Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits 9781898823469

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BRITAIN & JAPAN:

BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Anon, Jurui shinzu (True pictures of animal types), collection of earlier handpainted images compiled c. 1830. The British Library. (See Ch. 2)

BRITAIN & JAPAN:

Biographical Portraits VOLUME X

Compiled and Edited by HUGH CORTAZZI

JAPAN SOCIETY PAPERBACK EDITION Not for resale BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS, VOL. X First published 2016 by RENAISSANCE BOOKS PO Box 219 Folkestone Kent CT20 2WP Renaissance Books is an imprint of Global Books Ltd ISBN 978-1-898823-44-5 Hardback 978-1-898823-46-9 e-Book 978-1-898823-47-6 Paperback © The Japan Society 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. SPECIAL THANKS The Chairman and Council of the Japan Society together with the Publishers wish to express their thanks to the following for their support in the making of this book: The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation; Sir Hugh Cortazzi, GCMG. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Set in Bembo 11 on 11.5 pt by Dataworks Printed and bound in England by CPI Antony Rowe Ltd.

This volume is dedicated to all the contributors to this series

Contents Introduction by Hugh Cortazzi List of Contributors Index of Biographical Portraits in Japan Society Volumes

xv xxxiii xxxvii

PART I: BRITAIN IN JAPAN PERSONALITIES AND ENTREPRENEURS

1.

Admiral Sir Fleetwood Pellew (1789–1861) and the Phaeton Incident of 1808

1

TIMON SCREECH

2.

Thomas (Sir Stamford) Raffles (1781–1826) and Dr Donald Ainslie

20

TIMON SCREECH

3.

Victoria Crosses Awarded for Valour in Japan: Duncan Boyes, Thomas Pride, William Seeley and Robert Gray

37

IAN RUXTON

4.

Marianne North (1830–1890): Traveller, Botanist and Artist

45

TADASHI KARATO and HUGH CORTAZZI

5.

William Henry Smith (1838–1884): Prominent Publicspirited Figure in Early Yokohama History

58

MIKE GALBRAITH

6.

Alan Owston (1853–1915): Naturalist and Yachtsman

74

MIKE GALBRAITH

7.

Edgar Abbott (1849–1890): Athlete and Brewer

86

MIKE GALBRAITH

8.

No 48, Yokohama

98

MIKE GALBRAITH

9.

Thomas Bates Blow (1853–1941): Antiquarian, Apiarist and Pioneer Motorist in Japan IAN CHRYSTIE

vii

106

CONTENTS

WRITERS AND BROADCASTERS

10. Ernest Harold Pickering, M.P. (1881–1957): A Convinced but Unconvincing Apologist for Japan

125

PETER O’CONNOR

11. Dorothy Britton (Lady Bouchier 1922–2015), Gifted Composer, Author and Translator

138

HUGH CORTAZZI and PAUL NORBURY

12. John Newman (1935–1993): Ju¯do¯ka, Broadcaster and Academic

143

IAN RUXTON

13. Peter Martin (1931–2004): Successful Author and British Council Representative

155

MIKE BARRETT

MISSIONARIES

14. Charles Frederick Warren (1841–1899): Anglican Missionary in Osaka

169

HAMISH ION

15. Barclay Fowell Buxton (1860–1946): Evangelistic Missionary in Japan

177

HAMISH ION

16. The Archdeacon and the Canon: The Hutchinsons of Japan

187

HAMISH ION

POLITICIANS

17. The Fifteenth Earl of Derby (1826–1893): Foreign Secretary

195

ROBERT MORTON and ANDREW COBBING

18. Earl of Kimberley (1826–1902) and Japan

208

THOMAS OTTE

19. Lord Lansdowne (1845–1927) and Japan

221

THOMAS OTTE

20. Lord Lytton (1876–1947) and Anglo-Japanese Relations in the 1930s ANTONY BEST

viii

238

CONTENTS

OFFICIALS AND DIPLOMATS

21. Early British Judges in Japan, 1865–1881: Sir Edmund Grimani Hornby, Charles Wycliffe Goodwin and Sir Richard Temple Rennie [with an appendix on the Maria Luz case]

247

CHRISTOPHER ROBERTS

22. John Carey Hall (1864–1926): A Career in Japan and the Japan Consular Service

278

J.E. HOARE

23. Sir Colin John Davidson (1878–1930): Japan Specialist in the British Consular Service

292

AYAKO HOTTA-LISTER

24. John Frederick Lowder (1843–1902): Consul, Counsel and o-yatoi

300

J.E. HOARE

25. Sir Edward Crowe (1877–1960): Forgotten Star of the Japan Consular Service

303

J.E. HOARE

26. Oswald ‘Shiro’ White (1884–1970): 38 Years in the Japan Consular Service

307

HUGO READ

27. Three British Consuls in Manchuria, 1931–32: Esler Dening, Robert Scott and George Moss

318

IAN NISH

28. Sir Fred Warner (1918–1995): Ambassador to Japan, 1972–76

327

ROBERT COOPER

29. Sir Michael Wilford (1922–2006): Ambassador to Japan, 1975–80

333

DAVID WARREN

30. Sir John Whitehead (1932–2013): Ambassador to Japan, 1987–1992

343

HUGH CORTAZZI

SCHOLARS

31.

Basil Hall Chamberlain’s Things Japanese and the ‘Invention of a New Religion’: A Critique of Bushido JOSEPH CRONIN

ix

349

CONTENTS

32. William J.S. Shand (1850–1909) and Henry John Weintz (1864–1931): ‘Japanese Self-taught’ 362 NOBORU KOYAMA

33. Douglas Mills (1923–2005): Scholar of Japanese at Cambridge University

371

RICHARD BOWRING

34. John McEwan (1924–1969): Scholar of Japanese at Cambridge University

374

PETER KORNICKI

BUSINESS, TRADE AND INVESTMENT

35. Charles Sale (1868–1943) and George Sale (1896–1976): Business and Politics in Anglo-Japanese Relations

391

ANTONY BEST

36. Christopher W. McDonald (1931–2011): A Life in Japan 399 YUNICHIRO NAKAJIMA

37. NSK at Peterlee: A Successful Japanese Manufacturing Investment in the UK

408

NSK STAFF MEMBERS

38. Sharp Corporation’s UK Research Investment: Sharp Laboratories of Europe Ltd

423

CLIVE BRADLEY

39. Mitsubishi Electric’s Manufacturing Investments in Scotland

434

YOSHIO NOGUCHI

40. Alps Electric (UK) Limited and the Birth of Two Trees Photonics Limited

442

PETER WOODLAND

41. Chugai Pharmaceutical in the United Kingdom

456

MARTIN EDELSHAIN

42. Selling British Electronics to Japan Part I: Selling to Japanese Manufacturers Investing in Britain

462 462

IVOR COHEN

Part II: Selling to Japanese Companies in Japan PETER BACON

x

472

CONTENTS

43. Wool in Japan: A Very British Story

480

R. PETER ACKROYD

44. The British Chamber of Commerce (Japan), 1948–2015

491

IAN DE STAINS

45. English Lawyers and Japan from the 1960s to the Present Day

501

TONY GRUNDY

46. The British Pavilion at Aichi Expo 2005

521

PAUL MADDEN

CULTURE

47. Victorian Novelists in Japan: Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Charlotte and Emily Brontë in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries

531

HARUNO KAYAMA

48. Minton for the Meiji Emperor

542

MARY REDFERN

49. Britain and the JET Programme: Five Individuals

554

GRAHAM HEALEY

With an annex by NICOLAS MACLEAN on British English Teachers in Japan: The Pre-JET (or Wolfers) scheme PART II: JAPAN IN BRITAIN DIPLOMATS

50. Fujiyama Naraichi (1915–1994): A Young Diplomat in Wartime

569

EIJI SEKI

51. Kazuo Chiba (1925–2004): An Outstanding Japanese Diplomat

577

HUGH CORTAZZI

52. Young Japanese Diplomats Sent to Study at British Universities

584

SADAAKI NUMATA

BUSINESS, TRADE AND BANKING

53. Saba Shoichi (1919–2012): Japanese Industrialist and Friend of Britain HUGH CORTAZZI xi

599

CONTENTS

54. Shijuro Ogata (1927–2014): Internationalist Japanese Banker

607

HUGH CORTAZZI

55. The Japanese Chamber of Commerce in the UK, 1959–2015

612

PATRICK MACARTNEY

SCHOLARS

56. Yasui Tetsu (1870–1945): Promoter of Women’s Higher Education

625

HIROKO TOMIDA

57. Tanaka Hozumi (1876–1944): Enlightened Educationalist at Waseda

637

NORI MORITA

58. Hagihara Nobutoshi (1926–2001): Internationalist

648

GORDON DANIELS

59. Nakaya Ukichiro (1900–1962): Snow Scientist

663

JENNY WHITE

60. Takakusu Junjiro¯ (1866–1945): Buddhist Idealist, Scholar and Educator

680

IWAGAMI KAZUNORI and PARIDE STORTIN

CULTURE & COLLABORATION

61. Ito¯ Michio (1892–1961): Dancer and Producer

693

NORIMASA MORITA

62. Bonsai in Britain

705

COLIN ELLIS

63. The Royal Academy of Arts and Japan: 140 Years of Exhibitions, Education and Debate

718

MAYU KAMIDE

64. Mackintosh and the Glasgow Style: Japonisme

731

LIBBY HORNER

65. Shimaoka Tatsuzo¯ (1919–2007): Master Japanese Potter

745

HUGH CORTAZZI with DHARINI PAREKH

66. Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯ (1863–1930) and Tomita Kumasaku (1872–1953): Japanese Art Dealers in London: NOBORU KOYAMA

xii

754

CONTENTS

67. Netsuke and Inro¯ collectors in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

761

ROSEMARY BANDINI

68. Lisa, Lady Sainsbury (1912–2014): Bringing Japanese Art to East Anglia

773

NICOLE COOLIDGE ROUSMANIERE

69. UK-Japan 21st Century group

779

MARIE-CONTE-HELM

Select Bibliography of Works in English on Anglo-Japanese Relations [Compiled by Gill Goddard – Retired East Asian Studies Librarian, University of Sheffield]

791

Select Bibliography of Works in Japanese on Anglo-Japanese Relations [Compiled by Akira Hirano, SISJAC]

809

Index

815

JAPANESE NAMES

Japanese names are given in the Japanese order except where the English order has been used by authors of books or where the individual has become generally known by his/her name in the English order. Long vowels have been marked with a macron, except for common words, such as daimyo and place names such as Tokyo, which have entered the English language.

xiii

Introduction HUGH CORTAZZI This is the fifteenth volume of books1 about Japan and Britain, which have been published for or in association with the Japan Society in the last twenty-five years. In one way or another, I have been involved with all of them either as editor and compiler or as a contributor. More importantly, all of these volumes are the result of a joint enterprise and have been totally dependent on contributors coming forward willing to find time for the necessary research and write up their subjects without reward. Accordingly, my thanks are due first and foremost to the contributors who have given so freely of their time and energy. This volume, therefore, is justly dedicated to all those whose writings over the last quarter of a century have made this series possible. I would also like to express my great appreciation to the Japan Society for the sustained backing and support it has given to the publication of these volumes, and in particular, most recently, to Sir David Warren, the current chairman, whose encouragement and assistance in the compilation and editing of this volume has been much appreciated . I am also indebted to my fellow editors: Ian Nish who edited volumes I and II of Biographical Portraits, Japanese Envoys in Britain and co-edited British Envoys in Japan, Jim Hoare who edited volume III of Biographical Portraits and co-edited British Envoys in Japan, and Gordon Daniels who co-edited Britain and Japan, 1859–1991, Themes and Personalities. Furthermore, all three have contributed a number of valuable chapters to the series, as well as giving me much useful advice and help along the way. I also wish to record special thanks to Stephen McEnally of the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation for his commitment to and belief in this enterprise and to the Foundation for their generous financial support over the years. Finally, I must thank Paul Norbury and his staff for the very considerable work involved in the production and publication of these volumes. In all, some six hundred ‘portraits’ have been published (I interpret ‘portraits’ loosley to include themes and organizations). The result is a unique record of people, firms and other bodies who in ways great and small have contributed to the quality and enduring value of our

xv

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

bilateral relationship. I do not know of any similar series in any other country covering a bilateral relationship. Although contributions have not been peer-reviewed they are all the result of painstaking research, are carefully edited and assessed and are increasingly cited in scholarly publications. The bilateral relationship is, however, much more than official and commercial. The images conveyed by the media have always been important factors in molding public perceptions. So we have also included in our volumes portraits of a wide spectrum of journalists and writers. Scholars have done much to promote knowledge of Japanese culture in Britain and British culture in Japan. Rightly, therefore, every volume has included portraits of British scholars of Japan and of Japanese scholars who have studied in Britain. Sport plays an important role in life today. Britain can be proud of the fact that so many sports were introduced to Japan from Britain, including rugby! Accordingly, due attention has been paid to sporting relations. The cultural relationship is, of course, central to mutual understanding and friendship. So British interest in things Japanese and Japanese interest in British culture, as well as exchanges in various arts, have featured prominently in all our volumes. Although Christian missionaries from Britain had only modest success in Japan they were a significant factor in the British presence there up to the outbreak of World War II and have featured in almost every volume in this series. As I have noted in previous volumes, to avoid unnecessary duplication we have in principle not included portraits or accounts of events or themes, which have been the subject of generally available monographs. For a similar reason, we have also avoided portraits of people who have written detailed personal accounts of their lives. Furthermore, we have, with very few exceptions, not carried portraits of living people – first, because they may have more to contribute and second, in respect to our endeavour to maintain objectivity. We have tried to be even-handed between British and Japanese contributors, subjects and themes. In reviewing the whole archive I realize, however, that there are more contributions, particularly in this current volume, focusing on British people than on Japanese. In part, this is the result of both geography and history. Particularly in the late nineteenth and in the first half of the twentieth century Japan, for political and economic reasons, had a particular relevance and fascination in British eyes. Britain had been important for Japan especially in the same period, but Japan had also cultivated close relations with other European countries and cultures. Germany, France and Russia, for various reasons, were significant for Japan. The Netherlands were xvi

INTRODUCTION

involved with Japan over many centuries. Portuguese and Spanish connections date back to the sixteenth century. We can, I think, be justifiably proud of what has been covered in our volumes, but of course we have not and could not hope to cover comprehensively all aspects of our relations especially as globalization progresses, communications become ever faster and more farreaching and the world order or balance of power changes. History never ends, of course, and thus it is more difficult to research and write about recent times. Relevant documents may not be accessible and there may be political and personal sensitivities, which must be taken into account. I would like in particular to have been able to include more contributions on aspects of trade, investment and cultural exchanges, but I could not find the authors qualified to do so. I hope that this volume will not be the last of its kind devoted to people and themes in Anglo-Japanese relations. With this in mind I conclude with a note summarizing some of the themes which will, I hope, in due course be covered either by chapters in future volumes or in separate studies. …

Volume X is the largest volume to date and contains sixty-nine contributions covering a very wide spectrum. Hitherto, the series has dealt almost entirely with personalities and themes from the second half of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century especially, although not deliberately, on the Meiji era in Japanese history. We have not forgotten the first encounters between Britain and Japan, which began with the arrival of William Adams, the English pilot of the Dutch ship De Liefde, which foundered on the coast of Kyushu in 1600 and ended with the closure of the British ‘factory’ in Hirado in 1623. But Adams has been the subject of many monographs and the activities and failings of the first British merchants have been much analysed. There was little direct contact between Britain and Japan in the years between the closure of the factory and the arrival of Admiral Stirling in Nagasaki in 1853. But there were some attempts to probe Japanese exclusion policies. Two such attempts during the Napoleonic wars are the subjects of the first two essays in Part I under the general theme of ‘Britain in Japan’. Both are by Professor Timon Screech. HMS Phaeton under the command of Fleetwood Pellew who later became an admiral in the Royal Navy, entered Nagasaki bay in October 1808 where it spent two days and took on supplies. Holland was at that time occupied by the forces of Napoleon and the Dutch were accordingly regarded as enemies by British forces. The visit to xvii

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Nagasaki was not an act of war or an effort to open Japan to British trade but it had serious repercussions, which Timon Screech assesses. The second chapter describes the failure of efforts by Sir Stamford Raffles to open trading relations with Japan by sending missions to Nagasaki in 1813 and 1814. The first voyage carried presents for the shogun including an elephant. The head of the Dutch trading post in Nagasaki worked effectively to sabotage British efforts and incite the bakufu to ever more stringent measures against Western attempts to open trade which would undermine the Dutch monopoly. It was not until the treaties of commerce, concluded in 1858, came into force in 1859 that British traders could begin to operate in a limited number of Japanese ports. Anti-foreign feeling was so strong in Japan that conflict could not be avoided. Western shipping in the Shimonseki straits came under fire and Western forces were sent to prevent further attacks. In the landings made in 1863 at Shimonoseki British troops encountered fierce Japanese resistance. The bravery of members of the British landing party led to the award of three Victoria Crosses. One of these awards was made to midshipman Boyes. This incident is described by Ian Ruxton in ‘Victoria Crosses Awarded for Valour in Japan’ (Ch.3). Travel to and in Japan remained difficult for some time, but this did not put off intrepid ladies such as Isabella Bird. But she was not the first woman traveller to visit Japan. Marianne North, artist and naturalist who visited Japan in 1877, was one of the first women tourists to get to Kyoto. Her journey from Osaka to Kyoto and back by river boat and jinrikisha described by Tadashi Karato and I contrasts with the few minutes for the same journey now taken by the Shinkansen. Mike Galbraith, who is an expert not only on British influences on sport in Japan but also on life in Yokohama in the late nineteenth century, has contributed four pieces which depict some of the more interesting British characters of the era. W.H. Smith first arrived in Japan as the Royal Marines officer in charge of the British legation guard. When he left the service he stayed on in Japan and had a wide variety of occupations. He became known as ‘public spirited Smith’ and achieved notoriety, which attracted satirical cartoons by Wirgman in Japan Punch. Alan Owston helped to introduce yachting as a recreation into Japan, but his greatest claim to fame was as a naturalist. Many species were named after him. Edgar Abbot was an athlete and a businessman. For many years, he held the record in Japan for running the hundred yards in the fastest time, but he is perhaps best remembered as a brewer who established what became the Kirin Corporation, one of Japan’s leading brewing companies. The series does not normally xviii

INTRODUCTION

cover buildings, but No. 48 Yokohama deserves to be remembered not only for those who lived and worked there but also as the birth-place of the YC&AC, the sporting club beloved by so many expatriates in Yokohama. T.B. Blow, the subject of a study by Ian Chrystie, was an apiarist, antiquarian and pioneer motorist who lived in Kyoto in the late Meiji period. Chrystie records a fascinating journey made by Blow from Kyoto to Karuizawa in conditions which may seem incredible to readers today. A letter, which Blow wrote to Motoring Illustrated in November 1907, gives an astonishing picture of motoring in Japan in those days.i …

The first chapter in a section under the heading Writers and Broadcasters is a portrait of E.H. Pickering, whom Peter O’Connor describes as ‘ a convinced but unconvincing apologist’ for Japan in the 1930s. His book Japan’s Place in the Modern World (1936) was ‘the product of a limited, self-referential circle of opinion’. He ‘felt assured that Japanese militarism was on the wane in 1934–35’. Dorothy Britton (Lady Bouchier) who died in 2015 (cowritten by myself and Paul Norbury) was born in Japan. She was a writer, poet and composer who was at home in both cultures and was beloved by all who knew her.ii The BBC Japan Service, sadly, could not be sustained. In the years in which it operated and attracted a devoted following in Japan it had two outstanding directors. The first was Trevor Leggett whose career and devotion to Judo were described in volume IV in this series and John Newman who is portrayed here by Ian Ruxton and others who knew him in the BBC, in Judo and as a teacher in Japan. The last figure in this section is Peter Martin, whose long associations with Japan are described by his former colleague Mike Barrett. Peter Martin had the good fortune to live and work in Kyoto which he came to love. He went on to head the British Council in Tokyo. But his metier was writing rather than administration. He wrote much about Japan, but it was in his detective novels set in Japan that he was most successful in conveying to English readers the essence of the Japan which he had come to appreciate during his many years there. The next three chapters by Hamish Ion describe the lives and work of British protestant missionaries in Japan. Charles Frederick Warren was an evangelist who spent most of his working life in Osaka. Like most missionaries he studied the Japanese language and used his knowledge to further his missionary purpose. His two sons followed in his footsteps. Barclay Fowell Buxton spent many years in Matsue xix

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

and concentrated on training young Japanese in evangelism. He established on Matsue’s Red Mountain a training centre for young Japanese wishing to becomeevangelists. The Hutchinsons, father and son, were missionaries in Kyushu. The elder Hutchinson arrived in Nagasaki in 1882, moving to Fukuoka in 1885. He and his son were among the few foreign protestant missionaries active in Kyushu before the war. …

The next section covers four British politicians who were influential in guiding British policy towards Japan between the end of the Edo period and the beginning of the Pacific War. Lord Derby served as foreign secretary twice in Conservative party governments from 1866 to 1868 and again from 1874 to 1878. On the first occasion he was a member of the House of Commons with the courtesy title of Lord Stanley. He is portrayed in this volume by Robert Morton and Andrew Cobbing. His first period in office coincided with the end of the Tokugawa bakufu and the Meiji Restoration. In the civil war, which ensued, he tried to maintain a neutral stance. The dominating Sir Harry Parkes was British minister in Japan during both of his periods in office. Lord Kimberley, the subject of a portrait by T.G. Otte, was foreign secretary from March 1894 until the collapse of the Earl of Rosebery’s government in June 1895. He has been largely forgotten but as Otte points out his brief spell at the Foreign Office was crucial for AngloJapanese relations. The decision that Britain would not join the triple intervention in the aftermath of Sino-Japanese War of 1894/5 helped to steer relations between London and Tokyo in a new direction, ‘away from its traditional pivot of China and towards Japan’. Lord Lansdowne, the subject of T.G. Otte’s second portrait, ‘occupies a special place in the history of Anglo-Japanese relations as the Foreign Secretary on whose watch the alliance between the two countries was concluded and then reaffirmed’. Lord Lytton, who is portrayed by Antony Best, was chairman of the League of Nations Commission of Inquiry into the Manchurian crisis and its subsequent report in October 1932. ‘He made a balanced judgment of what had led to and transpired during the Manchurian crisis but his words were then manipulated by the protagonists.’ Lytton did not seek to isolate Japan but rather ‘to provide it with an incentive to return to the international community without suffering humiliation’. …

The next section covers British officials and diplomats in their dealings with Japan. The first essay by Christopher Roberts portrays three xx

INTRODUCTION

British Judges in the Consular courts in Japan. These were established under the Treaty of Commerce of 1858 and continued until 1899 when the revised treaties came into force. The first and most interesting of these legal figures was Sir Edward Hornby who was the ‘first legally-trained judge to assume responsibility for the operation of British extra-territoriality in China and Japan’ and who established the consular courts in Japan. Hornby first visited Japan in 1865 and enjoyed exploring the country. In his autobiography he records some of the earliest foreign descriptions of travel in what were then remote places. An appendix to this article records Hornby’s account of the Maria Luz case in which he managed to secure the release in Yokohama of some Chinese coolies who had been induced to accept what amounted to slavery and transported by a Peruvian ship from Macao to Peru. ‘Hornby guided Soejima [the Japanese foreign minister] through the international legal thicket surrounding the issues. The result was a major step in the emergence of Japan into the international legal arena as an equal with Western countries.’ The officials discussed in chapters 22 to 27 were all members of the consular service who served in Japan or territory controlled by Japan. Members of the Japan Consular Service had to achieve a high level of competence in the Japanese language and provided linguistic and cultural expertise to the legation/embassy. They made a significant contribution to Anglo-Japanese understanding in the years between the Meiji Restoration and the Pacific War, which should not be forgotten. John Carey Hall, portrayed by J.E. Hoare, ‘was particularly attached to Kobe, but ended his career as Consul General in Yokohama’. He also served in Korea and did ‘important legal work’. Sir Colin Davidson, depicted by Ayako Hotta-Lister, had ‘exceptional language and social skills’. He was attached to the military in the take-over of Tsingtao from the Germans at the beginning of the First World War in 1914. Later, as vice-consul in Yokohama, he kept an eye on Indian revolutionaries. He was a member of the staff accompanying the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) on his visit to Japan in 1921. John Frederick Lowder, portrayed by J.E. Hoare, was one of the first student interpreters. He was called to the bar, acted as legal counsel and was employed by the Japanese government as an adviser to the ministry of finance. Sir Edward Crowe, also portrayed by J.E. Hoare, emerges as a forgotten star of the Japan service, was a diligent and efficient officer who specialized in commercial work and eventually became permanent secretary to the board of overseas trade in London. Oswald White, depicted by Hugo Read, was John Carey Hall’s son-in-law. He spent thirty-eight years in the Japan consular serxxi

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

vice, serving in a variety of posts in Japan, Manchuria and Korea. He was a modest but efficient and conscientious officer. In Osaka as consul-general he worked hard to protect and promote British commercial interests. His final posting as consul-general in Tientsin from 1939–41 was particularly fraught. His handling of the local Japanese authorities justly earned him official commendation. In his account of the problems faced by three British consuls in Manchuria I931/32 Ian Nish writes about Esler Dening, Robert Scott and George Moss. Esler Dening and Robert Scott have been the subjects of biographical portraits in earlier volumesiii- Dening by Roger Buckley in Britain and Japan 1859–1991: Themes and Personalities and Sir Robert Scott by Peter Lowe in volume VII of this series. Here they are described in posts before they rose to the top of the service. Manchuria was a difficult place for British representatives as Britain did not officially recognize the Japanese puppet state. The last three chapters in this section portray ambassadors who were still alive or too recent to be included in British Envoys in Japan, 1859 to 1972, but whose contributions to Anglo-Japanese relations deserve to be remembered. The first of these was Sir Fred Warner, described by Robert Cooper. Warner who was ambassador from 1972–75 was a colourful personality who was determined to enjoy his posting to Japan where he had not served before. The highlight of his time in Japan was the state visit of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in 1975. Sir Michael Wilford, portrayed by David Warren, succeeded Fred Warner. Michael Wilford who had studied mechanical sciences was born in New Zealand. He had served in China but like Fred Warner was not a Japan specialist. His time as ambassador was overshadowed by trade friction but he tackled the problems with energy and enthusiasm to improve mutual understanding. Sir John Whitehead, described by me, had spent much of his diplomatic service life in Japan. He brought experience, dedication and zeal into his efforts to find solutions to the trade and investment issues, which were the key features of his years as ambassador, but he did not neglect the important cultural aspects of our relations. Basil Hall Chamberlain, an outstanding scholar of Japanese and the first of the scholars discussed in the next section, has been the subject of many studies. In this volume Joseph Cronin focuses on Chamberlain’s hostility towards State Shinto and the cult of Bushido, which he came to regard as ‘The Invention of a New Religion’. His description in the last edition of his famous book Things Japanese so aroused the ire of the Japanese militarists that they excised the article from copies sold in Japan. W.J. Shand and H.J. Weintz, described by Noboru Koyama, foresaw the likely demand for knowledge of the Japanese language xxii

INTRODUCTION

and produced in 1907 their Japanese Self-Taught & Grammar. It is not used today but was a brave effort. Douglas Mills, introduced by Richard Bowring, and John McEwan, portrayed by Peter Kornicki, were both learned Japanese scholars at Cambridge who produced academic work of a high standard. The following section is devoted to Business, Trade and Investment and for the most part deals with issues, companies and individuals active in the later years of the twentieth century. Japanese manufacturing investments in Britain and in R&D in Britain have been a very important element in our relations over recent decades. Especially in the final decades of the twentieth century they have had a significant role not only in mitigating trade and economic friction between our two countries but also in reinvigorating and modernizing British manufacturing. I would like to have included many more examples if only I could have found contributors with the knowledge and time to write about the experience of their companies’ investment in Britain. Having said that, the five accounts that appear here represent a fairly wide range of products. …

I noted elsewhere that I wanted to include more about Anglo-Japanese trade relations. We have managed to include in this volume a double contribution, which shows that as in the case of selling electronics equipment to the Japanese it is possible to ‘sell coal to Newcastle’. Another contribution, which begins by mentioning sheep on the ambassador’s lawn in Tokyo, confirms that the diplomatic service does all it can to support British exports and belies its populist and outdated image. The first essay by Antony Best discusses Charles and George Sale who were active in business with Japan but were also involved in politics. In the years leading up to the Pacific War they did their best to stem the deterioration in relations between Britain and Japan. Chris MacDonald, portrayed by Yuuichiro Nakajima, spent most of his working life in Japan and became a pillar of the British business community in Tokyo. He was a devotee of football, an advocate of good causes and active in the Japan-British Society in Tokyo. The next four chapters cover five representative Japanese companies with manufacturing or R&D investment in Britain. The first tells the story of the investment by N.S.K, the leading Japanese ball-bearing manufacturer at Peterlee, Co. Durham, as seen through the eyes of members of the staff of the company. I had originally sought an account from one of the company’s first managers in xxiii

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Britain, Sukeyoshi Yamamoto, who sadly died before he had managed to do more than outline the story. The account given here is an interesting contribution to British industrial history. It also contains some informative lessons for British officials and members of trades unions in dealing with Japanese companies wanting to invest here. Clive Bradley in his account of Sharp Corporation’s investment in their facilities at Oxford points out that the establishment of research facilities followed from Sharp’s manufacturing investment. Bradley notes that Sharp ensured that the research undertaken, ‘albeit mostly for the long term, was identifiable with future products’. One of the first companies to invest in Scotland was Mitsubishi Electric. Their experiences are recounted by Yoshio Noguchi who spent over ten years with the company in Scotland and who since his retirement has continued to live in Britain. Alps Electric, whose story is told by Peter Woodland, began manufacturing television tuners in Britain in 1985 and opened its factory near Milton Keynes in 1986. As market conditions changed Alps had to end their manufacturing of tuners in the UK in 2009 but Woodland who had been business planning manager before being appointed managing director saw new opportunities in photonics and ‘…named after its two main founders, Woodland and Christmas, Two Trees Photonics Ltd was founded in November 2009 and started operations in January 2010, just days after the closure of Alps UK’. Chugai Pharmaceutical Company, whose investment in Britain is described by Martin Edelshain, first opened an office in London in 1986. It has since developed its range of products and has worked hard to introduce Chugai, its technologies and products in Britain. The next two articles cover important elements in British efforts to increase exports to Japan. The first in a two-part contribution, Selling Electronics to the Japanese by Ivor Cohen and Peter Bacon, underlines the efforts made by British export promoters to stimulate British companies to tackle the Japanese market even in goods which Japanese firms seemed to dominate. Peter Ackroyd in ‘Wool in Japan: A very British Story’ writes about a traditional British product which faced stiff Japanese competition, but which kept its position in the Japanese market by maintaining high quality and brand image and looking after its Japanese customers and contacts. The British Chamber of Commerce (Japan), described by Ian de Stains its former director, has given valuable support to British firms in Japan. Through close cooperation with the commercial department of the British embassy, it has in recent decades materially assisted British efforts to penetrate the Japanese market.

xxiv

INTRODUCTION

In commercial and financial arrangements and contracts British firms have frequently required legal advice. For his account of English Lawyers and Japan Tony Grundy has drawn on his own experience, and that of colleagues in the legal profession, of working in Tokyo. It took many years and much effort to break down Japanese reluctance to admit foreign lawyers to operate in Japan. The last item in this section is Paul Madden’s account of the British Pavilion at Aichi Expo 2005. The Aichi Expo took place thirty-five years after Expo ’70 in Osaka was described by John Pilcher in volume IX in this series …

The cultural aspects of our relations with Japan have remained important. Despite efforts by the Japanese ministry of education to persuade Japanese universities to move away from studying the humanities and concentrate on the more practical elements in education, British readers with literary interests will be encouraged by Haruno Kayama’s account of the popularity today of Victorian Novelists in Japan: Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Charlotte and Emily Bronte. Japan has a long and distinguished history in the making of pottery and porcelain. Readers may accordingly be surprised to discover from Mary Redfern’s piece on Minton for the Meiji Emperor that a full dinner service made by the prestigious Minton factory was ordered for the Emperor’s table and used when the British Royal Princes visited Japan on HMS Bacchante in 1881. Mutual understanding between Britain and Japan has greatly benefitted from British participation, in significant numbers, in the Japan English Teachers (JET) programme and before this was inaugurated through what was called the Wolfers Scheme. The teachers got to know and began to understand Japan and a number stayed on. Japanese who studied under their guidance were able to improve their English and to learn about Britain. Graham Healey and Nicolas Maclean describe the arrangements and review their impact. …

The rest of this volume is devoted to ‘Japan in Britain’. The first three chapters portray Japanese diplomats who were posted to London. Fujiyama Naraichi who ended his career as ambassador to the Court of St James’s, was in Washington at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and then served in Germany until the end of the Nazi regime. His life during this period is

xxv

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

described in this volume by Eiji Seki, a historian and former Japanese ambassador to Hungary. Chiba Kazuo, whose personality and achievements I have tried to depict, was one of the ablest Japanese diplomats appointed to London. He had an outstanding command of the language and did all he could while in Britain to promote understanding of Japan and its policies. An important feature of Japanese diplomatic training has been the dispatch of new entrants to study at foreign universities. British universities have been chosen for some of the ablest as Sadaaki Numata, who was Japanese ambassador to Canada, describes in his account of Young Japanese Diplomats Sent to Study at British Universities. …

We have not included in these volumes as many Japanese businessmen and financiers as I would have liked. In this volume I have portrayed two influential Japanese friends of Britain whom I got to know well. I first met Saba Sho¯ichi when I was British ambassador in Tokyo in the early 1980s. He was then president of Toshiba Corporation. In due course he became a friend of former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath and chairman of the Japan committee for the 1991 Japan Festival in the United Kingdom. Ogata Shijuro¯ served in London for the Bank of Japan and eventually became deputy president and director for international affairs. He was a shrewd observer and articulate friend of Britain. The Japan Chamber of Commerce in London, described by Patrick Macartney, has played an important role in the development of trading relations between Britain and Japan and in the expansion of Japanese manufacturing investment in Britain. …

