Archive of George and John Caiger.

Circa 1908 -2005.. George Caiger (1903-1991):

10 family photographic albums with over 800 black and white photographs, many captioned, dating mainly from the 1920s -1940s, one album with a few earlier images (including two cabinet cards stamped by the W. H. Bursle studio Orange, and large format tinted military portrait signed La Doré, Orange); one manila folder with16 photographs including a large view of the harvesting of seaweed at Takayama Beach, 24.3 x 28 cm; two from the early 1960s stamped on the verso Max Dupain Photographer (the portico at 'Subiaco', Rydalmere 25.7 x 20. 2 cm; and a view of the Old Tote Precinct, Goldstein College, Basser College taken from the Heffron Building, UNSW, 23.7 x 30.4 cm, some creasing and edgewear, a small tear to the upper corner of one with no loss) ;

An elaborately brocade-covered album embellished with cranes and silk tassells used as a visitors' book with 1940s - 1960s autographs over 9 pages and mounted at the end 10 photographs of social functions, together with newspaper clippings by George Caiger and relating to their life in Japan;

A linen-covered post card album; mounting 71 coloured post cards 14.2 x 9 cm (some landscape) depicting traditional Japanese costume, ceremonies and landscape;

A scrapbook album, typescript title "These photographs and comments have been compiled as a reference material on a few aspects of Japanese life.", with approx 89 photographs (several portraits with the stamp of the studio Shufunotomo, Shashinkan) and cuttings, one military portrait loose in a sleeve, together with 14 coloured Japanese post-cards (blank) ;

Six typescripts by George Caiger:
Untitled (opening chapter heading 'The Musashi Koto Gakko') 94 pages circa 1970, loose-leaf preserved in a card folder;
'Travelling Hopefully' 125 pp + contents and forward with manuscript corrections by Caige late 1970s, bound in a pebbled-red cloth binder;
'Hurrah for Old Sydney' 82 pp + Inroduction and Contents; bound in a pebbled-red cloth binder;
'Japan- A Path arises' 121 pp + illustrations; loose-leaf preserved in a card folder;
'An Approach to Asian history' 8 pages loose-leaf, with manuscript corrections;
'Australia - Japan. Airview Pamphlet No...' Contents + 19 pages in the original buff-coloured card binder

Stapled offprint 'Buddhism and Japanese Flower Arrangement' by George Caiger, 15 pages, n.d.

Album 33 x 28 cm, compiling notes, newspaper and magazine cuttings relating to gemology compiled by Nancy Caiger and including a 3 page leaflet 'The Sydney Chapter of Ikebana International...1959, signed by Nancy Caiger.

McDonald, A.H. 'Fact and Fiction in Japanese Imperialism' 1944, Australian Institute of International Affairs, Sydney, 1944; 32 pages, 18.9 x 12.4 cm , saddle stitched booklet in title-wrappers, with George Caiger's typed comments loosley enclosed and in the text, and with his signature on the title-wrapper .

Allied Translator and Interpreter Section South East Pacific Area. 'Hoko--The Spy-Hostage System of Group Control--The clue to Japanese Psychology'. [Sydney?], 1945. Government Report, 34 x 3-21.5 cm, 22 pages, bound into card wrappers, with George Caiger's typexcript notes tipped in at rear.

Three manila folders with correspondence to and from George Caiger relating to former Japanese students and colleagues, research materials and articles, including a card from Prince Mikasa, photos and newspaper cuttings, an invitation to a 1991 exhibition at the David Jones Art Gallery celebrationg the 80th year of Max Dupain with a manuscript note to George Caiger from Max Dupain and a prospectus for the limited edition publication.

John Caiger (1934-2022):

Black and white photo of former Emperor Akihito as a baby, 25.2 x 18.3 cm, inscribed on the verso 'A picture of the Crown Prince of Japan for John Godwin Caiger who came into this interesting world at about the same time in the same city of Tokyo'.

