SIR W. F. HELY-HUTCHINSON. 



G.C.M.G., M.A., LL.D. 

 {Born 22nd August, 1849. Oied 22)rd September, 1913.) 



The decease of the Right Hon. Sir Walter Francis Hely- 

 Hutchinson, which occurred at l^eterborough on the 23rd Septem- 

 ber, just a month after the completion of his sixty-fourth year, 

 causes a gap in the hitherto unbroken series of distinguished 

 men who have occupied the Presidential chair of the South 

 African Association for the Advancement of Science. 



Sir \\'alter was the second son of the fourth Earl of 

 Donoughmore. and was born in Dublin on the 22nd August, 

 1849. He was educated first at Cheam School, and subsequently 

 at Harrow. He then entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 whence he graduated, and was afterwards called to the bar at 

 the Inner l>mple. In 1874 the Hon. \\\ F. Hely-Hutchinson, 

 as he was then styled, entered the diplomatic service as an attache 

 on the sitaff of Si-r Hercules Robinson (afterwards Lord Ros- 

 mead), and proceeded in that capacity to Fiji. Sir Hercules 

 was at the time Governor of New South Wales, and Mr. Helv- 

 Hutchinson was appointed as his Private Secretary for Fiji 

 affairs, a post which he vacated in 1875 in order to assume the 

 more important duties of Private Secretary for New South 

 Wales affairs. At the age of 28 he was offered and accepted 

 the Colonial Secretaryship of P>arbadoes. Six vears later, after 

 a successful term of office in the W^est Indies, Mr. Helv- 

 Hutchinson liecame Chief Secretary to the Government of 

 Malta, and in the following year (1884') he was promoted to 

 the position of Lieutenant-Governor of the island. In 1888 he 

 was created a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael 

 and St. ("leorge, and in 1889 Sir AValter Hely-Hutchinson was 

 transferred, as Governor, to the Windward Islands. After the 

 lapse of four years he was appointed Governor of Natal, in- 

 augurating Responsible Government in that Colony, and, two 

 years after his arrival, effecting the annexation of the Trans- 

 Pongola territories. It was during his tenure of ofifice in Natal 

 that his services were further recognised by promotion to the 

 Grand Cross of St. Michael and St. George in 1897, on the 

 occasion of Queen \^ictoria's Diamond Jubilee. In 1901 Lord 

 Milner, until then Governor of the Cape Colony, as well as High 

 Commissioner for South Africa, relinquished the former post, 

 and proceeded to the Transvaal as Governor of that Colony, then 

 recentlv annexed to the British Crowm. It was on Lord Milner's 

 strong recommendation that Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson 



