A journalist and newspaper owner, he is believed to have been one of two authors of satirical works lampooning Walter Murray Gibson's cabinet regime under Kalākaua.

He was born in the small town of Qapal in the Kazakh steppes of Central Asia, which was then part of the Russian Empire, to British explorers Lucy Atkinson and Thomas Witlam Atkinson, who named him after the famous Tamshybulak Spring in Qapal and the Alatau Mountains (Tien Shan), and spent the first ten years of his life in various areas of the Russian Empire, such as Siberia, Central Asia, and St Petersburg.

Increasing exposure to the outside world was being brought by the sea trade, missionaries, and foreigners operating sugar plantations in the islands.

In 1867, a proposed reciprocity treaty, tax relief for sugar planters, had gotten as far as the United States Congress, but was defeated in the Senate.

[2] Atkinson was offered a position by Bishop Thomas Nettleship Staley in 1868, to become instructor and principal at St. Alban's College in Pauoa, Hawaii.

He left England together with his wife Annie (nee Humble) and his daughter Zoe in 1869 for the long sea journey to Hawaii.

[7][10] Atkinson and/or Vice Chamberlain Edward William Purvis are believed to have been the authors of The Grand Duke of Gynbergdrinkenstein, a three-act burlesque originally published in 1886 as a satirical jab at Kalākaua's cabinet under the helm of Walter M.

British Commissioner James Hay Wodehouse believed the satire rang true to the king's cabinet under Gibson, and made sure numerous officials in London received copies.

Zoe married scientist Robert Cyril Layton Perkins in 1901, and the couple permanently moved to England after their wedding.

Alatau Leonard Charles (Jack) Atkinson (1871–1927) was appointed to the US presidential cabinet post of Secretary of Hawaii in 1903 by Theodore Roosevelt.

Edith Kapiolani (Lani) Atkinson (c. 1871– 1959) married British naval officer Captain Frederick Kenrick Colquhoun Gibbons in 1895 and permanently relocated to England.

Kenneth Alatau Atkinson (1885–1953) relocated to New South Wales, Australia where he spent the rest of his life in a variety of occupations.