William Lowthian Green
Encyclopedia
William Lowthian Green was an English adventurer and merchant, who later became cabinet minister in the Kingdom of Hawaii
. As an amateur geologist
, he published a theory of the formation of the earth called the tetrahedral hypothesis
.
of London
on September 13, 1819. His father was Joseph Green and mother was Mary Childs.
His mother was from the Lothian
region of Scotland
.
His father was apprenticed to an early scientific instrument maker Jesse Ramsden
, and then started a successful merchandise business in northern England. He was a distant relation to Charles Green
who was astronomer on the 1768 voyage of James Cook
. Green was educated in Liverpool
, and King William's College
on the Isle of Man
. As a young man continuing his father's business he sailed to Buenos Aires
, Argentina
. He crossed the Pampa
s plain and then the Andes
mountains on horseback. By 1844 he returned to Liverpool, but now his father had died and he had seen the world.
to reach South America
from England. His small ship Flecha was not a business success, however. In 1849 he joined the California Gold Rush
. By 1850 he had lost his fortune, and hired as a common sailor bound for China
. He got as far as Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands
where Robert Cheshire Janion hired him into the firm of Starkey, Janion & Company. Green became a partner and the company was known as Janion, Green & Company. By 1851 he founded and became first president of a social club for British residents he called "The Mess". It was later renamed The Pacific Club
.
After David M. Weston's Honolulu Iron Works building burned down, he took over the business in 1860 with Thomas Hughes. His company imported machinery from American factories for use in sugar plantations in Hawaii
.
In January 1862 Green married Anna McKibben, daughter of physician Robert McKibben, in Honolulu. They had a daughter Mary E. Green who married J. N. A. Williams, and a son who died young. Prior to this marriage, Green had two children, a daughter, Elizabeth K. Green who married George Douglas Freeth, Sr. and a son, William Green, with a Hawaiian woman named Lapeka. Green left Janion around 1867, and English investor Theophilus Harris Davies
then had to travel from London to bail out the company. The company was renamed Theo H. Davies & Co.
, and Green went into business by himself.
Green served as acting British consul
in 1859 after the health failed of both William Miller and his replacement Busvargus Toup Nicolas (1819–1859), and again between William W. F. Synge (1826–1891) and James H. Wodehouse.
. A major milestone of his administration was ratifying the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875
with the USA on June 17, 1876, which was also signed by Ulysses S. Grant
. It had been negotiated for a long time by Elisha Hunt Allen
and Henry A. P. Carter
.
He served until December 5, 1876 when Carter replaced him. He was appointed again as minister of foreign affairs on September 22, 1880, and served until May 20, 1882.
He filled in as acting minister of the interior from May 28, 1874 until October 31. At that time he was replaced by Walter M. Gibson
.
After Gibson fell from power the 1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii
was imposed by force. This gave it the name "Bayonet Constitution". Green was told to form a new cabinet; he included Lorrin A. Thurston
, a leader of the bloodless coup, as minister of interior.
Green became minister of finance on July 1, 1887, and served through July 22, 1889 when his health started to fail.
. His ideas on the formation of the earth, based on the nebular hypothesis of Pierre-Simon Laplace
, shocked the local conservatives who literally believed in creation according to Genesis.
In 1857, he published an article in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal based on the theory of Jean-Baptiste Élie de Beaumont
. In 1859 he went on expeditions to view the erupting Mauna Loa
and nearby Kīlauea
and Hualālai
on Hawaii island
. He hosted adventurer Isabella Bird
when she came to visit, and gave her a tour of the volcanoes.
His first book on his tetrahedral hypothesis
was published in 1875. It was "...a work which was neglected or ridiculed at the time of its appearance." The journal Nature
published only a one-line notice for the book.
He published a second volume in 1887 concentrating on volcanic phenomena. This time the Nature journal published three sentences.
As his health failed he dictated a criticism of the work of James Dwight Dana
. Green died at his home in Honolulu December 7, 1890.
His theory became more widely discussed into the first decades of the 20th century. For example, French geologist Albert Auguste Cochon de Lapparent
mentioned Green's work in his textbook.
American geologist Charles Henry Hitchcock
, in his own 1911 book on the Hawaiian volcanoes, said:
Théophile Moreux
said observations "...point more and more to the truth of an old theory which was long ignored." In their textbooks, Archibald Geikie
and Arthur Holmes
called the theory ‘"ingenious". But by the late 1920s Holmes was promoting theories of continental drift
as proposed by Alfred Wegener
which evolved into concepts of plate tectonics
. Modern theories view the current continental configurations as only transitory, so give no special role to the tetrahedral shape. However, they do attribute a large influence to volcanic activity as he suggested.
