Michie Forbes Anderson Fraser

 China Consular Service

      Michie Forbes Anderson Fraser served as a consular officer in South Formosa from 20 August 1885 to 14 February 1887. During this period he was promoted from Second Assistant to First Assistant in July 1886, and was briefly Acting Consul from 28 February to 21 April 1886. M F A Fraser took over charge of the Taiwan-fu Consular District from First Assistant and Acting Consul William Donald Spence and handed it over to Consul Pelham Laird Warren.

      Michie Forbes Anderson Fraser was born on 5 June 1850 at Chatham, Kent, the third son of Robert Winchester Fraser, an Army Staff Surgeon, and Mary Anne Fraser née Anderson. The family was of Scottish origin but had settled in the Bedford area, all the sons were landscape watercolour painters, except for Michie Forbes Anderson Fraser who joined the China Consular Service in order to help support all the others financially. Michie Fraser was appointed a Student Interpreter in the China Consular Service after passing the open competitive examination of June 1872. After his mandatory two years of Mandarin classes at the British Legation in Peking, M F A Fraser was posted first to Swatow [汕頭], where he served from 1875 to 1876, and then to Foochow [福州], where he was promoted to Second Assistant on 1 April 1878, until 1881. Michie Fraser was then posted at Amoy [廈門] and on to Pakhoi [北海], where he served as Acting Consul 2 April to 10 November 1883. After returning briefly to Swatow and Amoy, Michie Fraser was ordered to Taiwan-fu [臺灣府] in 1885.

      Michie Forbes Anderson Fraser arrived in South Formosa on 20 August 1885 to support Acting Consul William Donald Spence and was stationed at Taiwan-fu, while Spence resided at the Consul’s Residence at Takow. Acting Consul Spence had asked Nicholas Roderick O'Conor, the British Chargé d’Affaires at the Peking Legation, for ‘reinforcement’ as he was alone in the Consular District following the departure on 3 months’ sick leave of the maltreated Student Interpreter Pierre Frederick Hausser to Yokohama [横浜], Japan, on 11 July 1885, after his health had completely broken down. A few months after Fraser’s arrival he too was invalided away from the Taiwan-fu Consulate on 4 October 1885 down to the Consul’s house at Takow [打狗], suffering from a second severe attack of typho-malarial fever. Julian Francis Marshall, the Acting Surveyor of the Shanghai-based Office of Works, had inspected the leased Taiwan-fu consular building in 1883 and pronounced it fit for habitation, yet every occupant, Chinese or foreign, had suffered from acute fever, and the long-suffering Hausser had been disallowed a housing allowance to escape the unhealthy building. This time the Office of Works were less niggardly and Michie Anderson was granted a housing allowance for Takow on 10 November 1885. Spence urged once again for the prompt construction by the Office of Works of the planned Anping [安平] Consulate, for which a site had now been sanctioned by the all-powerful British Treasury.

      Acting Consul William Donald Spence had in fact resigned from the China Consular Service on 1 March 1885, but had been persuaded to stay on for one more year. Accordingly when Spence did depart on 28 February 1886, he handed over charge to Second Assistant Michie Forbes Anderson Fraser, who became the Acting Consul of South Formosa, and remained so, alone, until the hurried arrival of Consul Pelham Laird Warren on 21 April 1886. Michie Fraser was promoted to First Assistant in July 1886, and remained on Formosa until 14 February 1887, when he took one year’s Home Leave.

      After a one year’s leave Michie Forbes Anderson Fraser on 18 February 1888 returned to take up a posting at Shanghai, before being promoted to Vice-Consul on 13 October 1891 and posted at Pagoda Island [羅星塔], where he stayed until 1 March 1892, when he was ordered to Kiungchow [瓊州] as Acting Consul from April 1892 to 14 June 1893, when Michie Fraser went on 15 months’ Home Leave. He returned on 23 January 1897 to take up his promotion and posting of Consul at Wuhu [蕪湖].

      On 19 March 1899 Michie Forbes Anderson Fraser was fatefully posted to be Consul at Chungking [重慶]. Chungking was a very isolated post on the Yangtze River [揚子江], some 1400 miles from the sea, and was only accessible by steamer or gunboat during certain periods of the year. Soon after Consul Michie Fraser’s arrival the Boxer Rebellion [義和團運動] broke out across northern China. Fraser’s appeals for a gunboat to be sent up the Yangtze met with indifference, and when he heard of the Siege of the Foreign Legations in Peking Consul Michie Fraser ordered the entire British community to be evacuated from Chungking on 2 August 1900. The decision was much criticized in China, and although he found some support from the Foreign Office in London, Michie Forbes Anderson Fraser was castigated as a foolish and tiresome person. The incoming British Minister to China, Sir Ernest Mason Satow, considered Fraser as mad as March hare and unfit for any responsible post, pressing for Fraser’s immediate retirement. However, Michie Fraser was only 50 years old and in superb physical condition; moreover, he had no wish to take early retirement. But the British Treasury medical adviser deemed Fraser unfit for further duties and he was forced to retire on 5 October 1901.

      Michie Forbes Anderson Fraser returned to England to live at ‘Beaufort’, Knaphill, Woking, Surrey. He seemed to outlive most of his siblings and, in his later years took to wintering in North Africa and the south of France. He was certainly eccentric, working on obscure theories of learning, but he was not mad. Michie Forbes Anderson Fraser died aged 81 on 24 March 1931 at his home in Knaphill, Surrey.