The next section depicts five Japanese scholars who studied in Britain and whose experience here was a significant factor in their development and their contribution to Japanese scholarship. Yasui Tetsu, portrayed by Hiroko Tomida, was a pioneer of women’s higher education in Japan, and her example is ‘still an inspiration to former and present staff and students of the Tokyo Women’s Christian University’. Tanaka Hozumi, described by Norimasa Morita, ‘is now best remembered as a great educationalist and responsible university administrator, who made a huge contribution to the modernization

xxvi

INTRODUCTION

of Waseda University and at the same time steered it through the most difficult time in its history until almost the end of WWII’. Hagihara Nobutoshi, the subject of a portrait by Gordon Daniels, studied at Oxford and ‘did much to strengthen and deepen British engagement with Japan and its culture’. Nakaya Ukichiro, whose life is described by Jenny White, was a snow scientist specializing in glaciology and low-temperature sciences who studied at King’s College, London in 1928/9. ‘He retained a passionate interest in art, culture and humanity all his life and his research was motivated by a desire to help people understand the natural world around us and live more efficiently and wisely.’ Takakusu Junjiro¯, whose achievements are recounted by Iwagami Kazunori and Paride Stortin, was a Buddhist idealist and scholar who played an influential role in Japanese academia, education and religion. ‘His studies at Oxford and his travels and general experiences in Europe were all fundamental to his achievements.’ …

The first chapter in the final section begins with an account by Normasa Morita of Ito¯ Michio, Japanese dancer and producer. While he was in England Ito¯ Michio became a regular member of Lady Ottoline Morrell’s group of art and literature enthusiasts and became acquainted among others with W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound. Although his forte was popular dance forms he performed a No¯ style dance, which Yeats saw and having in mind Ito¯ playing the role of the Hawk, the Guardian of the Well, came to write At the Hawk’s Well, a poetic dance play. One Japanese art, which has attracted many enthusiastic devotees in Britain, is that of Bonsai whose history in this country is recounted by Colin Ellis, a leading member of the RHS. The first bonsai imported from Japan reached England in 1872. Especially in recent years the cultivation of bonsai has grown in popularity and there are now thousands of British enthusiasts, over fifty bonsai clubs and some fifty-six bonsai traders in this country. The Royal Academy of Arts has played a key role in promoting knowledge and understanding of Japanese art in Britain, as Mayu Kamide explains in her history of the Academy’s ‘140 years of Exhibitions, Education and Debate’. The Academy ‘has managed to display some of the finest examples of Japanese art in the UK – from the Edo period through to the cyber age’. The RA has also ‘left its mark on Japanese artists who have studied at the Schools, as well as through participation in the RA’s diverse range of exhibitions’. Japanese design and crafts have had a significant influence on British design as Libby Horner explains in her article on Mackintosh xxvii

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

and the Glasgow Style. Charles Rennie Mackintosh is greatly popular in Japan but it is a pity in her view that ‘his is the only name, which appears to have survived from such a period of fruitful and inventive design significantly influenced by elements from Japan’. The close association of Bernard Leach with Japanese potters in the Mingei (lit. folk craft) movement is well documented and there are many monographs in English on such famous Japanese potterso¯ as Hamada Sho¯ji and Tomimoto Kenkichi with whom Leach worked closely. Shimaoka Tatsuzo¯, who had his kiln next door to that of Hamada in Mashiko, was a frequent visitor to Britain as I relate in my portrait of him. Shimaoka became a Japanese ‘living national treasure’ whose pots are enjoyed by many people in Britain. A collection of his pots is on display at the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Japanese art became hugely popular in Britain in the late nineteenth century and Japanese art dealers established sales outlets in London. Two such dealers were Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯ and Tomita Kumasaku whose activities in Britain are recounted by Noboru Koyama. Among the Japanese art objects, which became very popular in Europe were Netsuke and Inro. Collectors of these exquisite small artifacts from Japan are described by Rosemary Bandini. The Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC) was established on the initiative of and with the financial backing of Sir Robert and Lisa Lady Sainsbury, portrayed in this volume by Nicole Rousmaniere. SISJAC, through its art research programmes, has helped to fill a significant gap in Japanese studies in Britain. The volume concludes with a review of the history and achievements of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group by Marie ConteHelm. The group has brought together leading personalities in politics, business, the media and academia from both countries to debate topical issues of concern to our two peoples. It has made a series of recommendations to the two prime ministers on ways to improve cooperation. Note on subjects for further study TRADE RELATIONS

Aspects of Anglo-Japanese trade relations, which should be the subject of further study, include the so-called Voluntary Restraint Arrangements (VRAs). Other subjects deserving attention are allegations of Japanese copying of British designs, patent issues and charges of dumping by Japanese companies.

xxviii

INTRODUCTION

JAPANESE INVESTMENT IN THE UK

Japanese manufacturing investment in Britain, which has been so significant for the British economy and Anglo-Japanese relations, has not been covered as fully as I would have liked. Volume VI included an account of how the investment from Nissan, which has had such an impact on the economy of the northeast of England, was arranged. This volume also contained portraits of significant Japanese figures who contributed so much to Japanese decisions to invest in Britain, such as Honda So¯ichiro¯ of Honda, Morita Akio of Sony and Toyoda Sho¯ ichiro¯ of Toyota. Volume X contains studies of significant Japanese manufacturing investments in Britain including that by NSK at Peterlee and Mitsubishi Electric in Scotland, but there are many more Japanese manufacturing investments, which deserve to be recognized and recorded. R&D

Britain has had a significant role in Japanese R&D. This volume contains a study of Sharp’s research laboratories near Oxford. There are other important Japanese R&D facilities in Britain in both the electronic and pharmaceutical industries, which merit attention. IN THE CITY OF LONDON

Japanese banks and securities companies developed a significant presence in London during the Japanese boom years and although their influence and presence declined in line with the bursting of the bubble they still have an important place in the city and should be covered. The roles played by the Ministry of Finance and by the Bank of Japan in London deserve further study. BRITISH INVESTMENT IN JAPAN

So far we have had no study of British investments in Japan. These are very important for British trade and the absence of any such studies from these volumes is a sad lacuna. ATOMIC ENERGY

Atomic energy after the Fukushima disaster is not a popular topic, but Britain had an important role in pioneering the development of Japanese nuclear reactors by investment at Tokai-mura. We have not hitherto covered this aspect of our relations

xxix

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

JAPANESE CULTURE IN BRITAIN

A study of Japanese bonsai in Britain is included in this volume, but there are many other aspects of Japanese culture such as Cha-no-yu and Ikebana, which deserved to be covered. Japanese popular culture such as manga and anime are attracting young British people to study Japanese and are having a real impact on British cultural life. We should also not forget about Japanese cuisine which has gained huge popularity in the last decade or two. Japanese restaurants in London include some of the most expensive, but there are others which cater for less expensive tastes and belong to popular chains. An essay reviewing the development of Japanese food in Britain is overdue. Japanese fashion houses are well represented in London and some Japanese brands are household names. Japanese fashion is an important trend-setter and an element of Japanese soft power. MUSIC

Anyone, who has lived through the seventy years since the end of the Second World War, must be struck by the development of musicmaking and ballet in Japan. Japanese conductors, orchestras, soloists and ballet dancers are now among the world’s top performers and are frequent visitors to London and other British cities. They have been encouraged and stimulated by visits to Japan by British companies such as the Royal Opera, Sadlers Wells, the LPO, the LSO and in theatre the Royal Shakespeare Company. We need contributors on these aspects of our relations.

ENDNOTES i

T. B. Blow wrote from Kyoto in 1907 as follows: Your journal, which I read weekly with great interest, I see contains today (September 21st) two items about Japan – one that the Emperor has ordered Dunlop tires and spares, and the other that the Japanese, being a progressive race, there ought to be an opening for motorcars. I presume you have not visited this country, or, at least, never motored in it. It is a most delightful place, everywhere wonderful scenery and most courteous people, who are ever ready to help you get your car out of a muddy rice-field or a ditch when the bridge has given way, but when you look at the roads, or the railroads for that, then your idea that they are a progressive race vanishes.

xxx

INTRODUCTION

There is not a road worthy of the name in the country – when a heavy rain, followed by a flood, comes, they vanish, and the railroads stop too. In this city of 350,000 I have heard there are other cars besides mine, but I have never seen one running. I brought a 7–8-h. p. two-cylinder Swift out with me, hoping to be able to explore all Japan on it, but though I get great employment almost every fine day out of it, and it has done what many cars do not, that is, it has never failed to bring me home yet, extended touring is out of the question, as there is nowhere over 100 miles that one can go without finding bridges down, which take months to replace, and some of the larger rivers have never been bridged at all, and the craft at the ferries are not at all suitable for conveying motor-cars across. Now if the Royalty here take up motoring we shall soon have good roads and bridges, and with these this country would be an ideal one for touring, though no pace could ever be made, as the roads are lined with villages, and vast numbers of children disport themselves. Fowls and dogs, too, are very numerous, and it is quite impossible to avoid very often killing the fowls, but this is of little consequence for you at once pull up and buy the fowl, and it serves you for your dinner later - price ranging from Is. to 2s. Petrol is not dear here, but only obtainable in very large cities. It is called gasoline, and sometimes one has to fall back upon another compound called mineral turps, which soots everything up very quickly. Here I have to do every repair myself, and to charge my accumulators from primary batteries. It is quite different to going around in England, where every few miles you find efficient repairers and supplies of all sorts. Still, it is a great pleasure when one’s friends come from the old country to give them a run up the old Tokaido Road (which is equivalent to our Great North Road, on which I live when in England), which, though narrow and winding, is possible to traverse at from 10 to 12 miles an hour without much danger. Were the roads good here it would be quite easy to beat the trains, for they are the slowest in the world, and they have got much worse since they became a Government monopoly. Smokers here say the same of the tobacco since it has passed into the Government’s hands. Instantly any large industry shows great profits, then the Government swoops down upon it and makes it a monopoly. The Customs is a great monopoly institution, where they charge you a duty of 50 per cent. on your motor-car, and value it themselves if they choose! ii

iii

See her autobiography, Rhythms, Rites and Rituals: My Life in Japan in Two-step and Waltz-time, Folkestone, Renaissance Books, 2015 ‘In Proper Perspective: Sir Ester Derning (1897–1977) and Anglo-Japanese Relations’ by Roger Buckley in Britain and Japan 1859–1991: Themes and Personalities, London, Routledge, 1991, and ‘Sir Robert Heatlie Scott and Japan’ by Peter Lowe in Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VII. Folkestone, Global Oriental, 2010

xxxi

List of Contributors Ackroyd, Peter MBE, DCL, President of the International Wool Textile Organisation. Bacon, Peter, MBE for services to export, 1998 Bandini, Rosemary, Dealer in Japanese Works of Art, European Representative of International Netsuke Society Barrett, Mike OBE, Director, British Council, Japan 1993–99 Best, Antony, Dr, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, London School of Economics (LSE) Bowring, Richard, Professor Emeritus, Japanese Studies, University of Cambridge Bradley, Clive, Dr, Managing Director, Sharp Laboratories of Europe 1990–2000 and Counsellor Science and Technology, British Embassy, Tokyo, 1982–1988 Chrystie, Ian, TD, PhD, Retired Electron-microscopist and Virologist. Currently editor of Shakkei, the quarterly journal of the Japanese Garden Society. Cohen, Sir Ivor, CBE, Chairman JEBA 1991–2002 and Managing Director Mullard 1979–87. Adviser to Mitsubishi Electric Europe 1991–2003 Cobbing, Andrew, Dr, Associate Professor in Japanese History, University of Nottingham Conte-Helm, Marie, OBE, Professor, Executive Director UK-Japan 21st Century Group Cooper, Sir Robert, KCMG, MVO, Special Adviser to the European Commission Cortazzi, Sir Hugh, GCMG, British ambassador to Japan, 1980–84 Cronin, Joseph, independent researcher Daniels, Gordon, Dr, formerly Reader in Japanese History, University of Sheffield de Stains, Ian, OBE, freelance writer, former BBC producerpresenter and executive Director of the BCCJ from 1987 to 2011 Edelshain, Martin, adviser to Chugai Pharmaceutical and board member of its US subsidiary, formerly with S.G. Warburg & Co in Tokyo and director of international strategy at Chugai

xxxiii

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Ellis, Colin, VMH (Victoria Medal of Honour in Horticulture), FLS (Fellow of the Linnean Society of London) Chairman of Bonsai Kai Galbraith, Mike, President of Interworld Ltd, historian and writer covering Meiji Japan Goddard, Gill, formerly East Asian Studies Librarian, University of Sheffield Grundy, Tony, Senior of Counsel-Mori Hamada & Matsumoto (Singapore) LLP Healey, Graham, formerly senior lecturer in Japanese Studies, University of Sheffield Hoare, J.E., Dr, former diplomat and research analyst at FCO, served in Seoul, Beijing and Pyongyang Horner, Libby, Art historian, curator, lecturer and film producer Hotta-Lister, Ayako, Dr, Historian specializing in aspects of AngloJapanese relations Ion, Hamish, Dr, Professor of History, Royal Military College of Canada Iwagami Kazunori, PhD, Professor of Musashino University, Tokyo, specializing in both Indian and Japanese Buddhism Kamide, Mayu, documentary producer and researcher Karato, Tadashi, writer, former managing-director of Shimizu, Europe Kayama, Haruno, Associate Professor of English Literature at Atomi University, Tokyo Kornicki, Peter, FBA, Professor, formerly professor of Japanese at Cambridge University Koyama, Noboru, Head of Japanese Department, Cambridge University Library Macartney, Patrick, Manager, Research and Public Relations, Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the UK Maclean, Nicolas, CMG, businessman, former banker, co-chairman of Japan400 Madden, Paul, CMG, former British High Commissioner to Australia Morita, Norimasu, Professor, Waseda University, Tokyo Morton, Robert, Professor, Chuo University Nakajima, Yuuichiro, Japanese businessman Nish, Ian, CBE, Emeritus Professor of International History, LSE Noguchi, Yoshio, former managing director Mitsubishi Electric (UK) Norbury, Paul, publisher, formerly of Japan Library, Global Oriental and Brill; currently Renaissance Books Numata, Sadaaki, former Japanese ambassador to Canada and Minister in London xxxiv

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

O’Connor, Peter, Professor, specializes in media history of East and South-East Asia and teaches history, journalism, propaganda and comedy at Musashino and other universities in Tokyo Otte, T.G., Professor of Diplomatic History, University of East Anglia (UEA) Parekh, Dharini, Indian potter Read, Hugo, MSc Dip WSET Redfern, Mary, Curator of the East Asian Collections, Chester Beatty Library Roberts, Christopher K., PhD, a solicitor who formerly practised in Japan and now researches and writes on Britons and the Treaty Ports. Rousmaniere, Nicole, Professor, IFAC Handa Curator in Japanese Arts, Professor of Japanese Art and Culture (UEA) and Research Director, Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures Ruxton, Ian, Professor at Kyushu Institute of Technology researching Sir Ernest Satow Screech, Timon, Professor of the History of Art at SOAS, University of London, author of books in Japanese and English on the cultural history of the Edo Period Seki, Eiji, former Japanese ambassador and historian Stortini Paride, doctoral student in the History of Religions at the University of Chicago Tomida, Hiroko, Dr, lecturer at Waseda University and former lecturer at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, author of Hiratsuka Raicho and Early Japanese Feminism Warren, Sir David, KCMG, Chairman of the Japan Society and former British ambassador to Japan White, Jenny, Head of Visual Arts Programme at the British Council. Previously, she initiated arts projects in Japan, Thailand and Cuba. Woodland, Peter, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Two Trees Photonics Limited

xxxv

Index of Biographical Portraits and Memoirs in Japan Society Volumes ABBREVIATIONS Britain & Japan, 1859-1991: Themes and Personalities, Routledge, 1991 Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits Volume I, Japan Library, 1994 Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume II, Japan Library, 1997 Britain &Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume III, Japan Library, 1999 Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume IV, Japan Library, 2002 Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume V, Global Oriental, 2005 Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume VI, Global Oriental, 2007 Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume VII. Global Oriental, 2010 Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume VIII, Global Oriental, 2013 Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume IX, Renaissance Books 2015 Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume X, Renaissance Books 2016 British Envoys in Japan, 1859-1972 Global Oriental, 2004 Japanese Envoys in Britain, 1862-1964 Global Oriental, 2007 Japan Experiences: Fifty Years, One Hundred Views. Post-War Japan Through British Eyes Japan Library, 2001 SUBJECT

AUTHOR

Abbott, Edgar Abraham, Captain H.J. RN Adams, Sir Francis Ottiwell Alcock, Sir Rutherford Allen, G.C. Allen, Louis

Mike Galbraith Hugh Cortazzi Hugh Cortazzi Sarah Metzger-Court Phillida Purvis xxxvii

T&P I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X B.ENV J.ENV EXP TITLE(S)

X EXP VII II and B.ENV T&P V and EXP

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Alps Electric Anderson, William Anzai Tetsuo Aoki Shu¯ zo¯ Architecture, Changing Perceptions of Japanese Ariyoshi Yoshiya Armstrong Vickers Arnold, Sir Edwin Asakai Koichiro Ashton-Gwatkin, Frank Aso Kazuko Aston, W.G. Atkinson, Robert William Ayrton, Professor W.E.

Peter Woodland James Rawlins Peter Milward Ian Nish Anna Basham

Baba Tatsui Baker, Kathleen Drew

Helen Ballhatchet John Baker and Frances Biggs

Baker, Kenneth Baker-Bates, Merrick Balfour, Arthur Barr, Dugald Barrett, Mike Barrington, Sir Nicholas Batchelor, John Bates, Paul Bates, Peter Baty, Dr Thomas Beasley, William Beatles in Japan, The, Dudley Cheke (Gordon Daniels, Robert Whitaker) Berie, Sir Francis Bethell, Ernest Thomas Bevin, Ernest Bickersteth, Bishop Edward (with Shaw, Alexander C.) Bird, Isabella Blacker, Carmen Blakiston, Thomas Wright Bland, J.O.P. Blow, Thomas Bates Blunden, Edmund Blyth, R.H. Bodley, R.V.C. Bonsai in Britain Bottrall, Ronald

xxxviii

Hugh Cortazzi Marie Conte-Helm Carmen Blacker Tomoki Kuniyoshi Ian Nish Phillida Purvis Peter Kornicki Yoshiyuki Kikuchi Ian Ruxton

Ian Nish

Hugh Cortazzi

Martin Gornall Ian Nish

Thomas Otte Chin-Sok Chong Roger Buckley Hamish Ion Pat Barr Peter Kornicki Hugh Cortazzi Antony Best Ian Chrystie Adrian Pinnington Bill Snell Colin Ellis

X V V J.ENV III VII III I IV J.ENV I (also in EXP) III T&P, B.ENV IX IV T&P VI EXP EXP IX EXP EXP EXP II EXP EXP V VII and EXP VI IX VIII IX III I VII and EXP III VII X EXP I IX X EXP

BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS AND MEMOIRS IN JAPAN SOCIETY VOLUMES

Bowes, James Lord Bownas, Geoffrey Boxer, Charles Boyd, Sir John (with Julia, Lady Boyd) Bradley, Clive Brammall, Edwin (Lord) Field Marshal Brangwyn, Frank Brinkley, Captain Francis Britain and Japan: Musical Exchanges before World War II British Bible Societies and the Translation of the Bible into Japanese in the Nineteenth Century British Chamber of Commerce (Japan) British Electronics British Export Marketing Centre and the Promotion of British Exports from 1972, The British Pavilion at Aichi Expo, 2005 British Week in Tokyo, 1969 Britten, Benjamin (Lord) Britton, Dorothy (Lady Bouchier) Britton, Frank Bronte, Charlotte and Emily Broughton, Captain Brown, Albert (in Nippon Yu¯ sen Kaisha-NYK)) Buckley, Roger Bull, George Bunting, Isaac Burton, W.K. Bush, Lewis Businessmen, Japanese, in the UK Busk, Douglas (in Memoir of Tokyo December 1941) Butler, R.A. (with Lord Hamkey) Buxton, Barclay Fowell Byas, Hugh Calthrop, Lt. Col. R.F. Campbell White, Martin Cane, Ella Du

Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere James Cummins

Libby Horner J.E. Hoare Akira Imamura

VI EXP IV EXP EXP EXP VII III IX

Hamish Ion

IX

Ian de Stains

X

Ivor Cohen and Peter Bacon Paul Dimond

X

Paul Madden Ben Thorne Jason James Dorothy Bouchier (Britton) Haruno Kayama J.E. Hoare Hiroyuki Takeno

Prue James Olive Checkland Sadao Oba

Antony Best Hamish Ion Peter O’Connor Sebastian Dobson Toni Huberman xxxix

IX

X IX VIII See also EXP EXP, X VI X III V EXP EXP VII IV EXP II VII V X VI VIII EXP IX

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Carter, Angela Casson, Sir Hugh Ceadel, Eric Chamberlain, Austen and Neville, Chamberlain, Basil Hall Chiba Kazuo Chichibu, Prince and Princess Chinda Sutemi Chino Yoshitoki and the Daiwa Foundation Cholmondeley, Lionel Berners Christ Church, Yokohama, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Churchill, Winston Clark, Kenneth (Lord) Clive, Sir Robert Close, Reginald Comfort, Ernest Commercial Treaty, Anglo-Japanese,

Roger Buckley Peter Kornicki Antony Best Richard Bowring Hugh Cortazzi Dorothy Britton Ian Nish Nick Clegg Hamish Ion Hamish Ion Martin Edelshain Eiji Seki Antony Best

J.E. Hoare Robin Gray/Sosuke Hanaoka Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery Len Harrop at Yokohama Conder, Josiah, (architect) Dallas Finn Conder, Josiah, (Japanese landscape gardening) Connors, Lesley Conroy, Timothy or Taid or Taig Peter O’Connor Consular Service, Britain’s Japan, J.E. Hoare Consular Service, British consuls in the J.E. Hoare Japanese Empire, Conyngham Greene (see Greene) Corner, John Carmen Blacker Cornes, Frederick Peter. N. Davies Cornwall Legh, Mary Helena Shigeru Nakamura Cortazzi, Sir Hugh Cousins, James David Burleigh Cox, James Melville Hugh Cortazzi Craigie, Sir Robert Antony Best Cricket in Late Edo and Meiji Japan Mike Galbraith Crowe, Sir Edward J.E. Hoare Crown Prince Akihito (in Britain) Hugh Cortazzi Crown Prince Hitohito (in Britain) (See also Showa Emperor’s state visit) Curzon, Lord

xl

VI EXP V and EXP VII T&P and X X V J.ENV VI II IX X VI EXP IV EXP VI II Appendix I (a) V T&P VIII EXP V II and B ENV VIII

V V VIII EXP VII VIII I and B.ENV IX X V

Ian Nish

II

Ian Nish

V

BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS AND MEMOIRS IN JAPAN SOCIETY VOLUMES

Daniels, Otome and Frank Davidson, Sir Colin Dean, Colonel Peter Dening, Sir Esler Dening, Walter Derby, The Fifteenth Earl of Dickens, Charles Dickins, F.V. Divers, Edward Dore, Ronald Douglas, Archibald (Naval Mission) Duckenfield, Ron Dunn, Charles J. Dyer, Henry Eden, Sir Anthony Edwardes, Arthur Eguchi Takayuki Eliot, Sir Charles Ellingworth, Dick (R.H.) Elstob, Eric Elston, Chris Emery, Fred Emmott, W. G. Empson, William Engineers, Japanese, in Britain before 1914 English Lawyers Enright, Dennis Everest, Philip Ewing, James Alfred Exhibition, Japan-British, of 1910 Expo ’70, Osaka Fakes, Neville Faulds, Henry Fenton, John William Festing, Field Marshal Sir Francis W. Figgess, Sir John Fisher, Charles Alfred Fisher, Admiral Sir John Fleming, Ian

Ron Dore Ayako Hotta-Lister Roger Buckley Hamish Ion Robert Morton/ Andrew Cobbing Haruno Kayama Peter Kornicki Yoshiyuki Kikuchi Ian Gow Koji Hoashi Hugh Cortazzi Olive Checkland Antony Best Antony Best Edna Read Neal Dennis Smith

John Haffenden Olive Checkland Tony Grundy Russell Greenwood

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Neil Pedlar Ayako Hotta-Lister John Pilcher

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Ian Nish Akira Imamura Yahya Abdelsamad Hugh Cortazzi Gordon Daniels John Chapman John Hatcher

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BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Football in nineteenth-century Japan Football (Soccer), British Links with Japanese, Football (Rugby) (see Rugby) Forrest, Gail Forrest, Captain Mike R.N. Fortune, Robert (in Early Plant Collectors in Japan) Franks, Augustus Wollaston Fraser, Duncan Fraser, G.S. Fraser, Hugh Freemasonry in Japan Freeth, Florence May Fujiyama Naraichi Fukuda Takeo

Mike Galbraith Derek Bleakley

IX VII

Amanda Herries

EXP EXP IV

Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere Eileen Fraser Hugh Cortazzi Pauline Chakmakjian Rob Freeth Eiji Seki Eiji Seki and Hugh Cortazzi Peter Milward Norio Tamaki

Fukuda Tsuneari Fukuzawa Yukichi Garden designers, Early Japanese…in Britain and Ireland Gardner, Kenneth Gascoigne, Sir Alvary Gatenby, Edward Vivian Gauntlett, G. E. L. Giffard, Sir Sydney Gintaro¯ Gold Standard, Japan’s adoption of and London Money Markets, Golf Gomersall, Lydia (Lady Gommersall) Goodwin, Charles Wycliffe Gordon, Elizabeth Anna Gorman, George Gowland, William Granville, Lord Graves, British in other parts of Japan Great Japan Exhibition, 1981-82, The Greene, Sir W. Conyngham Grey, Sir Edward Groom, Arthur Hesketh Gubbins, J. H. Guest, Harry xlii

Jill Raggett Yu-Ying Brown Peter Lowe Paul Snowden Saiko Gauntlett Peter Brunning Norio Tamaki

VI EXP V and EXP IV and B.ENV IX VII X IX V III VII VII and EXP I and B.ENV IX VI EXP VII I

(see Groom, Arthur Hesketh) EXP Christopher Roberts X Noboru Koyama VIII Deborah VIII MacFarlane Simon Kaner VI Andrew Cobbing IX Phillida Purvis Appendix II (c) V Nicolas MacLean IX Peter Lowe IV and B.ENV Ian Nish VIII Angus Lockyer VII Ian Nish II and B.ENV EXP

BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS AND MEMOIRS IN JAPAN SOCIETY VOLUMES

Hagihara Nobutoshi Haiku in the British Isles Halifax, Lord Hall, John Carey Hamilton, General Sir Ian Hand, Peter Hankey, Lord (with R.A.Butler) Hannen, Sir Nicholas John Hara Bushõ Hardy, Thomas Harmswoth, Alfred (Lord Northcliffe) Hart, Ernest Hasegawa Nyozekan Hawley, Frank Hayashi Gonsuke Hayashi Tadasu Haylock, John Healey, Denis (Lord) Hearn, Lafcadio Heaslett, Bishop Samuel Heath, Sir Edward Hendry, Joy Henry, George Hewitt, Peter Hitch, Brian Hockney, David Hodgson, Ralph Holme, Charles Honda So¯ichiro Honma Hisao Hornby, Alfred Sydney Hornby, Sir Edmund Grimani Hornel, E.A. Horse Racing Horsley, William HSBC (Pioneers in Japan 1866-1900) Hudson, Sue Huish, Marcus Humphreys, Christmas Hunter, Janet Hutchinsons, The

Gordon Daniels David Cobb Antony Best J.E. Hoare Peter Kornicki

Ichikawa Sanki Inagaki Manjiro Inoue Kaoru Inoue Masaru

Saito Yoshifumi Noboru Koyama Andrew Cobbing Yumiyo Yamamoto

Antony Best Christopher Roberts Hugh Cortazzi Haruno Kayama Peter O’Connor Noboru Koyama Ayako Hotta-Lister Manabu Yokoyama Harumi Goto-Shibata Ian Nish

Paul Murray Hamish Ion Hugh Cortazzi Ayako Ono Merrick Baker-Bates

John Hatcher Toni Huberman Hugh Cortazzi Yoko Hirata Paul Snowden Christopher Roberts Ayako Ono Roger Buckley Edwin Green Hideko Numata Carmen Blacker Hamish Ion

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Inouye Katsunosuke Ito Hirobumi (in Britain) Itoh Eikichi and Itoh Rosa Hideko Ito Michio Iwakura Tomomi

Ian Nish Andrew Cobbing Keiko Itoh Norimasa Morita Andrew Cobbing

J.ENV V III VIII X VIII

James, Grace James, John Mathews James, Mrs T.H. (Kate) James, Thomas (in Nippon Yu¯ sen Kaisha (NYK)) Japan and Ye Sette of Odd Volumes and London’s Thirteen Club in the 1890s Japan Chronicle Japan Society, History of Japan’s Lost Telescope, return of Japanese Chamber of Commerce in UK Japanese Diplomats, Young Japanese Embassy in London and its buildings Japanese Gardens and the Japanese Garden Society in the UK Jenkyn, Patrick (Lord) Jerram, Admiral Sir Martyn JET Programme Johnson, Sarah Journalists, British, in Meiji Japan Judo Pioneers

Noburu Koyama Sebastian Dobson Noburu Koyama Hiroyuki Takeno

IX VIII IX V

Kaneko, Anne Kano Hisaakira Kazuo Kikuta Kato Hiraharu Kato Shozo Kato¯ Takaaki Kawakita Nagamasa Kawanabe Kyo¯ sai Kawase Masataka Keith, Elizabeth Kendo (introduction in Britain) Kennard, Edward Allington (in Japan Chronicle) Kennedy, John Russell Kennedy, Malcolm Keppel, Sir Henry Keswick, William

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Hugh Cortazzi

Peter O’Connor Hugh Cortazzi Sean Curtin Patrick McCartney Sadaaki Numata Shozo Kadota Graham Hardman

John Chapman Graham Healey J.E. Hoare Richard Bowen

Keiko Itoh Nobuko Albery Ian Nish Noboru Koyama Ian Nish Gordon Daniels Olive Checkland Ayako-Hotta-Lister Dorothy Bouchier Paul Budden Peter O’Connor Peter O’Connor John Pardoe Robert Morton J.E. Hoare

IX

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BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS AND MEMOIRS IN JAPAN SOCIETY VOLUMES

Kikuchi Dairoku Killearn, Lord (see Lampson, Sir Miles) Kimberley, Earl of Kinch, Edward King, Francis Kirkup, James Kiuchi Kyo¯zo¯ (British training for Japanese engineers) Knott, Cargill Gilston Koestler, Arthur Koizumi Gunji Komura Ju¯taro¯ Ko¯ri Torahiko Kornicki, Peter Kurihara Chûji

Noboru Koyama

V

Thomas Otte Erico Kumazawa

X VII EXP VIII T&P

Lampson, Sir Miles Lansdowne, Lord Large, Dick (Richard) Lascelles, Sir Daniel Lawyers, British, in Japan 1859-99 Leach, Bernard and the Mingei Movement Lean, David Leggett, Trevor Price

David Steeds Thomas Otte

Liberty, Lasenby Lindley, Sir Francis Littler, Sir Geolffrey Lloyd, Arthur Longford, Joseph Lowder, John Frederick Lowe, Peter Lytton, Lord MacDonald, Sir Claude MacDonald, Malcolm Macrae, Norman Mackintosh and the Glasgow Style Maejima Hisoka Makino Shinken (Nobuaki) Malins, Philip Markino, Yoshio Marriages, Three Meiji Martin, Peter

David Burleigh Janet Hunter Paul Kabrna Richard Bowen Ian Nish Norimasa Morita Libby Horner

Hugh Cortazzi Chris Roberts Hugh Cortazzi Norimasa Morita Anthony Dunne/ Richard Bowen Sonia Ashmore Ian Nish Hamish Ion Ian Ruxton J.E. Hoare Ian Nish Antony Best Ian Nish John Weste Bill Emmott/Adrian Woolridge Libby Horner Janet Hunter Ian Nish Phillida Purvis Carmen Blacker Noboru Koyama

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Maruyama Masao Matsudaira Tsuneo Matsui Keishiro Matsubayashi Tsuranosuke Matsukata Kõjirõ Matsukata Masayoshi (see Gold Standard, Japan’s Adoption of) Matsumoto Shunichi Maugham, Somerset Mayall, Sir Lees McCallum, Graham McCaul, Sister Ethel McDonald, Chris McEwan, John McGreevey, Adrian Mendl, Wolf Menpes, Mortimer Luddington Michio Morishima Mills, Douglas Minakata Kumagusu Minami Teisuke (in Three Meiji Marriages) Mingei movement (in Bernard Leach and) Minton Missionaries, British, in Meiji Japan Mitford, A.B. Mitsubishi Electric Mitsui in London Miyazawa Kiichi Morel, Edward Mori Arinori Morita Akio Morland, Sir Oscar Morris, Ivan Morris, John (with Orwell, George and BBC) Morrison, Arthur Morrison, G.E. Moss, George Mountaineering in Japan Mowat, Robert Anderson Munro, Gordon Muto¯ Cho¯ zo¯ Mutsu Family

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Rikki Kersten Ian Nish Tadashi Kuramatsu Shinya Maezaki Libby Horner

Takahiko Tanaka John Hatcher

Gordon Daniels Yunichiro Nakajima Peter Kornicki Ian Nish Sonia Ashmore Janet Hunter Richard Bowring Carmen Blacker Noboru Koyama Hugh Cortazzi Mary Redfern Helen Ballhatchet Robert Morton Yoshio Noguchi Sadao Oba Arthur Stockwin Yoshiko Morita Anthony Cobbing Hugh Cortazzi John Whitehead Nobuko Albery Neil Pedlar Noboru Koyama Antony Best Ian Nish Hamish Ion Christopher Roberts Jane Wilkinson Eleanor Robinson Ian Mutsu

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Naish, John Nakai Hiromu Nakai Yoshigusu (see Gold Standard, Japan’s Adoption of) Nakamura Masanao (Keiu) Nakaya Ukichir Natsume Sõseki (see Sõseki) Naylor, Martin Neale, Lt Col St John Netsuke and Inro Collectors Newman, John Nichols, Robert Ninagawa Yukio Nippon Club, 1881–2014, The Nippon Yu¯ sen Kaisha (NYK) Nish, Ian Nishi Haruhiko Nishiwaki Junzaburo¯ Nissan and the British Motor Vehicle Industry Nissan: History of a Negotiation Nitobe Inazo No. 48, Yokohama Noguchi Yone North, Marianne Northcliffe (see Harmsworth, Alfred) Novelists, Japan’s Post-war NSK at Peterlee Occupied Japan through the eyes of British Journalists, O’Conroy see Conroy Odajima Yu¯ shi ¯ e Sumi O Ogata Shijuro Ohno Katsumi Okada, Sumie Oliphant, Laurence O’Neill, Patrick Geoffrey Orwell, George (with Morris, John and BBC) Otsuka Hisao Owston, Alan Ozaki Saburo (in Three Meiji Marriages) Ozaki Yukio

Eleanor Robinson

Akiko Ohta Jenny White

Hugh Cortazzi Rosemary Bandini Ian Ruxton George Hughes Daniel Gallimore Setsuo Kato Hiroyuki Takeno Ian Nish Norimasu Morita Christopher Madeley Robin Mountfield Ian Nish Mike Galbraith Norimasa Morita Tadashi Karato/ Hugh Cortazzi Sydney Giffard NSK Staff Members Roger Buckley

Peter Milward Hiroko Tomida Hugh Cortazzi Eiji Seki (quoted in) Carmen Blacker Phillida Purvis Neil Pedlar Eiri Saitõ Mike Galbraith Noboru Koyama Fujiko Hara

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II X I

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BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Pakenham, Captain (later Admiral) W.C. Palmer, Harold E.

