Catherine Macartney

Catherine Theodora, Lady Macartney (20 February 1876 - 13 January 1951). Catherine (née Borland) was born in Bexley Heath, Kent, England. She was the second daughter of James Borland born 1836 in Castle Douglas, Scotland. In 1898, she married Sir George Macartney, the British Consul in Kashgar. Catherine's father had studied in Scotland with George Macartney's father, Halliday Macartney.[1]

The British Consulate-General in Kashgar in 1915

Catherine Macartney, aged 22

In 1915 Percy Sykes and Ella Sykes journeyed to Tashkent to relieve them. The journey took them over a month. Whilst they were there they travelled further. Ella was the first British woman to pass through the "Katta Dawan" pass that was 13,000 feet high. Their journey home also took a month and these journeys were recorded in photographs.[2]

Catherine published her memoirs detailing her time in Kashgar in 1931.[3][4] She helped the archaeologists who discovered the Dunhuang manuscripts.

The Macartneys had three children: Eric Borland Macartney (1903–1994), Sylvia Theodora Macartney (1906–1950) and Robin Halliday Macartney (1911–1973). Eric was born in England, shortly before the Macartneys were due to return to Kashgar. Lady Macartney travelled, accompanied by a nurse, with her newborn child through Central Asia to Kashgar.[5]

Lady Macartney died in Charminster, Dorset, England in 1951, two weeks after her daughter. She is buried with her husband and her two younger children in St. Saviour's churchyard on the Isle of Jersey.

References
  1. Nightingale, Pamela; Skrine, Sir Clarmont Percival (2013). Macartney at Kashgar: New Light on British, Chinese and Russian Activities in Sinkiang, 1890-1918. Routledge. p. 137.
  2. Sykes, Ella; Sykes, Percy (7 August 2014). Through Deserts and Oases of Central Asia. Literary Licensing, LLC. ISBN 978-1-4981-7313-1.
  3. Morgan, Joyce; Walters, Conrad (2012). Journeys on the Silk Road: A Desert Explorer, Buddha's Secret Library, and the Unearthing of the World's Oldest Printed Book. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780762787333.
  4. Macartney, Catherine (1931). "An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan". Ernest Benn.
  5. Nightingale, Pamela; Skrine, Sir Clarmont Percival (2013). Macartney at Kashgar. Routledge. p. 137.


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