George Compigné Parker Braune

 China Consular Service

      George Compigné Parker Braune is believed to have been born in 1838 at Frome, Somerset, where he was baptised on 27 October 1838. He was the only son of the Reverend George Martin Braune, for many years the Vicar of Wistow in Yorkshire, and Emma May Halsted. George Braune was educated at St Peter’s School in York from where he gained entrance to King’s College, London, to study Chinese, probably through the influence of his uncle, Walter Henry Medhurst, who had joined the Consular Service at its inception in 1843. George Braune joined the China Consular Service by recommendation of the China Class at King’s College in 1856. Upon arrival at Hongkong, George Braune was appointed on 3 May 1856 as a Student Interpreter at Foochow [福州]. After spending a year at Amoy [廈門] from April 1858 to May 1859, he returned to Foochow with the rank of 2nd Assistant until his appointment as 1st Assistant to Vice-Consul Robert Swinhoe at the new Treaty Port of Taiwan [臺灣].

       George Compigné Parker Braune was officially 1st Assistant at the Taiwan Consulate from 27 December 1860 until 16 May 1864, when he died. At that time both Tamsui [淡水] and Taiwan-fu [臺灣府] (Tainan) fell under the the control of the Taiwan Consulate, or, at least, that was the view of Vice-Consul Robert Swinhoe.

       Appointed on 27 December 1860, Braune actually arrived at Takow [打狗] (Kaohsiung) with Vice-Consul Swinhoe and proceeded to Tainan on 6 July 1861. Dissatisfied with the trade prospects at Tainan, Swinhoe and Braune moved the Consulate up to Tamsui in November 1861. Swinhoe then absented himself, leaving Braune alone in Tamsui and in charge of the Taiwan Consulate with a rank of acting Vice-Consul. Swinhoe did not return to Tamsui until January 1864, by which time Braune’s health was almost completed broken. He was allowed to take Home Leave before taking up his long-promised transfer to Chinkiang [鎮江] as Acting Vice-Consul .

       George Compigné Parker Braune never reached England nor Chinkiang. After crossing the Taiwan Strait and arriving on the the China mainland, Braune had had a heart attack and so feared the long voyage home to England that he decided to go to Peking where he promptly had another heart attack and died on 16 May 1864: he was just 26 years old.