John Chapman

Palmer, Henry Spencer Parker, Sir Peter Parkes, Sir Harry Parsons, Alfred Patrick, William Donald (Lord) Pellew, Admiral Sir Fleetwood Penniall, Albert James Perry, Sir Michael Pfeiffer, Susanne Pickering, Ernest Harold Piggott, Sir F.T. (and Maj. Gen F.S.G.) Piggott, Maj. Gen F.S.G. Pilcher, Sir John Pinnell, Alan Plant Collectors in Japan, Early Plomer, William Plunkett, Sir Francis Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Ponting, Herbert George Potter, Beatrix Powell, Anthony Powers, David Pre-JET Scheme Purvis, Christopher Purvis, Phillida Radbourne, Lew Raffles, Thomas (Sir Stamford) Rattler, HMS, Loss of Redman, Sir Vere Reed, Sir Edward Rennie, Sir Richard Temple Riddell, Hannah Ridsdale, Sir Julian Ripley, Eddie Robertson-Scott, J.W. Robinson, Basil Robinson, Peter Roll, Eric Rosebery, Lord Rothschild, Edmund Rowing (as a sport-see Strange, F.W.)

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Richard C. Smith / Imura Motomichi Jiro Higuchi Hugh Cortazzi Hugh Cortazzi Toshio Watanabe Ann Trotter Timon Screech C.Maddeley

Peter O’Connor Carmen Blacker Antony Best Hugh Cortazzi Amanda Herries Louis Allen Hugh Cortazzi Dorothy Britton Terry Bennett George Wallace

Nicolas McLean

Timon Screech Hugh Cortazzi Hugh Cortazzi Hugh Cortazzi Christopher Roberts Julia Boyd Dugald Barr Mari Nakami Yahya Abdelsamad Martin Gordon Ian Nish Jun Kochi

V IV IV VI and EXP I and B.ENV IX VIII X III EXP EXP X T&P and EXP VIII III and B.ENV EXP IV T&P IV and B.ENV II IV VIII EXP EXP X EXP EXP EXP X V II and EXP VII X II VII and EXP EXP II V EXP VI VII EXP VIII

BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS AND MEMOIRS IN JAPAN SOCIETY VOLUMES

Royal Academy and Japan Royal Alliance: Court Diplomacy Royal Visits to Japan in the Meiji Period Rugby Football in Japan Rundall, Sir Francis Russell Cotes, Sir Merton and Anne Russell, Bertrand Russo-Japanese War, British Naval and Military Observers

Mayu Kamide Antony Best Hugh Cortazzi Alison Nish Hugh Cortazzi Shaun Garner Toshihiko Miura Philip Towle

Saba Shoichi Saitõ Makoto Saitõ Takeshi Sakurai Jo¯ ji Sale, Charles Sale, George Salisbury, Lord Sameshima Naonobu Sainsbury, Lady Lisa

Hugh Cortazzi Tadashi Kuramatsu Hisaaki Yamanouchi Yoshiyuki Kikuchi Antony Best Antony Best Thomas. G. Otte Hugh Cortazzi Nicole Coolidge Rousemaniere Noboru Koyama

Sannomiya Yoshitane (in Three Meiji Marriages) Sansbury, Bishop Kenneth Sansom, Sir George Sargent, John Satow, Sir Ernest Satow, Sir Ernest as Minister in Tokyo Scotch Whisky in Japan Scott, Robert Scott, Sir Robert Heatlie Scott-Stokes, Henry Sempill, Lord Sessue Hayakawa Shakespeare, Three Great Japanese Translators of Shand, Alexander Alan

Audrey Sansbury Talks Gordon Daniels Various Peter Kornicki Ian Ruxton Stuart Jack Ian Nish Peter Lowe Antony Best Norimasa Morita Peter Milward

Olive Checkland/ Norio Tamaki Shand, W.J. Noboru Koyama Sharp Corporation Clive Bradley Shaw, Alexander Croft (with Bickersteth, Hamish Ion Edward) Shaw, George Bernard Bernard F. Dukore Shigemitsu, Mamoru Antony Best Shimamura Ho¯getsu Norimasa Morita Shimaoka Tatsuzo Hugh Cortazzi/ Dharini Parekh

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BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Shirasu Jiro¯ Showa Emperor (State Visit to Britain) Simon, Sir John Sitwell, Sacheverell Sladen, Douglas Smith, William Henry Soseki, Natsume (and the PreRaphaelites) Spender, Sir Stephen Spring Rice, Sir Cecil Stains, Ian, de Stephenson, Commander (later Admiral Sir Henry) in Loss of HMS Rattler Stopes, Marie Storry, Richard Strange, F.W (rowing as a sport in Japan) Suematsu Kencho¯ Summers, James Sutherland, William B. Sutton, Frederick William Swan, Peter Swire, John Samuel

Eiichiro Tokumoto Hugh Cortazzi Antony Best Hugh Cortazzi Mike Galbraith Sammy Tsunematsu

Ian Nish Hugh Cortazzi Carmen Blacker Ian Nish Jun Kochi Ian Ruxton Noboru Koyama Monika Bincsik Sebastian Dobson Charlotte Bleasdale

Takahashi Korekiyo (see Gold Standard, Japan’s Adoption of) Takaki Kanehiro Jerry K Matsumura Takakusu Junijiro Iwagami Kazunori/ Paride Stortin Taki Handa Jill Raggett/Yuka Kajihara-Nolan/ Jason Nolan Tanaka Hozumi Nori Morita Tani Yukio (see Judo Pioneers) Richard Bowen Tatsuno Kingo Ian Ruxton Tattooists and the British Royal Family Noboru Koyama Tennis, (British contribution to Tennis Keiko Itoh in Japan) Terashima Munenori Andrew Cobbing Thatcher, Margaret Hugh Cortazzi Thorne, Ben Thurley, Keith Nicholas MacLean Thwaite, Anthony Tilley, Sir John Harumi GotoShibata Tiltman, Hessell Roger Buckley Togo Heihachiro¯ Kiyoshi Ikeda

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V X VIII

X V VII VI VIII J.ENV and V IX EXP VII EXP IV and B.ENV V and EXP I

BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS AND MEMOIRS IN JAPAN SOCIETY VOLUMES

Tokyo, December 1941, a memoir Tomimoto Kenkichi Tomita Kumasaku Tomlin, Frederick Toynbee, Arnold Toyoda Sho¯ichiro Tracy, Honor Trench, Hon. Henry Le Poer Trenchard, Hugh (Lord) Tsubouchi Sho¯yo¯ Tuck, Captain Oswald Tuohy, Frank Tyndale, Walter Ueno Kagenori

Douglas Busk Hugh Cortazzi Noboru Koyama Louis Turner Toyoda Sho¯ichiro Hugh Cortazzi Brian Powell Sue Jarvis David Burleigh Toni Huberman

UK-Japan 21st Century Group Urushibara Mokuchu¯ Utley, Freda Utsunomiya Tarõ Uyeno Yutaka

Andrew Cobbing/ Inozuka Takaaki Marie Conte-Helm Libby Horner Douglas Farnie Sebastian Dobson Hugh Cortazzi

Van der Post, Sir Laurens Veitch, John Gould Victoria Crosses

Amanda Herries Ian Ruxton

Waley, Arthur Warner, Simone (Lady Warner) Warren, Charles Frederick Waters, T.P. Webb, Sydney and Beatrice Wedderburn, Gren Weintz, H.J. Wells Coates Weston, Walter White, Oswald ‘Shiro’ Whitehead, Carolyn (Lady Whitehead) Whitehead, Sir John Wilford, Sir Michael Wilkinson, Ann Wilkinson, David Wilkinson, Sir Hiram Shaw Williamson, Bill Wingate, Michael Wirgman, Charles Wood, Christopher Wool in Japan

Philip Harries Hamish Ion Neil Jackson Colin Holmes Noboru Koyama Anna Basham Hamish Ion Hugo Read

Chris Roberts

John Clark Peter Ackroyd

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BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Woolf, Virginia Wright, Sir David Wright, Edward William Barton (in Judo Pioneers)

Noriko Kubota

Yamamoto Yao Yamanaka Sadajirõ Yamanashi Katsunoshin (Admiral) Yamao Yo¯ zo¯ Yanada Senji

Gordon Daniels Monden Sonoko Haruko Fukuda Andrew Cobbing Sadao Oba and Anne Kaneko Susan Townsend Hiroko Morita Yahya Abdelsamad Geraldine Wilcox Keiko Itoh Norimasa Morita Ian Nish Hugh Cortazzi

Richard Bowen

Yanaihara Tadao Yasui Tetsu Yate VC, Major C.A.L. Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery Yokohama Specie bank in London Yoshida Ken’ichi Yoshida Shigeru Yoshida Shigeru, Visit to London as Prime Minister in 1954 Yoshimoto Tadasu Young, David (Lord) Young, Morgan (in Japan Chronicle) Young, Robert (in Japan Chronicle)

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Noboru Koyama Peter O’Connor Peter O’Connor

VIII EXP V

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PART I: BRITAIN IN JAPAN sPERSONALITIES AND ENTREPRENEURS s 1

Admiral Sir Fleetwood Pellew (1789–1861) and the Phaeton Incident of 1808 TIMON SCREECH

Fleetwood Pellew leading the boats of HMS Terpsichore against the Dutch in 1806, by George Chinnery Couretesy : Royal Museums Greenwich,

1

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Contemporary Japanese painting of HMS Phaeton (Courtesy Nagasaki Museum of Culture and History)

Fantastical contemporary drawing of HMS Phaeton looking like a Chinese junk

2

ADMIRAL SIR FLEETWOOD PELLEW (1789–1861)

INTRODUCTION

All stories have a two sides and those of military encounter particularly so. Truth is often the first victim of war. The ‘Phaeton Incident’ illustrates this. British documents and Japanese ones entirely fail to match in their interpretations of events. Moreover, there is a third angle, for the Dutch were middlemen in conveying the British intentions to the Japanese and, it will be suggested, they doctored them in the process. The principal British document has not generally been consulted by historians, although it is short and readily available.1 The Dutch record has recently become accessible in English, although in the original language has long been in print, and often used before; the prime account, by the head of the Dutch station in Japan, was compiled and published only in 1833, from notes kept at the time, or perhaps from memory.2 There are three types of Japanese document, firstly an official compilation, consisting of period documents put together for the shogunate at the end of the Edo Period, the Tsu¯ ko¯ ichiran (Overview of maritime encounters), secondly two journals made by persons present, and finally a contextualising overview composed by a well-known scholar in Edo.3 All agree on the main sequence of events: on 4 October 1808, or 15th of the 8th month by the Japanese calendar, Fleetwood Pellew, a young commander in the Royal Navy, took HMS Phaeton into Nagasaki Bay. The ship did little more than lie in the roadstead, although it took two Dutchmen prisoner, legitimately, as the Low Countries and Great Britain were at war; they served as interpreters, but were soon released as a goodwill gesture to Japan; the Phaeton also launched some boats to scout the bay. The British requested, and received, supplies of food and water. Almost exactly forty-eight hours later, they sailed out. No shots were fired from either side. Yet the repercussions of this brief intrusion would be huge and last for decades. In the night after the ship’s departure, 6 October, the governor of Nagasaki (Nagasaki bugyo¯), Matsudaira Zusho-no-kami Yasuhide (some documents call him Yasuhira), took his life to make amends for allowing the first ever European man-of-war to enter Nagasaki, and then to leave again untouched. It is a touch ironic that ‘Yasuhide’ can be understood to mean ‘peaceful Britain’.4 This Phaeton Incident (fe¯ton-go¯ jiken) is mentioned in most studies of the period, and in all assessments of the nineteenth-century decline in the military competence of the shogunate.5 But it has not before been the subject of a full analysis using all documents.

3

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

FLEETWOOD PELLEW AND HMS PHAETON

The Pellews were a Cornish family who attained some prominence in seafaring at the time of Fleetwood’s grandfather. But it was his father, Edward (1757–1833) who earned the family an honoured place in the annals of the Royal Navy. In 1797, in HMS Indefatigable, Edward Pellew famously destroyed the French ship Droits de l’homme, and was knighted in 1802. He was celebrated by Matthew Flinders on the first circumnavigation of Australia (identifying it as a continent) who named an archipelago in the Gulf of Carpentaria ‘the Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands’. In 1804, Sir Edward, was promoted to Rear-Admiral and sailed to Asia with a fleet under his flagship, the Culloden, as Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies.6 He earned a reputation for foresight and fairness. In April 1808, some six months before his son’s ‘Incident’, Sir Edward became Vice-Admiral, and the next year took the Culloden back to Britain. He was created Viscount Exmouth in 1814. A recent biography calls him ‘Britain’s greatest frigate captain’, although he has also been termed ‘pugnacious and ill-educated’.7 Sir Edward’s brother, Fleetwood’s uncle, was Israel Pellew, named after the great shipwright Israel Pownoll. He achieved fame in the West Indies, sailing with Nelson in a fleet that included the ‘Fighting’ Temeraire, later painted by Turner. He returned in 1808 and in 1810 was made Rear-Admiral, then knighted in 1815. Meanwhile, Fleetwood’s older brother, later the 2nd Viscount, Pownoll Bastard Pellew, was named after the other half of Israel Pownoll’s name, but also Israel’s son, Philomon Pownoll, another great shipwright and friend of Sir Edward, to which was conjoined a reference to Philomon’s cousin, John Bastard, a naval officer. Such cross-referencing was not rare among self-made people of the time. Philomon Pownoll is best remembered from a stunning portrait by Reynolds (and ‘Reynolds’ was Fleetwood’s middle name8), while Pownoll Bastard Pellew, is remembered as a more minor naval figure; he married the daughter of Sir George Barlow, governor of Madras, and returned home to build the fine Regency mansion of Canonteign, near Bovey Tracey, described by C. Northcote Parkinson as ‘surprisingly beautiful considering the period at which it was built’.9 Given Sir Edward’s penchant for unusual names, where did ‘Fleetwood’ come from? It could refer back to the great royalist vessel of the English Civil War, HMS Fleetwood, appropriate for a boy born in the year of the French Revolution. Sir Edward took his sons to sea, and Fleetwood was on the Indefatigable and the Culloden before the age of ten. In Asia, in 1804, his father made him Lieutenant, then advanced him to Commander of 4

ADMIRAL SIR FLEETWOOD PELLEW (1789–1861)

a small vessel, the Rattlesnake, aged fifteen. On hearing his actions there, Sir Edward wrote to a fellow-officer, ‘What Father could have kept his eyes dry? I was obliged to wipe them again before I looked thro’ the glass.’ He also proclaimed that Fleetwood was ‘beyond comparison the finest youth of the squadron, universally beloved’, also, ‘a real treasure’ and ‘the flower of my flock and the flower of my fleet’.10 With such endorsement, albeit hardly objective, Fleetwood moved up to the larger Terpsichore in 1807, next year becoming acting commander of the Culloden. It was about this time his likeness was made by the Indian society artist George Chinnery, in an extravagantly heroic pose (see illustration at head of this account). 1807 also saw Fleetwood given charge of his first major vessel, the Cornwallis, then almost immediately the Phaeton, in a commission confirmed in London on 14 October, ten days after the ‘Incident’. The Phaeton was one of Britain’s great ships. A fifth-rate vessel (better than it sounds) with thirty-eight guns (twenty-eight pounders on the upper deck, eight pounders and six carronades on the quarter deck and two pounders with four carronades on the fo’c’s’le).11 One of four Minerva class ships, known as the ‘saucy Channel four’, launched in 1780–1782 and used in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.12 At 944 tons burden, 43 m length and 12 m beam, with a compliment of 280 men, the Minerva ships were neat and very strong. In 1794, Sir Andrew Douglas commanded the Phaeton when it took the French Général Dumouriez, which had itself taken the St Jago, a vessel carrying the most valuable cargo ever loaded on a single ship, conveyance of which booty to the Tower of London required over twenty waggons.13 In 1794, the Phaeton captured the 3,000-ton French Impétueux, as was commemorated by the Royal Navy in another ship named HMS Impétueux, the command of which was given to Edward Pellew (not yet Sir Edward). The next year, HMS Phaeton escorted Caroline of Brunswick to England for her marriage to the Prince of Wales (future George IV), and after more fighting, conveyed Thomas Bruce, Lord Elgin, as Ambassador to Istanbul, where he procured the Parthenon marbles.14 It was George Cockburn who took the Phaeton to Asia, with the Culloden, in 1804, and from whom command passed to Fleetwood Pellew. Cockburn is remembered for having burned Washington, in 1814, and been knighted. The Phaeton thus had an impressive record. As Fleetwood took over its roundhouse (the commanders’ suite) he would have felt great pride. At this time, fighting was against the French, but they had driven the Dutch Stadtholder into exile, creating the Batavian Republic, then setting up Napoleon’s brother as King of Holland, before obliterating the country in 1810, making it a mere département of France – 5

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so Holland was also an enemy. The French were asserting control of Dutch possessions, and Fleetwood’s precocious tear-provoking successes in the Rattlesnake had been against their overseas seizures. After Nagasaki, he would use the Phaeton to assist in the ‘Reduction of Mauritius’ and expulsion of the Franco-Dutch from Java, before returning home in 1812, escorting a rich East India fleet, for which the Company awarded him a gratuity of 500 guineas. Fleetwood Pellew’s subsequent career was long, but quite controversial. He was knighted in 1836 and made an Admiral in 1858, but was also one of few commanders to provoke no fewer than three mutinies, such that much of his later career was desk-bound. His mother, Susan, summed things up well in 1813: ‘We have been inclined to think of him too highly – and he perhaps too highly of himself.’15 These sentiments were confirmed by William Drury, Fleetwood’s former commander, who told Sir Edward his son was ‘too much indulged’ and had ‘an entire misconception of the nature of orders’.16 NAGASAKI

Owing to the paroxysm of the Dutch state, no Western ship had arrived at Nagasaki for some years. Even those vessels recently getting through were mostly US vessels leased by the Dutch to save them from seizure by the British. At the end of the trading season of 1808, again no ship at all had arrived, leaving the head of the Dutch factory, Hendrick Doeff, eventually compiler of the Dutch account (part of his self-justifying Recollections of Japan), to ponder another year of isolation from the outside world. It was thus with great joy that the Nagasaki watch reported a vessel approaching on 4 October. It was oddly late in the season, though that could be accounted for by war. Most of the guards, some 1,000 Japanese soldiers stationed in permanent readiness on either side of the bay, had left their posts, assuming no work was to be done that year and their absence would go unnoticed. The troops were provided by the daimyos of Saga and Fukuoka, with Saga on (or rather, not on) rotation at that time. A skeleton group of a couple of dozen were all that was left to deal with what would emerge. Having been spotted in the morning, the ship was by Io¯jima, outside the bay, at 2 p.m. What happened next is best outlined using the British record, since it records events as they happened briefly and succinctly, and being entirely insouciant, probably with bald exactitude. The document is the ‘Log of the Proceedings of His Majesty’s Ship Phaeton, Fleetwood B.R. Pellew, Esq, Captain, Commencing July 9th 1808 & Ending September 15th 1809, kept by Chas Boddam Stockdale.’17 Such logs were the responsibility of the commander, though generally kept by another officer. Charles Boddam 6

ADMIRAL SIR FLEETWOOD PELLEW (1789–1861)

Stockdale’s name surely refers to Charles Boddam, Director of the East India Company in 1784–88, suggesting he was from an EIC family, though he identifies himself here as a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy.18 From Madras, the Phaeton made for Malacca, Macao then Japan, searching for enemy shipping; there would be no French vessels so far East, but Dutch ones could be expected. On the 4th, in ‘dark gloomy weather’ they approached the Goto¯ Islands and at 3.15 p.m. came in to Nagasaki, where they ‘saw the Dutch flag flying on a small island’. At 5.30 p.m. two Dutch supercargoes (senior merchants) approached in a Japanese vessel, and given their nationality, Pellew had them detained as prisoners-of-war, towing the Japanese ship behind. A half-hour later, the Phaeton anchored in 19 fathoms of water in what the British called Nagasaki River, although it is not really such. They then ‘hoisted all the boats out and mounted the cannonade in the launch’, with the unarmed boats making an immediate tour of the bay as a sensible precaution to ensure no Dutch ships lurked there, and which might seek to destroy the Phaeton under cover of darkness; the launch followed when its artillery was ready, about 7 p.m. All vessels returned in the twilight reporting there were no Dutch ships to be seen – which the two detainees had surely already reported, although perhaps were not believed; the British ‘found nothing lying up the river except three China junks’. By darkness, in ‘a moderate breeze and fair weather’, it had become clear that there was no purpose to their being in Japan at all, but they had to ride out the night – giving insufficient consideration to how the Japanese might be evaluating their unrequested presence. Supplies aboard the Phaeton were depleted, and early on the 5th, Pellew requested victuals from the Japanese authorities, whose attitude he expected to be that of a neutral country; these were provided in the form of four live bullocks, water and firewood, although in only modest proportions, and a few goats and vegetables. In gratitude Pellew had the Dutchmen released. The lovely weather continued throughout the day most of which was consumed by the supplies being requested, provided, loaded and stowed, so the Phaeton remained a second night. The next morning, more supplies were received, presumably in thanks for the captives’ return, and Pellew offered to pay for them, but the Japanese authorities declined. Intercourse with Japan now being over, Pellew ordered the boats hoisted back, and he weighed anchor in the mid-morning, the Phaeton clearing from Nagasaki Bay at 12 noon. Interestingly, Stockdale inserted into the log at this point a onepage narrative – the only time in the voyage that he did so. It has never been published before, so is worth including here in full (minus only some maritime details) both to show the frame of mind aboard the Phaeton, and also as being the sole first-hand British account about 7

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Japan (albeit from someone who did not go ashore) in well over a century. Logs were written extemporaneously, so their grammar is not always exact. The harbour of Nagasaki may be ranked among the first in the universe and an attempt to describe its equal to its real merit would be a task not easily accomplished. During our short stay at this place, the few cursory remarks I have made are not intended as a correct account of the place, or its inhabitants, but merely for my own satisfaction should I ever have occasion to visit that part of the globe again… [it] is situated in as healthy a climate, perhaps, as England itself, but falls short of many fine things that England possesses… On our approaching this harbour, the entrance of which was with great difficulty discovered, a boat came off, seeming by the motions with their hands desirous to know who, or what, we were; however, in that point we could not think of satisfying their curiosity, and accordingly kept them astern until we got into the harbour. On sailing up the river we passed an immense number of small boats, every one apparently in a great hurry to run away from us. In one of these boats received two Europeans; sent a boat immediately to bring them on board, and finding them to be Dutch men, detained them as prisoners of war, but gave them their liberty previous to our quitting the coast. The harbour affords one of the finest places of nature and art that came be imagined. Not a spot for a circuit of 40 miles round which was presented to our view appeared to be uncultivated, and I think it probable that a portion of ground is allotted to any individual inhabitant that will engage to cultivate the soil, which appears to be very good and fertile. The sea shore every where about this river is steep towards harbor; the water very deep close to it (or to use the sea term) ‘very bold’; … The inhabitants in appearance very much resemble the Chinese, who besides the Dutch are the only people in the world they trade with, but they are a much milder race than the Chinese and a vast deal more hospitable, though I believe a very inoffensive and timid people. We requested of them some requirements for the ship’s company, offering them money, arms and ammunition etc in return, but could not prevail on them to accept any compensation for what they granted us; whether this was done with a motive of generosity, or for a supposed idea that we should molest them did they refuse to comply with our requests, I cannot determine to say. However, they appear’d extremely anxious for our departure. What is well worthy of remark and indeed is very surprising [is that] all our entreaties could not prevail on them to enter the ship. His Majesty’s ship Phaeton is the first English ship* that ever entered this place, and is moreover the first European ship that ever obtained bullocks from them. The Dutch ships that annually trade here are compelled to accept of goats for provisions, as the inhabitant always use their beasts for burden, and never kill or eat beef themselves. * The first British man-of-war 8

ADMIRAL SIR FLEETWOOD PELLEW (1789–1861)

In short, Stockdale, and presumably Pellew, found the Japanese generous, albeit over-wary; at no time did either side make provocative moves, and Stockdale clearly envisaged a possible return. Now for the other side. The Japanese made their own observations and drew their own conclusions, but they had no one who spoke English, nor were the Japanese Dutch-language interpreters, employed by the shogunate, altogether competent without guidance from Doeff. Doeff had been in Japan since 1799, had a Japanese wife and children, and was well-integrated into Nagasaki life (albeit the Dutch had to live on their ‘small island’ of Dejima). Messages passed from the ship to the Dutch East India Company, then, only as Doeff saw fit, up to the Nagasaki governorate. Doeff was trying against the odds to keep the Nagasaki trading station afloat, was not fully informed about developments in the Low Countries, nor in Europe as a whole, and was most anxious that the British be expelled in such a way that they could never return to inject some vigour into a trade that, he was well aware, was failing to provide the Japanese with the imports that they needed. Doeff does note that the British had a Dutch-speaker on board, one Metzeler, although this person does not figure beyond a statement of his presence. Doeff may have known some English, and perhaps they shared a language in French, although letters from the ship to the land went in the language of the intruders. The Japanese had no direct contact with any of the British. The Dutch were thus in a strong position to colour the Japanese response, and ruffle, or smooth it, as they preferred, and they preferred the former. They were at war with the British after all, although actually the British were seeking to liberate the Dutch from the French. All in all, this means that the shore-side story is mostly a Dutch one, although certainly with independent Japanese conclusions. The two Dutchmen, who accompanied by two Japanese Dutchspeaking interpreters went to make contact with the incoming ship, were Dirk Gozeman and Gerrit Schimmel, with Nakayama Sakusaburo¯ and a junior colleague, Yokoyama Katsunojo¯. The Phaeton lowered a boat and men came down onto it, towing the Japanese vessel until the ship came to a stop. The British asked the four visitors aboard, but when they vacillated, took the Dutchmen by force, leaving the interpreters untouched. Several Japanese leapt into the sea in fear, but were persuaded back, allowing the boat to be returned to the town. The Phaeton then moved closer, as far as Takaboko-jima (also called Pappenberg) at the mouth of the bay, anchoring in late afternoon (Stockdale’s 6 p.m.). This confirms that the Phaeton did not sail into the town’s anchorage, which might have been both dangerous to itself, and alarming to the Japanese, putting the town within reach of its guns. Doeff says he was unwell 9

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that day, but rose from bed in expectation, noting that the ship was flying a Dutch flag – although one of the Japanese diaries, that of Enji Kyochoku (whose identity is unknown) says it arrived unflagged, which accounted for their concern, especially when the Dutchmen were seized.19 At any rate, that evening Nagasaki was in ‘a state of terrible confusion and chaos,’ wrote Doeff, and the governor in an ‘indescribable rage’.20 The Dutchmen in Japan were under shogunal protection so that capturing them was trampling Japanese dignity. Kyochoku stated that it was only then that the Phaeton ran up a Dutch flag, perhaps (if indeed it did so) to allay local fears by suggesting they were friendly to Japan now that the British had discovered there were no Dutch ships in the bay. Doeff, although unwell, wrote to the ship, asking the commander to identify himself, and stating that the Dutch in Japan were merchants, not soldiers, so the two captives should be released. This letter was conveyed by four Japanese officials under an intelligence expert (on mitsu kata) named Yoshikawa Jiro¯zaemon, says Kyochoku, although they did no more than deliver the document and rapidly return. Before long a response came, written by Schimmel in Dutch, to leave no room for misprisions, detailing the situation, and forwarding Pellew’s request for food and water. The letter is not extant so it is unsure what mollifying words were included, but if any were, the governor was not informed of them. Kyochoku states that the letter said that Schimmel and Gozeman would be freed in exchange for supplies, which might also have been interpreted as rude, since the Japanese would always provide for a needy ship. The arrival of a British vessel, as they now knew the Phaeton to be, was a cause for concern because only the year before, in 1807, Japan’s ¯ tsuki Gentaku, the scholar greatest expert on Western matters, O referred to above, had composed a book outlining British activities worldwide.21 Gentaku noted the colonisation of North America, and Britain’s alliance with Japan’s recently-intrusive neighbour, Russia. Gentaku also knew of Holland’s demise, but not of American independence, so incorrectly concluding that the Dutch were being compelled by the British to trade in Japan using their (i.e. British, but actually American) ships, and forcing the Dutch to lie about this. Such an inflammatory book, taking the shogunate for dupes, could not possibly be published, but Gentaku’s hypothesis circulated in manuscript under the innocuous title of Hoei mondo¯ (Questions-and-answers on grasping shadows). It would have been known to the authorities in Nagasaki. Far away in Edo, Gentaku would learn of the Phaeton’s arrival only some weeks later, but once he found out, he dashed off a sequel, drawing further alarming conclusions. He also recapitulated the events surrounding the Phaeton’s visit, although it does not differ from that in Tsu¯ko¯ ichiran. 10

ADMIRAL SIR FLEETWOOD PELLEW (1789–1861)

The second diary, a very colourful one, by Tokuemon, is sadly known only in a ‘faithful résumé’ made in English in 1878 under the title of ‘History of the Outrage by Anglians at Nagasaki’.22 Tsu¯ko¯ ichiran, however, includes selections from this work, from which it appears that the author was Kamijo¯ Tokuemon, also compiler of the formal record of the governorate, Nagasaki go-shiyo¯ heya nikki (Diary of the Nagasaki official office), the diary piece seemingly spun off by him as a more dramatic narrative, with a heightened title (whatever the original was).23 Tokuemon was of high rank and is probably the person Doeff refers to as ‘First Secretary’ to the governor, but without naming. Kyochoku’s diary is calmly written, while Tokumon’s is demonstrably intended to make the British seem worse, thereby excusing the governor and his staff of any charge of mishandling events. With the Phaeton in sight of the town, Tokuemon described it as follows: ‘on her bows there was a dreadful painted figure of a bird with outstretched wings and eyes of precious stones’, looking like ‘a fortress’, and he further increased the number of its guns to fifty, pointing, he maintained, in all four directions (though the Phaeton did not have canon astern); Tokuemon correctly noted that Pellew was nineteen years old, although he stated, with no evidence, that he ‘sat on a chair day and night and moved no more than a mountain’, his men ‘as ferocious as tigers or leopards’. Tokuemon also stated that the quick tour of the bay by the British boats (he said all were equipped with guns), gave rise to a rumour that they were releasing men into the countryside to perpetrate evils. Tokuemon spent some hours trying to locate such a contingent, but was obviously frustrated. According to Kyochoku, the governor donned armour and rode around the town on horseback, seeking to calm nerves. The governor had to decide what to do about the request for supplies. Doeff had been strongly of the view that none should be sent, but the governor came to no immediate decision. After dark, the Chinese ships lit beacons, which made people think the British had set them on fire. Stockdale noted the fine weather, but he did not say it was full moon, which it was, and that accounts for the governor’s delay, as he was required to host a party. By Tokuemon’s account, the governor was a heavy drinker, and the two of them consumed alcohol from dinnertime until 10 p.m. every night. On a full moon they would have consumed more. Whether this impaired the governor’s judgement cannot be determined, but late at night he gave order for ammunition and canon to be sent to the (under-staffed) coastal batteries, with the noise of carts ‘reverberating among the hills like thunder’, wrote Tokuemon. Only after midnight did he send to Doeff saying that he agreed to follow his suggestion about sup11

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plies. His ‘First Secretary’, says Doeff, offered to go alone to the ship, pretending to negotiate in response to Schmmel’s letter, but with a concealed dagger to murder Pellew. Mercifully he was talked out of this, Doeff musing on ‘how prodigal a Japanese is with his own life’. The governor’s decision was this: not offering victuals would detain the ship in the bay until it could be destroyed. Doeff reported that Japanese law required alien ships to be sunk, and he may have been conveying this opinion to the governor too, but it was not at all the case. There had only ever been one instance of a foreign ship being destroyed, and that was a century before when the Portuguese had sent a vessel after being specifically banned from Japan. The situation was not analogous. As the Saga soldiers had absconded, the Phaeton could not be immediately attacked, so the governor was persuaded by Doeff to block the harbour until reinforcements could come. Word was sent to the nearest domain, Omura,24 Tokuemon notes that the governor’s physician, Tanabe Baike Genseki, began prescribing medicine to relieve stress. To Tokuemon, attacking the Phaeton would be like trying to ‘batter down a stone wall with eggs’.25 DAY TWO

