Lieut-Col. Rt Hon. Sir Albert Henry Hime.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Albert Henry Hime KCMG, PC (29 August 1842 – 13 September 1919) was a Royal Engineers officer and later a prominent politician in the Colony of Natal.

He was born in County Wicklow. In May 1866 he married Josephine Searle in Plymouth, and three months later moved to Bermuda to work on a causeway there. Lieutenant Hime began drafting up his plan for the Causeway in 1867, and it would take four years before the project was finished. When it was finished, Hime delivered a report to Governor Lefroy in front of some 6,000 residents (approximately half of the population), describing his accomplishment as "solid and substantial...without any attempt at ornament" which would have increased the project's cost (the cost of construction, £27,000, was £2,000 more than the colonial government raised in total revenues that year). Lefroy responded that Hime's name would become part of Bermuda's history, and that the young lieutenant would have a promising career. Hime was awarded a service of plate from the colonial government.

In 1878, Hime designed and built the Natal Mounted Police Headquarters on Alexandra Road. On 9 June 1899, he was appointed as the Prime Minister of Natal, a position which he held until August 17, 1903.

By the end of 1902, Hime had been appointed a Privy Counsellor, and had been awarded both an honorary Doctorette of Law by the University of Edinburgh[2] and the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh, Scotland. By this point, his full title was Lieutenant-Colonel The Right Honourable Sir Albert Henry Hime R.E., R.F., K.C.M.G., Prime Minister of Natal.

What a difference a few years makes:

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Lieutenant (or Captain) Albert Hime, Royal Engineers, photographed in PMB circa 1873/4.
John Young Collection

I wonder who he is trying to emulate?

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Albert Hime, circa 1899, whilst Prime Minister of Natal.
John Young Collection

John Y.

The dreaded JNC.

Les,

I was thinking more of his boss at the time...

John Y.

Your too kind mate, that was well sloppy
on my part, M&S..   

"Lieutenant-Colonel The Right Honourable Sir ALBERT HENRY HIME, R.E., K.C.M.G., Prime Minister of Natal. Given the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh: 26th July, 1902."

"In recognition of his representative position and eminent public services.

NOTHING I SHOULD LOVE BETTER

"My Lord Provost, ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry I am not a Scotsman. I feel that to-day there is nothing I should love better than to be a Scotsman. But I am next door to it. I am an Irishman, and we Irish and Scots are so intimately connected together that I feel I love Scotsmen quite as well as I love my own people. In fact I do not know if I do not love them better, because I have seen some of them, and all that I have seen of Scotsmen - and I have seen a great deal of them in the colonies - redounds to their credit in every respect."

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Irish Independent - Monday 15 September 1919

Hi All,
Albert Henry Hime is buried in All Saints Churchyard, Marlow, Buckinghamshire. There is a photograph of the grave on the findagrave website.
Rai Kenshamlighthorse.