Kolombangara lies across the Kula Gulf to the west, Choiseul to the northeast, Vangunu is to the southeast, and Rendova to the southwest, across the Blanche Channel.

The island was named New Georgia, by John Shortland when his ship, the Alexander, passed by it in August 1789 when returning to England in command of four vessels of the First Fleet.

[2] On March 15, 1893, Captain Herbert Gibson of HMS Curacoa, declared New Georgia to be part of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate.

[3][4] The Colonial Office appointed Charles Morris Woodford as the Resident Commissioner in the Solomon Islands on 17 February 1897.

[6][7] Mahaffy had a force of twenty-five police officers armed with rifles, who were recruited from the islands of Malaita, Savo and Isabel.

[8] The first target of this force was chief Ingava of the Roviana Lagoon of New Georgia who had been raiding Choiseul and Isabel and killing or enslaving hundreds of people.

[8] Mahaffy and the police officers under his command carried out a violent and ruthless suppression of headhunting, with his actions having the support of Woodford and the Western Pacific High Commission, who wanted to eradicate headhunting and complete a “pacification” of the western Solomon Islands through punitive expeditions.

[11] From 1927 to 1934 Dr Edward Sayers worked at the Methodist mission where he established a hospital at Munda and carried out fieldwork in the treatment of malaria.

Donald Gilbert Kennedy was a Coastwatcher stationed at Seghe (Segi) on New Georgia during the Solomon Islands campaign during the Pacific War.