by Laird o’Thistle
January 18 2009

This month provides almost too many options for things to write about, but none of them quite “on” to my mind.  January 20th marks the Inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the U.S…. which could be regarded as of some royal interest since his Kenyan father was from a Commonwealth country.  Then, January 25 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scotland’s beloved bard, Robert Burns, whose views on monarchy were a bit haphazard as he hovered, depending on the occasion, somewhere between being a Jacobite and a Jacobin.  Prince Harry’s most recent controversy provides another option, but how often can one bemoan that particular young man’s apparent spiritual gift for doing stupid things that come to public notice?

So, when an article on the former Kingdom of Hawaii appeared in a popular monthly magazine devoted to royal news and history, I was glad to be immediately reminded of the story of a Scotsman who served for twenty years as the Foreign Minister for King Kamehameha III and Kamehameha IV, and who lies buried in the royal mausoleum in Honolulu.  The story seems not a bad choice for some winter reading, either, evoking warm and exotic thoughts of palm trees, fresh pineapples, sugar cane, and glorious beaches.

Robert Crichton Wylie was born in 1798 at Hazelbank in the Parish of Dunlop, Ayrshire, Scotland.  He was the second son of Alexander Wylie, a farmer, and his wife Janet Crichton, and undoubtedly named (by custom) for his mother’s father.  Young Robert matriculated at Glasgow University in 1810, at age twelve.  (An ancestral uncle of mine was studying there at the time.)  He later left without, so far as we know, achieving a degree.  Having acquired some medical knowledge, perhaps having apprenticed under an older experienced physician, Wylie served as a surgeon on trading vessels and then in South America for some years before turning his attention to merchant activities in Chile.  According to family lore, he made a fortune from the silver mines before returning to Britain.  In the 1830s he was living in London where he served as a junior partner in one shipping firm, and then had his own shipping venture for about five years.  He is said to have been an acquaintance of Sir James Clarke, Queen Victoria’s physician.  He was also one of the original board of directors of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company.

A true Victorian entrepreneur, Robert Crichton Wylie’s life changed forever when on a trip to the U.S. in 1843 he met an old acquaintance from South America, General Miller, who was en route to Hawaii to serve as H.M.’s Consul-General.  Miller convinced Wylie to accompany him, and so they arrived in Honolulu in March 1844.  Fairly shortly after arriving in Hawaii General Miller was required to pay a visit to Tahiti, and R.C. Wylie became the acting British Consul General for about a year.  Upon Miller’s return in 1845, Robert Wylie was invited by King Kamehameha III to take up the portfolio as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and later on as Minister of Foreign Relations, posts in which he served until his death in 1865.  He also served as Secretary of State for War and the Navy, as a member of H.M. Privy Council, and was appointed to the House of Nobles.

The tenure of R.C. Wylie as an advisor to the royal court of Hawaii occurred in a significant historical context.  In 1843 a British naval officer, Lord George Paulet, had attempted – without any authority – to annex Hawaii for Britain.  Kamehameha III had been able to send out envoys that were able to secure recognition of the royal government by the President of the U.S., the Belgians, the French, and (most importantly under the circumstances) the British government under Lord Aberdeen.  General Miller was sent out in the immediate wake of this crisis, and R.C. Wylie just happened to be at the right place at the right time.  In addition to whatever abilities the canny Scot had to offer, his role was apparently a part of the effort of the Hawaiian kings to offset growing American ambitions in the islands by cultivating ties with Great Britain.  His tenure seems to have been one of relative stability for the Hawaiian Kingdom.  Perhaps one of Wylie’s last major actions in his role was to help get Queen Emma, the widow of Kamehameha IV, prepped and sent off to Britain to visit Queen Victoria… a visit which proved a great success.

Wylie also seems to have been something of a typically eccentric figure… being remembered for walking to and from his office with an old green baize bag stuffed with papers slung over his shoulder.

King Kamehameha IV died in 1863 and was succeeded by his brother as Kamehameha V.  Robert Crichton Wylie continued his service to the Hawaiian Crown until his own death in October 1865.  At the time of his death, the Royal Mausoleum in Honolulu had just been completed, and R.C. Wylie was laid to rest in the tomb along with Kamehameha IV.  In 1904 a separate vault was constructed adjoining the royal tomb for the remains of Wylie and eight others closely associated with the Kamehameha family.

Concurrent with his royal service, R.C. Wylie also further built his fortune in Hawaii.  He acquired a significant plantation in the Hanalei Valley on the island of Kauai, and also held the mortgage on all of Waikiki (including the famous beach) on Oahu.  At the time of his death a nephew, Robert C. Cochrane, came out from Scotland as the designated heir of the childless bachelor.  Young Cochrane enjoyed his inheritance only briefly, however, as he either committed suicide or was murdered, and Wylie’s estates were then said to have been divided up among his executors… said by Wylie descendants to be the forebears of some of the richest families in Hawaii.

By the mid-1870s American influence began to increasingly outpace British influence in the Kingdom of Hawaii, resulting in the final takeover by the U.S. in 1898.  But the influence of the descendants of the Hawaiian royals continues among Native Hawaiians, and as recently as April 2008 a group called the “Hawaiian Kingdom Government” briefly occupied the historic Iolani Palace in Honolulu.  And, it is notable that the flag of the State of Hawaii, the 50th state in the U.S. continues to bear the Union Jack.

One wonders what the slender red-haired Scot, Rab Wylie, would think of Hawaii today?  Especially concerning all the hotels and such that line his Waikiki beaches?  And one wonders what he would think of an aspiring young man who grew up in Hawaii and then struck out to make his own way in the world… Barack Hussein Obama.

Yours Aye,

Ken Cuthbertson