On the next morning, the 5th, the governor wrote a letter to Edo, recapitulating events of the sixteen hours, ‘dated on the previous day to convey the impression of greater promptitude’, wrote Tokuemon (in a section not included in Tsu¯ko¯ ichiran). The Phaeton now raised a British flag, dispelling any remaining doubts (to those who recognised its red ensign). A fine painting of the vessel was made showing that it flew its colours most splendidly, and this work must be the one mentioned in Tsu¯ko¯ ichiran as being commissioned by the Nagasaki authorities. Sadly the artist is not named, but the result was admired enough to be copied, and three versions exist today (see illustration at head of this account).26 Also existing is a brush drawing, quite fantastical, fusing the Phaeton with a Chinese-looking ship, giving a much less gallant and far more terrifying aspect (see illustration at head of this account).27 That morning Gozeman appeared on land with a letter from Pellew. He was under oath to return to the ship before nightfall with adequate food and water. Gozeman was also to inform the Japanese that the Phaeton had come to Nagasaki solely because it had been informed by the Portuguese that a Dutch ship would be there, and now they realised the error they would leave, but could not do so without supplies. The letter is not extant, but what we have is Doeff’s (Dutch) statement of its contents, plus an English version, later translated back into English from this statement, provided by Doeff for 12

ADMIRAL SIR FLEETWOOD PELLEW (1789–1861)

the English several years later.28 As such, it is again uncertain what Pellew actually wrote. As translated and transcribed, Pellew, referred to as ‘the Captain’, stated that ‘if he does not receive the provisions, he will sail up tomorrow morning and set fire to all the Japanese and Chinese junks’.29 This threat was the root of all the trouble. True, the ship had entered the bay knowing it was unwelcome, perhaps using a false flag, and true it had detained two Dutchmen aboard. Those acts, which had angered the governor, could have been surmounted. But the threat was actually Doeff’s fault for ensuring no (or insufficient) victuals had been sent to the Phaeton when requested without recourse to threats. What infuriated the Japanese was the remark about third-party shipping, which Nagasaki relied on, all the more since Dutch sailings were no longer predictable. It was Doeff who put the English letter into Dutch, presenting it to the interpreters, who read it to the governor at 4 o’clock. He listened first with trepidation, then with relief as he heard that it was no more than a request for food, that is, until he came to the sting the tail. According to Kyochoku, the governor ordered Seki Dennojo, one of the most senior Saga guards to have remained in post, to put into action plans to attack the ship and sink it. Supplies were sent to the Phaeton, enough to meet the immediate needs, but not enough to provide for a homeward voyage. It is doubtful if Pellew would have made such a threat. In the absence of the original letter we cannot be sure, but it is as likely that the offending statement was an invention by Doeff to malign the British and ensure survival of the Dutch presence in Japan.30 The governor spent the second evening ‘suspended between hope and fear’, said Doeff, but about 9 p.m., the two Dutchmen appeared, as good as Pellew’s word. They even informed Doeff how Pellew had treated them ‘very politely’, providing them with dinner at his own table, and that they had only been seized to serve as interpreters (perhaps Metzeler not being very competent), and Gozeman and Schimmel said Pellew wished them to make it clear there had been no intent to insult Japan. Kyochoku added that Pellew sent the detainees off in style, having the ship’s ladders dressed in scarlet cloth for them to climb down, and as they disembarked, in a ‘cordial manner’, Pellew asked them to give his hearty thanks to Doeff, promising to send presents, and offering to take any letters the Dutch might have destined for Europe. This is not compatible with the supposed threat to Nagasaki’s shipping. ‘In the middle of the night’, said Doeff, the governor approached him about preventing the Phaeton sailing, which it might try to do now supplied, and Doeff suggested filling boats with rocks and scuttling them at the narrowest point of passage. This would have to be done before the morning ebb-tide allowed the Phaeton to leave. 13

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Someone suggested fake negotiations with Pellew, pretending to ask the British to take over trade with Japan not that the Dutch could not manage it, but only as a ruse to delay his departure. DAY THREE

Early on the 6th, the daimyo of Omura, Omura Sumiyoshi, arrived with troops. Sumiyoshi’s suggestion was to send fire-ships against the Phaeton, estimating that about thirty would be enough to immolate it and its crew. The governor had his translators compose a temporising and friendly letter to Pellew (this would have to be interpreted for him by Metzeler), although according to Stockdale, this was a gift of more victuals, which the British took in all sincerity. At the governorate, options were being debated – fire-ships, blocking the exit or just letting the ship leave. About 10 a.m., the governor sent Pellew a second letter, commanding him to depart. In the cold light of day he had in the end opted for the wisest course of action. Before the boat bearing this order had even got close, about 11.30 a.m., after precisely fortyeight hours in Japan, the Phaeton was seen to unfurl its sails and leave the bay, quitting Nagasaki waters by noon. According to Kyochoku, the governor sent a second letter to Edo saying that ‘the English ship had no hostile feelings against this country,’ and had promised never to call again – although Stockdale thought he might be back. That night the governor was drinking again with Tokuemon, Dr Tanabe and some others. Tokuemon went home very late and fell asleep at his desk. As he did so, the governor retired to his office and composed a letter. He took responsibility for failing to ensure Saga’s troops were at their posts and failing to destroy the ship. In ritual manner, he made a short incision in his stomach, then stabbed himself through the throat. The more normal way was to have a Second strike off one’s head after the belly cut, but the governor’s decision was too hasty to admit for this. The Europeans would later refer to his having ‘ripped up his belly’, although this is not what had happened (‘harakiri’ is largely a myth).31 Dr Tanabe discovered the body as dawn broke on the 7th and rushed to inform Tokuemon, finding him still sleeping over his paperwork.32 Within hours, eighty Japanese ships sailed into Nagasaki Bay, wrote Tokuemon, ‘in a line like a flight of geese, gradually coiling themselves up into the shape of a chrysanthemum with the admiral’s ship in the centre.’ The admiral (unnamed) was told that the governor was ill and so could not receive them, but they were not needed anyway, so should depart. Nagasaki had two governors, one resident on site, the other in Edo, rotating in late autumn. As soon as Edo was informed, the absent governor, Magaribuchi Kai-no-kami was dispatched, arriv14

ADMIRAL SIR FLEETWOOD PELLEW (1789–1861)

ing a fortnight later. Perhaps some thought that the governor had over-reacted, for while the day of the supposed threat to Chinese and Japanese shipping, the Tsu¯ko¯ ichiran recording this on the 20th augmented the threat to destroy the whole town.33 Was the new governor retrospectively excusing his deceased colleague but making the ‘Incident’ much worse that it was? The new governor brought word that Saga had been stripped of its incumbency and guard duty passed to Fukuoka, also that the two interpreters who had abandoned the Dutchmen on the ship were to report to Edo; Doeff says they were never heard of again, but this is wrong for both were later re-employed, and Doeff actually met Katsunojo¯ again, in 1813; the records are silent about Sakusaburo¯ until 1824. It thus seems that the pair were rusticated, five years for the junior, ten years for the senior, although not punished more severely.34 The daimyo of Saga, Matsudaira (Nabeshima) Narinao, in Edo at the time so hardly at fault, was placed under house arrest for one hundred days, during which all dancing, singing, noisy work, shaving of heads and engagement in festivals were banned throughout Saga. The daimyo, who was required to resign in favour of his son, Naotada, demanded his own chief officers in Nagasaki, Chiba Saburo¯emon and Kanbara Jiemon, take their lives.35 Upon release a hundred days later, Narinao asked permission from the shogunate to send a large gift to the son of the dead governor; this was permitted, with the suggestion (a command really) to make the gift annually; at 2,000 ryô the present amounted to 0.5% of Saga’s annual income.36 The entire Phaeton Incident was a storm in a teacup. If Pellew had not been misinformed by the Portuguese, he would not have come. The Phaeton had done nothing wrong, while seizing the Dutchmen was perhaps rash, the British more than made amends in case the Japanese were unaware of European war tactics. The incursion might have been duplicitous, if indeed flying the Dutch flag, although the British never admitted to having done so, and even if it was true, it was surely the safest way to enter port without risk to anyone’s assets – their own, those of the Dutch or Japanese. It is unsure that the Phaeton ever threatened shipping, and certainly it never threatened the town. Had the Phaeton been destroyed, one could imagine a ferocious British response. AFTER THE PHAETON INCIDENT

In 1809, the shogunate reinforced Nagasaki’s defences. New batteries were instituted with a secret signalling system that only the Dutch would know, not trusting the Dutch flag alone. That summer, a real Dutch ship arrived, the Goede Trouw (Good faith), bringing Jan Cock Blomhoff, as replacement warehouse master. Blomhoff had been a 15

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soldier in a Low Counties’ regiment in Britain before joining the Dutch Company in 1805, and had come out to Batavia in 1807 as aide-de-camp to the newly-appointed Napoleonic GovernorGeneral, Herman Daendals. He spoke good English. In Nagasaki Blomhoff was drafted in to help the interpreters begin study of that language, thereby initiating English conversation lessons in Japan. In 1810, Doeff made one of the Company’s periodic trips to Edo, spending much time with the former Nagasaki interpreter, Baba Saju¯ro¯ (aka Abraham), who was now in Edo to instruct shogunal officials (who had never been required to know it before) in Dutch. Doeff also noted that the shogunate presented him with a ‘public commendation’ for his efforts in the Phaeton Incident.37 In 1811, the shogunate established an Office for Translation of Barbarian Books (Bansho wage goyo¯) – deliberately using an offensive ¯ tsuki Gentaku to run and archaic term for Europe – and appointing O it, supported by a veteran astronomer (hence familiar with European books) Takahashi Kageyasu, assisted by Baba ‘Abraham’ Saju¯ro¯. That year another interpreter, Motoki Sho¯ei, produced the first English language lexicon, Anguria kyo¯gaku kosen, expanded in 1814 to 6,000 words as Anguria gorin taisei. In the meantime, Willem Wardenaar returned to Japan after a decade’s absence (he had been head before Doeff), in 1813, on a British ship (see article on Raffles below), and was startled to see how strongly fortified the bay was compared with before. In 1825, the shogunate issued an Edict, noting, ‘We have issued instructions on how to deal with foreign ships on numerous occasions up to the present. In the Bunka era [1804–17] we issued new edicts to deal with Russian ships.’ Now another was required because, ‘a few years ago, a British ship wreaked havoc in Nagasaki’.38 No havoc was wreaked by the British at all, and probably none even threatened. In 2010, the Phaeton Incident was included in David Mitchell’s novel Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, fictionalised to take place in 1800 with a ship named HMS Phoebus, which did bombard Nagasaki.39 As for the Phaeton itself, after Japan, it sailed right up to 1828, outlasting its Minerva peers by more than a decade.40 After it was laid up, the Royal Navy named several more ships the Phaeton, the seventh and last, transferred to the Australian Navy, was renamed HMAS Sydney and sunk by the German Komoran in 1941, some said with Japanese involvement.41 ENDNOTES 1

The volume in now in Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture entitled in Japanese Fêton-go¯ ko¯kai nisshi. I am grateful to Noell Wilson for help in locating it. The folio calf-bound cover is mis-entitled in English as Log of His Majesty’s Ship Culloden, East Indies 16

ADMIRAL SIR FLEETWOOD PELLEW (1789–1861)

2

3

4 5

6

7

8

9 10

11

12 13

14 15 16 17 18

Hendrick Doeff, Herinneringen uit Japan (1833), see, Annick Doeff (trans. & ed.), Hendrick Doeff, Recollections of Japan (Victoria, Canada: Trafford, 2003). Page numbers given here are to the English translation. Also VOC/secret Tsu¯ko¯ ichiran, volumes 256–260, see, Tsu¯ko¯ ichiran (Kokusho Kanko¯-kai, 1913), vol. 6, pp. 398–455. The diaries are (1) Enji Kyo¯choku, Kiyo¯ nichiroku; this work exists in six MS copies, but has not been published; it is, however, discussed and extensively quoted in, Cho¯zo Muto¯, ‘Kiyo¯ nichiroku Part II: from the Nagasaki Diary by Tanji [sic] Kyo¯choku, on the Coming of the H.M.S. “Phaeton” in 1808’, The Travel Bulletin (published monthly by the NYK Line Passenger Department) 133 (July/August, 1936), pp. 270–273; note that Kokusho so¯mokuroku (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1989), q.v., gives the diarist’s name as Enji while Muto¯ misreads the name as Tanji. (2) W.G. Aston, ‘H.M.S. “Phaeton” at Nagasaki, 1808’, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 7 (1879), pp. 323–36, republished in George Sioris (ed.), Early Japonology: Aston, Satow, Chamberlain (Tokyo: Yushodo, 1997), vol. 1, pp. 107–22. The scholarly assessment is, Otsuki Gentaku, Hoei mondo¯, in, Nihon shiso¯ taikei (Iwanami, 1976), vol. 64, pp. 401–44. However, that was later: hide/ei was used for Britain only after Meiji. Although the Japanese name for the ship is ‘fêton’, in English it would be pronounced ‘feeton’ (not ‘fayton’). For an overview (with references to recent Japanese literature), see, Noell Wilson, ‘Tokugawa Defense Redux: Organizational Failure in the Phaeton Incident on 1808’, Journal of Japanese Studies 36 (2010), pp. 1–33. See, Heather Noel-Smith & Lora Campbell, ‘“…faithful and attached companions…” Sir Edward Pellew and the Young Gentlemen of HMS Indefatigable’, National Maritime Museum Royal Navy Seminar Series (14 May, 2014), see http://www.slideshare.net/LornaMCampbell/ faithful-companions-03 (accessed 3/3/15). Stephen Taylor, Commander:The Life and Exploits of Britain’s Greatest Frigate Captain, (London: Faber & Faber, 2013), and p. 232. However, Sir Edward Pellew had a comrade from the Indefatigable called Robert Reynolds, who may be the source of the name, see Noel-Smith & Campbell, ‘…faithful and attached’, slide 24. C. Northcote Parkinson, Edward Pellew (London, 1934), p. 395. Stephen Taylor, Storm and Conquest: The Battle for the Indian Ocean, 1809 (London: Faber & Faber, 2007) p. 15. Rif Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714–1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates (London: Chatham, 2005), q.v. Aston, ‘H.M.S. Phaeton’, p. 324. John Marshall, Royal Naval Biography (1824), Volume 2, Part I, pp. 170 & 757 (reprinted by Cambridge University Press, 2010). See above, note 7. Taylor, Commander, p. 205. Taylor, Commander, p. 228. See above, note 1. George McGivary, East India Patronage and the British State: The Scottish Elite and Politics (London: Tauris, 2008), p. 115. A Charles B Stockdale 17

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

19 20 21 22 23 24

25

26

27

28

29 30

also appears as a clerk in the Home Accounts of the East India Company for 1840, who may be a son or nephew, see, https://books.google. co.jp/books?id=o0lDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=charle s+stockdale+east+india+company&source=bl&ots=709Hg7J_M7&si g=YrI1GLqkObzIk9gh50WPYipaWIo&hl=ja&sa=X&ei=PcQXVZq xJOWNmwXK44GwBw&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q= charles%20stockdale%20east%20india%20company&f=false (accessed 3/3/15). Enji Kyo¯choku, Kiyo¯ nichiroku, states the ship was wearing no flag. Doeff, Recollections, p. 97. W.G. Aston, see above, note 2 Otsuki Gentaku, see above, note 2. Tsu¯ko¯ ichiran, pp. 436 &, 441–42. W.G. Aston, who précised Tokuemon’s diary, interpolated that ‘mismanagement and cowardice prevailed on all sides.’ Tsu¯ko¯ ichiran, p. 442, gives the name of the full name of the physician, while Aston gives only ‘Dr Baiyei’ (sic). One is in the Nagasaki Museum and Art & Culture, one in Sendai University Library and one in a private collection. All three are reproduced in Muto¯, ‘Kiyo¯ nichiroku’. These Japanese images may be compared with a drawing of the ship by Lieutenant C.P. Coles, c. 1850, http://www. artnet.com/artists/lieut-c-p-coles/hms-phaeton-at-lisbon-KghykmZ5sCCf7ILIBPnig2, which was the basis of numerous etchings, see, http:// www.grosvenorprints.com/stock_detail.php?ref=27754 and http:// www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/thomas-goldsworth-dutton-1819– 1891-well-done-373-c-cb20a3c618 (all accessed 3/3/15). There is also an imaginary early twentieth-century water-colour now in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, by Irwin Bevan, see, http://images. rmg.co.uk/detail/21916/1/PU9479/HMS-’Phaeton’/Irwin-Bevan (accessed 3/3/15). Reproduced as frontispiece (without caption or source) to Sumita Sho¯ichi (ed.), Kaiji shiryo¯ so¯sho (Kensho¯do¯, 1929; 2nd ed, Seizando¯, 1969), vol. 5. M. Paske-Smith, Report of Japan to the Secret Committee of the English East India Company (Kobe, 1929, 2nd ed, London: Curzon Press, 1972), pp. 141–44. This also contains part of Doeff’s diary kept at the time. See note above, p. 143. In 1988, Shiraishi Kazuo proposed it as implausible that Pellew would have made such a threat. He regarded it as incompatible with Stockdale’s encomia on Japan. Shiraishi calculated the threat was entirely made up and added by Doeff, to provoke the governor who was, perhaps, moving to a more emollient stance. This was first argued by Shiraishi in the form of a novel, entitled Seppuku, but he later reiterated it in a scholarly context. More recently, the interpretation has been endorsed by Matsutake Hideo in the most thorough analysis of the Phaeton Incident in Japanese. In his Recollections of years later, Doeff added that the letter had threatened to hang the Dutchmen if food was not given. This appeared first in the form of a novel, Shiraishi Kazuo, Seppuku (Chûô Kôronsha, 1988), then in Nagasaki City (ed.), Sho¯wa 63-nendo 18

ADMIRAL SIR FLEETWOOD PELLEW (1789–1861)

31

32 33 34

35 36

37 38

39

40 41

nagasaki-gaku kenmin ko¯za (Ko¯giroku), pp. 101 & 333–34. Matsutake Hideo, ‘Fêton-go¯ jiken to 19-seiki shoto¯ no kaiun jo¯sei’, To¯nan ashia kenkyu¯ nenpo¯, pp. 1–53 (1992), pp. 34–35. Paske-Smithe, Report on Japan, p. 143 & passim. For the myth of selfdisembowelment (which was all but never practised), see, Eiko Ikegami, The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge, MA: Havard University Press, 1997). Aston is unaware that Tanabe is the same person as Dr Baike (or ‘Beiei’). Tsu¯ko¯ ichiran, pp. 416–17 & 419. For tables of the interpreters’ periods of employment, see, Katagiri Kazuo, Oranda tsûji no kenkyû (Yoshikawa Kôbunkan 1985), pp. 143– 44. Wilson, ‘Tokugawa Defense’, p. 23. Doeff, Recollections, p. 104. The yield of Saga was 357,000 koku, where 1 koku notionally = 1 ryô (or what Doeff calls a koban). Doeff, Recollections, pp. 85 & 108. Translated in Bob Wakabayashi, Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 60. David Mitchell, Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (London: Sceptre, 2010). See above, note 11. Tom Frame, HMAS Sydney: Loss and Controversy (Rydalmere, New South Wales: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993).

19

2

Thomas (Sir Stamford) Raffles (1781–1826) and Dr Donald Ainslie TIMON SCREECH

INTRODUCTION

Sir Stamford Raffles, ‘founder of Singapore’, is a famous historical figure in the history of South-East Asia. His intensive, if brief, engagement with Japan in 1811–15, as Lieutenant-Governor of Java, is less well known. He was then called Thomas Raffles. He turned his middle name into his first in 1817 in time for a knighthood. Dr Ainslie is quite unknown, and even his name has been confused, since Raffles, who sent him to Nagasaki as British Commissioner, referred to him as ‘David’ although his first name was in fact Donald.1 The ‘Adventure to Japan’, as Raffles called it, came to nothing. London was guardedly enthusiastic and the Government of India, under Gilbert Elliot, Earl of Minto, was prepared to be convinced. But in late 1813, Francis Rawson-Hastings, Earl of Moira, took over as Governor-General, and attitudes hardened. The experiment, which included two voyages, yielded nothing, but is nevertheless 20

THOMAS (SIR STAMFORD) RAFFLES (1781–1826)

revealing of attitudes in the period, and dovetails with many significant events. It is a case study in why history seen only through successes will always be incomplete. Raffles’s life is well documented. However little is known of Donald Ainslie. He entered Edinburgh University in 1795, and received an MD in 1801, going straight to Asia, where he was employed by the East India Company as an Assistant Surgeon. Ainslie was thus a few years older the Raffles (who was born in 1781). It seems probable that he was related to Montague Ainslie who had interests in Bengal and so may have invited Anslie to India.2 After some years there, in late 1807 Ainslie was promoted to Surgeon. By the time he was employed by Raffles, he was Chief Surgeon at Batavia (Jakarta), an office attached to the Binnen hospitaal (‘outer hospital’), or the newer of Batavia’s two medical establishments, built in 1743. Chief Surgeons had the role of overseeing sanitation of ships as well as treating on-land patients, so this was a prominent civic position. It is most unlikely that Ainslie would have been employed in this role under the Dutch, so he surely moved to Java in the wake of the English take-over in 1811.3 Raffles selected Ainslie because of his status of physician, which was no more than a means to impress the Japanese with his learning. Raffles would later remark that he had been prepared to go to Japan himself, had his official obligations not precluded it, and Ainslie was a worthy representative.4 As part of the ‘Adventure’, Ainslie also made a documented trip to Calcutta, to the British government centre at Fort William, but on seeing that the project was not progressing, he moved to Probolinggo, in East Java, as Political Agent for the Native States of Bali. Probolinggo was on the other side of Semarang, where, at this time, a certain William Ainslie was Magistrate and may be another relation. At the time there was also a firm of Ainslie & Addison near Batavia, at Ryswick.5 Ainslie’s administrative and medical interests overlapped, and he later donated an Indian materia medica, for which he was awarded a special gratuity.6 The Annual Java Almanac for 1816 lists him as resident in Djocjocarta (Jogjakarta), a Sultanate obliterated by Raffles in 1812, and he later moved to Weltevreden (literally ‘well-satisfied’), where wealthy Dutch had built country homes.7 It was here that Ainslie, died on 21 July 1816, probably aged about forty. In 1795, owing to war in Europe, the Stadtholder of the United Provinces, William V, Prince of Orange, fled to England. In a series of statements known as the ‘Circular Letters of Kew’, he placed his country’s possessions under the British Crown. In 1800, the United (or Dutch) East India Company, the VOC, went bankrupt, and its assets were nationalised by the Dutch state, now called the Batavian 21

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Republic. This meant the VOC could be regarded as British, although no immediate move was made to claim it. In summer 1806, French forces destroyed the Republic setting up Napoleon’s brother, Louis, as ‘King of Holland’, and the French moved to assume possession of Dutch possessions in America and Asia; a small contingent went to the capital of the Dutch East Indies, Batavia. In 1810 the Kingdom of Holland was dissolved and the Netherlands made a département of France. Napoleon sent a new Governor-General to Batavia, Jan Janssens, and the British response was to send troops from India, Java falling to them in September 1811. While the fighting was underway, Minto nominated Raffles as Lieutenant-Governor of Java, i.e. under the Governor-General of India. Raffle wrote an admired History of Java, published in 1817 and ordered the first scientific inspection of Borobudur. But more significantly here it was up to him to decide what to do about trade with Japan since that was exclusively conducted between Batavia and Nagasaki, meaning that its organisation fell under British control. Owing to war, no Western ship had been sent to Japan since 1808, and for several years before that, most were were from the USA, leased to the VOC. The Dutch chief, or opperhooft, what in British parlance would be the Commercial Agent, was Hendrik Doeff, who had been in Japan since 1800, hanging on with some half-dozen others, including a deputy, Jan Blomhoff, who had arrived in 1808, vainly waiting for news.

22

THOMAS (SIR STAMFORD) RAFFLES (1781–1826)

RAFFLES ‘ADVENTURE TO JAPAN’

There are two key sources of information about Raffles’s ‘Adventure to Japan’ One is Doeff’s book, Herinneringen uit Japan (Recollections of Japan), published in 1833 as an exercise in self-justification. The other is a collection of papers put together and published in 1929 by M. Paske-Smith under the title of Report on Japan; much of it is made up of the report Raffles sent to the East India Company’s Secret Committee (central governing body) [CUT with other documents].8 In the present essay, numbers in brackets refer to pages in PaskeSmith, while those prefaced with a D refer to pages in Doeff. Doeff had no idea why they had been abandoned. He had nothing to trade with and was running up bills. He was also learning more about Japan than most opperhoofts had been able to. Additionally he was fathering mixed-race children with a courtesan named Doi Uriuno, and they had a daughter, Omon, and two sons, Do¯fuku Sueyoshi and Doi Ryu¯zo¯.9 A Russian embassy had arrived in 1804, but been repulsed. In 1808, the young but highly decorated Fleetwood Pellew, sailed into Nagasaki to hunt for Dutch (aka French) ships, in the British Phaeton, under a fraudulent Dutch flag, and made insolent threats; this had led Matsudaira Yasuhide, Governor of Nagasaki (Nagasaki bugyô), to commit ritual suicide, while Matsudaira (Nabeshima) Narinao, daimyo of Saga (who then oversaw Nagasaki’s military protection), endured a hundred days house arrest.10 Raffles knew of both these recent incursions. However, he took the view that the Japanese would accept the British more readily than the Russians, since Britain had simply superseded the Dutch, and would bear no grudge: Pellew had gone on to acquit himself well in the invasion on Java, and no one wanted to attribute fault to him. Raffles’s decision about the Batavia-Nagasaki trade was to send British ships with the same cargo as the Dutch habitually took, to trade in their place, and to inform the Japanese of what had occurred, relieving Doeff of his post (which was long overdue). However, that was to be only the start. The trade with Japan was pitifully small, and Raffles aimed to open it to a much wider ranged of goods, notably modern British manufactures. He also wanted to export from Japan not just copper and sappanwood (caesalpinia sappan11), as the Dutch had done, but also other items, which he was sure Japan must have. Large quantities of British goods were said to be already entering Japan on Chinese ships, and it would be in the British interest to cut out these middlemen. Although Raffles did not know it, for some decades the Japanese had become aware that manufactured goods coming on Dutch ships were mostly British, and in 1787 Morishima Chu¯ryo¯ recorded this with respect to timepieces: ‘In their lands 23

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

is a place called London which excels all others in production of clocks; nowhere else comes close. All the pocket watches brought to this country are made there.’12 This was no obscure statement, for Chu¯ryo¯ was brother of the Shogun’s physician and his book, Ko¯mo¯ zatsuwa (European Miscellany), was a best-seller. As the Japanese would need to be credibly informed, Raffles began looking for a ‘Dutch gentleman of character and proper principles’ to lead the adventure (6). He alighted on Willem Wardenaar who had been opperhooft in Japan in 1800, before Doeff. Wardenaar accepted that trade had legally defaulted to Britain and was sure he could persuade Doeff. Wardenaar was ‘highly esteemed’ in Japan, Raffles told Minto, and ‘possessed considerable influence with leading persons’, while ‘his circumstances in a pecuniary point of view have very opportunely placed his exertions at our disposal’ (9). Wardenaar was broke, but he drove a hard bargain, demanding 20% of the voyage’s profit. A British presence was also required, and this is where Ainslie came in. He and Wardenaar were to be Co-Commissioners. Raffles sold Ainslie to Minto as ‘possessing that suavity of manner, evenness of temper spirit of enquiry, extensive knowledge of mankind, habit of privation and high notions of enterprise calculated to meet the personal insults, local prejudices, inconveniences and disappointments to be expected from a haughty and over-bearing people so completely secluded and distinct from the best of mankind and so exclusively the arbiters of their own conduct and behaviour’ (12). Doeff would evaluate Ainslie rather differently: ‘driven… by an exaggerated passion for alcohol to which he had totally succumbed, Mr Ainslie was incapable of doing anything’ (D132). Some months later, Minto wrote to Raffles commending his decision on ‘opening a commercial intercourse’ with Japan which ‘appears to be judicious’, and although Wardenaar’s fee was high, it could be tolerated, while Ainslie ‘meets with our entire concurrence’ (18). Two ships were to be sent, although only one is named, the James Drummond; Paske-Smith claims that this referred to an Englishman who had worked on Dejima, though offering no evidence for this.13 The ship was over 600 tons, not large, and the second vessel was smaller. Winds were ripe for sailing to Japan in early summer, but it was now already May 1812. While it might have been possible in the limited time available to gather the Javanese items to send (mostly sugar) there was no chance of collecting worthy presents and other items which had to come from India. So the voyage was postponed to 1813. The next six months saw a hiatus in the correspondence as Raffles was busy dealing with local issues.14 24

THOMAS (SIR STAMFORD) RAFFLES (1781–1826)

THE FIRST VOYAGE

After New Year, a Committee for the Japan Voyage was set up under William Robinson. The James Drummond no longer being available, so another ship, the Charlotte, rather bigger at 700 tons, was leased from Shrapnell, Skelton & Co, a British outfit that had acquired much land in Java in 1811. The fee was 6,600 Spanish dollars per month (Sp$4 = £1), with the smaller Mary (43).15 For the cargo, Raffles wrote to London it was ‘as nearly as possible assorted in conformity to what has hitherto been usual’ (54). The total value was somewhat under Sp$200,000, mostly sugar, but also cloves, nutmeg, Indian cottons and British woollens. A fascinating list of presents for Japan survives, running to six pages (46–51). The main item for Tokugawa Ienari, Shogun since 1787, was a male and female elephant (unpriced), along with a ‘day and night spy glass’ (Sp$100), Egyptian mummy, civet cats, sheep and more, to a total value of just under Sp$600 (plus elephants). Nagasaki had two Governors, one resident, the other in Edo, rotating each autumn. The former, Makino Narikatsu with whom the British would deal closely, was to receive fully Sp$2300-worth of presents, mostly cloth, but also two silver pocket watches, spyglasses, carpets, books, paintings, lookingglasses and thirty windowpanes. The latter, who would appear as the ships were sailing out, To¯yama Hirokatsu, was allocated presents to about Sp$600 consisting of much cloth, a ‘sky glass with its feet’ and twenty glass plates.16 The Nagasaki interpreters were to share watches, paper, books (including dictionaries) spices, looking-glasses and corks. A highly negative letter now came in from India, deploring spiralling costs for such a hypothetical venture, opining ‘it would have been more prudent to have confined the undertaking to a very limited scale’, and ‘the Governor General is disposed to doubt whether the expense is not disproportioned to the value of the object contemplated’. Moira was now Governor-General. This letter is dated January, although it is not clear when it was received. Perhaps the vessels had departed, which they did on 26 June. Hendrik Voorman, who had sailed to Nagasaki many times, captained the Charlotte and William Wood and Peter Brown the Mary. Wood and Brown fell ill, and three days were wasted on Bangka trying to find replacements, which could not be done, so they sailed anyway, reaching the open sea on the 30th. Also sailing was Anthoni Cassa, to replace Doeff, while Wardenaar was permitted to take a secretary, Abraham Wardenaar, presumably his son (likely the A. Wardenaar who later worked for the Java Salt Department).17 Should the entire voyage be denied access into Nagasaki, they were to make for Canton and sell their cargoes there, rather than bring them back. 25

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

The commissions for ‘David’ Ainslie and ‘William’ Wardenaar survive. They state that the Japanese should be fully informed about changes in Europe and how Java was now under British protection, and only then should permission to trade be sought. To Ainslie alone it was added, ‘once a direct intercourse between the British Government and the Japanese may be attempted with safety, the intermediate interference of a Dutch agent [Cassa] will of course in a material degree be superseded’ (61). The progress of the voyage is not recorded, but was smooth enough for the ships to arrive in Japanese waters on 24 July. We can rely on Wardenaar’s journal for information hereafter, since Ainslie failed to keep one, adding some credence to Doeff’s assessment of him (107– 36). In Nagasaki Bay, the two ships were instantly surrounded by fifty Japanese vessels, some fitted for war. Wardenaar noted how in the twelve years since he was last there, Nagasaki had become much fortified. One of the senior interpreters, Namura Takichiro¯, whom Wardenaar remembered well, came aboard, and escorted him ashore. Ainslie would stay on board until the next day, allowing Wardenaar to break the news to Doeff. Doeff read the letter from Raffles, but refused to comply. He then had a one-hour discussion with the five senior interpreters, Takichiro¯, plus Ishibashi Sukezaemon, Nakayama Sakusaburo¯, Motoki Sho¯zaemon and Baba Tamehachiro¯. After this he reported to Wardenaar their collective view: no one other than the Dutch could trade with Japan, as the Russians had found out; but worse, because of Pellew, the British were loathed, and their ships would certainly be fired and all crew killed if the Japanese learned the truth. The five senior interpreters proposed that the nationality of the ships be hidden, and as they were clearly not Dutch, they would be called American. Doeff demanded to stay in total control, with the cargoes made over to him in the name of the Dutch Company. If this was not done, he said, everyone would assuredly be killed. The next morning Wardenaar tried again to make Doeff see how things now legally stood, but could not prevail. Doeff showered contempt on his predecessor, while the interpreters warned of dire consequences. ‘I could not deny the soundness of that reasoning’, wrote Wardenaar, ‘nor had I any objections to offer’ (116). Some hours later when Ainslie arrived he was informed, to his great shock, since the ‘unfavourable disposition of the Japanese Government towards the British Nation had been unknown in Batavia’ – although Raffles had known of Pellew’s intrusion and the Governor’s suicide (117). Ainslie regarded Wardenaar as having led them all into a dangerous impasse, and this may well have propelled him towards the bottle. He might have abandoned the project and gone on to Canton, but the Mary’s senior officers were too ill to sail. Wardenaar and Ainslie

