). The lagoon

Lagoon

A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...

 is some seven miles (11 km) across, covering an area of 56 km². There are several small passages through the reef for boats, though there is no safe entry for large ships. At a latitude of 18 degrees south

18th parallel south

The 18th parallel south is a circle of latitude that is 18 degrees south of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Indian Ocean, Australasia, the Pacific Ocean and South America....

, Palmerston enjoys a tropical climate

Climate

Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...

 but is exposed to severe hurricanes. A particularly destructive series of storms occurred during the 1920s and 1930s.

All the islets are wooded with coconut

Coconut

The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is a member of the family Arecaceae . It is the only accepted species in the genus Cocos. The term coconut can refer to the entire coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which is not a botanical nut. The spelling cocoanut is an old-fashioned form of the word...

 palms, pandanus

Pandanus

Pandanus is a genus of monocots with about 600 known species. They are numerous palmlike dioecious trees and shrubs native of the Old World tropics and subtropics. They are classified in the order Pandanales, family Pandanaceae.-Overview:...

, and native tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

s. There is some natural ground water on Palmerston but water captured from rainfall is preferred for drinking. Shellfish

Shellfish

Shellfish is a culinary and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater environments, some kinds are found only in freshwater...

 inhabit the reef, and fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 are abundant although there are concerns about overfishing

Overfishing

Overfishing occurs when fishing activities reduce fish stocks below an acceptable level. This can occur in any body of water from a pond to the oceans....

. The population consists of approximately fifty inhabitants, all descended from an Englishman

Englishman

Englishman may refer to:*English people*Grey Partridge*Jason Englishman, Canadian rock music singer and guitarist*Jenny-Bea Englishman, real name of the Canadien singer Esthero*Erald Briscoe, reggae musician who records under the name Englishman...

 named William Marsters

William Marsters

William Marsters born 6 November 1831 - died 22 May 1899, was an English adventurer from Walcote, Leicestershire who settled on Palmerston Island in the Cook Islands on 8 July 1863, with his Polynesian wife and two Polynesian mistresses. He had 23 children on the island and 134 grandchildren...

 (see history, below). The economy is based on fishing

Fishing

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

, tourism

Tourism

Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

, copra

Copra

Copra is the dried meat, or kernel, of the coconut. Coconut oil extracted from it has made copra an important agricultural commodity for many coconut-producing countries. It also yields coconut cake which is mainly used as feed for livestock.-Production:...

, and bird feathers

Feather

Feathers are one of the epidermal growths that form the distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on birds and some non-avian theropod dinosaurs. They are considered the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates, and indeed a premier example of a complex evolutionary novelty. They...

, though Palmerston’s extreme remoteness makes a cash

Cash

In common language cash refers to money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins.In bookkeeping and finance, cash refers to current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-immediately...

 market

Market

A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...

 difficult to maintain. Electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

 and other modern utilities are available on the island. A recently built telephone

Telephone

The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

 station provides the only permanent link to the outside world. The island has no airport

Airport

An airport is a location where aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and blimps take off and land. Aircraft may be stored or maintained at an airport...

 or regular air service

Air travel

Air travel is a form of travel in vehicles such as airplanes, helicopters, hot air balloons, blimps, gliders, hang gliding, parachuting or anything else that can sustain flight.-Domestic and international flights:...

, but cargo ships visit a few times a year.

History

Palmerston was discovered by Captain Cook in 1774, but he did not land on the island until 13 April 1777. He found the island uninhabited, though some ancient graves were discovered. Cook named the island after Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston

Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston

Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston FRS was a British politician.-Life:He succeeded to the peerage in 1757, and was educated at Clare College, Cambridge from 1757 to 1759...

, then lord of the admiralty

Admiralty

The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

. The ancient name of the island was supposedly Avarau, meaning “two hundred harbours.” In 1863 William Marsters

William Marsters

William Marsters born 6 November 1831 - died 22 May 1899, was an English adventurer from Walcote, Leicestershire who settled on Palmerston Island in the Cook Islands on 8 July 1863, with his Polynesian wife and two Polynesian mistresses. He had 23 children on the island and 134 grandchildren...

, a ship's carpenter

Carpenter

A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....

 and barrel maker

Cooper (profession)

Traditionally, a cooper is someone who makes wooden staved vessels of a conical form, of greater length than breadth, bound together with hoops and possessing flat ends or heads...

, arrived on Palmerston from Manuae with two Polynesia

Polynesia

Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...

n wives and annexed the island from the British government. He added a 'third wife' and sired a large family of some 23 children, whose descendants now inhabit Palmerston. Thus, Palmerston Island is the only island in the Cook Islands for which English is the native language.
William Masters, originally thought to have come from Leicestershire

Leicestershire

Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...

 England, is now thought to have come from Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

, which might explain why his descendants now spell the name "Marsters" due to the Gloucestershire accent. By the time his youngest daughter Titana Tangi died in 1973, there were over a thousand Marsters descendants living in Rarotonga

Rarotonga

Rarotonga is the most populous island of the Cook Islands, with a population of 14,153 , out of the country's total population of 19,569.The Cook Islands' Parliament buildings and international airport are on Rarotonga...

 and New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. Though only some fifty family members remain on Palmerston, all Marsters descendants consider the island their ancestral home. In 1954 the family was granted full ownership of the island. Three branches of the family remain on Palmerston, each branch being descended from one of Williams 'three wives', marriage

Marriage

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

within a family group is prohibited. Palmerston is now administered by the Cook Islands government in association with New Zealand.

External links

• The English legacy of Palmerston Island
• Cook Islands website page on Palmerston Island Revised January 20, 2007
• Jane's Cook Islands website page on Palmerston Island Rev. 30 November 2007
• Tourist account of Palmerston Island
• Map of Palmerston Island Maps of all the Cook Islands with Palmerston