Charles Marjoribanks

Born in 1794, he was the son of Sir John Marjoribanks, 1st Baronet, who was both an MP and Lord Provost of Edinburgh. As a young man, Charles Marjoribanks worked for the East India Company in Macao, linking him closely to the British trade world in China before he entered public life.

He is best remembered as a Scottish Liberal politician and as the author of Brief Account of the English Character, a tract connected with British-Chinese relations in the early nineteenth century. The work was translated by Robert Morrison and aimed at explaining English manners and intentions to Chinese readers, which makes it an unusual cross-cultural document as well as a political one.

In 1832 he was elected MP for Berwickshire and served in the House of Commons until his death on December 3, 1833. His career was brief, but it touched several important worlds at once: commerce in Asia, reform-era British politics, and the literature of imperial contact.