Albert Henry Hime

Sir Albert Henry Hime (August 29, 1842 – September 13, 1919) was an Irish member of the Royal Engineers and later a prominent politician in the Colony of Natal.

In the 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. [http://pmb-midlands.kzn.org.za/pmb-midlands/about/16.html] On June 9th of 1899, he was appointed as the Prime Minister of Natal, a position which he held until August 17th, 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 [http://www.registry.ed.ac.uk/graduations/Honorary_Grads/1901_1910.htm] 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.

Notes

South Africans of Irish descent