Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Baker, Shirley Waldemar
BAKER, SHIRLEY WALDEMAR (1835–1903), Wesleyan missionary and premier of Tonga, born at Brimscombe near Stroud, Gloucestershire, in 1835, was son of George Baker by his wife Jane Woolmer. He emigrated to Australia about 1853, where, after acquiring a knowledge of pharmacy, he studied for the Wesleyan ministry. In 1860 he was sent as a missionary to the island of Tonga in the South Pacific. In consequence of the cession of Fiji to England in 1874 the Tongans became seriously alarmed for their independence, and Baker, at the request of King George of Tonga, negotiated a treaty with Germany recognising Tonga as an independent kingdom in return for the perpetual lease of a coaling-station in Vavau. In reward for his good offices Baker received a German decoration. In 1879 the Wesleyan conference in Sydney, at the request of Sir Arthur Gordon (afterwards Lord Stanmore), British high commissioner of the Western Pacific, appointed a commission to inquire into various charges preferred against Baker by the British vice-consul in connection with his method of collecting money from the natives, and Baker was recalled to a circuit in Australia. But he did not obey the order. In January 1881 he severed his connection with the Wesleyan mission, and was immediately appointed premier by King George. Under his guidance the constitution was revised, and the little kingdom of 20,000 people was loaded with a cabinet, privy council, and two houses of Parliament. In 1885 a Wesleyan Free Church was set up by Baker in opposition to the conference in Sydney. Unfortunately Baker's government attempted to coerce members of the old church by persecution, and in January 1887 the discontent culminated in a determined attempt on Baker's life, in which his son and daughter were injured. Four natives were executed and others sentenced to imprisonment for this attempt. Secure in the confidence of the king, Baker was now all-powerful; he had taught the people to acquire many of the externals of prosperity and civilisation. But he had failed to conciliate the powerful chiefs, whose position as the king's advisers he had usurped. In 1890 they appealed against him to Sir John Thurston, the British high commissioner, who removed him from the islands for two years. When he returned in 1893 King George was dead, and his political influence was at an end. Disappointed in his hope of preferment among Wesleyan adherents, he proceeded to set up a branch of the Church of England, which gained a good many followers. He died at Haapai on 30 Nov. 1903. He was married, and had one son and four daughters.
[The present writer's Diversions of a Prime Minister, 1894, and his Savage Island, 1902; which embody personal observation of Baker's career in Tonga; Resume of Inquiry, Tonga Mission Affairs, Auckland, 1879; Reports, by Sir Charles Mitchell, Bluebook, 1887, and by Rev. G. Brown, Sydney, 1890; The Times, 29 and 30 Dec. 1903, 2 Jan. 1904; Blackwood's Mag., Feb. 1904.]