Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Macdonald, Claude Maxwell
MACDONALD, Sir CLAUDE MAXWELL (1852–1915), soldier and diplomatist, the son of Major-General James (Hamish) Dawson Macdonald, by his wife, Mary Ellen Dougan, was born 12 June 1852. Educated at Uppingham and Sandhurst, he entered the 74th Highlanders in 1872 at the age of twenty. Macdonald first came to the front in the Egyptian campaign of 1882, in which year he was promoted major; he subsequently became military attaché in Cairo to Sir Evelyn Baring (afterwards Earl of Cromer) [q.v.], a post which he held till 1887. He served through the Suakin expedition of 1884–1885 as a volunteer with the 42nd Highlanders. From 1887 to 1888 he was acting-agent and consul-general at Zanzibar, and in 1889 was sent by the Foreign Office on a special mission to the Niger Territories. Shortly afterwards Macdonald was sent on another mission, to Berlin, with reference to the delimitation of the boundary between the Oil Rivers Protectorate and Cameroon, and in 1891 he was appointed first commissioner and consul-general in the Protectorate. Here he established an efficient system of consular jurisdiction and customs organization, and brought the whole territory under ordered government. During the period of his consul-generalship he took part in the Brass River expedition (1895).
In 1896 Macdonald retired from the army and was promoted to the post of British minister at Peking, where his term of office covered four critical years in the history of China. The Chino-Japanese War of 1894 had revealed to the world the military weakness of China, and German and Russian imperialism lost no time in exploiting the situation. The concession to Russia in 1896 of the Chinese Eastern Railway was followed in 1898 by the seizure of Kiaochow by Germany and the Russian occupation of Port Arthur and Dalny. In order to maintain the balance of power, Macdonald secured for England the leases of Wei Hai Wei and of the Hong-Kong Extension, and waged the ‘battle of concessions’ so successfully that he obtained, among other things, the opening of the West river to trade, the right to navigate the inland waters, the non-alienation of the Yangtze region, several important railway concessions, and a formal undertaking that the inspector-general of customs should continue to be an Englishman. These services brought him the congratulations of Lord Salisbury and the K.C.B. in 1898.
It was fortunate that Macdonald was at Peking when the Boxer rising of 1900 occurred. He was chosen by his colleagues to assume the command of the beleaguered legations, and he organized the defence with such skill that they were able through many weeks (20 June–14 August) to withstand all Chinese assaults. Promoted G.C.M.G. in 1900, he received in 1901 the military K.C.B. for the defence of the legations, and thus had the rare distinction of being doubly a recipient of this order.
In October 1900 Macdonald was transferred to Tokio, where he became in 1905 the first British ambassador. He took part in the negotiation of the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902, and his presence at Tokio was invaluable to Great Britain during the Russo-Japanese War. The Anglo-Japanese agreement of August 1905 (renewed in July 1911) was concluded under his auspices, and in recognition of his services he was made G.C.V.O. and sworn a privy councillor in 1906. He retired in 1912, and died in London 10 September 1915.
Macdonald married in 1892 Ethel, daughter of Major W. Cairns Armstrong, of the 15th regiment, and widow of P. Craigie Robertson, of the Indian civil service. They had two daughters.
[The Times, 11 September 1915; Lieut.-Colonel A. F. Mockler-Ferryman, Up the Niger. A Narrative of Major Claude Macdonald's Mission to the Niger and Benue Rivers, 1892; China Blue Books, 1898–1899; Who's Who in the Far East; personal knowledge.]