King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV of Tonga

But the King’s innate conservatism was resistant to change, in spite of the fact that his recent involvement in the loss of millions of dollars of Tongan money earned from the sale of passports had damaged his personal standing and led to calls for greater transparency in government. These were voiced most notably by Akilisi Pohiva, a journalist and member of the Legislative Assembly and leader of the Tonga Human Rights and Democracy Movement, which had a number of members in the assembly.

The monarch’s domain consists of 170 islands in the South Pacific, just west of the International Date Line, only 36 of which are inhabited. The population, more or less equally divided between men and women, is about 110,000, most of whom subsist on agriculture, fishing, tourism and tapa (paper-like cloth) making. Tongans traditionally have a reputation for friendliness, and Tonga was formerly called “the Friendly Isles”.

There had been an hereditary ruler in Tonga since AD950. The foundations of the constitutional monarchy to which Taufa’ahau IV succeeded were laid when King George Tupou I, the “Grand Old Man of the Pacific”, granted Tonga a constitution in 1875. Tonga became a British protectorate in 1900.

It was the King of Tonga’s mother, Queen Salote, who put Tonga on the world map when she attended Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation in London in 1953. On a wet day she refused to have her carriage covered, and to the ignored protests of her carriage companion, the Sultan of Kelantan (in Malaya), she got gloriously soaked, and won the admiration of the crowd.

Taufa’ahau was born as Crown Prince in 1918. His father, Prince Tungi (Viliami Tupoulahi Tungi), was a direct descendant of the Tui Ha’atakalaua royal line. He was christened Siaosi Taufa’ahau Tupoumalohi in the Free Wesleyan Church, and educated first at a primary school operated by that Church and then at the long established Tupou College. At the age of 14 he was a renowned athlete, able to pole vault more than 10 ft. He enjoyed tennis, cricket and rowing, but rugby was his favourite sport. His advance down the field was not a particularly welcome sight for the opposing team.

He was academically bright, passing his leaving certificate examination at 14. In 1933 he followed his father to Newington College, at Stanmore, New South Wales, by which time he already stood 6ft tall and weighed 15 stone. Then he entered Sydney University, studying arts and law, the first Tongan ever to attend a university.

While in Sydney he developed a particular interest in the drawings made on Captain Cook’s expeditions, especially of the head-dresses and other obsolete ornaments. In February 1938 he was declared to be of age in a ceremony in Nuku’alofa. At 21 he had graduated BA at Sydney University, and wanted to go to Oxford. But because of the war he stayed in Australia and took his LLB.

In 1941 the Crown Prince’s father died and he returned to Tonga. These were difficult days, with the Japanese on the rampage in the Pacific. Tonga was in danger of being invaded, but the Crown Prince reassured his mother that the Americans would protect them, as turned out to be the case.

While Crown Prince he served as Minister of Education, Health, Agriculture, Radio and Telecommunications and of Foreign Affairs. In 1949 he became Prime Minister and served as such until he succeeded to the throne in December 1965. He added the portfolio of Minister of Works in 1962.

From his return to Tonga in the war until his old age, he was forever full of schemes for Tonga, some of which were successful, while others went awry. He was the occasional patron of an enthusiastic scheme that went wrong, such as the wish of a couple to spend a year on one of Tonga’s deserted islands (equipped with a 14-month supply of condoms), an endeavour which came to grief when a huge wave swept all their provisions, including the condoms, into the sea after a fortnight. One or two other would-be investors and promoters, encouraged by the King, turned out to be dishonest and were eventually put behind bars. But, by and large, there was a great deal of positive development of the islands.

In 1957 a treaty of friendship and protection signed with Britain gave him control of Tonga’s finances, and in June 1970, Tonga became an independent state within the Commonwealth.

Meanwhile, in a double wedding on June 10, 1947, at which his surviving brother also married, the Crown Prince married Mata’aho, daughter of the Governor of the Ha’apai Group. She had lately completed her studies at St Mary’s College, Auckland. During the prolonged wedding festivities, he and his bride wore national costume and at one point were poised somewhat precariously on individual stacks of tapa and mats, piled 5ft high.

Both as Crown Prince and later as King, Taufa’ahau Tupou travelled extensively on behalf of his country. Most of these tours had an industrial slant as he investigated how to improve on Tonga’s various crafts, as well as seeking finance to build marinas and an airport. It was he who introduced a postal service to the island. But throughout his reign he successfully eschewed the introduction of the traffic light, which appeared in Suva, capital of neighbouring Fiji. A notable visit was to the Festival of Britain in London in 1951. He was forever trying to improve the welfare of the islanders, though he was not wholly against old-fashioned labour-saving devices. After his 1951 visit to Sri Lanka he joked: “If I could get some elephants in Tonga, we could dispense with several tractors.”