Kingdom of Hawaii
The Kingdom of Hawaii was established during the years 1795 to 1810 with the subjugation of the smaller independent chiefdoms of Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lānai, Kauai and Niihau by the chiefdom of Hawaii into one unified government...
. As an amateur geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
, he published a theory of the formation of the earth called the tetrahedral hypothesis
Tetrahedral hypothesis
The Tetrahedral hypothesis is an obsolete scientific theory attempting to explain the arrangement of the Earth's continents and oceans by referring to the geometry of a tetrahedron...
.
Life
William Lowthian Green was born in Doughty StreetDoughty Street
Doughty Street is a broad tree lined street in the Holborn district of the London Borough of Camden. The southern part is a continuation of the short John Street, which comes off Theobalds Road. The northern part crosses Guilford Street and ends at Mecklenburgh Square.The street contains mainly...
of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
on September 13, 1819. His father was Joseph Green and mother was Mary Childs.
His mother was from the Lothian
Lothian
Lothian forms a traditional region of Scotland, lying between the southern shore of the Firth of Forth and the Lammermuir Hills....
region of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
.
His father was apprenticed to an early scientific instrument maker Jesse Ramsden
Jesse Ramsden
Jesse Ramsden FRSE was an English astronomical and scientific instrument maker.Ramsden was born at Salterhebble, Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. After serving his apprenticeship with a cloth-worker in Halifax, he went in 1755 to London, where in 1758 he was apprenticed to a...
, and then started a successful merchandise business in northern England. He was a distant relation to Charles Green
Charles Green (astronomer)
Charles Green was a British astronomer, noted for his assignment by the Royal Society in 1768 to the expedition sent to the Pacific Ocean in order to observe the transit of Venus and the transit of Mercury, aboard James Cook's Endeavour.A farmer's son, he became assistant to the Astronomer Royal...
who was astronomer on the 1768 voyage of James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
. Green was educated in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, and King William's College
King William's College
King William's College is a leading world International Baccalaureate HMC independent school for ages 3 to 18, situated near Castletown on the Isle of Man...
on the Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
. As a young man continuing his father's business he sailed to Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
. He crossed the Pampa
Pampa
The Pampas are the fertile South American lowlands, covering more than , that include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos and Córdoba, most of Uruguay, and the southernmost Brazilian State, Rio Grande do Sul...
s plain and then the Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
mountains on horseback. By 1844 he returned to Liverpool, but now his father had died and he had seen the world.
Adventure
His next venture was building one of the first screw steamshipsSteamboat
A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
to reach South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
from England. His small ship Flecha was not a business success, however. In 1849 he joined the California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
. By 1850 he had lost his fortune, and hired as a common sailor bound for China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. He got as far as Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands
Hawaiian Islands
The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...
where Robert Cheshire Janion hired him into the firm of Starkey, Janion & Company. Green became a partner and the company was known as Janion, Green & Company. By 1851 he founded and became first president of a social club for British residents he called "The Mess". It was later renamed The Pacific Club
The Pacific Club
The Pacific Club is a historic social club in Honolulu, Hawaii.-History:William Lowthian Green founded the club in 1851 and was its first president. It was originally called "The Mess", and then called "The British Club" since many of its members were former British residents. In 1892 it was...
.
After David M. Weston's Honolulu Iron Works building burned down, he took over the business in 1860 with Thomas Hughes. His company imported machinery from American factories for use in sugar plantations in Hawaii
Sugar plantations in Hawaii
Sugarcane was introduced to Hawaii by its first inhabitants in approximately 600 AD and was observed by Captain Cook upon arrival in the islands in 1778. Sugar quickly turned into a big business and generated rapid population growth in the islands with 337,000 people immigrating over the span of a...
.
In January 1862 Green married Anna McKibben, daughter of physician Robert McKibben, in Honolulu. They had a daughter Mary E. Green who married J. N. A. Williams, and a son who died young. Prior to this marriage, Green had two children, a daughter, Elizabeth K. Green who married George Douglas Freeth, Sr. and a son, William Green, with a Hawaiian woman named Lapeka. Green left Janion around 1867, and English investor Theophilus Harris Davies
Theophilus Harris Davies
-Life:Davies was born January 4, 1833, the son of a minister.He was recruited in England to join the firm of Janion, Green & Co. in Hawaii, a successor to Starkey, Janion & Co., formed in 1845.Partners were Robert Cheshire Janion and William Lowthian Green....
then had to travel from London to bail out the company. The company was renamed Theo H. Davies & Co.
Theo H. Davies & Co.