26

THOMAS (SIR STAMFORD) RAFFLES (1781–1826)

therefore took up residence on Dejima in the garden cottage, which had been home to the opperhooft before the island was rebuilt in 1808, Ainslie described as Wardenaar’s American doctor, while Cassa moved in with Doeff. The crest of the East India Company was removed from all packing cases and elements of cargo. Since Cassa would now not take over, on 2 August, Doeff sent the Governor a request for permission to remain one more year. This was anomalous since generally the opperhooft changed annually, but the gloss was that Cassa had a bad leg and was suffering fainting fits, so could not make the required trip to Edo. That ritual used to be annual, but since 1790 was less regular, although with a voyage having arrived after such a long gap, and with an elephant to deliver two (just one, as the other had died in Nagasaki, precluding the chance the Japanese breeding more), it would take place after New Year. By the end of the month the ships had taken their ladings, 6,766 chests of copper into the Charlotte and 1,700 into the Mary. The latter quantity was not enough to allow the Mary to sail, but Doeff ensured that no more was provided, meaning it had to waste hold space with clay as ballast. On 5 September permission came through for Doeff to stay and Cassa to leave, and acceptance of the presents, except the elephant, declined because of ‘difficulty to transport the same’, and a fine clock because it was ornamented with classical figures, which someone must have feared looked Christian (D124). The Japanese text stating this was translated for Doeff (Wardenaar put it into English), noting the ‘great token of friendship’ and how the Shogun offered 100 bales of feed for the elephant on its homeward passage. Although one died and the other was not accepted, the elephants became famous. Three fine though sadly anonymous coloured sketches were made of the pair, one with pull-out sections to show details, and an accompanying inscription noting that they were drawn from life while the elephants were being bathed in the river (though water is not shown); these sketches were preserved thanks to being included in a scrap-book of animal history images, compiled about 1830 under the title of Jurui shinzu (True pictures of animal types).18 Araki Jo¯gen, a follower of the well-known Araki Yu¯tei, also produced a more polished painting, as did the otherwise-unknown Seichu¯-tei Tokushin, and there is also a fine anonymous work. A votive plaque (ema) was also made by one Ko¯un-kaku (also otherwise unknown) showing a single elephant, likely commissioned for repose of the spirit of the dead beast. Doeff’s mistress was related to the admired Nagasaki artist Doi Kyo¯suke Yu¯rin, who one would have expected to try his hand too, though nothing is recorded. As well as the one-off paintings, there are least four popular prints.19

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BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Anon, Jurui shinzu (True pictures of animal types), collection of earlier hangpainted images compiled c. 1830. Courtesy the British Library

This was the third time elephants had come to Japan. The first was given to Toyotomi Hideyoshi by the Spaniards in 1596, the second to Tokugawa Yoshimune by the Chinese in 1728. The litterateur Ota Nanpo, on government business in Nagasaki at the time, wrote a ‘mad verse’ (kyo¯ka) about this: Oei was the first time, In Kyoho we’re familiar, The third time you send them back, these new elephants.20

The first date is wrong (Oei is 1394–1428; 1696 was in Keicho¯), but the real point of the verse was a pun: ‘new elephant’ (shinzo¯) is a homophone with ‘trainee courtesan’. The verse sounds like a customer becoming familiar with a young sex worker, then rejecting her. Although they did not make it to Edo, the elephants were heard of there, and the great artist Shiba Ko¯kan received a painting of it from his friend, Yamaryo¯ Kazuma, replying, ‘I have gratefully received your transcription of the picture of the elephants; it feels just like looking at the real things! What a shame the animals did not come to Edo and were returned to where it came from.’21 In mid-October, commercial matters nearing completion, Doeff proposed that the British send ships annually, on the same terms, 28

THOMAS (SIR STAMFORD) RAFFLES (1781–1826)

flying the Dutch flag and turning the goods over to him, or his successor, although this would make no sense to Raffles. He also suggested sending Blomhoff and a clerk back to Batavia, ‘that the former might remonstrate to the Government the impossibility to continue the Japan trade in the name of the British nation’, which was agreed (129). Doeff composed a report to be shown to Raffles on the Phaeton Incident, including transcriptions from his log of the period (141–44). The two vessels left on 23 November, the Mary following close behind as Wood was very ill. On the 25th, in a heavy gale, the Mary disappeared and would never be heard of again. On Christmas Day the Charlotte was in sight of land and entered the Batavia road on the 26th. Even before the voyage returned, Raffles had written to Fort William asking for a wide range of British and Indian cloth types to send to Japan for sale on a second expedition. Word soon came back that ‘His Lordship in Council is of the opinion that it would not be advisable to incur any considerable expense in preparing for a second Adventure to Japan before the result of the first shall have been ascertained.’ The letter also noted that, as it was received in India in February 1814, it was too late to send anything to be shipped to Japan that summer, although this was not strictly-speaking true (175). On 24 January, long before this letter was in Raffles’s hands, he wrote to Moira to report that the ships had returned and asked for a major present for the Second Adventure, suggesting three camels – perhaps more moveable and resilient than elephants. He then put together his ‘Report on Japan’ for the Secret Committee, dating the covering letter 11 February. This dossier comes to some 100 modern printed pages and included Doeff’s report about Pellew, Wardenaar’s Report and Journal, two letters by Ainslie (in lieu of a report, which he promised to write later), the Financial Accounts, a Sketch of a Plan of a Commercial Treaty by Blomhoff (Doeff would not deign to write it), and a list of British manufactures regarded as saleable in Japan, such as woollens, hardware, glassware, carpeting (‘this is an article likely to come into general use’), printed cottons, ironmongery, English porcelain (Worcester, Colebrook Dale22, &ca., breakfast and dinner sets), astronomical and optical instruments, leather, clockwork (‘expressly London made’), firearms, lace, mock jewellery, stationary, medicines, oil paints and corks (167–68); finally there was a list of desired presents for the sailing: a large pair of globes, telescopes and microscopes, a static electricity generator, a large camera obscura, books, engravings, cloth carpets, glassware clockwork and livestock. In their statements everyone from the British side put the best interpretation they could: ‘if the result of the expedition has not included all the objects contemplated’, wrote Raffles, ‘it has paved 29

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the way to a further and more decisive attempt with every prospect of success’ (77). Raffles attributed Japanese fears to ‘so much petty intrigue, duplicity and even misrepresentation’ by the Dutch, Doeff being ‘an able intriguing character disposed to secure an ample fortune for himself in the present moment’, though unlikely to ‘prove any serious obstacle to the final conclusion of our measures’ (82). On one point Raffles was emphatic. ‘The character of the Japanese has evidently been subject to the misrepresentation which the jealousy of the Dutch has industriously spread over the whole of their Eastern possessions.’ In Ainslie’s words, the difficulty was ‘infinitely less’ the ‘character and political institutions of the Japanese’, than those of the mindset of the Dutch; the Japanese themselves ‘appear entirely free from any prejudices that would stand in the way of a free and unrestricted intercourse with Europeans’ (160). Doeff, when he later read these statements, excoriated them. Finally in his Report to the Secret Committee, Raffles emphasised that the small volume of trade now carried out was ‘no criterion whatever of the extent it may be carried to, and which in the natural course of things, it would attain’. He noted that while the Dutch sent two ships, the British should aim for ‘perhaps eight, ten or even more’ (76 & 161). Sale of British manufactures would be ‘almost unlimited’, while exports from Japan could include cinnabar, tea, whale oil and more. The Dutch had exerted no effort, and now were in no position to, so another nation must take over, and ‘the Japanese are sufficiently informed of what is passing without them [beyond their borders] to know that that nation must be the English’. Ainslie proclaimed, British trade would be ‘instantly followed by the total annihilation of the Dutch’, as ‘their paltry system of concealment has alone protected them hitherto’. Raffles concluded that the mission was ‘decidedly favourable to the British character’, Pellew’s legacy ‘removed by friendly communication’. It is a little glaring that he failed to mention how barring five interpreters, no one in Japan was aware that it was a British venture at all. SECOND VOYAGE

This second voyage was to convey a British Commercial Resident, and rather than Cassa (who was Dutch) this would be Ainslie. Blomhoff would return to ensure Doeff complied. Raffles requested the East India Company to furnish a letter from the Prince Regent (later George IV), addressed to the Shogun, explaining ‘the Dutch nation has been destroyed and annihilated by the French and that Batavia and all the Dutch possessions are under the British protection’. This could not come in time for the second sailing, but would be useful for the next, or if slow, the fourth. 30

THOMAS (SIR STAMFORD) RAFFLES (1781–1826)

Raffles was ready with a threat too: if the Japanese refused to accept the British flag (and it has to be said the Dutch flag represented a no-longer existing entity), then ‘the commerce between Batavia and Japan is to cease’, effectively the British would cut Japan off from the rest of the world. But the Japanese being reasonable, this would not be required. Ainslie again: ‘the English character should not fail to contrast advantageously with that of their predecessors’, and once communication was ‘thoroughly cleansed of the contamination of the Dutch’ all would be well (158). While Raffles’s extensive report was in transit, a Council meeting was held at Fort William. Moira ruled out most of what Raffles had in mind, especially the camels. In March, Raffles sent Ainslie to Calcutta, ‘for affording the opportunity for such further enquiry as His Lordship may be pleased to desire’ (184). Although it is not articulated in the paperwork Raffles had clearly scaled back. The second voyage too would merely replicate the Dutch cargos and as Ainslie could not return in time, Cassa would replace Doeff. The real matter would thus be deferred once again, hopefully with a letter from the Prince Regent in 1815. It may be wondered what Blomhoff was doing. The fact is, we do not know, but certainly he had not been persuaded to see things Raffles’s way. Word also got out that he and Doeff had devised a secret signal to be used upon return. In June, shortly before the Charlotte was to sail (this time alone) Blomhoff was interrogated, and although he accepted a signal had been agreed, he would not divulge it. He was therefore declared ‘French’ and a Prisoner of War, to be shipped back to England, where he spent part of 1816–17. Before the Charlotte left for Japan, news of the defeat of Napoleon and the reestablishment of the Dutch state came through. However, this did not (yet) entail return of Dutch overseas possessions, so it had no impact. The Charlotte arrived in Nagasaki in August, under Brown and Voorman, and Cassa told Doeff the news. Doeff, who had no proof that any of this was true, and who (having lived with Cassa for some months the previous year) regarded him as ‘someone on whom one could not count very much’, put him in the garden cottage, and applied to the Nagasaki authorities for permission to stay one more year (D140). Sho¯zaburo¯ and Takichiro¯, the two juniors among the five senior interpreters, felt this had become absurd, and took to visiting Cassa in his house to see if a resolution could be found. Doeff planted a spy, a courtesan introduced to Cassa as ‘one of his female housemates’, and she alerted him that the two interpreters were poised to go over to the British (D142). However, Doeff interrupted this démarche, and in the end 1814 was just a repeat of 1813. 31

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While the Charlotte was in Japan, Moira ordered William Edgerton, the Accountant-General at Fort William, to go through the documents submitted by Raffles and come to a view on the first ‘Adventure to Japan’. It was fairly damning. Edgerton regarded the purchase price of Japanese copper as under-recorded (to make the profit margin look better), and he believed it really cost no less than in Calcutta (194 & 197). Moreover, since Britain produced copper, exporting it from Japan should be discouraged, rather than promoted. For exports to Japan, he wrote, ‘I cannot perceive that any detailed account of sales has been rendered of the cargoes.’ If the idea was to sell British wool, since Raffles admitted the Chinese were already selling it, Edgerton noted that ‘as our exports from Java to Japan increase those from Europe to China may be expected to diminish’. In any case the Chinese were culturally attuned to Japan, so could sell British wool there better than the British could (199). Moira wrote to Raffles forbidding further attempts unless an order came through from London. Ainslie was soon to leave Calcutta, and Moira intended him to emphasise this point to Raffles. Moira also cited Japan in his next report to London, agreeing trade there was ‘of considerable interest’, but including a copy of Edgerton’s analysis so as to show that actually it was not; he stated Edgerton ‘removed any doubts from our minds’, and ‘we have no grounds to believe the Japanese have any particular predeliction [sic, predilection] for British manufactures; or that the supply which they at present obtain through China is inadequate’ – though as a patriot he felt obliged to add ‘that the Japanese as well as other nations can justly appreciate the excellence of our manufactures may readily be admitted’ (203). Moira concluded, reversing Raffles, that Dutch mystification of Japan ‘has the effect of producing extravagant notions of value and importance’. Raffles, outraged, had the Accountant-General of Java, John Bauer, contest Edgerton’s figures in a document that ‘leads to a very different conclusion regarding the advantages of the intercourse’. Raffles even published the accounts in his History of Java (206 & 250–52).23 The Charlotte came in to Batavia on Christmas Eve. It had an array of goods intended to show what Japan had to offer, and Raffles sent these to London, ‘with a view to ascertaining their value in the European market’. He also sent many luxurious kimonos that Doeff had received from the Shogun as reciprocal gifts, ‘as they are not common articles in England’ (209). But over winter 1814–15, with the Dutch state restored, it became clear that there would be no third sailing. In February 1815, John Calder, agent for Shrapnel, Skelton & Co., petitioned for permission 32

THOMAS (SIR STAMFORD) RAFFLES (1781–1826)

to carry on independently, ‘upon our own account and risk’ (213). Raffles temporised (he had not given up), and in October, too late to sail anyway, he still confirmed he was ‘unable to give you any decided reply to this application’ (216). It would take Moira to quash the idea, saying he ‘could not comply with the application in question’ (217–18). Absolutely nothing of relevance happened in 1816, and Doeff remained without contact in Nagasaki. It would be the following year, 1817, that a revived Dutch company, sailed from a Dutch Batavia with Blomhoff as opperhooft. He brought for Doeff the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands. CONCLUSION

Ainslie should have been the person to write a full overview of British trading possibilities in Japan. The evidence today is that he failed to produce his Report, but there is a reference to his having written a Discourse, which was published in the Transactions of the Literary and Scientific Society of Java. The wider-circulating Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany regretted that ‘if any copies of the Transactions of the Literary and Scientific Society of Java have got to England, they have been few’, and indeed no such journal can be traced today.24 Interestingly, however, the Asiatic Journal cited a claim by Ainslie that the Japanese read and praised Kaempfer’s History of Japan. William Darby and Richard Brookes commented about recent writings on Japan stating ‘the Russians, Kruzenstein and Galowin [sic, Golownin], and the Englishman [sic, Scot], Dr Ainslie, are the most conspicuous’ though ‘it is probable that neither [sic, none] have [sic, has] added much to what Kaempfer had published long before’.25 A single sentence with four errors of fact, spelling and grammar does not inspire confidence, but the authors must be referring to the lost Discourse. Back in London, Raffles produced his own self-justifying tome, privately published as Statement of the Services of Sir Stamford Raffles, in 1824. He devoted only a single paragraph to the ‘Adventure to Japan’, but a powerful one: ‘I feel perfectly satisfied, had the measures which I recommended been adopted with promptness and ability, the latter object would have been effected.’26 Raffles died in 1826 aged forty-five. In 1830, his second wife, Sophia (née Hull), decided to set the record straight, as she saw it, with a book entitled Memoir of the Life and Public Service of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. She noted ‘the opinion of Dr Ainslie is that the Japanese are a people with whom the Europeans might hold intercourse without compromise of character’, then offered, ‘Mr Raffles had long considered an intercourse with Japan an object of great impor33

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tance to the English nation, to furnish a population of not less than twenty-five millions with staple commodities, and with the manufactures of Great Britain was, in itself, a great national project.’ In short, the East India Company, and Moira specifically, had blown an enormous chance, though she backed her claim with an extraordinary slight of hand, proposing the Shogun ‘bestowed a very unusual mark of favour in condescending to accept the whole of the presents to his own use’. 27 In 1832, The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia cited Ainslie as saying ‘a lady from the court of Jeddo performed the honours at the table with an ease, elegance, and address that would have graced a Parisian’, and that Japanese women dressed so well the cost of just one gown ‘might supply the wardrobe of a European lady of the same rank for twenty years’.28 His Discourse would seem to have circulated and contained some interesting materials, whatever the alcohol level of his blood. Doeff’s text appeared in Dutch the next year. It was not translated, but three years on it was extensively paraphrased by Mary Busk in the Quarterly Review, then three years further on in the Asiatic Journal.29 Busk also wrote a set of pamphlets on ‘manners and customs’, with that for Japan, of 1840, derived mostly from Doeff, and this was included in The Chinese Repository, then published alone as Manners and Customs of the Japanese, in 1841, expanded with work by other authors, mostly Philipp von Siebold. The reader is told, ‘Sir S Raffles did not apparently think it worthwhile, under existing circumstances, to renew an attempt in which success even [sic, even success] could no longer promise permanent advantage to England.’30 In 1856, Doeff was again paraphrased in the London and Paris Chronicle, the anonymous writer admitting his sympathy with ‘this unaffected narrative of a Hollander’s distress,’ and saying of Raffles ‘We cannot but think that his zeal in this instance overstepped his discretion.’31 The two versions of this story – that of Doeff and that of Raffles and associates – can hardly be squared. Had a reckless Pellew (operating without instructions), ruined what might be been an ‘opening’ of Japan forty years ahead of time? Or was Doeff exaggerating the situation to keep the British out? There was clear and genuine British anger that the Dutch had held Dejima for 250 years without nurturing it into anything, but could anyone have persuaded the Shogunate to change its historic policy without force that only the USA was prepared to use? Did a pig-headed Doeff delay Japan’s modernisation by a generation, or would the Japanese not have begun to use carpets anyway, even if they had been imported?

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ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4

5

6 7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Paske-Smith (see note 8 below), p. 61. In none of the period writings is Ainslie’s first name (nor even initial) ever given, and it is obscure from where Paske-Smith derives his supposition. He does, however, cite a Court Minute (his p. 184 note), which I have not had access to, so perhaps that gives the name of David. See,http://www.archives.lib.ed.ac.uk/alumni/search. php?view=individual1&id=95 (accessed 3/3/15). This date is one year later than appears in D.G. Crawford (ed), Roll of the Indian Medical Service, 1615–1930, vol. 1 (London: Thacker, 1930; Uckfield: Naval & Military Press, 2003, 2nd ed.), vol. 1, entry 457. Neither source makes any reference to a ‘David’ Ainslie. Iris Bruijn, Ship’s Surgeons of the Dutch EIC: Commence and the Progress of Medicine in the Eighteenth Century (Leiden UP 2009), p. 115. Sir Stamford Raffles, Statement of the Services of Sir Stanford Raffles (London, 1824), pp. 18–19. A facsimile exists edited by John Bastin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978). Java Half-Yearly Almanac and Directory for 1815, see https://sites.google. com/site/sumatraswestkust/java-almanac-1 (accessed 3/3/15) Paske-Smith (see note 8 below), p. 184 note. The Java Annual Directory and Almanac for 1816 (Batavia, 1816) q.v. (unpaginated). For Doeff, I have used the translation of Annick Doeff, Recollections of Japan (Victoria, Canada: Trafford, 2003); Report on Japan to the Secret Committee of the East India Company by Sir Stanford Raffles, 1812–1816 with Preface by M. Paske-Smith (Kobe 1929; 2nd ed. London: Curzon Press, 1971). Koga Ju¯jiro¯, Maruyama yo¯jo to to¯ko¯mo¯-jin (Nagasaki: Nagasaki Bunkensha,) vol. 2, pp. 401–34 and Koga Jûjirô, Nagasaki kaiga zenshi (Hokkô Shobô, 1944), p. 176. Throughout this essay I have corrected and completed the identification of Japanese people. A species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is native to Southeast Asia and the Malay archipelago. Morishima Chu¯ryo¯, Ko¯mo¯ zatsuwa, in, Bunmei genryu¯ so¯sho (Kokosho Kanko¯-kai, 1913), vol. 1, p. 469. Paske-Smith gives no source and I have found no Drummond in the Dutch records. June saw Raffles’s assault on Yogyakarta, the first time a Javanese sultanate had been overrun by a European army. The royal library was looted, many precious goods destroyed, and Sultan Hemengkubuwono II deposed. Raffles also assaulted the Sultanate of Palembang, requiring Sultan Mehmud Badaruddin II to cede the strategic island of Bangka to the British, to be retained in the event that Java itself be returned to a future Dutch state. Mrs Raffles, Olivia (née Devenish, born in India, raised in Ireland) banned European women from wearing local dress in public. Despite this, the couple were regarded as forging good relations with the Javanese community.

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15

16

17 18

19

20

21

22

23

24 25

26 27

28

29

30 31

For the leasing company, see, Donald Campbell, Java: Past and Present (London: Heinemann, 1915), p. 649. No one in Batavia would have known the magistrates’ names since the post changed hands regularly. The garbled names used by Raffles do not match any holders. Java Half-Yearly Almanac. The book was purchased in Japan by Phillip von Siebold from whom it entered the British Library, cat, Or. 913 ex. Siebold. Koga, Nagasaki kaiga, p. 176; Timon Screech (Murayama Kazuhiro trans), Edo no igirisu-netsu: rondon-bashi to rondon-dokei (Kodansha, 2006), contains reproductions of one print and one painting, see, pp. 116 & 236, while Ko¯un-kaku’s painting is in Paske-Smith, after p. 126 (I follow Paske-Smith in reading the name Ko¯un-kaku, though it seems just as likely to be Ko¯gei-kaku, though neither name is recorded in any list of Nagasaki artists); another print is in the Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture, and is published in Nigel Barley (ed.), The Golden Sword: Stamford Raffles and the East (London: British Museum Press, 1999), while two others are in the Tomita Collection (Waseda University), cats, TM-A-46 & 47. Oei wa hatsu kyo¯ho wa uranajimi sankaime ni wa agenu shinzo¯, see, Hamada Giichirô (ed.), Ota Nanpo zenshû (Iwanami, 2000), Supplementary Volume 21, p. 99. I have previously quoted and translated this verse, see, Timon Screech, The Lens within the Heart: The Western Scientific Gaze and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan (London: Curzon 2000, 2nd ed.), p. 39. Nakano Yoshio (ed.), Shiba Ko¯kan ko¯ (Shinchosha, 1986), p. 58. Since Japanese does not distinguish singular and plural, if is unclear if one or two elephants are being referred to. Colebrook Dale is not the name of an English porcelain. Colebrookdale wares were made of iron and include decorative iron benches. Was Raffles perhaps thinking of Coalport, a make of English porcelain from the same area? There is a Coalport museum at Ironbridge in Shropshire. For Bauer’s name, see, https://sites.google.com/site/sumatraswestkust/ java-almanac-1 (accessed 3/3/15). Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany (April 1816), p. 371–72. Darby’s Universal Gazetteer: Or, A New Geographical Dictionary (2nd ed. Philadelphia, 1827), pp. 349–50. Raffles, Statement, pp. 18–19. Sophia Raffles, Memoir of the Life and Public Service of Sir Thomas Samford Raffles (London: Murray, 1930), pp. 184 & 229–30. The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia (Edinburgh: Parker, 1832), vol 11, Japan q.v. Quarterly Review 54 (1836), pp. 415–37. Asiatic Journal 29 (1839). See also Dv-vi. The Chinese Repository 9 (May-December 1840). London and Paris Observer, or Weekly Chronicle of Literature, Science and the Fine Arts 12, pp. 532–35.

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3

Victoria Crosses Awarded for Valour in Japan: Duncan Boyes, Thomas Pride, William Seeley and Robert Gray IAN RUXTON

INTRODUCTION

The Victoria Cross (V.C.) is Britain’s highest military decoration, awarded for valour ‘in the face of the enemy’. It may be awarded to a person of any military rank, and to civilians under military command. It is first in the order of wear of decorations. There have been four V.C.s awarded for action in Japan, though only two have been awarded to Britons: Duncan Boyes and Thomas Pride.1 The other two were awarded to an American (William Seeley)2 and a Canadian (Robert Gray),3 and as such they could not be subjects for portraits within the criteria for the Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits series. This essay focuses on Duncan Boyes V.C., being the best known – and arguably most tragic – of the quartet. It will not go into the reasons for the naval bombardment of Kagoshima (1863) and the naval and military action at Shimonoseki (1864), which have been fully explained and discussed elsewhere.4

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DUNCAN BOYES (1846–69)

Duncan Gordon Boyes in his midshipman’s uniform

Duncan Gordon Boyes was born at 3 Paragon Buildings, Bath Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, the son of John Boyes on 5 November 1846. His sister Louisa Mary was later to marry Thomas James Young, who won a V.C. at Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny on 16 November 1857. Duncan was educated at Cheltenham College (founded 1841), noted for its classical and military traditions.5 From there he joined the Royal Navy via North Grove House Academy. He was first assigned to HMS Euryalus on the East Indies station. Duncan Boyes was a midshipman throughout his brief naval career. This rank has no equivalent in the other two services. It is an officer’s rank, above naval cadet and below sub-lieutenant. In effect it is an ‘officer-in-training’, and Boyes would have expected promotion in due course, regardless of his glorious feat performed at the age of seventeen. Depending on the size of the unit to which a midshipman (‘middy’ in the jargon of the period) is attached, he may mess in the officer’s wardroom in a small ship, or with the lower ranks in a larger ship such as the HMS Euryalus. There have so far been six Royal Navy ships named Euryalus after one of Jason’s Argonauts. The one on which Boyes served was the second of that name, weighed 2,371 tons, and was Admiral Sir Augustus Leopold Küper’s6 flagship at the bombardment of Kagoshima on 16 August 1863, and at Shimonoseki on 5–6 September 1864.7 She was commanded by Captain Alexander and headed the nine-ship British squadron at Shimonoseki. (Küper was in overall command of the international squadron, comprising British, French, Dutch and American warships.) Built at Chatham in 1853, this Euryalus was a wooden screw frigate with thirty-five guns and a crew of 515, and had arrived at Yokohama on 14 September 1862, the day on which the Namamugi incident (Charles Richardson’s murder on the 38

VICTORIA CROSSES AWARDED FOR VALOUR IN JAPAN

To¯kaido¯ highway) occurred. She was paid off at Portsmouth on 23 September 1865, the day after the award ceremony for Boyes, Pride and Seeley, and broken up in 1867. MEDAL CITATION

The medal citation for Boyes was published, as is customary, in the London Gazette on 21 April 1865 and read as follows: For the conspicuous gallantry, which, according to the testimony of Capt. Alexander C.B., at that time Flag Captain to Vice-Admiral Sir Augustus Küper K.C.B., Mr. Boyes displayed in the capture of the enemy’s stockade. He carried a Colour [Union flag] with the leading company, kept it in advance of all, in the face of the thickest fire, his Colour-Sergeants having fallen, one mortally, the other dangerously wounded, and he was only detained from proceeding yet further by the orders of his superior officer. The Colour he carried was six times pierced by musket balls.8

The courage shown by Boyes met the basic criterion for the award of the Victoria Cross of valour ‘in the face of the enemy’. He is also mentioned by name in Sir Ernest Satow’s memoir A Diplomat in Japan (Chapter X, p. 112), since Satow was at Shimonoseki that day: ‘Lieutenant Edwards and Crowdy of the Engineers were ahead with a middy named D.G. Boyes, who carried the colours most gallantly; he afterwards received the V.C. for conduct very plucky in one so young.’

The Naval Brigade and Marines storm the stockade at Shimonoseki, 6 September 1864. From a sketch by Charles Wirgman in the Illustrated London News of 10 December 1864. Boyes is probably the man holding the Union flag in the centre of the sketch.

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INVESTITURE

Duncan Boyes was invested with his V.C. on 22 September 1865 by Admiral Sir Michael Seymour G.C.B. (Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth) on the Common at Southsea, a seaside resort within Portsmouth, together with Thomas Pride and William Seeley, the other two winners of the medal at Shimonoseki. Thomas Pride (1835–93) was Captain of the After Guard and one of the two colour sergeants who accompanied Boyes in action, and kept the flag flying despite being severely wounded in the chest by a musket ball. William Henry Harrison Seeley (1840–1914) was an Ordinary Seaman of the Euryalus and the first American to receive the V.C., gained for a daring reconnaissance to ascertain the enemy’s position, and for taking part in the final assault despite being wounded by grape shot in the right arm.9 (There is no mention of Boyes being wounded, and he appears not to have been.) The ceremony was ‘public and formal’ by special command of Queen Victoria, and it was attended by huge numbers of people, including two veterans of the Crimean War (1854–6), Hugh Talbot Burgoyne V.C. and John Commerell V.C.10 (The medal had originally been founded by Royal Warrant of Queen Victoria issued on 29 January 1856 to honour acts of valour during the Crimean War.) BOYES AFTER THE INVESTITURE

Boyes in civilian clothes

Duncan Boyes’s short life took a turn for the worse after the high point of the investiture. On 9 February 1867 he and another midshipman serving in the Cadmus were court-martialed for disobedience of the Commander-in-Chief’s Standing Order after they broke in to the naval yard at Bermuda after 11 p.m., presumably attempting

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to return to their ship. The warder at the main gate had previously refused them admittance since they did not have a pass. Both men admitted their guilt and were sentenced to be dismissed from the Royal Navy. While the disobedience was clear and a serious breach of regulations occurred, the punishment meted out was harsh (in keeping with naval discipline at the time) and there were apparently no second chances allowed, nor – curiously – was the fact that Boyes was a recipient of the Victoria Cross enough to save him. Was Boyes perhaps rather arrogant and unrepentant? John Winton commented: ‘It seems an astonishingly harsh punishment for what on paper was merely the aftermath of a midshipmen’s run ashore, but obviously there was more to the story than appears.’11 Whatever the truth may be, the deep disgrace of dismissal (and presumably the loss of a career which meant so much to him) was too much to bear for Boyes. He began to suffer severe fits of depression and turned to alcohol for solace. For the sake of his health he went to New Zealand to work with his elder brothers on their sheep station at Kawarau Falls near Queenstown in Otago province, but the scandal followed him there. He suffered a complete nervous breakdown and took his own life on 28 January 1869 at Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand, aged just twenty-two years and two months. On his death certificate the cause was listed as ‘delirium tremens’ (a psychotic condition common in alcoholics involving tremors, hallucinations, anxiety and disorientation). Duncan Boyes was at first buried locally in the Southern cemetery ‘Viking style’ (i.e. with just a stone at his head and feet), but the grave fell into disrepair. On 4 May 1954 the Dunedin Returned Serviceman’s Association (R.S.A.) in recognition of his V.C. reinterred his remains in the servicemen’s section of the Anderson’s Bay cemetery, Tomahawk Road, Dunedin, where he rests to this day. The inscription on the grave reads simply: “MIDN. D.G. BOYES V.C. R.N. DIED 28–1–1869. AGED 22 YRS.” THE MEDAL

Duncan Boyes’ medal was sold by order of Cheltenham College Council at Spink’s & Co., the London auctioneer, on 21 July 1998 for £51,000. The medal had lain in a bank vault for about twenty years prior to that, having been acquired by the public school for £2,000 in 1978.12 The sale was reported in the Times and other local and national newspapers including the Gloucestershire Echo the following day. The buyer was anonymous, but was said to be a private collector of V.C.s.13

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In April 2004, Framlingham College loaned their two Victoria Cross medals to the Imperial War Museum for permanent display. In the same year the BBC reported that a descendant of Duncan Boyes (his great great nephew Charles Bayfield) had organized the publication of posters depicting nine V.C. holders, including Boyes, on the London Underground to celebrate their valour.14 The private collector turned out to be Lord Ashcroft, who had begun his collection in 1986. He donated £5 million to the Imperial War Museum in London and his collection is on long-term loan there in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery, opened by H.R.H. the Princess Royal in November 2010. His collection includes more than 190 medals, estimated to be worth more than £30 million, and is the largest collection of V.C.s in the world. It is displayed alongside the forty-eight V.C.s and thirty-one G.C.s (George Crosses) already in the care of the museum.15 ENDNOTES 1

2

‘Thomas Pride was a Dorset man, born at Oldbridge, near Wareham, Dorset, on 29 March 1835. He joined the Navy on 17 February 1854 and was one of the first young men to undergo a seaman’s training in HMS Illustrious at Portsmouth, under Captain Robert Harris; Illustrious was the first proper boys’ training ship in the Royal Navy. After his wound at Shimonoseki he was invalided to the hospital ship Melville in Hong Kong in January 1865 and subsequently discharged from the Navy in January 1866. He had married a Dorset girl, Mary Eliza Croombes, at St. Mary’s, Wareham, in 1861 and when he left the Navy he went back to Dorset, becoming keeper of the Waterloo Tollgate at Longfleet, near Poole. He died at Parkstone, Dorset, on 16 July 1893, and was buried at All Saints, Branksome.’ (John Winton, The Victoria Cross at Sea, London: Michael Joseph Ltd., 1978, pp. 76–77, hereafter ‘Winton’.) ‘William Henry Harrison Seeley was born at Topsham, Maine, on 1 May 1840 and was the first American citizen to win the Victoria Cross. At the time, American nationals were forbidden to enlist in the British Services and, ironically, had Seeley set foot on the American ship in the squadron off Shimonseki he would have been liable to arrest. His first record in the Navy was when he joined Imperieuse, flagship on the China Station, on 17 July 1860. Possibly he joined from a merchant ship on the China coast. He transferred to her from Euryalus when she relieved Imperieuse on 17th November 1862. He was discharged from Euryalus on paying off, and went back to the United States. His V.C. pension and his naval pension, amounting to £22 10s a quarter, were paid to him through the British Consul in Boston. He married and very probably had at least one son and a daughter. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage at 26 Barrows Street, Dedham, Massachusetts, on 1 October 1914. His death certificate gives his precise age as ‘74 years, 4 months, 11 days’, from which his birthdate can be computed, and described him as a widower. He was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery, Stoughton, Massachusetts.’ (Winton, p. 77.) 42

VICTORIA CROSSES AWARDED FOR VALOUR IN JAPAN

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10 11 12

Robert Hampton ‘Hammy’ Gray, V.C., D.S.C. (1917–45) was a Canadian member of the Fleet Air Arm, and one of only two members of that service to be decorated with a V.C. during the Second World War. He sank a Japanese destroyer, the Amakusa, on 9 August 1945 at Onagawa Bay in Miyagi prefecture. His plane, a Corsair, crashed into the sea and his remains were never found. See for example Sir Ernest Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, (1st edition London: Seeley Service & Co., 1921 with many other editions), Chapters VIII– XI. In outline, Kagoshima was bombarded because the Satsuma clan refused to consider demands for compensation for Charles Richardson’s murder, while Shimonoseki was attacked to keep the Kanmon straits between Kyushu and Honshu open to foreign shipping after the Choshu clan had attacked some ships in the previous year. Cheltenham College has a very strong military tradition, including fourteen Victoria Cross holders, behind only Eton (thirty-seven), Harrow (twenty), Haileybury (seventeen) and Wellington (fifteen). (See https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Victoria_Crosses_by_school accessed 17 August 2015.) It also has connections with Japan through Sir Charles Eliot (1862–1931, Ambassador to Japan, 1919–25), Major-General Francis Stewart Gilderoy Piggott (1883–1966) and his son Major-General Francis James Claude Piggott (1910–96). See the entry about Küper by ‘J.K.L.’ (John Knox Laughton) in the Dictionary of National Biography. See Sir Hugh Cortazzi, ‘The British Bombardment of Kagoshima, 1863: Admiral Sir L. Kuper and Lt. Colonel Neale’, Appendix One; and ‘The Naval and Military Action at Shimonoseki’, Appendix Two; in Hugh Cortazzi ed., British Envoys in Japan 1859–1972, (Global Oriental for the Japan Society, 2004). London Gazette, 21 April 1865, No. 22960, p. 2130. The citations are also here for Thomas Pride ‘who supported Mr. Boyes in the gallant rush which he made in advance of the attack’ and for William Seeley ‘[f]or the intelligence and daring which, according to the testimony of Lieutenant Edwards, Commanding the Third Company, he exhibited in ascertaining the enemy’s position, and for continuing to retain his position in front, during the advance, after he had been wounded in the arm’. See Admiral Küper’s report (‘Despatches reporting Operations at Shimonoseki’) in the London Gazette, 18 November 1864, No. 22913, pp. 5467–5473. Winton, pp. 75–6. Winton, p. 76. A letter from the late Brigadier John H. Montagu (Old Cheltonian) to the author dated 3 December 1998 reads: ‘You are quite correct in believing that I was involved in the sale of the Boyes VC. I could see no sense in having it just lying in a vault in Lloyds Bank, and I therefore recommended to the College Council that it be sold, and the proceeds go towards funding a scholarship in his name. My proposal was accepted…’ The letter also mentions the idea of a display of V.C.s and other medals awarded to distinguished former pupils in the College Library, subject 43

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13

14

15

to costs associated with getting adequate insurance cover, i.e. a burglar proof cabinet. At that time I was living in Kitakyushu city very close to Shimonoseki (as I still do), and as an Old Cheltonian (former pupil of Cheltenham College) with a particular research interest in Sir Ernest Satow and his account of the Bakumatsu 1861–69 contained in A Diplomat in Japan, I expressed my concern at the sale in an article, which I was invited to write for the former pupils’ magazine Cheltonian Society News 1998–9 (No. 19). A response in the following issue (1999–2000, No. 20) suggested that Boyes had a long record of insubordination from his first days in the Royal Navy – something which I have been unable to confirm – and implying that he had in fact got his just deserts. In order to clarify the matter, I expanded my article in the Cheltonian Society News and uploaded it to the web, where it can still be found at http://www.dhs. kyutech.ac.jp/~ruxton/boyes.html . http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/gloucestershire/3991993.stm ‘Rail posters tell brave stories’, BBC News, 8 November 2004. Accessed 17 August 2015. See also Gloucestershire Echo, 10 November 2004. http://www.lordashcroftmedals.com/about/lord-ashcroft-gallery/ accessed 17 August 2015.

