MacDonald was educated at Uppingham School and Sandhurst, and was a soldier-diplomat. He thought of himself as a 'soldier-outsider' as regards the Foreign Office. He presided over the Tokyo Legation in years of harmony between Britain and Japan (1900-12), swapping posts with Sir Ernest Satow who replaced him as Minister in Peking. In 1900 MacDonald had led the defence of the foreign legations which were under siege during the Boxer Rebellion, and worked well with the Anglophile Japanese Colonel Shiba. On January 30, 1902 the first Anglo-Japanese Alliance was signed in London between the Foreign Secretary Lord Lansdowne and Hayashi Tadasu, the Japanese Minister. MacDonald was still in Tokyo when the alliance was renewed in 1905 and 1911. He also became Britain's first ambassador to Japan when the status of the legation was raised to an embassy in 1905, and was made a Privy Councillor in 1906.
See also
Heads of the United Kingdom Mission in Japan
Historic list of members of the Privy Council
References
'Sir Claude MacDonald: Minister and first Ambassador in Tokyo', by Ian Nish, Ch.9, British Envoys in Japan 1859-1972, ed. and compiled by Hugh Cortazzi (Global Oriental, 2004) ISBN 1901903516
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