John Harington Gubbins

John Harington Gubbins
Born (1852-01-24)24 January 1852
India
Died 23 February 1929(1929-02-23) (aged 77)
Edinburgh, Scotland
Nationality British
Occupation consular official, scholar

John Harington Gubbins (1852-1929) was a British linguist, consular official and diplomat.

Education

Gubbins attended Harrow School and would have gone on to Cambridge University, had family finances allowed.

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 1 June 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 (16 July 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.

Family

He was the father of Colin Gubbins.

See also

References

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