Herbert Valentine Tarte

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]