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He succeeded to the throne on Queen Salote’s death in 1965 and appointed his brother, Prince Fatafehi Tu’ipelehaki, Prime Minister, though he himself effectively remained head of government. (In the following year there was the death of the 200-year-old tortoise, famed as having been brought to Tonga by Captain Cook.) In 1967 the King was crowned in a ceremony based more or less entirely on the British coronation ceremony, but conducted in Tonga’s national tongue. The King’s handsome red velvet and ermine robes were made in London, and the Duke and Duchess of Kent were among the distinguished overseas guests, the Duke representing the Queen.

The Queen visited Tonga in 1953, 1970 and 1977, arriving in the Royal Yacht Britannia. She appointed the King to British orders whose insignia he wore with pride below his Tongan royal order: KBE in 1958, GCVO in 1970 and GCMG in 1977. In 1970 he was appointed the first Chancellor of the University of the South Pacific.

He was the first chairman of the Polynesian Heritage Trust, 1984, and was given the Peace Award by the World Peace Prize Awarding Council in 1996, and the Special Award by the Government of French Polynesia in 1997.

He will be remembered in Britain for the magnificent appearance he made at the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales at St Paul’s Cathedral in 1981, for which occasion a special chair had to be constructed to hold him. When the Princess died in a car accident in Paris in 1997, the King, a lay preacher in the Free Wesleyan Church, ordered flags to be flown at half-mast in Tonga on the day of the funeral and sent the Prince of Wales a message, praying that “time will bring you and your family comfort and consolation”.

In January 1999 the King was in New York negotiating Tonga’s membership of the United Nations. This followed the establishment of diplomatic relations with China in 1998. He promoted Tonga as an essential place to visit in Millennium year, with a website announcing proudly: “The Millennium starts with us”.

The last years of his reign were marred by the revelation that the tiny state had lost around $26 million it had earned through a scheme, personally approved by the King himself in the late 1980s, to sell Tongan passports to numbers of Hong Kong Chinese who were anxious about their future under the impending handover to China.

Some 5,000 Tongan passports were sold at prices ranging up to $14,000 each. At the King’s request the money was lodged in the Tonga Trust Fund, in an account held at the San Francisco branch of the Bank of America, to prevent its being “wasted” on public works by his ministers. In 1999 a Bank of America employee, Jesse Bogdonoff, obtained the King’s permission to invest the money in a company called Millennium Asset Management where, he subsequently reported, it had realised profits of about $11 million. Highly pleased, the King appointed Bogdonoff his court jester.

But when the balance of the fund and the interest it had accrued, amounting apparently to about $40 million, was due to be returned to Tonga in June 2001, both Millennium Asset Management and the money had disappeared. Two Tongan ministers, who had been trustees of the fund were dismissed, but Bogdonoff insisted that he was not to blame as he had been misled about the fund’s value. In 2002 the Tongan Government announced that it was beginning court proceedings against Bogdonoff in the US, but it was subsequently reported that it had agreed to settle out of court for the sum of about $1 million.

Meanwhile, the Tonga Human Rights and Democracy Movement continued its attacks on the King and Government on a number of fronts. It cited a US State Department report that the largely non-representative Tongan system of government breached UN and Commonwealth human rights guidelines. It demanded greater democracy in a draft constitution.

Public discontent also simmered with a march on the Royal Palace in May last year by 8,000 people protesting at the high electricity prices charged by the Shoreline Power Group — and the salaries reportedly paid to its executives. This led in turn to a demand to renationalise Tonga’s electricity supply.

The King had by now become increasingly frail, and travelling had become a great trial to him. By 1999 he had lost much of his legendary weight, and was using two sticks to walk. In addition, he had clashed with his eldest son and heir, Crown Prince Tupouto’a, a progressive who wanted the lifetime appointments of ministers abolished. It was perhaps for this reason that his youngest son, the conservative Prince ‘Ulukalala Lavaka Ata, was appointed to succeed Baron Vaea as Prime Minister on his retirement in 2000. In February 2004 his second son, Prince Ma’atu Fatafehi Alaivahamama’o Tuku’aho, died of a heart attack at the age of 48.

The collapse in April 2004 of Royal Tongan Airlines with the loss of 261 jobs led to demands for the Prime Minister’s resignation, and he was increasingly regarded as being out of touch with the people. In September 2004 the King and Queen led a crowd in communal prayers for the guidance of Tonga’s leaders.

The King is survived by his wife of more than 50 years, Queen Halaevalu Mata’aho, and his son Crown Prince Tupouto’a, who has succeeded as King Taufa’ahau Tupou V.

King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV of Tonga was born on July 4, 1918. He died on September 10, 2006, aged 88.