| John Harington Gubbins | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 24, 1852 India |
| Died | February 23, 1929 (aged 77) Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | consular official, scholar |
John Harington Gubbins (1852-1929) was a British linguist, consular official and diplomat.
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Gubbins attended Harrow School and would have gone on to Cambridge University, had family finances allowed.
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.
He was the father of Colin Gubbins.