Sir George Ruthven Le Hunte (20 August 1852 – 29 January 1925) was a British politician. He served as
Governor of South Australia
The governor of South Australia is the representative in South Australia of the Monarch of Australia, currently King Charles III. The governor performs the same constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level as does the governor-gene ...
from 1 July 1903 until 18 February 1909, soon after federation of Australia.
Life
He was born in
Porthgain
Porthgain ( Welsh for ''fair/beautiful port or more likely 'chisel port' from the Welsh 'porth' meaning port and 'gaing' meaning chisel as used by the many slate workers there after the port was built and became operational in the early 19th Cen ...
, Pembrokeshire,
Wales, the son of George and Mary Le Hunte. He was educated at
Eton College and
Trinity College, Cambridge.
Le Hunte served as
President of Dominica (1887–94), secretary of
Barbados (1894–97) and
Mauritius (1897); and Lieutenant-Governor of
British New Guinea (1899–1903). He was Governor of South Australia 1903–08/9, and then Governor of
Trinidad and Tobago from 1908 to 1915, retiring 1916.
As South Australian Governor, Le Hunte became the first patron of the
Royal Automobile Association of South Australia when it was formed in 1903. The
District Council of Le Hunte in the north of
Eyre Peninsula was named after him before it was changed to
Wudinna District Council in 2008.
Family
George Le Hunte married Caroline Rachel Clowes (c. 1854 – 18 May 1939) on 14 February 1884; she was a cousin of
Evelyn May Clowes. They had two children:
*John Le Hunte (11 August 1886 – ) married Vera Spurgin, daughter of John Henry Spurgin, on 12 August 1913. While there were reports of his being killed in action early in World War I, he was a prisoner of war; during World War II he worked in the Air Ministry.
*Editha Rachel Le Hunte (c. October 1892 – ) married Godfrey Barton Pease (15 May 1887 – ) on 5 October 1912. Details of his death in WWI have also been hard to find. Other reports
indicate they both survived to 1919 at least.
:*Lt.-Col. Godfrey Philip Desmond Pease (19 September 1913 – 8 March 2007)
:*Ann Pease ( – ) married Lt.-Col. William Eliott Lockhart
References
*Diane Langmore,
Le Hunte, Sir George Ruthven (1852–1925),
Australian Dictionary of Biography
The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...
, Volume 10,
MUP, 1986, pp 66–67.
External links
World Statesmen – Trinindad and Tobago
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Le Hunte, George
Governors of South Australia
Governors of Trinidad and Tobago
1852 births
1925 deaths
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
Colonial Administrative Service officers
People from Pembrokeshire
Governors of the Territory of Papua
Colonial Secretaries of Barbados