44

4

Marianne North (1830–1890) Traveller, Botanist and Artist KARATO TADASHI AND HUGH CORTAZZI

INTRODUCTION

Marianne North was born on 24 October 1830 at Hastings in Sussex. Her father Frederic North was a landowner who came from a distinguished family. He had been elected Member of Parliament for Lewes in 1830. Her mother, who had been a young widow when she married Marianne’s father, had a daughter named Janet from her previous marriage. Marianne had a younger sister Catherine and brother Charles. Marianne had little formal education but she had a good voice and took singing lessons. In 1847 the family began a three-year European tour during which she studied flower painting, botany and music. Her mother died in 1855 and when her voice gave way she concentrated on flower painting. Her father rented a flat in Victoria Street from where she and her father often rode to Chiswick and Kew Gardens. There she met the great botanist Sir William Hooker who gave her a hanging branch of the Amherstia nobilis growing normally 45

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in tropical countries. This plant may have awoken her interest in the tropics with its exotic flowers and plants. Every summer she and her sister accompanied her father on travels in Europe. She kept a diary and made sketches. During a visit to Spain she began to paint landscapes in watercolours. After her father lost his seat in parliament in 1865 Marianne accompanied him on journeys further afield including to Egypt and Syria. She took up oil painting, which she preferred to watercolour. In 1869 her father to whom she had been devoted died. Painting helped her in her grief and in 1871 she sold her home in Hastings and devoted herself to travel in search of plants and flowers and to painting. In 1871 and 1872 she travelled to Canada, the USA and Jamaica. She then spent eight months in Brazil. In 1875 she made plans to visit Japan where on a short visit in 1877 she suffered from rheumatic fever before returning to England via South East Asia. In Borneo she discovered the largest known carnivorous pitcher plant, which was the first of five plants named in her honour. She later travelled extensively in India, preferring to go about alone. She was not put off by appalling travel conditions. She also toured Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii at the suggestion of Charles Darwin. In 1882 she went to South Africa, in 1883 to the Seychelles and in 1884 to Chile, but her health was beginning to decline and she became increasingly deaf. Her last years until her death in August 1890 were spent at Alderley in the Cotswolds where she planted her garden with rare botanical specimens, which she had collected. Marianne North’s paintings of plants she had collected and places she had visited became so popular that she decided to open a gallery to display them. This was first opened in August 1882 when she hired a room in Conduit Street. Two-thirds of the expense was covered by the fee of a shilling taken at the door. ‘The remaining third I thought well spent in the saving of fatigue and boredom at home.’ A positive comment in the Pall Mall Gazette caused her to conceive the idea of establishing what came to be the Marianne North Gallery in Kew Garden. Her idea was developed by her friend, an architect called Fergusson. Following her return from Chile in 1884 the gallery included 832 works. The Marianne North Gallery at Kew Gardens now claims to be ‘the only permanent solo exhibition by a female artist in Britain’. In 2008 with the help of a grant from the National Lottery the gallery and its contents underwent a major restoration. VISIT TO JAPAN

In 1865 Japan participated for the first time in the World Exposition at Paris. This aroused European interest in Japan and with the 46

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opening of the Suez Canal and American transcontinental railways travel to Japan became easier. The British Peninsula and Oriental steam navigation company (P&O) extended its route from Shanghai to Yokohama and the American Pacific Mail Steamship Company opened a service between San Francisco and Hong Kong via Yokohama. A round-the world-trip thus became feasible. At the country house of one of her friends in Aldermaston, she became acquainted with Mr and Mrs S, who ‘asked me where I was going next and I said vaguely, “Japan”. They said: “You had better start with us, for we are going there also, on the 5th of August,” and to their surprise, I said “I would.”’ Marianne’s stay in Japan was short (less than two months between November and December 1875). But Japan made a deep impression on her and during her short stay she painted some memorable pictures. It was unfortunate that she came to Japan in a cold winter while suffering from rheumatism, which prevented her from enjoying her stay to the full and from seeing more of Japan. Her journey to Japan began on 4 August 1877 when she went on board the Sarmatian at Liverpool, which took her to Canada. She crossed the American continent going by train to Chicago and Salt Lake City, then by ‘stage – a horrible springless machine’ via Yosemite to San Francisco. There she joined the Oceanic on which she had ‘a large airy cabin’ and there was ‘an open fireplace in a corner of the great saloon’ which turned out to be very necessary as the ship went by the northern route, which she found too cool for pleasure. ‘Three weeks without seeing land at all is a long time, and latterly I suffered much from an attack of my old pain, brought on by the cold.’

On 7 November 1875 she had her first sight of Fujiyama, which she later painted with wisteria on either side (see above). She wrote: ‘I watched the sun rise out of the sea and redden its top, as I have seen so well represented on so many hand-screens and tea trays.’ 47

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She noted that: The coast is beautifully varied with ins and outs, islands and rocks, the cliffs everywhere fringed with trees…the water of the clearest aquamarine colour. It was a real sight to see the boats which surrounded us from all sides filled with tiny men in the oddest dresses, some looking like the straw umbrellas they put over beehives, some in strange stripes and checks, some in no clothes at all, or next to none, but all good-humoured and sensible, with some funny tufts of backhair turned over their bald crowns, like clowns in pantomimes, and all their ways of doing things so unlike the ways of the rest of the world.

YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO

She landed Yokohama with some of her friends, ‘drove out into the country and took funny cups of yellow tea in a bamboo tea-house with five pretty girls rather over four feet high, in chignons with huge pins, blackened teeth, and no eyelashes, laughing at us all the while’. Having seen her ship-board friends off on the departing liner she returned to the hotel1 at Yokohama, which she described as ‘a sort of mongrel establishment with neither the cleanliness of Japanese nor the comforts of English life’. Mrs C2 soon found me out. As Sir Harry3 and Lady Parkes were said to be soon going away on an expedition round the coast, I started to pay my respects to them at eight in the morning. The railway4 went alongside the famous Tokaido Road, and was full of interest. The rice and millet harvest was then going on, and the tiny sheaves were a sight to see. They piled them up against the trees and fences in the most neat and clever way, some of the small fan-leaved palm trees looking as if they had straw petticoats on. There was much variety in the foliage; many of the trees were turning the richest colours, deep purple maples and lemon-coloured maidenhair trees (Salisburia), with trunks a yard in diameter. The small kind of Virginia creeper (Ampelopsis) was running up all the trees. These seemed generally dwarfed, except round the temples, which were marked all over the country by the groves of camphor, cryptomeria, cedars, and pinetrees, as well as a small variety of bamboo. The little houses were excessively neat, and had beds of lilies growing on their roofs. Every single dwelling was a picture, exquisitely finished and ornamented, though all on such a miniature scale. Many of the town houses were built of black mud, which was fireproof, and looked like polished black marble, the shutters being made to fit close with the greatest precision and security. At the last station one of the Japanese ministers got into our carriage in the costume of a perfect English gentleman, chimney-pot hat 48

MARIANNE NORTH (1830–1890) TRAVELLER, BOTANIST AND ARTIST

included. He invited me to come and see his wife at his countryhouse, and at Yedo [Tokyo], packed Mrs C and myself into two jinrikishas, a kind of grown-up perambulator, the outside painted all over with marvellous histories and dragons (like scenes out of the Revelation). They had men to drag them with all sorts of devices stamped on their backs, and long hanging sleeves. They went at a trot, far faster than English cabs, and answered to the hansoms of London, but were cheaper. So we trotted off to the Temple of the Shoguns,5 most picturesque temples, highly coloured and gilded, half-buried in noble trees, under a low ridge or cliff. We left our cabs and wandered about amongst them attended by a priest, a wretched mortal who could have sold even Buddha himself for a few cents if he dared run the risk of being found out.

They then climbed a ridge behind the temple and visited: … a famous tea-garden on the site of an old temple, with grand views6 over the city and sea, where we had tiny cups (without handles) full of yellow sugar-less tea and all sorts of delicate cakes made out of rice and bean flour, finishing up with cherry-flower tea, which is made by pouring boiling water on dried blossoms and buds of the cherrytree. The smell was delicious, the taste only fit for fairies and very hard for big mortals to discover. The tiny girls who served us were very pretty, and merry over our gigantic and clumsy ways. I felt quite Brobdingnagian7 in Japan

They ‘were trotted on’ to the area surrounding the imperial Palace where Marianne noted the lotus lilies in the moat, commenting that these were real Indian lilies. She ‘just missed seeing the Mikado by three minutes, his English brougham passing out of the gates just before we reached then, and though my biped took to galloping we could not catch him up. He was surrounded by a company of cavalry in semi-European dress.’ ‘The English Legation8 was very new and very ugly, with many rare and beautiful Japanese and Chinese things in it, but the master and mistress of the house so genuine in their kindness and hospitalities, that one forgot the ugly shell.’ Sir Harry and Lady Parkes ‘offered to take me with them in the Government steamers to inspect lighthouses9 all-round the coast, thus giving me opportunities of seeing parts of the islands never visited by Europeans, taking a month or more to do it in.’ But unfortunately that night she suffered a serious pain and had to miss the chance of accompanying Sir Harry and Lady Parkes on what would have been a memorable tour. The pain she suffered was so great that an American doctor who was summoned to the hotel had to give her a morphia injection, which knocked her out for twenty-four hours. Her room ‘was sunny 49

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with a window from which I could see the river and bridge close by, continually crowded with people, who looked as if they had walked out of a fairy-tale, and a beautiful hill of trees and quaint houses on the other side.’ She found the climate of November colder than suited her out of doors. KOBE

After recovering from her illness she employed a Japanese ‘boy’ with a little English, to help her. As, at that time, there was no railway between Tokyo and Osaka/Kobe she took a steamer from Yokohama to Kobe, which she described as ‘another of the European settlements…on a quiet bay by the sea’. At Kobe she found a shrine with a shed in which a white horse was stabled. ‘This horse was kept in case God came down and wanted a ride.’ She noted that the gateway ‘was festooned with wisteria… Further on there was a winding road leading high into the hills, with beautiful cascades and temples, and plenty of tempting little teahouses at every beautiful point of view.’ Kobe, she recorded, ‘was a very sociable place. Lady Parkes [whom she met again there] was not sorry to make me an excuse for escaping its heavy luncheons and dinners.’ OSAKA

They went to Osaka by the railway opened a year ago and then took jinrikishas some ten miles into a valley famous for its maples. ‘The hills were perfectly on fire with its different tints of red, crimson, scarlet, and every shade of carnation, even the different purples.’ They walked up a winding path through the trees ‘with little chapels on all the most picturesque points’. Their lunch ‘was spread out in the priests’ parlour. She attempted to paint the scene spending ‘a vast quantity of madder and carmine in trying to imitate that which could not be imitated’. While Lady Parkes returned to Kobe to attend an official dinner, Marianne went to visit an English painter, Frank Dillon, who lived at the Osaka Mint10 in a regular English-looking house with his son, who was employed as engineer there. She had ‘a most bewildering rush’ through crowded streets over many bridges, and ‘the rivers below seemed as full of life as the land was’. KYOTO

On the following day she left for Kyoto with Sir Harry and Lady Parkes ‘and Mr A, the great Japanese scholar’11 with their luggage in: … fifteen jinrikishas, with two men in each, one by the shafts and one running tandem in front. They trotted over thirty miles that day. As 50

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they got heated they peeled off their draperies and flung them into our carriage leaving nothing on but a bit of rag from the waist, and a very decent allowance of tattooing all over. They never got in the least tired, but did the last part of the way up the High Street of Kioto at a gallop after nearly seven hours of hard running.

She was unnerved by the way in which the men manoeuvred their vehicles round sharp corners and over narrow bridges without parapets. They passed through the ‘richest cultivation, rice, tea, buckwheat, cotton, mulberries, bamboos, camelias twenty feet high, full of single pink and white blossoms’. They stopped for a half-hour rest on the bend of a large river where from the tea-rooms they could watch the loaded barges going up and down. When they reached their hotel12 at the foot of Higashiyama in Kyoto in the evening, ‘the Governor of Kioto13 (in corduroys and shooting-jacket and about four and a half feet high) appeared to pay his respects to Sir Harry and beg us all to go and dine with him’. Sir Harry declined his invitation but promised to have luncheon with him the next day at a tea-house the other side of the city14 in the direction in which the governor was starting an official journey. The tea-house had ‘one side open towards a pretty garden and a clear view. On the table were vases of chrysanthemums, tied up in sticks a yard high, so as to show all the flowers and hide the stalks. The ornaments were of rare old Satsuma porcelain; the food, which came from our hotel being of the knife-and-fork order, not interesting’. After lunch they were rowed up the river until it narrowed where they got out and walked on the banks where she saw ‘many lovely kingfishers’. She also went with Sir Harry and Lady Parkes by jinrikisha to Lake Biwa passing through a long street full of china-shops. They met ‘fishermen trotting along with great bundles of fish slung on the ends of bamboos over their shoulders, and fruit-gatherers with brightly polished persimmons, making the real oranges near them look quite dull’. They toured various temples ‘in magnificent groves of cryptomerias’ and ‘delicious views of the great blue lake of Biwa’. They also saw a vast and famous old pine-tree,15 which ‘shaded a quarter if an acre of ground’. They then visited Ishiyamadera.16 On the next day Sir Harry and Lady Parkes and their suite departed and she was left on her own ‘with a special order from the Mikado to sketch for three months as much as I liked in Kioto, provided I did not scribble on the public monuments or try to convert the people; for it was still a closed place to Europeans’. She felt ‘perfectly safe’ in the old temple building which had been turned into an hotel for Europeans with the addition of a few chairs and tables. The Japanese proprietor who spoke a little English and kept a French cook ‘was always dressing himself up in in native or 51

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European costumes, the latter being of a monstrous plaid pattern, with a prodigious watch-chain and breast-pin’. Marianne had a typical Japanese airy Japanese room with futon on which she slept. She depended for heating on a charcoal hibachi. When she complained of the cold they brought in folding screens to put round her and keep the draught out. These screens were ‘painted with storks, cherry blossoms, bamboos and all sorts of lovely things’. She regretted that she ‘could not see through the paper windows to paint without letting in the half-frozen air or damp rain’. When she did open the windows she had a ‘most exquisite view’ over most lovely groves and temples ‘and below the great city of over 200,000 inhabitants’. The Japanese garden in the foreground included a pinetree, which ‘came up like a terrace of flat turf to the level of the balcony’. Marianne recorded that including herself there were six Europeans in Kyoto at that time. These were a German engineer and his deputy, a clever Prussian doctor17 and a lady ‘who was paid by the Mikado to teach18 forty Japanese girls the English language with her husband who was ‘a sporting character.’ One temple, which she sketched, was the Nishihonganji where a priest who had been in England for two years and spoke English ‘remarkably well’ talked to her about his sect of Buddhism, which he called the Protestantism of Japan. ‘He introduced me to many old priests in gorgeous robes who did not look as full of brains as he did. He had a table brought out beside me with tea and cake, and a pan of charcoal to warm my hands over and took the greatest interest in my work.’ Another temple near her hotel, which attracted her, was the great Chionin ‘with its almost too dark interior’. She thought its great bell ‘a fine subject’ but was often disturbed at night by its tolling. Marianne was impressed by the magnificence and simplicity of Kyoto’s wooden temples, with their great unpainted round pillars showing all the colour and grain of the wood. She found Kyoto ‘a terrible place for emptying purses’. She thought the shops fascinating and picked up some beautiful little ‘curios’. While Lady Parkes was in Kyoto they ‘had a bazaar every night of wonderful embroideries, china, bronzes. And enamels the latter bang expensive, but very lovely, with porcelain linings.’ Horses were a rare sight in Kyoto when she was there and she only saw one man riding. ‘His horse had its tail in a blue bag, tied up with red tassels, its mane tied with the same colour.’ She went to a place where they sold live pets. There she saw ‘the most beautiful gold and silver pheasants, mandarin ducks, monkeys, and gazelles, and hideous brown salamanders’ as well as tortoises She noted the post-boxes in the corners of the streets. Stamps were put on them in the European way ‘but they were carried after52

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wards in square boxes hung on the two ends of bamboos, and balanced on men’s shoulders. These men ran day and night over their appointed number of miles finding relays to shoulder the bamboos and continue running without losing a single moment or breaking the sing-song chant, which it is the exclusive privilege of postmen to sing.’ She was condescending about the Japanese she met, recording that they: … are like little children, so merry and full of pretty ways and very quick at taking in new idea, but they don’t think or reason much, and have scarcely any natural affection towards one another. Everybody who has lived long among them seems to get disgusted with their falseness and superficiality…The young men with their attempts at European clothing and manners, were comical with their greatcoats and wideawakes over petticoats and pattens.

One cold evening when there was a full moon the doctor and Mrs W fetched her for a night tour to Kiyomizu temple. Unfortunately he had not got the timing quite right to show the temple at its best and the ladies could not stay long because of the cold. After their expedition they returned ‘to dine with the Doctor whose little dinners would have been thought extra nice in Paris or London’. Marianne, who could scarcely stand after hours sketching because of stiffness and cold, would tramp through the fields to visit Mrs W who would keep her for dinner and send her home in their jinrikisha. One day Doctor W sent his jinrikisha man with two others to ‘run double tandem to the top of Mount Hiei’ from where she: … had magnificent views all over the lake of Biwa as well as the city. It was white with snow and frost at the top and too cold to stay…. my three bipeds got into such a state of delight when the steep hill road was left behind them that they started into the city at full gallop, tearing round the corners and yelling like wild things, and finally fell down like a pack of cards, upsetting me at a street corner. I heard my skull go crack against the wall of the house.

This upset caused much laughter and no one came to help her. She had found Japan most attractive and would have liked to stay on and visit Nikko for the summer but the cold had become too much for her and she was getting stiffer and stiffer and ‘at last could scarcely crawl’. So on 19 December she ordered a boat to take her back to Osaka. She left at 8 p.m. and it took her two hours in a jinrikisha to get to the riverside: 53

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In the boat-house the men were roasting their bare-legs and dripping garments over the great pots of burning charcoal, and the tiny little women were offering them thimblefuls of the hot stuff they called tea, while cooking was going on in another corner, and a bright glaring light was on the people’s faces. I shivered and ached, and could barely crawl out to the ‘houseboat’ prepared for me, and in through one of its windows on to the heap of quilted coverlets, on which I passed the night…The sailors ran round and round over my head, pushing, pulling, and shouting, till morning, when they landed me near Osaka railway-station, in which I found a good fire and boiling water for my tea, to say nothing of a comfortable dressing room (European comforts are nice sometimes).

She took the first train to Kobe where she was looked after by a friend and packed off by steamer back to Yokohama. There she spent ten days recovering ‘tyrannized’ by a tiny nurse whom she employed and whom she suspected of intercepting and carrying off a good deal of the food which her hostess had ordered for her. From Yokohama she took a Messageries Maritimes steamer to warmer climes. CONCLUSION

Marianne North only stayed in Japan for a short time, but she was one of the first British painters19 to visit Japan. She had a good eye for colour and described sensitively Japanese scenery and fauna. She was one of the earliest foreign tourists to visit Kyoto and her accounts of how she got to Kyoto from Osaka by jinrikisha and of her return by boat are fascinating reminders of what such journeys were like some 140 years ago. Her comments on the Japanese people she met reflected the prejudices of her time. If she had stayed longer and learnt some Japanese she might have modified her views. HER PAINTINGS IN JAPAN

All the paintings Marianne created in Japan can be seen in the Marianne North Gallery at Kew. These are listed in the appendix to this article identified by the numbers in the official guide. The sequence of each number given to a picture does not comply with her route in Japan. Some paintings drawn in Borneo and Java have slipped into the group of Japan. APPENDIX

639: Japanese flowers-Forsythia viridissima (yellow), Azalea, Camellia, and Paeonia moutan. 641: Japanese chrysanthemums. 642: Rice drying on the seashore near Yokohama. 643: Gate of the temple of Kobe, Japan and wisteria. 54

MARIANNE NORTH (1830–1890) TRAVELLER, BOTANIST AND ARTIST

Wisteria chinensis trained over the gateway, and a noble camphor tree behind it. 651: Garden of Nishi-Honganji temple, Kyoto, Japan. Cycads and various dwarf plants on a rockery. 652: Entrance to the temple at Kobe. On the left in the middle distance is an old tallow tree with tufts of a sumach upon it. 653: The ‘Hottomi’ Temple at Kyoto. A pine tree trained as an espalier in front, and autumn tints in the background. It is not possible to identify the temple she painted, possibly in the area of Higashiyama. 654: The temple over the great bell of the Chion-in.

‘The great bell of the Chion-in was eighteen feet in height, and made a fine subject, surrounded as it was by trees dressed in their autumn colour. Whenever anyone felt devout, he used to go and strike one of those bells, by means of a kind of weighted battering-ram fastened to the scaffold which supported the bell (for they are generally hung in building by themselves). Though all the dark hours of the night these devout fits seemed to seize people, and did not improve the sleep of others on that hill of temples.’ 655: Interior of the Chion-in temple. ‘I made a study of the great Chionthe-in temple in its almost too dark interior. The priests delighted in watching me, and were most eager over my progress. Their ways were funny. At twelve every day the carried little boxes of lacquer, containing cups of hot tea and rice, to the different altars, one of them beating a gong or other musical (?) instrument.’ 55

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656: Small temple of Maruyama. Cryptomeri japonica, and bamboos in the background. The form of devotion practised at this temple consists in running round it one hundred times, and dropping a piece of wood into a box each time the worshipper passes it. 657: View of the city of Kyoto, in the morning mist. Taken from outside of the Artist’s paper window. ‘From my windows, when I pushed back the paper sliding shutter, I saw a most exquisite view (for the house was perched up high on the side of hill, with most lovely groves and temples all over it), and below the great city of over 200,000 inhabitants. Nearly all the houses were one-storied, and great temple-roofs rose among them like Gulliver amongst the Lilliputians. Beyond the city were beautiful purple hills with tops sprinkled with fresh snow. A most eccentric garden was in the immediate foreground and all-round the house. The top of one of the favorite trained pine trees came up like a terrace of flat turf to the level of the balcony; it looked so solid that I could almost have walked over it.’ 657: Distant view of Mount Fujiyama and Wisteria. 659: Japanese flowers, painted from plants cultivated in the country: Aucuba japonica, Camellia japonica and Cydonia japonica. 661: Study of Japanese chrysanthemums and dwarfed pine. 669: Japanese persimmon or kaki-fruit. 812: Gate of Mariamma temple, Japan Mariamma should surely be Maruyama. It is odd that this painting is exhibited far from the other Japan paintings. ENDNOTES

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

9

All quotations are from Marianne North’s Recollections of a happy life, volume 1, first published in 1894. Almost certainly The Yokohama Grand Hotel Probably a Mrs Cunningham Sir Harry Parkes was the British Minister in Tokyo. The railway from Yokohama to Tokyo had been built by British engineers. Its terminus was initially at Shiodome before the line was extended to Shimbashi and later still to Tokyo station in Marunouchi. Zo¯jo¯ji, which was destroyed in the bombing of Tokyo in March 1945. Atagoyama Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. The British Legation moved from Yokohama to the present site of the British Embassy near Hanzomon in 1875. A temporary lease on the site had been signed in 1872. The Minister’s residence was described by Lady Brassey who visited it in as ‘a nice brick house, built in the centre of a garden’. The Japanese lighthouses had been planned by the Scottish engineer Richard Brunton. See Building Japan 1868–1876 by Richard Henry Brunton, Japan Library, 1991. 56

MARIANNE NORTH (1830–1890) TRAVELLER, BOTANIST AND ARTIST

10

11

12

13 14

15

16

17

18

19

The Japanese Mint in Osaka had been designed by the English architect Thomas James Waters. Its first head was Thomas William Kinder. ‘Mr A, the great scholar, was in the party.’ Mr A must have been W.G. Aston, a member of the Japan Consular service and friend of Ernest Satow. He became one of the leading foreign scholars of Japan in the Meiji Period writing inter alia books on Shinto and Japanese Literature, The temple where Marianne stayed may well have been Chorakuji whose chief priest in 1875 was Juzan. It may well have been near this temple in Higashiyama that Yaami’s hotel was built. Yaami”s was much favoured by foreign globe-trotters such as Rudyard Kipling, who visited Kyoto later when it was easer to reach the old capital. Makimura Masanao, the first governor of Kyoto The governor’s lunch was probably given in a tea-house at Arashiyama. Mariann North’s description of boating and walking after lunch strongly suggests this. This was the famous Karasaki pine. The present pine replaced the second-generation tree, which Marianne saw when it was 284 years old. Famous for its connection with Murasaki Shikibu who wrote The Tale of Genji. Junker von Langeck, born in Vienna in 1828 was employed by a hospital, established in 1872 at the foot of Higashiyama, which became the university hospital of the Kyoto prefectural medical university. This was the new English girls school where Yamamoto Yae who later married Niijima Jo, founder of Doshisha University in Kyoto, studied. Charles Wirgman (1832–91), who had arrived in Japan in 1861 for the IIlustrated London News and settled in Japan, was an accomplished artist. Many other British artists visited Japan later in the Meiji period including, for example, Alfred East, Alfred Parsons, Mortimer Menpes et al.

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5

William Henry Smith (1838–1884): Prominent Public-spirited Figure in Early Yokohama History MIKE GALBRAITH

This portrait of William Henry Smith taken when he was still a lieutenant in the Royal Marines gives little indication of him being indefatigable, public-spirited, and super-energetic.1

INTRODUCTION

William Henry Smith, commonly known as ‘Public Spirited Smith’ or ‘P.P.S.’, was one of the key figures in the development of the foreign settlement in Yokohama in the 1860s and early 1870s. He was involved in nearly every major important initiative in the town. John Reddie Black described him as ‘one of the most energetic and indefatigable men to come to this country’.2 ‘Any description of “Yokohama in the Sixties” would be incomplete without mention being made of one of the Pioneers, “Public Spirited Smith”,’ wrote Arthur Brent in an article published in 1902.3 In many ways Smith was the heart, soul and pulse of early Yokohama but in the mid-70s his world suddenly disintegrated financially; he 58

WILILLIAM HENRY SMITH (1838–1884)

completely disappeared from the spotlight and escaped from Yokohama. He left Japan for the last time in 1883 in order to build a new life in another country but died soon afterwards. Certain of his grandest creations like the Grand Hotel, the Yokohama United Club and the Bluff Gardens were prominent features of Yokohama life for many decades after his departure. Of the pioneering Westerners in Yokohama, no one could match his early triumphs in improving life in the town and his popularity. Few experienced such a dramatic and tragic downturn in their fortunes and reputation. EARLY LIFE AND CHINA DEPLOYMENT

William Henry Smith was born on 14 November 1838 in East Tuddenham in Norfolk, England, where his father, also called William Henry Smith, was the rector.4 William was the eldest of ten children. In the 1851 Census, William was recorded as a scholar at the school of Mr Joseph Thompson in Guildhall Lane, Dereham, Suffolk. In August 1851 he entered the relatively new Marlborough College where he developed basic skills in sports such as cricket, football and possibly wall-based sports. After leaving school at the end of the Easter term in 18555 Smith joined the Royal Marines Light Infantry as a gentleman cadet and was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant in the Portsmouth Headquarters.6 He served at Lewes and again in Portsmouth before being sent, at the age of nineteen, to China with the 2nd Battalion. From August 1857 to May 1861 he was attached to the Chinese Coolie Corps in northern China until the evacuation of Peking by Allied Forces.7 It was there that he quickly showed skills in managing the local people and practical ideas for improving the lot of his comrades stationed in an alien country with none of the facilities of the home. He ‘started a racquet court and a couple of American bowling alleys’.8 Unfortunately, when the rains came, the walls of the court collapsed.9 When he left Canton and China he was given a splendid silver claret jug and acquired the sobriquet ‘Public Spirited Smith’.10 In May 1861 Smith was promoted to 1st Lieutenant and was transferred back to Portsmouth where he remained until he was sent to Mexico where he served from November 1861 until May 1862. From January to March 1862 the twenty-two-year old Smith was in charge of the military train to support the brigade’s move into the Mexican interior. His performance in this role led Lieut. Colonel Samuel Netterville Lowder to commend him in May 1862 in these terms: And in the performance of this very arduous and trying duty, he displayed great zeal, perseverance, and patience; having succeeded in a 59

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short space of time, and far beyond my expectations, in bringing into order, and practically organizing for work, a baggage train consisting of over 150 animals, and numerous vehicles. [he considered Smith to be a public spirited, zealous, and useful Officer, and whenever work was to be done, setting the best possible example by his own exertions.11

In August 1862 Smith was selected to command the guard and escort to Her Majesty’s Legation in Japan. Lieut. Smith and his men (one corporal, two sergeants, one bugler, and twenty privates) sailed for Japan in September 1862 on HMS Argus.12 IN JAPAN: MILITARY SERVICE

Smith began his duties at the British legation on 1 April 1863 although he was officially stationed on HMS Euralyus, which was the flagship of the East Indies and China Squadron. His first months in Japan following the murder of Charles Lennox Richardson at Namamugi on 12 September 1862 were particularly dangerous and stressful. On 2 March 1864 Lieut. Smith was in charge of the guard of honour that welcomed the British minister Sir Rutherford Alcock at the British legation on his return to Japan from home leave.13 Smith seems to have been allowed a pretty free rein and he spent much of the time on a growing list of projects to improve the lives of his fellow officers and the community at large. Despite being an officer nominally assigned to HMS Euryalus, Smith played for the Shore Team against the Navy Team in the first ever cricket match in Japan, probably played in June 1863.14 Later in January 1866 after he resigned his commission he took part in the meeting to found what is Asia’s and Japan’s first football club.15 His school had played a form of rugby rules and Smith may had influence on the rules of the game played in Yokohama.16 In May 1864 he was a steward at the Yokohama Field Sports meeting. He was also interested in horseracing, the most popular sport by far in Yokohama at that time.17 The horse Falling Star, owned by ‘Lieut. Smith,’ finished second in two races during the Garrison Races held on the Rifle Range ground in August 1865.18 When it became clear that Lieut. Smith and his men were going to be moved out of Japan, Charles Winchester, then the consul in Yokohama and chargé d’affairs, wrote to Lord John Russell, the British foreign secretary, praising of Smith and his men: Their good conduct and appearance have won them the good will and admiration of foreigners and natives… Such men could have had no more fitting commander than Lieut. W.H. Smith who by his energy & public spirit has established for himself in this Legation and the whole community a character for activity, usefulness & ready 60

WILILLIAM HENRY SMITH (1838–1884)

resources which I cannot too highly commend. No officer was ever better fitted for detached service requiring energy perseverance and that prompt sagacity which discoveres and utilizes the resources of a Strange country and I venture & hope that hereafter his name maybe (sic) borne in mind by the Dept. should any suitable opportunity occur for his employment.19

