Education
Gubbins attended and would have gone on to Cambridge University, had family finances allowed.
Gubbins attended and would have gone on to Cambridge University, had family finances allowed.
Gubbins was appointed a student interpreter in the British Japan Consular Service in 1871. English Secretary to the Conference at Tokyo for the Revision of the Treaties, after Ernest Satow left Japan in 1883. And on June 1, 1889, became Japanese Secretary at Tokyo.
He was employed in London at the Foreign Office from February to July 1894 in the Aoki-Kimberley negotiations which resulted in the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation (July 16, 1894).
Despite having no university degree, Gubbins was awarded an honorary master"s degree from Balliol College and was made Lecturer in Japanese language at Oxford University (1909-1912). Lack of pupils led to his position being terminated.
He was the father of Colin Gubbins.