Walter Hely-Hutchinson

Sir Walter Francis Hely-Hutchinson GCMG PC (22 August 1849 – 23 September 1913) was an Anglo-Irish diplomat and colonial administrator.

Background and education

Hely-Hutchinson was the son of Richard Hely-Hutchinson, 4th Earl of Donoughmore, and attended the University of Cambridge.

Career

Hely-Hutchinson was a barrister of the Inner Temple, 1877; Private Secretary to Sir Hercules Robinson, Governor of New South Wales; for Fiji Affairs, 1874; for New South Wales, 1875; Colonial Secretary of Barbadoes, 1877; Chief Secretary to the Government of Malta, 1883; Lieutenant-Governor of Malta between 1884 and 1889, as Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Windward Islands between 1889 and 1893 and as Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Natal and Zululand between 1893 and 1901 and Special Commissioner for Amatongaland. He was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Law (LL.D.) by the University of Edinburgh and was invested as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George He was invested as a Privy Counsellor; thus he was styled The Rt. Hon.

He was appointed Governor of the Cape Colony in 1901, and was the last British governor until the post disappeared when the colony joined the Union of South Africa in 1910. He also acted as High Commissioner for Southern Africa in 1909 during the absence of Lord Selborne.

Sir Walter was the second son of the Richard Hely-Hutchinson, 4th Earl of Donoughmore and the daughter of Mr. W. Steele, and was born in 1849. He married in 1881 the daughter of General W. C. Justice, C.M.G. (commanding the troops in Ceylon). He inaugurated the system of Responsible Government in Natal, and completed the annexation of the Trans-Pongola Territories, which form an integral part of Zululand.

His son was the composer Victor Hely-Hutchinson; his daughter, Natalie, married the archaeologist and administrator Gerard Mackworth Young.