Smith apparently heard nothing from London and on 10 November 1865 he resigned his commission and was allowed to stay in Japan. On 15 May 1866 Smith applied to his superiors to stay in Japan on half-pay but this was rejected by the Board with the words ‘Cannot now restore him, he having tendered his resignation and it having been accepted.’20 Up to this point his pay as an officer meant that he was guaranteed a good living standard, especially when the ‘Itzaboo exchange’21 available then to officers increased his spending power in Japan by one third.22 From then on he would have to earn a living. He probably thought that the successful Yokohama United Club would provide him with a livelihood. But he was an entrepreneur and an energetic participant in the life of the settlement. Arthur Brent in his 1902 article described him as ‘a cheery fellow with a rather loud and high-pitched voice, was a good man to have in a new Settlement, and he threw himself heart and soul into anything he thought would benefit our small community’. THE YOKOHAMA UNITED CLUB

In November 1863 a local newspaper reports him as already acting as the manager of the new Army and Navy Club of which both officers and local residents could become members. It had ‘already (although only in embryo) proved to be of the greatest convenience’, said the report, adding that ‘new and more commodious premises than those already occupied have already proved to be required, and have been secured. Whatever improvements in the details may show themselves to be necessary under the able guidance of the indefatigable Honorary Secretary, Lieut. Smith, they are sure to be provided.’23 The Army Navy Club changed its name to the United Services Club and later on to the Yokohama United Club (YUC) Arthur Brent, in his 1902 article, describes its beginnings: When I first arrived it was temporarily located in a poor shanty, three sides of a square on or about Lot 86, whilst the new premises at No. 5. (now the Club Hotel) then thought a very fine building, were being completed. It was afterwards removed to next door, formerly the house of the Netherlands Trading Society.24 61

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Major William Henry Poyntz was full of praise for it: A very nice club had been established in the settlement by our old brother officer, ‘Public Spirited Smith.’ It was composed of over 300 members, officers and civilians. He managed the cuisine himself, kept the accounts, and with his usual indefatigable spirit, superintended everything. There were reading and billiard rooms, with two tables, an American bowling alley, and a fives court. What a grand thing in a garrison such a good fellow is!25

Charles Winchester, then the consul in Yokohama and chargé d’affairs in Japan took the chair at a general meeting of the club on 2 June 1865. The purpose of the meeting was to receive a report from the General Financial Building Committee26 about plans to expand the club. The report said that the club had two options for the planned expansion of the club: 1. Take the land offered by the Japanese government which was small and in a bad location and build a clubhouse at a cost of $20,000; or 2. Purchase a much larger lot in an excellent location with existing buildings and build a house at a total cost of more than $40,000. The costs were to be covered by shares or debentures and a loan. Lieut. Smith was the secretary and so may have had input into the committee. The report noted that the profits on working the club (shown, in a very low estimate, to be considerable) and the rent of some of the buildings not required, would rapidly pay off the loan.27 This was over opimistic and showed a lack of financial caution probably by Smith as secretary to the committee. The YUC was lucky to escape serious damage in the Great Fire of Yokohama in November 1866. John Reddie Black described how Admiral King decided to blow up the building next door to the club to stop the path of the flames. The club ‘was not consumed, although it caught fire once or twice; but it was terribly shaken by the explosions, and much damage was done to it. The exertions of Smith and his staff succeeded in extinguishing every “ignition” that occurred.’28 Smith himself delighted in telling people how he extinguished one small outburst of fire with a teacup of water.29 The late 1860s and early 1870s saw Smith at his zenith. He was one of the most prominent figures in the settlement and many new arrivals seeking jobs were taken to the YUC and introduced to Smith because he knew everyone of importance, as they were nearly all members.30 One of the highlights of Smith’s tenure in the YUC was the royal visit on 15 September 1869 by Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. He came to play for the Navy in a bowls match against the Shore Team after which the teams and friends ‘sat down to a dinner of 62

WILILLIAM HENRY SMITH (1838–1884)

broiled bones, which, with its accompanying speeches and a little melody, kept the Club stirring till the small hour well “ayont the twal”’.31 Every time a detachment of troops sailed for home, their officers were customarily treated to a large farewell dinner or ball at the club. A ball was held on 15 August 1871 to say goodbye to the 10th regiment and a similar event was held for the battalion of Royal Marines in March 1875. In February 1876 the last British and French troops departed and a farewell party was held at the club with Smith in the chair. The Japan Punch produced by Charles Wirgman reported that the public spirited chairman ‘in a voice almost audible from suppressed emotions said Uhrl Uhrl Uhrl! His eyes filled with tears when he looked at that gallant corps with whom he had bled in the deadly breach…’

After the party, the hosting residents accompanied the officers back to their camp on the Bluff. When they got to the North Camp, Smith was hoisted shoulder high and carried round the parade ground while the band played.32 MARKET GARDEN AND FARM

Sometime in 1865 Smith obtained one of the first leases available to civilians on the Bluff near the South Gate of the Camp and not far from the German Hospital. The bungalow had a very large garden and Smith turned it into a vegetable garden which became famous for its vegetables, especially its huge cabbages and cauliflowers. He hired the services of ex-Royal Marine John Joshua Jarmain as a gardener to help run this farm where he also bred pigs and cows.33 63

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Edward Pennell Elmhirst and Richard Mounteney Jephson of the IXth Regiment who were briefly stationed in Yokohama described a visit to Smith’s farm on the Bluff: Up here, through this bamboo grove, is the shortest and prettiest way (back to the Camp), and it will give you an opportunity of seeing Smith’s Farm – the only specimen of English agriculture in Japan. He says it only just pays its way, but that makes us all the more inclined to believe that it answers well. At all events, he succeeds in one thing, i.e., in growing cauliflowers that you can stand underneath. Probably that will be a new sight for you? There is himself, as usual, hard at work. Nobody ever yet saw ‘Public-spirited Smith’ idle; and as he generally has about a dozen irons in the fire, it is hard if some of them don’t get hot. Somehow, though, he always finds time to talk to you, has ever the latest news about everything and everybody, and is invariably ready and anxious to assist any one.34

Charles Wirgman who compared him to Cincinnatus the Roman aristocrat and statesman who happily worked a small farm but twice left his farm to save Rome depicted Smith in Japan Punch as a butcher:

MARRIAGE

On 30 October 1869, just before his 31st birthday, Smith married Gertrude Brooke at the British Consulate in Yokohama before the consul J.F. Lowder and afterwards in Christ Church by Rev. Michael Buckworth Bailey.35 Gertrude was the eldest daughter of John Henry Brooke, later owner of The Japan Herald and previously the minister 64

WILILLIAM HENRY SMITH (1838–1884)

of lands in the Australian state of Victoria. At that time there were few single ladies in Yokohama and Gertrude had quickly become the most eligible unmarried lady in the Settlement on her arrival the previous year. William Henry Smith and Gertrude had four children: William Henry Smith (1870–1938), George Smith (1872-?), Alfred Brooke Smith (1874–1938),36 and Nina Beatrice Smith (1876–1957). BLUFF GARDENS

Around the time of his marriage, Smith and an American named Edward S. Benson were gathering together a group of investors to lease 22,000 square metres of land on the Bluff around the Myokoji Temple from the Japanese government and to lay out the Bluff Gardens, Japan’s first public gardens. These were opened on 4 June 1870. For subscribers entrance was free but for others there was a small charge. The gardens featured a bandstand and a number of imported trees and flora such as Himalayan Pines, which still delight visitors. Arthur Brent was one of the shareholders: If my memory serves me, one of the inducements to shareholders was the revenue to be obtained from the Chinese coolies then (it must have been about 1868) passing through Yokohama to San Francisco, at the rate of some thousands a month…It was thought by the promoters that each of these would pay 25 cents or 50 cents to have a look at the Bluff Gardens.37

Initially the project attracted a lot of attention and proved popular but there were never enough subscribers or income to cover the rent and the revenue from the Chinese coolies promised in the prospectus turned out to be little or almost none. Sir Harry Parkes, the British minister, managed to negotiate a reduction in the rent and a write off of the unpaid rent, but the Bluff Gardens were never profitable and the land was always in danger of being repossessed by the government. In order to try to make the Gardens ‘a popular resort’ so that it could pay its way, Smith tried everything from flower shows, and dog shows to hawking. John Reddie Black commented that it was: A thoroughly worthy undertaking most thoroughly and unaccountably neglected by the general public ever since. On one man, mainly, Mr W.H. Smith, their support for a long time depended; and but for him they would have long since reverted to the Japanese lords of the soil. By his care, however, they were kept in excellent order, and they deserved better appreciation at the hands of the community. 65

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OTHER ACTIVITIES

On 1 November 1865 he opened the Washing Establishment in No. 131 Lower Concession utilizing the skills of two experienced washerwomen.38 This business survived and is mentioned as operating at the same address in one of the 1875 directories covering Yokohama.39 Apart from being secretary of the YUC he was listed in a directory of 1869 as secretary and treasurer of the Yokohama Fire Brigade,40 and committee member of the Yokohama General Hospital. In 1870 Smith was a member of a three-man Committee established to draw up a plan for the provision of lighting in the settlement. According to Arthur Brent another pet idea of Smith’s was to raise a lottery to buy a portion of the Lots 78 and 79 to make Main Street Yokohama wider at that point and more in a straight line. This was a good idea, but lotteries being illegal in England at that time the British consul vetoed the idea.41 Smith also took a keen interest in the affairs of Christ Church42 and at the end of 1873 he served on a ‘committee of ways and means’ to find ways to reduce the church’s debt. The committee recommended in its report at the end of January 1874 an increase in pew rental charges and the taking out of a bank loan.43 THE GAIETY THEATRE

Smith was also deeply involved in the construction of the Gaiety Theatre that opened in 1870 and later in efforts to stop it being turned into a godown when it too failed to cover its costs. In October 1872 he chaired a meeting organized to revive the amateur theatrical corps in the hope that this might help to reduce the deficit. The theatre was turned into a multi-purpose public hall to attract more frequent amateur performances and other users. In December 1873 the theatre managed to achieve a balance of just over $200.44 THE GRAND HOTEL

Another of Smith’s initiatives was the scheme to construct the deluxe Grand Hotel almost next door to the YUC45 where he was still working on improvements.46 The new hotel opened on 16 August 1873. Smith may have written some of the copy used to promote it such as ‘The Hotel is replete with every western convenience and accommodation, and may safely be said to be, without exception, the finest Hotel in the East’ and ‘The Hotel will really (despite the hackneyed phrase) be found to contain all the comforts of home, with luxuries that can never be 66

WILILLIAM HENRY SMITH (1838–1884)

found in any but establishments on a large scale.’47 There were suites of private apartments, private dinning rooms, ‘a fine Billiard Room’ with English and American tables made by the best makers. W.H. Smith was first of all called the manager and later the managing director. DOWNHILL

Many of his best customers at the YUC were officers serving with the foreign, mainly British, garrison. Their numbers were declining rapidly and were all soon gone. He may well have feared that the club might not be able to survive without its military clientele and thought that the new Grand Hotel project would secure his future. While things on the surface seemed to be going well, Smith was in financial trouble. Arthur Brent explained: Chiefly owing to his over sanguine and his faith in Japan and everything Japanese, he took to importing articles for them (chiefly agricultural and other machinery I believe) and was surprised to find, then as now, thus history repeats itself, that the wily native who was so anxious for such and such when it was not here, was not so keen to possess it after it actually arrived. How many others have discovered the same thing! And he got into financial trouble and left the Club.48

Ads for imported seed, pigs and horses that Smith placed in Buckworth Bailey’s monthly Japanese newspaper Bankoku Shimbunshi between 1867 and 186949 indicate that Smith was indeed keen to sell to the Japanese and he may have been let down but it was certainly not the only reason he was in trouble. Smith’s relations with his wife also seem to have been strained. She was listed as living at No. 70 on the Bluff, her father’s property, while Smith himself was listed in one Yokohama directory in 1875 as living in the Club and a later one shows he was living in No. 20, the Grand Hotel. Smith seems to have dabbled in the coal trading business. On 24 June 1874 the German barque Hamburg docked in Yokohama carrying coal from Nagasaki on consignment to ‘W.H. Smith’, which he presumably planned to sell on to a shipping company. This was a risky business.50 In 1875 there were complaints about issues at the YUC and its management although Smith was not mentioned by name. There were hints that Smith’s five-year contract would not be renewed when it expired the following year.51 Charles Wirgman mocked Smith in a series of cartoons in Japan Punch focusing on the ‘civil war’ inside the YUC and Smith’s commitments to both the YUC and the Grand Hotel. 67

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Nevertheless Smith continued to add new responsibilities to his already overloaded work schedule. In March 1875 he not only participated in the annual general meeting of the Yokohama Cricket Club but also accepted a position on the committee to run the club for the next year. He is recorded as playing in a few cricket matches but he didn’t shine as a cricketer in Yokohama. On 10 May 1875 he dominated a meeting about the affairs of the Yokohama General Cemetery. BANKRUPTCY

In the autumn of 1876, W.H. Smith was declared bankrupt. Very little appeared about it in the local media. Smith appears to have gone into hiding in Hyogo Prefecture after appointing his friend Arthur John Wilkin as the trustee of his estate and affairs. It may have been Smith’s investments in property52 that led to his bankruptcy. A letter in the local press headed ‘Bluff Lands’ from ‘A FOREIGN LANDHOLDER’, throws light on Smith’s situation: I did, in good times, acquire property on the Bluff for which I paid, in many instances, prices which later experience has taught me were extravagant. And now I am saddled with a heavy annual ground rent, which I often find difficult to pay, owing to the stern fact of my property having considerably depreciated in value, and my being compelled, if I do not wish to keep my houses empty, to let them at greatly reduced rents.53

On 13 September The Japan Gazette reported that W.H. Smith and A.J. Wilkin were cited as the defendants in a case brought by the Japanese government regarding arrears of rent owed by Smith dating back to 1871 before Consul Russell Robertson in the British Consular Court in Kanagawa.54 A meeting of the creditors of the estate of W.H. Smith was held at the British consulate on 21 September.55 A majority accepted a composition of 8 cents to the dollar. The consular court pronounced William Henry Smith’s bankruptcy on 27 September and an announcement in the Japan Gazette on the same day requested creditors who had not already proved their debts, to supply their particulars to the trustee A.J. Wilkin by 10 October or else they would be excluded from the proposed composition. Smith’s movements around this time on are difficult to track, partly because there were two W.H. Smiths and many other Smiths living in Japan.56 But in 1880 Smith returned to Yokohama, still working for E.B. Watson, but at No. 46 Yamashitacho and living in No. 39 on the Bluff.57 68

WILILLIAM HENRY SMITH (1838–1884)

Then at the end of March 1883 a W.H. Smith and son are reported as being passengers on the P & O steamship Bokkara arriving in Singapore on their way to London.58 What happened after Smith left Japan is not clear, but he died in about 1885.59 It was a sad ending for a larger-than-life and talented Royal Marine lieutenant who left such a huge mark on the early history of Yokohama. No obituaries or articles appear to have been published in Yokohama to honour his memory and his remarkable contribution to the building of Yokohama until Brent’s article appeared. ENDNOTES 1

2 3 4 5 6

7 8

9 10 11

12 13

14

15

16

17

This portrait gives little indication of his later repute as a person who was indefatigable, public-spirited, super-energetic. It is in an album owned by James Campbell Fraser, Fraser lived in Yokohama from 1862 to 1868 and the captain of the Shore Team in 1863 cricket match. John Reddie Black, Young Japan page Japan Weekly Mail 4 January 1902 Marlborough College Register Ibid. Sumiyuki Sakasegawa, Research Bulletin of the Faculty of Humanities, Shigakukan University 2009 Vol. 30 No. 1 Ibid. Per Terra Per Mare: Reminiscences of Thirty-two Years’ Military, Naval, and Constabulary Service, Major William Henry Poyntz, 1892, p. 125, hereafter Poyntz. Ibid. Ibid., p. 125 Sumiyuki Sakasegawa, Research Bulletin of the Faculty of Humanities, Shigakukan University 2009 Vol. 30 No. 1 Ibid. Sumiyuki Sakasegawa, Research Bulletin of the Faculty of Humanities, Shigakukan University 2009 Vol. 30 No. 1 See ‘Cricket in Late Edo and Meiji Japan’ by Mike Galbraith in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. See ‘Introduction of Football from Britain into Nineteenth-century Japan: Rugby Football and Soccer’ by Mike Galbraith in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. Japan Times, 26 January 1866. Smith might have had influence on the football rules played by the club because the football rules at Marlborough College were a form of Rugby School rules and the schools Old Boys team, Marlborough Nomads, were to be a founder member of the Rugby Football Union established in 1871. An article on horse racing in Japan by Roger Buckley entitled ‘Competitors with the English Sporting Men’, Civilization, Enlightenment

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18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26

27 28

29 30 31 32

33

34

35

36

37

and Horse Racing: Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1860–2010 is contained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits volume VII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental 2010. Supplement to the Japan Herald, 19 August 1865 Ibid. Ibid. This was a special arrangement in the days before Japan developed its own currency Poyntz, p. 217 Japan Weekly Mail, 26 November 1863 Japan Weekly Mail, 2 January 1902 Poyntz, p. 233 The Committee which was chaired by the Dutch Consul General and Political Agent Dirk De Graf Van Polesbroek (1833–1916) consisted of Ellis Ellias and Charles Rickerby with Smith as secretary. Supplement to the Japan Herald, 3 June 1865 Young Japan, J.R. Black records John Latham Owen Eyton as one such person. He arrived in November 1867 and was taken not long after his arrival to meet Smith by Charles Rickerby Ibid. Japan Gazette Yokohama Semi-Centennial, July 1909 Japan Times’ Overland Mail Sumiyuki Sakasegawa, Research Bulletin of the Faculty of Humanities, Shigakukan University 2009 Vol. 30 No. 1, Page 37 Sumiyuki Sakasegawa, Research Bulletin of the Faculty of Humanities, Shigakukan University 2009 Vol. 30 No. 1 Our Life in Japan, R. Mounteney Jephson and Edward Pennell Elmhirst, 1869. They recorded the following conversation: ‘How are you, Smith?’ ‘Hulloa! How are you?’ returns that cheery individual. ‘Come in and look at my new calf. Can’t stop? Oh, but you must. I know your weakness for new milk.’ The Argus newspaper, 24 December 1869. For an account of the Rev. Buckworth Bailey see ‘Christ Church, Yokohama, and its First Incumbent Michael Buckworth Bailey’ by Hamish Ion in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. The most successful of his sons, Alfred Brooke-Smith (1874–1938), clearly must have inherited a lot of his father’s talents because he became one of the leading figures in the Far East. Educated only in Yokohama and starting work there at sixteen, he transferred to Jardine Matheson in 1897 and immediately moved to Hong Kong. He went on to become a director of the firm in Shanghai in 1918 and managing director in 1924–5. North China Herald, 24 April 1926. He then retired to Norfolk and soon after bought Martley Hall, a moated home near Woodbridge in Suffolk just forty-two miles from where his father was born. BrookeSmith was also public-spirited but in a different way – he was chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council 1920–22. Japan Weekly Mail, 2 January 1902

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38

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40

41 42

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Patrons had to register in advance and then ‘the day on which patrons require their washing done, a servant from their own house must bring their clothes, and hand them over to the Superintendant before 8 a.m. receiving a receipt for the number. This receipt can be returned at 5 p.m. on the same day, when the clothes, wet days accepted.’ The price for the service was $2 and 75 cents per 100 pieces. The most revealing part of the initial publicity with Smith’s name at the very bottom suggesting he was the sole proprietor was the last sentence: ‘The proceeds, after all expenses are covered, will be devoted to charitable purposes, or in such a way as the undersigned may consider desirable.’ The Chronicle and Directory for China, Japan, the Philippines and Hong Kong, 1875 Japan Gazette, 23 February 1874 reported that at a meeting held in February 1874 to discuss whether to buy two hand engines costing $1,800 or one steam fire-engine costing $2,800, Smith suggested the ‘with two Steam Fire Engines the expense would not necessarily be double’ because one European engineer could supervise two steam engines. Japan Weekly Mail, 2 January 1902 ‘Victorians who lived in Yokohama’ (draft), Sumiyuki Sakasegawa. In an 1876 directory he is listed as a trustee of the church. Japan Gazette, 23 February 1874, reported that three of the five committee members, including Smith, then resigned but a new committee was then elected. While one or two of those elected declined to serve, Smith agreed to continue his work on the committee. Japan Gazette, 24 December 1873 reported that in the thirteen months up until the end of November the theatre had a balance of $202.51. It was hoped that that the hall would in future ‘leave a balance of cash sufficiently large to render substantial and timely assistance to all good charitable institutions’. Smith who acted as secretary to the meeting proposed that a committee of three be appointed to study the possibility of erecting a new theatre not costing more that $15,000 because he considered that the present theatre was too small. His idea was ‘to raise the money by debentures which the Amateurs would no doubt be able to wipe off quickly’. After some discussion Smith’s proposal was dropped. Arthur Brent throws light on this too: ‘“P.S.S.” was also, if I remember rightly, one of the originators of the first Grand Hotel, I mean that ugly part of the present building on the corner of the Bund and the Canal, and in that case he and his partners lost their money as pioneers often do, but the original building formed the nucleus of the present flourishing hotel.’ See Japan Weekly Mail, 2 January 1902 Improvements cost money but the following short May 1873 newspaper article suggests that his efforts no longer had quite the impact as before and that things were getting more competitive even in the media: ‘While intending to call attention to the steps taken by Mr Smith to extend the Club Library and the great improvement he has made in it – an improvement for which every member of the Club should be grateful – an announcement has been placed in our hands of a similar boon to the community offered by Messrs Stillfried & Co., who have opened a

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47 48

49

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51 52

53 54

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Circulating Library comprising 4,000 volumes of English, French, German and Dutch books.’ Japan Gazette, 23 February 1874 Ibid. In one lawsuit in March 1874 Smith had been sued for $1,500 by Satama Huraino [sic] regarding Smith’s management of the contract for the removal of the bowling alley from No. 127 and its re-erection in the YUC at No. 5 Bund in 1871. He claimed that Smith forced him to redo the work and sink deeper foundations. Smith claimed he simply paid the plaintiff on the instructions of Mr Laufenberg and that the defendant should be the committee of the Racquet Club whose secretary E. Wallace was the only member remaining in Yokohama. This claim was accepted and Smith escaped direct liability. Racket court lawsuit page is in Tokyo??? Sumiyuki Sakasegawa, Research Bulletin of the Faculty of Humanities, Shigakukan University 2009 Vol. 30 No. 1, Page 43 In a law case between E. Abbott and Mitsubishi in 1876 relating to a similar transaction Abbott sued over the difference in the amount of coal apparently loaded in Nagasaki and the smaller amount Mitsubishi calculated was on the ship and accordingly paid for in Yokohama. Need to find document Need to find document For example, in 1870 he acquired the leases on the Bluff for No. 61 (1,008 tsubo), No. 62 (543 tsubo) as well as No. 66 (893 tsubo). In 1874 he jointly held the lease on 182 tsubo at No. 146. Japan Gazette, 21 September 1876 Japan Gazette, 15 September 1876 reported that their lawyer immediately claimed that his clients had nothing to do with the property and made a motion to substitute a Mr Dohmen as the defendant. The government’s lawyer countered that the government had never had any transactions with Mr Dohmen nor received any payment from him so he could not be considered a party to the case. Two days later the Japan Gazette reported that Russell Robertson ruled that, because there appeared to have been a partial transfer of lots 63 and 66 to Mr Dohmen, Mr Dohmen be joined as defendant. The case was now described as ‘JAPANESE GOVERNMENT Vs A.J. Wilkin, Trustee in the Estate of W.H. Smith.’ Japan Gazette, 21 September The 1877 Yokohama Directory lists Smith as living in the Grand Hotel but that may not have been the case in light of the fact that on 27 October 1877 Mrs W.H. Smith and three children took a steamship to Kobe, presumably to visit her husband. In one directory covering Japan in 1879 Smith is listed as working in Kobe for E.B. Watson. The Chronicle and Directory for China, Japan, the Philippines and Hong Kong, 1879 The directories show this situation continued until 1882 although in that year he is living in No. 84 on the Bluff. The directory for 1883 shows he is still living at No. 84 but he appears to have been working for Helm & Smith in No. 98 which might have been a partnership which quickly failed. The Straits Times, 26 March 1883 72

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59

Arthur Brent states that Smith ‘went to Canada and took a farm there, hopeful to the last that he would succeed in agriculture. But it was not to be, for after a short time in one severe winter he died there.’ Japan Weekly Mail, 2 January 1902. However, Smith’s entry in the Marlborough College Register states that he died in ‘S. A.’ which could mean South Africa or South America. British consular records on deaths of Britons outside of the UK contains one record of a ‘William Henry Smith dying in Brazil between 1881 and 1885’, British Government Record Office (GRO Consular death indices (1849–1965).

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6

Alan Owston (1853–1915): Naturalist and Yachtsman MIKE GALBRAITH

INTRODUCTION

Alan Owston, who lived in Yokohama from 1872,when he was nineteen, until his death in 1915,was recognized worldwide as a naturalist and ornithologist focusing on Japan. He created large, comprehensive and important collections relating to Japan’s natural history. Owston is credited with the discovery or co-discovery of a large number of new species, with many bearing his name in some way. This is principally by the pseudo-Latin word Owstoni which is based on his surname, but there are some where his first name is used (Japan White-eye ssp. Zosterops japonicus alani) and there is even one – Storm-petrel Stonowa – where the Latin genus name is an anagram of his surname and initial. Many specimens supplied to Owston by Japanese collectors and natural history experts, who worked with or for him, are at least partially named after those people.1 Some of the species named after Alan Owston are listed in the appendix to this chapter. The exhibition rooms and storage rooms of the leading natural history museums around the world including the Smithsonian in Chicago and the Natural History Museum in London are today graced with Owston’s fine and valuable natural history collections covering marine life and birds. Alan Owston was also a keen and competitive yachtsman, a cofounder of the Yokohama Yacht Club, and helped to make yachting one of the most popular sports in Yokohama. He spent much of the latter half of his life sailing round the coast of Japan on his motorized yacht, dredging the ocean floor for specimens of unknown marine life. Whereas most experts were closely affiliated with a leading insti74

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tution, which took a lot of the credit, Owston was totally independent and experts in other parts of the world contacted him by writing simply to ‘Alan Owston, Yokohama.’ EARLY LIFE

Alan Owston was born in Pirbright in Surrey on 7 August 1853,2 the second son of a clergyman with an M.A. from Cambridge University. He attended St. John’s College at Hurstpierpoint in Sussex as a boarder and was listed as being there in the 1871 census. At the age of eighteen he went to Shanghai to work for Lane, Crawford and Co. After working there for six months, he moved in 1872 to Yokohama to work for the same firm.3 His elder brother Francis became a sea captain and eventually followed him to Japan. In an 1874 Yokohama directory, Owston was listed as a clerk and Lane, Crawford and Co. were described as ship chandlers, wine and spirit merchants, general storekeepers, tailors, outfitters, newsagents and auctioneers operating from No. 59.4 Owston worked there until 1877 when he joined its competitor Kirby & Co. ENTREPRENEUR AND NATURALIST

In 1878 Owston left Kirby & Co. and started his own company Owston & Co. located at No. 179.5 In about1880 Owston married Shimada Rei JKao [sic].6 They had one daughter – Suzie Owston (1879–1970). Owston was a keen sportsman and became a well-known yachtsman owning several yachts, but in the 1870s his favourite sport seems to have been athletics, in which he concentrated on sprinting. Owston must also have played tennis as there was a small pavilion called the Owston Pavilion on the tennis courts of the YC&AC in what is now Yokohama park. In 1882 Owston entered into a business partnership with Henry James Snow (1848–1915) and the company’s name was changed to Owston, Snow & Co.7 Snow had arrived in Japan in 1869 but, unlike Owston who initially sought the security of regular employment in an established firm, he soon became one of the most adventurous swashbuckling characters living in Yokohama at that time. Starting in 1872 he bought sailing schooners and made eight pioneering voyages to the Kurile Islands in search of otter and seal furs at a time when prices for the furs of those animals were very high and the Kuriles were largely unknown and dangerous places.8 The lists of ship departures in the Yokohama newspapers show that Owston, Snow & Co. were directly involved in Snow’s risky voyages in search of otter and seal furs as well as in coastal trading.9 Owston, Snow, & Co had many dealings with the British steamer 75

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Will o’ the Wisp, which sailed from Hull and arrived in Yokohama in 1883 via Singapore and Nagasaki carrying coals and general cargo. On 2 February 1884 that ship left Yokohama for Matsushima with a general cargo under consignment from the company.10 Later the ship is reported as travelling to Hakodate. The Will o’ the Wisp was probably owned by the British shipping company that employed Owston’s brother Francis as a sea captain.11 In September 1883 the Japan Daily Mail reported that the Russian Authorities had seized the schooner Otomi ‘the property of Messrs Owston, Snow & Co., and having on board Mr H.J. Snow’.12 Although Snow managed after some months in prison in Vladivostok to recover the vessel and return to Yokohama, Owston was forced to recognize that Snow’s business was too risky. Only one of Snow’s eight voyages proved to be truly profitable and in 1888 Snow was even charged with murder regarding a death during another voyage to the Kuriles – he was found not guilty. The partnership between Owston and Snow was dissolved in 1885 and Owston carried on as an export-import merchant (with the emphasis on imports) until his death. By 1886 Owston seems to have been operating on his own13 although the1889 directory recorded Alan Owston as working with his brother Francis14 in No. 179. While the Owston and Snow business collaboration may not have been profitable for Owston in the long-term, Snow must have had a significant influence on Owston’s emergence as Japan’s premier naturalist and his worldwide recognition.15 It was Snow who initially developed high-level international connections as a naturalist covering the Kuriles that paved the way for Owston’s future pre-eminence as a naturalist covering Japan.16 It is not clear whether his wife died or whether she and Alan Owston divorced, but in 1893 he married for the second time Miyahara Kame who had been christened Edith and brought up by Christian missionaries. Kame bore him seven children.17 Alan Owston began to devote most of his time to collecting natural history specimens, especially birds, fish and marine fauna. Sometimes he simply bought specimens in the market in Yokohama but in many cases he located them personally or procured them via Japanese acquaintances. For example, the Japanese pharmacist Katsumata Zentaka collected birds18 on the Chinese island of Hainan for Owston, which Owston sometimes sold to Lord Rothschild. In the 1890s Owston spent time investigating the Australian Snipe, which is in Australia during the Australian ‘summer’ but breeds in Japan. No one had ever found a nest or an egg of this bird, already well known in Australia. When A.J. Campbell an Australian ornithologist heard in 1894 that the Australian government were sending a mission to Japan, he asked for enquiries to be made about this bird. A member of the mission was introduced in Yokohama to Alan 76

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Owston with whom Campbell corresponded for three years before at last Owston wrote: I am the proud possessor of the eggs of Scolopax (Gallinago) australis. I have had extraordinary trouble and expense to obtain them. The birds breed on the grassy moorlands at the foot of Fujiyama at an elevation of 2,000 to 3,000 feet above the sea. Fujiyama is 12,500 feet high. I watched them on the 28th April (1897), and on other dates during the breeding season.19

Despite his long and strong interest in birds, Owston began to spend more and more time on his favourite yacht, the ocean-going Golden Hind, sailing up and down the coast of Japan in search of unknown species. He had dredging equipment attached to this yacht so that he could collect marine life by dredging. It was by dredging the ocean floor that Owston was able to find most of the new species, which made him famous.20 He was asked to advise the Japanese government on deep-sea dredging and procured for them machinery for dredging around the coasts of Japan.21 Owston had connections with scientists all over the world. In his letters he frequently commented knowledgably and at length on Japanese affairs.22 Sometimes, he would take his acquaintances with him on his voyages. For example, in the summer of 1896, days before a major earthquake, Owston had two leading Japanese marine biologists, Mitsukuri Kakichi and Ijima Isao, on board. He had planned to do dredging in Sagami Bay but because he experienced the somewhat rare Kuro Siwo (Kuroshio) ocean current phenomenon, he was unable to do any deep-sea work but recorded his observations about the current.23 Mitsukuri, professor of zoology of the science department, University of Tokyo, initiated plans in 1884 to set up a marine biological station at Misaki on the Miura Peninsular. The Misaki Marine Biological Station (MMBS) was completed in 1886 and quickly gained a high reputation. Mitsukuri was appointed its first director in 1898. Alan Owston provided much assistance to the station. He took researchers out to sea on the Golden Hind because the MMBS didn’t have its own boat until 1915. Owston often presented the station with unique specimens, which he had found.24 The Latin name for the extraordinary deep-sea goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni), which is sometimes referred to as a living fossil, is a lasting symbol of the close collaboration between Mitsukuri and Owston. The first specimen was caught in Sagami Bay off Izu and acquired by Owston who then presented it to Professor Mitsukuri. He brought it to the attention of the leading American ichthyologist (and the first president of Stanford University) David Starr Jordan who subsequently chose the Latin name to honour the two men.25 77

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The second man on his yacht in 1896, Professor Iijima Isao, went on to become the second director of MMBS in 1904 and oversaw the rapid expansion of the facility during his tenure.26 David Starr Jordan became a close friend and Owston helped him to gather interesting specimens of Japan’s marine life. Owston presented him and another colleague with the first known specimen of a gecko catshark, which he caught off the Izu Peninsula.27 Jordan accumulated many specimens from various sources but acknowledged that of all the collections he made in 1900 and 1911 ‘those obtained through the help of Mr Owston and of Mr Aoki28 are vastly more important than the others’.29 In early October 1903 Owston’s Golden Hind was wrecked on rocks near the entrance to the naval base at Yokosuka after encountering the worst typhoon to strike Japan in twenty years.30 Owston, his guests and the three Japanese members of his crew survived but the disaster was a severe setback for his naturalist activities. In 1905 Owston published a List of Japanese Fishes and in 1910 he published a List of Birds of Formosa (Taiwan). Despite his fine collections and his growing worldwide reputation, Owston’s business in his final years was not so profitable.31 Near the end of his life Alan Owston was appointed editor of a new monthly called Commercial Japan. According to his obituary in the Japan Gazette ‘... he threw himself into the work with all his accustomed energy and enthusiasm.’32 Shortly before he died in 1915 Jordan helped Owston to sell his valuable collections of fish to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.33 Alan Owston had suffered from an aneurism of the heart since about 1910 but had managed to continue his work until about three weeks before his death on 30 November 1915 in his last residence at 8, 263 Takanomaru, Negishi in Yokohama. He was buried in the New Cemetery in Negishi. In 1922 his wife moved the family to British Columbia, thus ending Alan Owston’s family connection with Japan.34 Owston’s work as a naturalist was carried on by a group of Japanese collectors.35 ALAN OWSTON’S ROLE IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF YACHTING IN JAPAN

