Charles Richard Swayne

Charles Richard Swayne CMG (1843 - 1921), born in Dublin, was the first Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands protectorate, from 1892 to 1895.[1]

Charles Richard Swayne
Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands
In office
1892 (Ellice Islands only),
Oct 1893 – Nov 1895
Preceded byCreated
Succeeded byWilliam Telfer Campbell
Personal details
Born1843
Dublin
Died1921
NationalityBritish
OccupationColonial Service

Swayne had spent more than 20 years as a Magistrate at Lomaloma and then in Lau in Fiji, before being seconded to the new two protectorates, where he spent the few years after.

Sir John Bates Thurston, as High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, appointed his friend Swayne in 1892, as the first Resident Commissioner in those territories, initially only for the separate protectorate of the Ellice Islands, before extending one year later his mandate to the Gilbert Islands.

In 1892, Swayne first arrived in the Ellice Islands, then, from October 1893 to November 1895, he was in the Gilbert Islands with central headquarters set in Tarawa, with a Residency erected in Betio in 1895. Swayne spent his Resident years in a peripatetic way, moving from island to island, by whatever commercial or naval vessels, returning to Suva or Sydney when necessary.[2][3]

He faced a severe drought in the southern Gilberts, rendering impossible to collect the new capitation in those southernmost islands. He also faced the claims from traders, especially in Butaritari, all that reinforced suspicions of the Colonial Office that the protectorate had been an error.

Further reading
  • Fragments of Empire: A History of the Western Pacific High Commission 1877-1914, by Deryck Scarr, published by C. Hurst & Co, 1967.
  • Winding Up the British Empire in the Pacific Islands, by W. David McIntyre, published by the Oxford University Press, 2014.

References
  1. Simati Faanin (1983). "Chapter 16 – Travellers and Workers". In Laracy, Hugh (ed.). Tuvalu: A History. Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific and Government of Tuvalu.
  2. "Charles Richard Swayne". militaryarchive.co.uk. 2021. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  3. Walsh, Michael Ravell (2020). A History of Kiribati: From the Earliest Times to the 40th Anniversary of the Republic. ISBN 9-79869535-895-7.
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