Theo H. Davies & Co. is a company that was one of the Big Five trading and agricultural companies in the Territory of Hawaii.-History:Starkey, Janion, & Co. was a trading company founded in Liverpool in April 1845 by Englishmen James and John Starkey and Robert Cheshire Janion. Janion arrived in...
, and Green went into business by himself.
Green served as acting British consul
Consul (representative)
The political title Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries...
in 1859 after the health failed of both William Miller and his replacement Busvargus Toup Nicolas (1819–1859), and again between William W. F. Synge (1826–1891) and James H. Wodehouse.
Politics
On February 17, 1874 he was appointed minister of foreign affairs, replacing Charles Reed BishopCharles Reed Bishop
Charles Reed Bishop was a businessman and philanthropist in Hawaii.Born in Glens Falls, New York, he sailed to Hawaii in 1846 at the age of 24, and made his home there. Bishop was one of the first trustees of and a major donor to the Kamehameha Schools in Hawaii...
. A major milestone of his administration was ratifying the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875
Reciprocity Treaty of 1875
The Treaty of reciprocity between the United States of America and the Hawaiian Kingdom was a free trade agreement signed and ratified in 1875 that is generally known as the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875....
with the USA on June 17, 1876, which was also signed by Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...
. It had been negotiated for a long time by Elisha Hunt Allen
Elisha Hunt Allen
Elisha Hunt Allen was an American congressman, lawyer, diplomat, and judge and diplomat for the Kingdom of Hawaii.-Life:Elisha Hunt Allen was born January 28, 1804 in New Salem, Massachusetts. His father was Massachusetts minister, lawyer, and politician Samuel Clesson Allen and mother was Mary...
and Henry A. P. Carter
Henry A. P. Carter
Henry Alpheus Peirce Carter also known as Henry Augustus Peirce Carter was an American businessman, politician, and diplomat in the Kingdom of Hawaii.-Family life:...
.
He served until December 5, 1876 when Carter replaced him. He was appointed again as minister of foreign affairs on September 22, 1880, and served until May 20, 1882.
He filled in as acting minister of the interior from May 28, 1874 until October 31. At that time he was replaced by Walter M. Gibson
Walter M. Gibson
Walter Murray Gibson was an American adventurer and a government minister in the Kingdom of Hawaii prior to the kingdom's 1887 constitution.-Life:...
.
After Gibson fell from power the 1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii
1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii
The 1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii was a legal document by anti-monarchists to strip the Hawaiian monarchy of much of its authority, initiating a transfer of power to American, European and native Hawaiian elites...
was imposed by force. This gave it the name "Bayonet Constitution". Green was told to form a new cabinet; he included Lorrin A. Thurston
Lorrin A. Thurston
Lorrin Andrews Thurston was a lawyer, politician, and businessman born and raised in the Kingdom of Hawaii. The grandson of two of the first Christian missionaries to Hawaii, Thurston played a prominent role in the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom that replaced Queen Liliuokalani with the...
, a leader of the bloodless coup, as minister of interior.
Green became minister of finance on July 1, 1887, and served through July 22, 1889 when his health started to fail.
Geology
Green was fascinated by the volcanoes in the Hawaiian islands. By 1855 he wrote a series of articles on local geology in the Sandwich Islands Monthly newspaper of Abraham FornanderAbraham Fornander
Abraham Fornander was a Swedish-born emigrant who became an important Hawaiian journalist, judge, and ethnologist.-Early life and education:...
. His ideas on the formation of the earth, based on the nebular hypothesis of Pierre-Simon Laplace
Pierre-Simon Laplace
Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace was a French mathematician and astronomer whose work was pivotal to the development of mathematical astronomy and statistics. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five volume Mécanique Céleste...
, shocked the local conservatives who literally believed in creation according to Genesis.
In 1857, he published an article in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal based on the theory of Jean-Baptiste Élie de Beaumont
Jean-Baptiste Élie de Beaumont
Jean-Baptiste Armand Louis Léonce Élie de Beaumont was a French geologist.-Biography:Élie de Beaumont was born at Canon, in Calvados...
