However, the Australian academic, Marion Diamond, in her biography of St Julian, claims that he deliberately obscured his origins and that it is likely that his real name was Charles Trout and that his initial training was as a wood and ivory carver.

[2] In 1849, St Julian was appointed the Hawaiian Kingdom's Consul in Sydney by King Kamehameha III and Minister of Foreign Affairs Robert Crichton Wyllie.

On August 4, 1853, he was appointed as "His Majesty's Commissioner, and Political and Commercial Agent to the Kings, Chiefs and Rulers of the Islands in the Pacific Ocean, not under the protection or sovereignty of any European Government".

In 1859, he was appointed as "His Hawaiian Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires and Consul General to the Kings and Ruling Chiefs of the Independent States and Tribes in Polynesia South of the Equator".

On 10 January 1863, he remarried, to Eliza Winifred Hawkesley, the daughter of the radical editor of the People's Advocate and New South Wales Vindicator, Edward John Hawksley.