Peter Milne (missionary)

Peter Milne (17 May 1834 – 24 November 1924) was a Scottish missionary to the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu).

Milne was born in Aberdeen, and studied at the University of Aberdeen and the Free Church College.[1] He was ordained in 1868 as a missionary under the Presbyterian Synod of Otago and Southland, and arrived in Nguna in 1870. By 1896 the entire island was (at least nominally) Christian.[2] Milne served in the New Hebrides for more than fifty years.

Milne encouraged the production of arrowroot as a means of paying for the printing of religious books in the local language.[2] Along with Daniel Macdonald and John W. Mackenzie, Milne translated the Old Testament into Efatese.[3] He and Macdonald were involved in a feud that lasted for more than fifteen years, which started with a disagreement over how to translate the word "God" in the local language.[4]

  1. ^ Rod Edmond, Migrations: Journeys in Time and Place, p. 81.
  2. ^ a b "In Memorium". Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand. Rev Peter Milne (Snr). Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  3. ^ J. Graham Miller, Live, Volume 2, p. 92.
  4. ^ Nicholas Thieberger, "“Compromise Literary Dialect” in Efate, Central Vanuatu," Oceanic Linguistics 47.2 (2008), p. 367.