Spiral-bound school notebook 15.2 x 9.5 cm, circa 1939 with comments on his progress by John's teachers in Japan, small drawings and early pieces of writing;

Photocopied typescript of 'A Path Arises' by George Caiger, belonging to John Caiger, with two photographs loosely enclosed;

Caiger, G. and Caiger, J. 'Japan: Beyond the Headlines' Casell Australia, 1975. 196 pages, illustrations, softcover, with a manila folder of notes relating to the publication;

National Institute for Educational Research of Japan. Regional Field Operational Seminar on Curriculum Development for Work oriented Education in Asia 1976. Tokyo. Conference Reports, Memo and Proceedings. [78 pages] in blue card folder;

Album of school photos relating to John Caiger's time at the Armidale School, 17 photographs, postcards, newspaper cuttings a cloth school emblem;

11 manila folders with miscellaneous correspondence, notes (1980s-1990s), research cuttings and articles, including a small address book 16.3 x 10 cm. Photographs and documents related to George Caiger (1903-1991), with some photos and documents related to the life and career of his son, John Godwin Caiger (1934-2022), who assembled this archive. George Caiger was born in Brisbane in1903, the son of clergyman Jasper Stoneman Caiger and his wife Edith. George went to Britain with his parents in 1908.

"The Florentine Album" - contains a collection of photos which seem to have been taken by George Caiger when he was quite young, and including photos of his mother and a number of pictures of Denstone College, the private boarding school in Staffordshire which he attended from 1914 to 1922, before going to St. John's College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1925. A grey album labelled 'Photographs' contains photos probably from the 1920s of family members on holiday in Jersey, Paris, and elsewhere. A number of early photos of family members (19th to early 20th century) have also been pasted into a more modern album with a brown patterned cover.

After teaching at Sedbergh School in Yorkshire, in 1928 George took up a teaching post at the Armidale School in New South Wales. An unlabelled brown album contains photos of his journey to Australia in January 1928, and of the Armidale School and the local town and countryside, including pictures of the February 1928 floods in Armidale. There are also pictures of visits to Brisbane and to Coogee and Manly in Sydney.

A small brown album with an embossed cover and the title 'Photographs' contains further photos of the Armidale district, including the Armidale School and New England Girls' School, and of Caiger's friends in Armidale, as well as photos of a journey to Sandgate near Brisbane, where Caiger met his parents and photographed the house where he had been born.

A larger brown 'Photo Album' contains early photos of George Caiger's family, including photos of and articles about his father-in-law, George Rendel, who had migrated to Brisbane in 1885. There is a newspaper report about George Caiger's marriage to Nancy Rendel in 1929, and pictures of her. Immediately before his marriage, George had spent a few months in Japan coaching rugby, and in 1930, following a trip to Europe, the couple moved to Japan for a much longer stay, which lasted until the outbreak of war. George Caiger took a teaching job at Musashi Koto Gakko in Tokyo, and later also taught at the Peers' School. This album contains many photos of the couple in Japan, as well as photos of their sons, John (b. 1934) and Michael (b. 1936). In the back of the album are two large images of the Armdale School and New England Girls' School.

A separate large brown album labelled 'Photographs' contains family photos taken on a visit to England - probably the trip which George and Nancy took immediately after their wedding - followed by a collection of postcards and photos of the family's life in Japan. There are a number of pictures of them hiking in the mountains of Japan, and a postcard showing the erruption of Mt. Asama near Kauizawa in August 1931.

An album with a brown fabric cover (and no title) continues the story of the family's life in Japan, with many photos of the two children and birthday cards celebrating John's fifth and Michael's first birthday. There is a clipping about a children's party thrown by Marquis Yoshichika Tokugawa, with whom the Caiger's became friendly, and numerous other small clippings about the family's activities.

Another album with a striped fabric cover opens with a delightful message sent by 'the boys of Sokei Dormitory' to congratulate the couple on the birth of their son (most probably John). This is followed by an invitation to an imperial garden party, dated 12 April 1935. As well as numerous family photos and articles about the Caigers, the album also contains some beautiful photos of a traditional Japanese house, and three striking photos of women tackling the aftermath of some kind of disaster (it appears to be a flood). The album ends with the program of a song concert staged by members of the foreign community in Japan in 1938.

