Thomas Chay Beale (13 December 1805 – 3 November 1857) was a Scottish merchant and diplomat operating in the

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...

during the 19th century. He was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and of the Portuguese Order of Christ.

Biography

Chay Beale was a nephew of opium trader and merchant

Daniel Beale Daniel Beale (1759–1842) was a Scottish merchant and fur trader active in the Far East mercantile centres of Bombay, Canton and Macau as well as at one time the Prussian consul in China. Biography Daniel Beale was the purser of, succes ...

and his brother Thomas Beale. As early as 1826, he was a partner in the trading firm of Magniac & Co. in Canton, China. In the 1830s he left Magniacs and operated on his own until 1845 when he established the

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

based agency house of Dent, Beale & Co. with Lancelot Dent. By 1851, Beale was Portuguese Consul and Dutch Vice Counsel in the city.Cranmer-Byng J.L. and Ride, Lindsay T., ''Journal of Occurrences at Canton 1839'' icin Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch; Vol. 4 (1964) p. 37 He is buried in the Shantung Road Cemetery in

and there is a memorial to him in the church of St. Mary the Virgin in

Brettenham, Suffolk Brettenham is a village and civil parish in the Babergh district of Suffolk, England. In 2005 it had a population of 270,

References

External links

* 1805 births 1857 deaths History of foreign trade in China Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur British expatriates in China 19th-century Scottish businesspeople {{Scotland-bio-stub