. In 1859 he went on expeditions to view the erupting Mauna Loa
Mauna Loa
Mauna Loa is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, and the largest on Earth in terms of volume and area covered. It is an active shield volcano, with a volume estimated at approximately , although its peak is about lower than that...
and nearby Kīlauea
Kilauea
Kīlauea is a volcano in the Hawaiian Islands, and one of five shield volcanoes that together form the island of Hawaii. Kīlauea means "spewing" or "much spreading" in the Hawaiian language, referring to its frequent outpouring of lava. The Puu Ōō cone has been continuously erupting in the eastern...
and Hualālai
Hualalai
Hualālai is a dormant shield volcano on the island of Hawaii in the Hawaiian Islands. It is the third-youngest and the third most active of the five volcanoes that form the island of Hawaii, following Kīlauea and the much larger Mauna Loa, and also the westernmost. Its peak is above sea...
on Hawaii island
Hawaii (island)
The Island of Hawaii, also called the Big Island or Hawaii Island , is a volcanic island in the North Pacific Ocean...
. He hosted adventurer Isabella Bird
Isabella Bird
Isabella Lucy Bird was a nineteenth-century English explorer, writer, and a natural historian.-Early life:Bird was born in Boroughbridge in 1831 and grew up in Tattenhall, Cheshire...
when she came to visit, and gave her a tour of the volcanoes.
His first book on his tetrahedral hypothesis
Tetrahedral hypothesis
The Tetrahedral hypothesis is an obsolete scientific theory attempting to explain the arrangement of the Earth's continents and oceans by referring to the geometry of a tetrahedron...
was published in 1875. It was "...a work which was neglected or ridiculed at the time of its appearance." The journal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
published only a one-line notice for the book.
He published a second volume in 1887 concentrating on volcanic phenomena. This time the Nature journal published three sentences.
As his health failed he dictated a criticism of the work of James Dwight Dana
James Dwight Dana
James Dwight Dana was an American geologist, mineralogist and zoologist. He made pioneering studies of mountain-building, volcanic activity, and the origin and structure of continents and oceans around the world.-Early life and career:...
. Green died at his home in Honolulu December 7, 1890.
His theory became more widely discussed into the first decades of the 20th century. For example, French geologist Albert Auguste Cochon de Lapparent
Albert Auguste Cochon de Lapparent
Albert Auguste Cochon de Lapparent was a French geologist.He was born at Bourges. After studying at the École polytechnique from 1858 to 1860 he became ingénieur au corps des mines, and took part in drawing up the geological map of France; and in 1875 he was appointed professor of geology and...
mentioned Green's work in his textbook.
American geologist Charles Henry Hitchcock
Charles Henry Hitchcock
Charles Henry Hitchcock was an American geologist.-Life:Hitchcock was born August 23, 1836 in Amherst, Massachusetts. His father was Edward Hitchcock who was a professor of geology and natural theology and then president of Amherst College. His mother was Orra White Hitchcock, who illustrated...
, in his own 1911 book on the Hawaiian volcanoes, said:
The memory of William Lowthian Green will be honored henceforth because of his success in showing why the Earth has assumed its present relief.
Théophile Moreux
Théophile Moreux
-Life:Moreux was born at Argent-sur-Sauldre, Cher on 20 November 1867.He initiated the Bourges Observatory at the seminary St Célestin at Bourges, where he was a professor of science and mathematics....
said observations "...point more and more to the truth of an old theory which was long ignored." In their textbooks, Archibald Geikie
Archibald Geikie
Sir Archibald Geikie, OM, KCB, PRS, FRSE , was a Scottish geologist and writer.-Early life:Geikie was born in Edinburgh in 1835, the eldest son of musician and music critic James Stuart Geikie...
and Arthur Holmes
Arthur Holmes
Arthur Holmes was a British geologist. As a child he lived in Low Fell, Gateshead and attended the Gateshead Higher Grade School .-Age of the earth:...
called the theory ‘"ingenious". But by the late 1920s Holmes was promoting theories of continental drift
Continental drift
Continental drift is the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other. The hypothesis that continents 'drift' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596 and was fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912...
as proposed by Alfred Wegener
Alfred Wegener
Alfred Lothar Wegener was a German scientist, geophysicist, and meteorologist.He is most notable for his theory of continental drift , proposed in 1912, which hypothesized that the continents were slowly drifting around the Earth...
which evolved into concepts of plate tectonics
Plate tectonics
Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere...
. Modern theories view the current continental configurations as only transitory, so give no special role to the tetrahedral shape. However, they do attribute a large influence to volcanic activity as he suggested.
See also
- Hawaii hotspotHawaii hotspotThe Hawaii hotspot is the volcanic hotspot that created the Hawaiian Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, and is one of Earth's best-known and most heavily-studied hotspots....
- Evolution of Hawaiian volcanoesEvolution of Hawaiian volcanoesThe fifteen volcanoes that make up the eight principal islands of Hawaii are the youngest in a chain of more than 129 volcanoes that stretch across the North Pacific Ocean, called the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain....
- List of bilateral treaties signed by the Kingdom of Hawaii