page_title: Manra
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Manra / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A stamp of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands with postmark of Sydney Island ca 1945 (now Manra Island, Kiribati and uninhabited)
context_page_description: Manra or Sydney Island, is one of the Phoenix Islands in the Republic of Kiribati. It lies at 4°27′S 171°16′W. longitude, and has an area of 4.4 km². and an elevation of approximately six meters. Together with the seven other Phoenix Islands, it forms part of the Phoenix Islands Protected Area. Charles Darwin visited the island during his five-year voyage, following which in 1842 he published an explanation for the creation of coral atolls in the South Pacific.
  Though it has been occupied at various times in the past, Manra is currently uninhabited.
context_section_description: Unlike some of the other Phoenix Islands, Manra contains definite evidence of prehistoric inhabitation, in the form of at least a dozen platforms and remains of enclosures in the northeast and northwest portions of the island. K.P. Emory, ethnologist at Honolulu's Bishop Museum, estimated that two groups of people were present there, one from eastern Polynesia, the other from Micronesia. Wells and pits from these early inhabitants were also found.
  Manra was discovered in 1823 from the London whaling ship Sydney Packet,  T. Emmett Master, and was called Sydney.  It is the birthplace of Sydney Aris (1884–1966) née Arundel, daughter of Lillie Arundel and John T. Arundel. At that time John T. Arundel & Co. was then engaged in mining guano on the island. Manra was turned into a Burns, Philp & Co coconut plantation in the early 20th century.  Later, in 1938, it became one of the islands involved in the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme, the final colonial expansion of the British Empire.  Approximately 130 settlers were imported, and a village constructed complete with radio shack, cement cistern and 15 water wells.  Each adult settler was given fifty coconut palms, and each child granted two unplanted sections, 150 feet (80 m) square.  Ultimately, the colony failed, due to prolonged drought and the declining world market for copra.
  Sydney Island Post Office opened on 11 January 1939 and closed in 1958.
  Manra was depopulated between 1958 and 1963 and has remained uninhabited since.
  The island was declared a bird sanctuary in 1938, and a wildlife sanctuary in 1975.  Kiribati declared the Phoenix Islands Protected Area in 2006, with the park being expanded in 2008. The 164,200-square-mile (425,300-square-kilometer) marine reserve contains eight coral atolls including Manra.
caption: Sydney Island postmark ca 1945
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