Colonial Despatches

Henry Rhodes was an affluent businessman heavily involved in trade and communication relations for Vancouver Island and the West Coast. In 1860, Rhodes was appointed to act as Hawaiian Consul at Vancouver Island.1 Within the following year, Rhodes worked to further establish trading relationships and improve mail communications.2 In August of 1864, Governor Kennedy appointed Rhodes to a vacant seat in the Legislative Council of Vancouver Island.3

Outside of his bureaucratic duties, Rhodes continually invested in and prospered from multiple business ventures, including importing sugar from Honolulu in exchange for fish, timber and coal, which made him one of the Island’s leading businessmen.4 Rhodes was married to Sophia Harriet Cape, and together they had a son and a daughter. Both his wife and children outlived him, and his son, who was raised in the family business, took it over upon Rhodes’s death.5

• 1. Newcastle to Douglas, 28 December 1860, CO 410/1, pg. 299.
• 2. Laird to Newcastle, 5 August 1862, CO 305/19, pg. 669.
• 3. Kennedy to Cardwell, 20 August 1864, CO 305/23, pg. 65.
• 4. J.F. Bosher, Vancouver Island in the Empire (Tamarac, FL: Llumina Press, 2012).
• 5. J.F. Bosher, Vancouver Island in the Empire.