An album with a floral cloth cover contains a large set of coloured postcards of Japan, collected by George Caiger. There is also a manila folder of later correspondence between George Caiger and his former students in Japan, which contains a card sent to him by Prince Mikasa.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, George Caiger returned to Australia where he worked as a censor, and in 1943 joined the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section, working under Colonel Sidney Mashbir, and was posted to the Philippines in 1945 to translate captured and surrendered Japanese documents. He also served with the Allied occupation forces in Japan from August 1945 to January 1946. A blue folder contains a fascinating collection of photographs - some original, some postcards and some cut from magazines or newspapers - accompanied by typed notes by George Caiger, and clearly designed to educate members of the allied forces about Japanese society and culture. These include photos of Japanese cities and natural landmarks, people working at various trades, traditional Japanese sports, weddings and festivals, temples and shrines. A typical note (accompanying a fine photo of a woman at work in her kitchen) reads 'The peasant woman is slicing daicon, which is something like a strong-smelling radish. The string used to hold back the kimono sleeves was worn by warriors to keep their arms free for swordplay'. (Some photos seem to have been removed from the folder). A manila folder also contains an assortment of 17 photos, including a large print of a beach at Takayama, a photograph of children bowing outside the imperial palace in Toyko, and two fine Max Dupain photographic prints from the early 1960s of the portico at Subiaco, Rydalmere (now demolished) stamped on the verso 'Max Dupain Photographer' with his Artamon address and a view of the Old Tote Precinct, Goldstein College, Basser College from the Heffron Building, UNSW, stamped 'Max Dupain Photographer" with his Clarence Street, Sydney address. The documents in the collection include a confidential wartime report entitled 'Hoko - The Spy Hostage System of Group Control - The Clue to Japanese Psychology', likely based in part on intelligence collected by George Caiger.

Following his return to Australia in1946, George Caiger worked as a journalist, contributing to the Australian Broadcasting Commission's 'The Nation's Forum on the Air', and was also Federal Secretary of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. A brocade covered album contains a collection of his newspaper articles from this period--with titles such as 'The Japan Our Occupation Troops Will Enter'. The album also contains an cutting of an article entitled 'Secret Service Feats Against Japan', highlighting the significant contribution which George Caiger made to wartime intelligence, which included the interrogation of captured Japanese prisoners of war. The album also contains the autographs of visitors to the Caigers' home during and immediately after the war. He travelled widely in the late 1940s and 1950s, visiting (amongst others) Canada, the United States, England, Holland, South Africa, Indonesia and New Guinea.

From 1967-1968, George Caiger taught at Rikkyo University in Tokyo. He then retired, but continued to travel and write for years thereafter. The collection includes four unpublished typescripts which he wrote post-retirement. The first untitled typescript is a fascinating memoir detailing his life from his first arrival in Japan in 1930 to his 1967-68 stay in Tokyo. The second, `Travelling Hopefully', is a detailed account of his 1973 travels in Greece, Italy, England, Scotland and South Africa. 'Hurrah for Old Sydney!' is a history of Sydney which seems to have been written around the end of the 1970s. Finally, 'A Path Arises' describes a visit which George Caiger made to Japan, Britain, Turkey in 1989, and includes other interesting reminiscences of earlier phases of his life, inculding memories of the mission sent from Japan to Manila in August 1945 to negotiate the Japanese surrender (an event which Caiger witnessed first hand). There is also the typescript of George Caiger's unpublished essay - 'Approach to Asian History' and an offprint of his published article 'Buddhism and Japanese Flower Arrangement. One folder contains an interesting typescript entitled 'Australia-Japan: Airview Pamphlet No...', which appears to have been written by George Caiger, and gives a detailed description the flight from Sydney to Tokyo at a time when this stopped in Darwin and Iwakuni, together with other cultural and historical reflections. A copy of the 1944 pamphlet 'Fact and Fiction in Japanese Imperialism' by A. H. McDonald contains George Caiger's comments on the text. Meanwhile, in 1965 Nancy Caiger had undertaken a course in gemology, compiling a collection of notes and newspaper and magazine cuttings on the subject which is included (in the album labelled 'Photographs - Isuzu'). The collection also includes a small leaflet produced in 1959, outlining the history of the Sydney Chapter of Ikebana International, in which Nancy Caiger was a key participant.

Further material relates to the life of George Caiger's son John G. Caiger, who was born in Japan in 1934 and became a scholar of Japanese history and lectured and researched at the Australian National University. The first items in this collection include a delightful and historically interesting black-and-white photo of former Emperor Akihito as a baby, inscribed on the back (apparently by a Japanese person who presented this to the Caigers as a gift) 'A picture of the Crown Prince of Japan for John Godwin Caiger who came into this interesting world at about the same time in the same city of Tokyo'. There is also a small school notebook from John's time at kindergarten in Japan, with comments on his progress by his teachers, and John's little drawings and early pieces of writing ('I am a rabbit. I live in a warren in the country at Armidale…') A red-covered album contains photos of John in his teens as a pupil at the Armidale School, with newspaper cuttings about his appearances with the school drama group. Other items in this collection include a collection of documents from a 1975 seminar he attended on Asia-related curriculum development; a copy of the book 'Japan: Beyond the Headlines', co-edited by George and John Caiger in 1975, together with a folder of material which the Caigers used when producing the book. The collection also includes research material and notes assembled by John Caiger. .