TheMargary Affair (Chinese:马嘉理事件;pinyin:Mǎjiālǐ Shìjiàn or 滇案;Diān àn) was a crisis inSino-British relations, which followed the murder of British officialAugustus Raymond Margary in 1875.[1]
As part of efforts to explore overland trade routes betweenBritish India andChina's provinces, junior British diplomatAugustus Raymond Margary was sent fromShanghai throughsouthwest China toBhamo inUpper Burma, where he was supposed to meet ColonelHorace Browne.[2][3] It took Margary six months to make the 1,800-mile (2,900 km) journey through the provinces ofSichuan,Guizhou andYunnan[4] and he met Brown 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 toTengyue. However, he did not notify local officials of their arrivals and confronted native people. In a following conflict on 21 February 1875, he and his four Chinese personal staff were killed.[5]
The incident created a diplomatic crisis and led the British government to put pressure on their Chinese counterparts. The crisis was only resolved in 1876 whenThomas Francis Wade andLi Hongzhang signed theChefoo Convention, which covered a number of items unrelated to the incident. Following this incident the firstpermanent Chinese diplomatic mission opened inLondon as the Chinese Legation in 1877.