[2] In 1867, Macaulay passed the Indian Civil Service entrance examination and was sent to Bengal, in the north east of India as one of those selected by Sir George Campbell to test his theory that civilians should serve in all branches of the administration.
He proposed that elected villager committees would manage their own pounds, schools and roads in a similar fashion to the Local Government Boards of contemporary Britain.
[3] In October 1884, Macaulay convinced Secretary of State for India Lord Randolph Churchill of the need to undertake a mission to Tibet, which would include Tibetan scholar Sarat Chandra Das.
He was then to travel on to the Lachen Valley to investigate the feasibility of opening a trade route into Tibet's Ü-Tsang province and finally to attempt to establish friendly relations with the Tibetans to the north of Sikkim.
On his return to Darjeeling, Macaulay wrote to India Office chief Sir Clements Markham that "everything had gone so fairly that it is difficult for us here to believe that we should be shipwrecked within sight of the promised land.