John Harington Gubbins
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John Harington Gubbins (1852-1929) was a British linguist, consular official and diplomat.
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[edit] Education
Gubbins attended Harrow School and would have gone on to Cambridge University, had family finances allowed.
[edit] Career
Gubbins was appointed a student interpreter in the British Japan Consular Service in 1871; English Secretary to the Conference at Tokyo for the Revision of the Treaties, after Ernest Satow left Japan in 1883; and on June 1, 1889, became Japanese Secretary at Tokyo. He was employed in London at the Foreign Office from February to July 1894 in the Aoki-Kimberley negotiations which resulted in the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation (July 16, 1894). He was, especially in retirement, a close friend of Satow's.
Despite having no university degree, Gubbins was awarded an honorary Master's degree from Balliol College and was made Lecturer in Japanese language at Oxford University (1909-12). Lack of pupils led to his position being terminated.
[edit] Family
He was the father of Colin Gubbins.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Ian Nish, "John Harrington Gubbins, 1852-1929," chap. 8 in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, vol. 2, edited by Ian Nish (Japan Library, 1997).
- Private correspondence from J.H. Gubbins to Sir Ernest Satow, 1908-27, UK Public Record Office (PRO 30/33 11/8, 11/9 and 11/10).
