- Tenure
- 1880 — 1891
- Era
- Charter Companies & Protectorate Consuls (1879 — 1899)
- Mode of entry
- Appointed by the Foreign Office
- Mode of exit
- Retired on health grounds 1891
The 'Treaty Consul' who in 1884–85 signed the Niger Delta protection treaties — Bonny, Brass, Opobo, Calabar, Old Calabar — that gave Britain its claim to the Oil Rivers. The man who tried (and failed) to reach Sokoto before the Germans.
Edward Hyde Hewett (1840–1891) was British Consul for the Bights of Benin and Biafra from 1880, based on the consular hulk *HMS Pioneer* off Fernando Pó. Between June and December 1884 — racing the German agent Gustav Nachtigal who had just taken Cameroon and Togoland — Hewett signed 47 'treaties of protection' along the Niger Delta and Cross River: with Kalabari (1 July 1884), Bonny (5 July), Opobo (1 July, with King Jaja), Brass (17 September), Old Calabar (10 September, with the Obong and Etubom). These treaties were the basis on which Britain claimed the Oil Rivers Protectorate at the Berlin Conference.
Hewett's treaties left intact the trading rights of the Delta city-states, a promise the Foreign Office abandoned the moment Sir Claude MacDonald replaced him in 1891. He died of malaria on the voyage home in 1891 and is buried at sea.
Tier 1 · primary
Courts. Gazettes. National archives.
Tier 2 · corroborating
OCCRP. HRW. BudgIT. TheCable.
Tier 4 · tertiary, flagged
Wikipedia only where primary is pending. Always labelled.