Hime, Sir Albert Henry (1842–1919), road and bridge engineer and Natal statesman, was born 29 August 1842 in Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow, seventh son of the Rev. M. C. Hime and his wife Harriette, a daughter of the Rev. Bartholomew Lloyd (qv). He attended the Royal School, Enniskillen; TCD; and the Royal Military College, Woolwich, being commissioned in the Royal Engineers (1861). In 1869–71 he served in Bermuda, leading the construction of a causeway and swing bridge linking the island of St George with the mainland, for which he was commended by the secretary of state for the colonies and by the Bermudian assembly.
After service in the West Indies, he was appointed colonial engineer of Natal (1875), which was combined with membership both of the executive and legislative assembly. He took part in the Anglo–Zulu war of 1879, being promoted to captain (1874) and major (1881) and appointed CMG (1884). He was responsible for a dramatic expansion in communications in the colony, assisting in 1884–5 in the survey of the boundary between the Orange Free State and Natal (during which he discovered many bushman cave paintings), as well as the extension of the railway from the coast to the interior. He led the construction of Durban's north pier and the dredging of its harbour, in the face of opposition from Harry Escombe, a prominent local politician. He was later assisted by fellow Irishman and Trinity graduate J. F. E. Barnes (1851–1925), who served as colonial engineer in 1889. Hime retired in 1893, the year of Natal's achievement of responsible government, but in 1897 he stood successfully for Pietermaritzburg in the legislative assembly. Appointed minister of lands, works, and defence, the last greatly assisted by his rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Engineers, he also served as prime minister (1899–1903), steering the colony through the crisis of the South African war (1899–1902). He was rewarded with a knighthood (KCMG) in 1900 and was sworn of the privy council in 1902. Hime was regarded as genial, though autocratic in manner, with a keen memory for administrative details. He was conferred with honorary doctorates of laws by the universities of Dublin, Edinburgh, and Cambridge. In 1903 he retired to live in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, England, where he died 13 September 1919. The magistracy, village, and nature reserve of Himeville, near Underberg, in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains, is named after him.
He married (1866) Josephine, daughter of S. Searle of Plymouth; they had seven children. The fourth son, Arthur Horace, born in Bermuda in 1871, later became a leading Natal advocate and sportsman.