Augustus Raymond Margary
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Augustus Raymond Margary, born in Belgaum, India on 26 May 1846, died in Tengyue, China on 21 February 1875, British diplomat.
[edit] Education and early career
Margary was born in British India as the third son of Major General Henry Joshua Margary (d. 1876). Margary was educated in France, at Brighton College and University College in London. Having failed the entrance exam for the foreign service three times, Margary finally passed the exam and was appointed student interpreter in the British consular service in China in February 1867 and left for China the following month. In China, he served in the British Legation in Beijing, and the British consulates in Taiwan, Shanghai and Yantai.
[edit] The "Margary Incident" and aftermath
As part of efforts to explore overland trade routes between British India and China province, Margary was sent from Shanghai through southwest China to Bhamo in Upper Burma, where he was supposed to met Colonel Horace Browne. It took Margary six months to make the 1800-mile journey through the provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan, and he met Browne in Bhamo in late 1874. On the journey back to Shanghai, Margary heard rumors that the return route was not safe and changed the route to Tengyue, where he and his personal staff were murdered on February 21, 1875.
The murder of Margary, or the "Margary Affair" as it was known, created a diplomatic crisis and gave British authorities an excuse to put pressure on the Qing government on a number of unrelated issues. The crisis was only resolved in 1876 when Thomas Wade and Li Hongzhang signed the Chefoo Convention, which covered a number of diplomatic/political items. In 1880, a memorial was erected to the memory of Margary, which was moved to the Public Gardens in 1907. The memorial was removed during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai and was never restored after Japan's defeat in World War Two.
[edit] References
- G. C. Boase, "Margary, Augustus Raymond (1846–1875)," rev. K. D. Reynolds, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2007, accessed 19 July 2007.
- Margary, Augustus Raymond, and Rutherford Alcock. The Journey of Augustus Raymond Margary, from Shanghae to Bhamo, and Back to Manwyne: From His Journals and Letters, with a Brief Biographical Preface. London: Macmillan and co., 1876.
- Wang, Shên-tsu. The Margary Affair and the Chefoo Agreement. London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1940.
