Herbert Valentine Tarte

Herbert Valentine Tarte (1876–1936) was a Fijian planter and politician. He served in the Legislative Council in the early 1920s.

Herbert Valentine Tarte
Member of the Legislative Council
In office
1920–1922
Preceded byJohn Francis Dyer
Succeeded byWilliam Edmund Willoughby-Tottenham
ConstituencyVanua Levu & Taveuni
Personal details
Born1876
Vatu Wiri, Fiji
Died1936
Melbourne, Australia

Biography

Tarte was born in 1876 in the Taveuni village of Vatu Wiri, the oldest son of Clarissa and James Valentine Tarte,[1] who had settled in Taveuni in 1868.[2] He was educated at Brighton Grammar School in Melbourne and then worked for the Imperial Insurance Company for a year.[1] He subsequently worked for Swan Hill and a stock and station business,[1] before joining the family business. This became Tarte Brothers of Taveuni, and held 10% of the copra market in the mid-1920s.[3]

He married the daughter of senior civil servant James Thomas.[1] He later fell in love with the daughter of an Indo-Fijian copra cutter. As a result, he was banished from the plantation and disinherited. The couple married and had several children, with Tarte also changing his name.[4]

In 1920 he was elected to the Legislative Council from the Vanua Levu & Taveuni constituency. After being elected, he introduced a motion for Chinese labour to be recruited, which failed.[5] He did not complete a full term, with William Edmund Willoughby-Tottenham elected to replace him in October 1922.

He died in Melbourne in 1936.[6]

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References
  1. R. McMillan, (1907) The Cyclopedia of Fiji: a complete historical and commercial review of Fiji, p291
  2. James Valentine Tarte Pacific Islands Monthly, August 1981, pp73–74
  3. Bessie Ng Kumlin Ali (2002) Chinese in Fiji, p119
  4. Daryl Tarte (2014) Fiji: A Place Called Home, p6
  5. Ng Kumlin Ali, p57
  6. Mrs Clara Tarte Auckland Star, 17 December 1936, p3
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