As royal chaplain to Sālote, Page was an influential advisor on both personal and political matters and was viewed by some as a power behind the throne.
[2] Page was educated at Grafton Public School and worked as his father's bookkeeper before moving to Sydney to train for the Methodist ministry at the Wesleyan Theological Institution.
[1] The Wesleyan Mission had been a minority denomination since an 1885 schism resulted in the establishment of the Free Church of Tonga as an independent body under the patronage of King George Tupou I.
[1] According to Sione Lātūkefu, the first Tongan to be awarded an academic doctorate, Page took a personal interest in his education and was the first to identify him as a candidate for postgraduate studies.
He gained respect among the local population by lobbying on their behalf to William Telfer Campbell, the British consul, and assisting with relief efforts after hurricanes and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.
[6] Page played an important role in the reunification of the Methodist Mission with the Free Church of Tonga, an initiative spearheaded by Queen Sālote after her accession in 1918.
[1] He developed a close relationship with Sālote through his friendship with her husband, Viliami Tungī Mailefihi, who had attended Wesleyan schools and been educated in Sydney.
[12] In 1925, Page was elected president of the Free Wesleyan Church in place of Manu, whose marriage to a teenage girl had caused a scandal.
Page unsuccessfully sought the intervention of the Privy Council of Tonga to enforce existing leases, and subsequently "acquired a reputation for being very canny in his negotiations with individual nobles".
[19] According to Elizabeth Wood-Ellem, a biographer of Sālote, Page was "not only her counsellor in her grief, her chaplain, a censor, and a member of the Home Guard, but also her unofficial adviser on almost everything".
[23] Sālote and Tungī arranged for Hannah to be given a chiefly funeral, providing taʻovala mats and tapa cloth, and allowing her to be interred at the royal burial ground.
[17][29] The wedding was a major event, with celebrations lasting several days and a significant portion of Tonga's population visiting the capital, Nukuʻalofa.
[34] His ashes were returned to Tonga to be interred alongside those of his wife in the Malaʻe ʻAloa royal burial ground in Nukuʻalofa.