Augustus Raymond Margary

Augustus Raymond Margary (26 May 1846 – 21 February 1875) was a British diplomat and explorer. The murder of Margary and his entire staff, while surveying overland Asian trade routes, sparked the Margary Affair which led to the Chefoo Convention.

Margary was born in the city of Belgaum, 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.

As part of efforts to explore overland trade routes between British India and China, Margary was sent from Shanghai through southwest China to Bhamo in Upper Burma, where he was supposed to meet Colonel Horace Browne. It took Margary six months to make the 1800-mile journey through the provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan, after which 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 21 February 1875.

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