At the time of Owston’s death, yachting had become one of the most popular sports in Yokohama, both in terms of the number of participants and the number of spectators. Nearly every weekend spectators thronged the Bund and the Yokohama Yacht Club on the French Hatoba (wharf) close to the Grand Hotel to watch races featuring all types of yachts gliding gracefully through the sea close by. Ladies wearing the latest fashions were plentiful and sometimes a band from a ship in port would play. 78

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‘The history of yachting at Yokohama may be said to have commenced in the year 1886. Prior to that date there were few yachts here’ wrote Owston in an article published in 1909,36 although he did acknowledge that there had been a famous race37 between the Tantivy and the Zephyr in August 1874. Owston explained how in 1886 at the Spring Regatta of the Yokohama Amateur Rowing Club (YARC) on the French Hatoba ‘a sailing race was arranged with the idea originating with Mr. H.C. Litchfield’.38 After the regatta in 1886 Owston and Capt. John James Efford arranged more races and one of these attracted nineteen entries. As enthusiasm grew the keenest yachtsmen lobbied to have at least one yachtsman appointed to the committee of the YARC but this was rejected and the yachtsmen decided to form their own club. On 9 October 1886 Owston and his yachtsmen colleagues founded the Yokohama Sailing Club, which was renamed the Yokohama Yacht Club in 1896. It was managed by a committee consisting of George Whitfield, Efford, Edward Beart, J.O. Everill and Owston. While credit is due to Owston for his role in the development of yachting between 1887 and the earthquake in 1923 into perhaps the second most popular spectator sport in Yokohama after horseracing, his statements that there was little interest in yachting and little attempt at holding yacht races before 1886 are not true. The first Western-style yacht built in Japan was the Phantom constructed in Nagasaki for William Alt and launched on 20 July 1861.39 Even in Yokohama’s first recorded two-day regatta – the Yokohama International Regatta – in early October 1863 almost the entire second day was devoted to eight sailing races and the report in the Japan Times promoting the regatta noted that Yokohama’s ‘expansive Bay affords ample scope for display of the skill of the yachtsman’. The first race was for launches and was won by Abel A.J. Gower’s Flying Fish by nine minutes in front of Mr Hudson’s smaller Flirt, which was three minutes ahead of the first man-of-war boat. Then there was a race for cutters before a ‘General Sailing Race’ in which twenty-six boats started including the Flying Fish and the Flirt with the latter winning easily. Regattas like this were organized by a committee at least once a year almost every year from 1863 onwards although the planning and management of the regattas was later taken over by the YARC. As with every sport everywhere, these regattas were sometimes successes and sometimes not. The regattas usually started with a sailing race for boats over twenty and less than thirty-five feet in length, then a race for boats under twenty feet. There might also be a sailing race for men-of-war cutters. Sometimes the second-placed boat in a sailing race in the regatta would seek a private rematch soon after, usually for a wager. 79

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In 1873 George Dare had the twenty-two-ton yacht Breeze built in Yokohama according to plans, lines, and detailed instructions obtained from the famous yacht builder Mr Ratsey of Cowes on the Isle of White. ‘For beauty she surpasses anything we have had in these parts,’ declared the Japan Gazette reporter.40 Thereafter the number of yachts built in Yokohama to British and American designs gradually grew but in the late 1870s the regattas sometimes focused solely on rowing races. A key factor in the growth of both yachting and rowing41 in Yokohama was the purchase by Mitsubishi in 1879 of the land on which the original boathouse of the YARC stood and their requirement that the club vacate its premises by the end of the year. This proved difficult but finally the Japanese authorities granted a lease on 130 tsubo of land in a corner of the French Hatoba in 1880. The club raised funds and built a fine and substantial boathouse. The French Hatoba was close to the Grand Hotel and on the prime part of the Bund whereas the old boathouse was unable to hold many people and the English Hatoba obscured its view of the races. Accordingly, the YARC’s membership grew even faster and in 1881 it was called ‘one of the strongest institutions of its kind in the East’.42 Alan Owston first appears as participating in sailing races in the 1881 autumn regatta in late May. He was sailing the Vanessa in the Canoe Sailing Race, but failed to negotiate the second buoy and retired. Later that year he was racing in the 17-rater yacht Bertha named after his sister but finished second.43 Perhaps the most famous yachting race in Owston’s time was the race on 4 July 1898 between his ocean going 361/2-rater yawl the Golden Hind and the 37-rater cutter the Mary built by Thomas ‘Tim’ Laffin in 1891 for himself. The latter yacht was not successful in races at first and Laffin changed her rig to that of a sloop and later to that of a cutter. Even the hull was modified as Laffin sought to turn her into a winner. Even Owston referred to the Mary as ‘the pride of Yokohama’. These two yachts ‘fought out a battle royal in a typhoon’. Owston called the race ‘a demonstration of the virtues of a high freeboard, length and snug rig in heavy weather’. In order to get his revenge Laffin spent a lot of money in making alterations to the Mary so that she could tackle her opponent in heavy weather as well as light seas. Both Owston and Laffin built and owned several yachts and spent large sums improving their performance.44 YYC co-founder George Whitfield was one of the first to design and build yachts in Yokohama, and he built the Maid Marion on lines obtained from Ed. Burgess, the famous designer of America Cup defenders, as well as the Molly Brown, and the plank-on-edge cutter Princess Maud. C.D. West designed and first owned the Daimyo and the Ronin. 80

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This fanatical and expensive interest in winning yacht races soon began to alienate those yachtsmen who were merely interested in enjoying yachting and socializing with like-minded people. As a result there was a split in the club and the Mosquito Club was formed with William Wallace Campbell as the first Commodore. The 1923 earthquake took a heavy toll on the YYC, destroying the clubhouse and many of the yachts of its members, as well as killing club members like Dr Edwin Wheeler and Tom Abbey. Disposal of the rubble in the sea meant the Bund became Yamashita Park and the club was forced to move to Negishi. Yachting never recovered its central position in Yokohama life. APPENDIX A NON-COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF SPECIES NAMED IN HONOUR OF ALAN OWSTON Vertibrate zoology: Animals:

Chrotogale owstoni (Palm civet) Zetis owstoni (type of squirrel) Cyrtomaia owstoni (type of crab) Reptiles and amphibians:

Polypedates owstoni Stejneger (US National Museum, 1907) Rhacophorus owstoni Stejneger (type of frog first found on Ishigaki Island,1907) Birds:

Gallirallus owstoni Halcyon chloris owstoni Nucifraga cariocatactes owtoni Parus varius owstoni Aethopyga siparaja owstoni Pyrrhula erythaca owstoni Sittiparus owstoni Zosterops semperi owstoni Todiramphus albicilla owstoni Dendrocopos leucotos owstoni Ficedula narcissina owstoni Hypotaenidia owstoni Garrulax canorus owstoni Todiramphus albicilla owstoni Hydrobates markhami (owstoni) Hypotaenidia owstoni Zosterops japonicus alani (Japanese White-eye found on Iwo Jima and Minami-iwo-Jima) 81

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Stonowa (Storm-petrel) Invertibrate zoology (sea urchins, etc.):

Prometra owstoni Clark, 1916 Araeosoma owstoni Mortensen Araeosoma owstoni nudum Mortensen, 1934 Brisaster owstoni Mortensen Hyalonema (Coryonema) owstoni Ijima, 1894 Thalassema owstoni Ikeda Fish:

Chimaera owstoni Trismegistus owstoni Alepocephalus owstoni (Slickhead) Centroscymnus owstoni (Roughskin dogfish) Sebastes owstoni (Redfish) Mitsukurina owstoni (goblin shark) Muraenichthys owstoni Jordan & Snyder

Odontaspis owstoni (type of shark) Owstonia genus of bandfishes (Owston’s collection contained the first identified specimen - Owstonia totomiensis): Owstonia totomiensis Tanaka, 1908 Owstonia Tanaka, 1908 Owstonia weberi (Gilchrist, 1922) Owstonia dorypterus (Fowler, 1934) Owstonia grammodon (Fowler, 1934) Owstonia maccullochi Whitley, 1934 Owstonia tosaensis Kamohara, 1934 accepted as Sphenanthias tosaensis (Kamohara, 1934) Owstonia pectinifer (Myers, 1939)

Owstonia simoterus (Smith, 1968) Owstonia macrophthalmus (Fourmanoir, 1985) Owstonia nigromarginatus (Fourmanoir, 1985) Owstonia sarmiento Liao, Reyes & Shao, 2009 Owstonia kamoharai Endo Y. C. Liao & Matsuura, 2015 Insects:

Stenamma owstoni Wheeler, 1906 Chrotogale owstoni Endnotes 1

2 3

The Eponym Dictionary of Birds, Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins, Michael Grayson Obituary in the Japan Gazette, 1 December 1915 Ibid. 82

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4

5

6

7

8

9

10 11

12 13

14

15

The China Directory for 1874 (published at the China Mail Office, Hong Kong) This company does not show up in any Yokohama directories until the 1880 edition where Owston is listed as a Commission Merchant and General Importer. http://johnlisle.us/genealogy/familygroup. php?familyID=F9&tree=stedman_uk. His first wife’s first name may be misrecorded – could it have been Reiko? The Yokohama directory for the same year lists H.J. Snow working with Owston in Owston, Snow &Co. and living in Bluff No. 135 In 1872 the supply of sea otters seal furs on the coast of California dried up and prices went sky high. Stories reached Yokohama that an American ship had found large numbers of otters and seals inhabiting the Kurile islands just to the north of Japan. On hearing this news Snow quickly bought a schooner and headed for the lawless and dangerous region seeking to make his fortune. Snow quickly bought a schooner and made several voyages to the Kuriles, risking his life in what was a lawless and very dangerous region, in a failed quest to make his fortune. At the same time he recorded in great detail everything that the Kuriles. Japan Daily Mail, 22 April 1882 recorded that on 22 April 1882 American schooner Otomi is listed as due to depart Yokohama two days later ‘on a hunting cruise, dispatched by Owston & Snow’. The same ship returned to Yokohama in January 1883. Japan Weekly Mail In March 1884 Francis Owston is listed as the captain during a voyage from Nagasaki. Japan Dail Mail, 8 September 1883 The directory for 1883 shows the Owston, Snow & Co. at No. 179b employing A.J.M. Smith and two Japanese as well as Owston and Snow. It also shows Owston and a T.J. Richmond all living at Bluff No. 135 with Snow. The directory for 1884 shows Owston as being absent but otherwise the company has the same listing. The next year, 1885, the directory shows a new foreign employee – E. Elfen. However, in 1886, the directory shows Owston operating alone in No. 179b while Snow is living alone in No. 135 on the Bluff. Francis Owston had worked for a shipping company as a ship’s captain operating out of Britain and later the Far East. In the ship arrivals section of a Singapore newspaper in early 1886, he is listed as the captain of the British steamer Will o’ the Wisp at Singapore and it is possible that he this situation continued until 1894 but in 1894 Francis doesn’t appear to be in the Far East and Alan Owston was now calling himself a merchant and naturalist. Snow became the leading expert on all aspects of the Kurils and was the leading naturalist and ornithologist covering those islands. He even produced accurate maps which he later improved and provided to the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) after receiving the 1884 Back Award. Later he became a RGS Fellow. In the paper by T.W. Blakiston and H. Pryer called Catalogue of the Birds of Japan read at the Asiatic Society of Japan on 13 January 1880, Snow is referred to as the source 83

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25 26 27 28

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of at least nine species of bird he shot or collected in the north of Japan and in the Kuriles. And in one 1878 directory he is even listed working in Hakodate for Blakiston, Marr & Co. and Blakiston. Pierre Louis Jouy was an early expert on China and Japan who provided reports and specimens to the Smithsonian Museum which noted in its 1888 report that Jouy had been previously assisted in late 1882 by Owston, Snow & Co. in his exploration of little-known parts of the Japanese empire. Smithsonian report, 1888. Blakiston is the subject of a portrait by Hugh Cortazzi in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume III, ed. J.E. Hoare, Japan Library 1999. May Owston (1893–1986); Minnie Owston (1896–1983); Harriet Owston (1900–1939); Francis Alan Owston (1904–1994); Alan Merry Owston (1907–1937); Dorothy Amaryllis Owston (1910–1997); Jonathan Merry Owston (1911–1979). There was also a son born 5 November 1913 who died four days later in Yokohama http://johnlisle.us/ genealogy/familygroup.php?familyID=F9&tree=stedman_uk Examples are an Indochinese Green Magpie ssp. (Cissa hypoleuca katsumatae) in 1903 and a Hainan Peacock Pheasant (Polyplectron katsumatae) in 1906. Paper ‘Discovery of nest and eggs of the Australian Snipe’ read by A.J. Campbell before the Field Naturalists’ Club of Victoria, February 1898 Page 378 of The Days of A Man, Volume Two (1900–1911), David Star Jordan Obituary in the Japan Gazette, 1 December 1915 Obituary in the Japan Gazette, 1 December 1915 Royal Geographical Society, 1897 Website of the station: http://www.mmbs.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/overview/history/history1.html Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 1898 Ibid. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections scientific journal, 1904 Kumakichi Aoki was the most famous Japanese collector of fish in his day and worked for the MMBS Record of fish obtained in Japan in 1911, Memoirs of the Carnegie Museum, Vol. VI. No. 4., Page 206 Article by Wilfred Walker in the Advertiser (Adelaide, Australia), 18 January 1913 In his memoirs Jordan wrote that when in 1911 he visited Japan and renewed his acquaintance with Owston: ‘I found Owston much distressed over the financial outlook. With him, as with other foreign importers, things went financially from bad to worse. Page 378 of The Days of A Man, Volume Two (1900–1911), David Star Jordan. In a Yokohama directory for 1914 he is listed as working as an assistant at Lane, Crawford & Co. in addition to his own business as merchant and naturalist at No. 224 Yamashitacho in Yokohama. At the same time his brother Francis appears as manager of F. Owston & Co. whose business is ‘Stevedores, Transporters, & Customs Brokers.’ Obituary in Japan Gazette,1915 where it says ‘Recently became Editor of the new monthly Commercial Japan and he threw himself into the work with all his accustomed energy and enthusiasm.’ 84

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33 34 35

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David Star Jordan Obituary in the Japan Gazette, 1 December 1915 Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College Vol. 101, Page 211 states that Viscount Matsudaira purchased an Eastern Indian Redstart from ‘the Yokohama firm of Japanese collectors who succeeded to Owston’s business after his death. 1886 – 1909. Yachting in Yokohama, Alan Owston, Japan Gazette SemiCentennial In that one-off race for $25 a side in August 1874 the Tantivy, a cutter owned by Dr Dalliston, and the Zephyr, a much larger yawl-rigged yacht built and owned by George Whitfield, raced in a strong breeze resulting in an easy win for the Zephyr despite the latter giving the former six minutes. Less than a month later the Tantivy raced again for $100 against the Invincible and this time was the victor. 1886 – 1909. Yachting in Yokohama, Alan Owston, Japan Gazette SemiCentennial. Owston described the race as follows: ‘For this there were nine boats, of sorts, entered. The race was not a particularly successful one, except in that it attracted a considerable amount of attention, and after it, on the Rowing Club verandah or at street corners, whenever two or three gathered together there they were talking yacht.… In view of the interest aroused several other races were arranged by Capt. J.J. Efford and Alan Owston and enthusiasm grew until towards the end of the season when as many as nineteen entries were obtained for a race…’ At about this time rowing was not very prosperous in Yokohama as yachting became more popular. The committee of the YARC were prepared to take the management of sailing races, but the yachting men would not agree to this unless one or more yachtsmen were placed on the Committee to specially look after their interests. As this did not meet the views of the Rowing Club authorities, the yachtsmen decided to form a club of their own. http://www.uwosh.edu/home_pages/faculty_staff/earns/althouse. html, Brian Burke-Gaffney Japan Gazette, 1 November 1973 For an account of the sport or rowing in Japan see the essay by Jun Kochi in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2013. Japan Weekly Mail, 17 November 1881 Ibid. The Tantivy was an example of a yacht that went through many changes in owner, name changes and alterations including adding nine feet to its length before returning from Kobe as the Avon in August 1889.

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Edgar Abbott (1849–1890): Athlete and Brewer MIKE GALBRAITH

INTRODUCTION

Edgar Abbott was the initial promoter (with W.H. Talbot) of the Japan Brewery Co., Japan’s first real joint-stock company, which is today the global enterprise, Kirin Brewery Co. He was the initiator of the amalgamation of the football, baseball, athletics, and cricket (and tennis) clubs in Yokohama in 1884 to form the multi-sport Yokohama Cricket & Athletic Club (YC&AC). He was an outstanding athlete and recorded the fastest times in Japan in the 19th century over 100 yards and 150 yards.1 He was among the best footballers and cricketers and excelled at every sport he turned his mind to. EARLY DAYS

Edgar Abbott was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer on 25 November 1849, the fourth of eight children, mainly born in and around London, of whom only four (three brothers and one sister) survived

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beyond childhood. His family was prominent in the brewery business. Edgar’s father, Edwin Morton Abbott, took over the Bow Brewery in the East End of London from his father Edwin. Edwin had originally owned another brewery in Wapping and had first bought into Bow Brewery in around 1829 and then, in around 1849, taken over the Bow Brewery made famous by George Hodgson2 when he pioneered the export to India of a new beer called Indian Pale Ale (IPA) that could not only survive the rough six-month sea voyage to India better than competing beverages like porter but actually improve its taste during the journey. Before Edwin Morton took over Bow Brewery, the business was already in decline, largely due to the appearance of strong competition from IPA brewers based in Burton–on-Trent. Edgar and two of his brothers attended Marlborough College but left the school in 1862 probably before Edgar turned 12. His entry in the Marlborough College Register gives his father’s address as ‘The Brewery, Bow, Middlesex.’ The likely reason for the abrupt departure of the Abbott brothers from the school was that in January 1862 the business of Bow Brewery was suspended and a meeting of the creditors soon afterwards decided to liquidate the business by a deed of assignment rather than by initiating bankruptcy proceedings. Abbott was obliged by an indenture to hand over all his assets for distribution among creditors at the end of the month.3 In fact, Bow Brewery had been struggling for some time as evidenced by a meeting of its creditors in 1860.4 While Edgar’s two surviving brothers headed to India (with one later moving to the USA), Edgar went to the Far East and Japan and in 1869 at only nineteen started working for Gilman & Co. in the center of Yokohama (No. 78). He worked there until, in around 1875, he set himself up as a Bill, Bullion and Ship Broker. A year later he became the agent in Japan for Queens Insurance Co. of Liverpool, which a year later changed its name to Queen Fire and Life Insurance Co., taking the agency from Gilman. BUSINESS ACTIVITIES

In late 1873 he took part in meetings of Yokohama’s chamber of commerce. On 17 March 1874 Abbott was the acting secretary of a meeting of the agents of the fire insurance companies in Yokohama. Later he took an active role in the Yokohama Fire Brigade and was on the managing committee in the early 1880s. Abbott got off to a good start in 1875 when he launched his own business. The Yokohama newspapers of the day recorded the arrival and departure of all ships and gave details regarding the cargo and who was chartering the ships as well as where they came from or were going. Abbott’s name occurred frequently in these lists.5 6 87

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Abbott was litigious if he felt wronged, even if the other party was a powerful company and even when he was a new boy. As early as September 1875 he was engaged in a lawsuit against Mitsu Bishi S. S. He brought other lawsuits and was quick to seek legal redress when he thought a sea captain had deceived him.7 LEADING YOKOHAMA SPORTSMAN

Abbott was renowned in Yokohama as a sportsman and as an energetic and able secretary of some of the sports clubs in the town. Cricket8

The first recorded reference to him playing cricket in Japan is the England Vs the World game on 5 and 6 October 1870 where he is one of two bowlers on the England team praised for ‘good bowling.’ Abbott was a keen cricketer and played in most of the matches when he was in town. In February 1873 he was elected honorary secretary of the Yokohama Cricket Club founded by James Pender Mollison in 1868. The sight of the short Abbott running out the tall lanky bearded James Dodds in the cricket match called ‘the Talls Vs the Shorts’ played on 24 September 1877 inspired Charles Wirgman to make the event the subject of one of his best Japan Punch cartoons.

Abbott scored 26 runs and claimed four other wickets besides that of Dodds. His team won by 55 runs. 88

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In November 1881 Abbott batted no. 3 in a cricket match against a Navy & Visitors team which included one of the famous Walker brothers of both cricketing and brewing fame: I.D. Walker.9 In the same year Abbott played a little baseball usually for the cricket club against the baseball club but in July 1882 he played for the baseball club against the US Navy and scored one run. Horse-racing

In June 1873 he was active in the Nippon Race Club, which organized the Yokohama Races in which he sometimes participated as a jockey. His brother Harry described him as a ‘a particularly fine horseman, who was the crack G.R. of China and Japan.’10 Horse racing was Yokohama’s most popular sport and Edgar Abbott’s small size11 was ideal for being a jockey. Unfortunately, the racing reports in contemporary newspapers did not pay much attention to the jockeys so it is difficult to know to what extent he participated in the races. In May 1877 Abbott enjoyed one of high points of his sporting life in Yokohama when he won the Ladies Purse in the Yokohama Races12. The Yokohama Races were the leading sports events of the year but there was also keen interest in pony paper chases, the horseback version of the foot paper chase. Pony paper chases were often held on Xmas Day and New Year’s Day and, with their prizes and the possibility of falls attracted hundreds of spectators. Abbott who frequently organized these events also won prizes e.g. winning the event on Xmas Day 1872 on Haût Tom. Athletics

On 14 November 1873 on the first day of the autumn athletics meeting he won the 100 yards in 11 seconds, the 150 yards in 16.25 seconds and also won the throwing the cricket ball event, winning respectively a silver cup, a dispatch desk and an opera glass. The next day he won the 440 yards and a case of desert knives and forks. The Japan Gazette reported that he ‘astonished all by his running, considering that he had no idea of entering before Monday last, and has had no more training than that short interval gave him.’The Japan Weekly Mail commenting on the prize giving reported that ‘Mrs. Grant presented all the other prizes to the winners who were severally cheered as they bore off their trophies, Mr. Abbott being absolutely borne down by the load of his.’ In February 1874 at the annual general meeting of the Yokohama Amateur Athletic Association, Abbott was elected as one of five members of the committee to run the club. He doesn’t seem to have participated in athletics meetings very often subsequently but the list of athletics records reported at the YC&AC AGM for 1904 shows that Abbott 89

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still held the 150 yards record set in 1873 and that he also still held the 100 yards record with his time of 10.5 seconds set in October 188413. He was thus the fastest foreigner in Japan in the 19th century. Football14

Abbott is recorded as playing football from 1873 until 1884 and was an outstanding player. The following description of one of his moves in a game in November 1873 provides the best insight into the nature of the game played in Yokohama and the fact that it approximated to the rules created in Rugby School:14 ‘Abbott having caught the ball made a good run through his opponents and, with a fine drop kick, scored a goal for the Settlement15. THE YC&AC

Abbott was also a key figure in bringing the four main land-based sports clubs in Yokohama into a single multi-sport club – the Yokohama Country and Athletic Club. The Yokohama Cricket & Athletic Club was created at a special general meeting of the Yokohama Cricket Club on 7 April 1884 as a result of a letter received from the football club members advocating an amalgamation of the clubs.16 At the end of the meeting the recently returned consular court judge Nicholas Hannen17 was elected president while Abbot was elected as one of the cricket members of a committee of ten. At the YC&AC AGM held in March 1885, Hannen first remarked on the ‘changes and prosperity that had overtaken the club during the previous year since the amalgamation.’ Hannen, according to The Japan Weekly Mail proposed a vote of thanks to Mr. Abbott who, he said, was really the creator of the club.18 Abbott’s gave a typically modest response.19 Abbott was still captain of cricket and a vice-president of the YC&AC in 1888 when in September he suddenly resigned both positions. Nonetheless he continued to play for the YC&AC until the end of 1888 although he seems to have given up bowling. He played in the important second cricket Interport in Kobe in November 1888 and was batting when the winning runs were scored in the first match Hannen who was still president when Abbott died in 1890 paid a further tribute to him at the next AGM.20 Abbott did not seek the position of president of the new club preferring to operate behind the scenes. J.P. Mollison warmly remembered the important role he had played in the establishment and prosperity of the club and of sport in Yokohama in 1909.21 One of the founders of the Yokohama Cricket Club he described Abbott’s sporting talents as follows: 90

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He was a magnificent rider, both across country and on the flat, and it was on the racecourse that he earned the sobriquet of “the cunning boy” by his cleverness in always getting a good start, and the marvelous manner in which he succeeded in hoodwinking opposing jockeys, and pulling races out of the fire. …At football he was quite in the first rank, and first class at cricket, both with bat and ball, besides a beautiful fielder; a splendid shot, excellent with an oar, good at lawn tennis, and an opponent not to be despised at billiards. Altogether, a manly man in every sense of the word, and withal a cheery fellow, liked by everybody who knew him, and his friends were legion.22

JAPAN BREWERY COMPANY (JBC)

Abbott’s next venture after creating the YC&AC was the formation of a company to take over the brewery in Yokohama established by William Copeland, which had been closed down in 1884. This is now part of the vast Kirin Brewery company whose website contains numerous Japan Brewery records covering the period up to the time when it was bought out by the Mitsubishi group and renamed Kirin Brewery in 1907. The first documents include a prospectus proposing to form a company with $35,000 in capital by selling 350 shares with the option to raise the amount of capital to $50,000. It notes: The promoters have acquired sufficient insight into the affairs of the late Spring Valley Brewery to enable them to form a trustworthy opinion as to its success during the first years of its establishment, the profit made, and the causes which led to its decline, failure and eventual sale … They have come to the conclusion that the circumstances, instead of being discouraging, warrant the belief that even the Spring Valley Brewery, if it were in existence, under a new management, could be worked to considerable profit now.

There were just two promoters – Abbott and W.H. Talbot with the latter acting as secretary suggesting that he was the junior partner. Talbot had been co-owner of the Japan Gazette newspaper after working for Reuters and being an insurance agent and a loss adjuster. The brewery business is not an easy one to start and it was probably Abbott’s family background in brewing that inspired him to investigate the failed brewery and come up with a plan for a brewery ‘on a well-appointed and complete but yet not extravagant scale.’ He knew the risks involved in the brewery business and his plan to collect a large number of investors was unique in Japan at that time. 91

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Half of the first fourteen people23 to support the business proposal by subscribing for shares half were cricketing acquaintances. At the first directors’ meeting held on 8 July 1885 on the proposal of Abbott James Dodds, the manager of Butterfield & Swire, was elected chairman. One of the first decisions taken was to authorize Abbott and Talbot to purchase the land for the brewery. Dodds was the high profile and highly paid manager of the trading firm Butterfield & Swire but continued to be JBC chairman until August 1888 when he resigned due to lack of time for the role. The directors apart from Abbott and Talbot were all running large businesses. This meant that most of the real work was being done by Talbot and Abbott. In mid 1888 Abbott became the first managing director. It has often been said that Thomas Glover and Shibusawa Yeiichi were behind the development of Japan Brewery but they only applied for shares in the autumn of 1886 and Shibusawa only sought to become a director in July 1889. In fact the first Japanese shareholder was Iwasaki Yanosuke who in September 1885 bought ten shares. Abbott seems to have had a good eye for spotting areas where problems like water supply or bottle strength might occur and drawing them to the attention of the directors. He arranged for the brewer’s house to be built, and when Glover suggested improving the labels, it was Abbott who made the arrangements. Talbot became the Japan Brewery’s chairman after Dodds resigned, but when he had to leave Japan, Abbott apparently took over as he was recorded as chairman in 1890. When he stood down temporarily while he travelled to the UK,24 his lawyer friend Kirkwood took over. The company appears to have become firmly and solidly established but with the departure of Talbot and the death of Abbott, it lost its two creators. OTHER ACTIVITIES

Edgar Abbott was also a man of refined taste. He lived at No. 6 the Bluff and built up an impressive collection of books on Japanese art including laquerware, and Japanese paintings in the form of kakemono and makimono as well as Ainu wood carvings. An indication that he was also interested in the sea comes from the fact that in 1886 he presented the Museum in Singapore with a fine specimen of a huge Inachus Kaempferi Japanese crab captured off Enoshima’.25 In January 1892 what was called ‘the celebrated Edgar Abbott collection’ was sold by auction in the American Art Galleries at Madison Square South in New York as part of the Deakin Collection.26 On the departure of Sir Nicholas Hannen in the spring of 1888 Abbott was on the committee for organizing a major ‘entertainment’ and invited the cream of society in Yokohama and Tokyo. The news92

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paper report noted that ‘Edgar Abbott has to be credited with the design and execution of the decorations which were in excellent taste.’ In April 1889 Abbott was the honorary secretary of the committee that organized an even larger farewell event in the Public Hall (formerly the Gaiety Theatre) in Yokohama for Hon. P. Le Poer Trench, then chargé d’affaires at the British legation in Tokyo. A special train was even arranged to take the Tokyo guests back to Tokyo at the end. The report in the papers praised Abbott for ‘bearing, with his usual good nature and thoroughness, the burden and heat of the day.’ It also admired the decorations arranged by Abbott.27 DEATH

Abbott left Japan for the UK in the spring of 1890 but died at 20 Manchester Square, London on 17 July the same year.28 He was only 40 years old and appeared to have a very bright future ahead. Abbott’s brother Harry in India recorded that Edgar Abbott died ‘from aneurism of the heart, brought on by trying to keep his weight down to the eight stone scale’.29 Friends had noticed the deterioration in his health which began following his visit to Mount Bandai in Fukushima in 1886 shortly after the volcano erupted and he had ‘made a circuit of the devastated region under circumstances of great difficulty.’ His departure for home followed a lengthy spell of illness caused by an eye injury. When he returned to London he reported that he had been ordered to take six months complete rest and had to lie perpetually on his back in the hope that the walls of his aorta would be strengthened.30 Abbott’s ashes were buried in the Gaijin Bochi (foreigners cemetery) in Yokohama in late November 1890. His two closest friends, Nicholas Hannen and William Montague Kirkwood (an old school friend) took the urn of ashes from the casket and placed it in the cavity prepared. The presiding priest, Rev E. C. Irvine, said little about the man himself speaking mainly about Abbott’s determination to have his body cremated and shipped back to Japan31. ENDNOTES 1 2

3 4 5

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Japan Weekly Mail, 3 March 1904 Journal of Brewery History Online: http://www.breweryhistory.com/journal/archive/111/bh-111–063.html Bankers Magazine, 1862 Freeman’s Journal from Dublin, 18 August 1860, Page 4 Japan Weekly Mail, 2 October 1875 reported that on 26 September 1875 the 625-ton British barque Meese departed Yokohama for London via Kobe carrying general cargo and ‘dispatched by E. Abbott On 28 March 1877 the British barque Laurel arrived with a cargo of coal from New South Wales consigned to Abbott and, little over one month later, the papers announced the departure of the 12 May departure of the 93

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7

361-ton British barque Wandering Minstrel, under the command of Capt. Sievewright, for Niigata with the general cargo dispatched by E. Abbott. Abbott claimed he had a ‘clean mate’s receipt’ for the loading of 170 tons of coal on the Kanagawa Maru by his agent in Nagasaki and had paid the supplier accordingly but when delivery was taken in Yokohama, Mitsu Bishi calculated that only 142 tons were unloaded. Abbott also had a Bill of Lading. Mitsu Bishi claimed that the coal was loaded in Nagasaki without being weighed and that the Mate’s Receipt was not a normal one. The local newspapers do not appear to have reported on the outcome of the trial which suggests that the two parties came to some compromise agreement. On the same day at the latter’s departure the British three-masted schooner Ching Too captained by John Baikie was scheduled to depart for Hakodate being dispatched by Carrol & Co. Four days earlier Abbott’s lawsuit against Capt. Baikie was given a first hearing in H. B. M. Court at Kanagawa with Abbott claiming $99 commission on charter from Baikie on the grounds that he had broken a chartering agreement. Abbott’s statement of evidence of the case gives insights into how this business worked and the importance of oral agreements: I am a broker. On the 2nd May, Captain Baikie of the Ching Too came to my office in company of Captain Partridge and Captain Sievewright and asked me if I could put his vessel in the way of getting employment. I asked him most carefully if it was consigned to anyone else in the place. He said no, his vessel was free. I commenced to make enquiries at once to see what could be done for the ship, when one of my constituents informed me that that the vessel had been offered for charter by another firm. Defendant came again on Saturday to my office, and I then accused him of putting his vessel in someone else’s hands. He declared, in the presence of two captains, that his vessel was entirely free. On the same afternoon I went out and called on four or five firms and one firm telegraphed to me about chartering. On Saturday I waited for the defendant to tell him what I had done. He never appeared, and the first information I received of his charter was through the medium of the press. The vessel was placed entirely in my hands and I consider the captain had no right to go to anyone else. Captain Partridge supported Abbott’s statement but it was decided to postpone the case until Captain Sievewright’s testimony could be heard on his return from Hakodate and then hold a trial by jury. A search of the papers suggests no further action was taken by the court and so it can be surmised that Abbott and Baikie came to some kind of agreement.

8

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See Mike Galbraiths ‘Cricket in Late Edo and Meiji Japan’ in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015 The Taylor Walker group of breweries acquired Abbott’s father’s Bow Brewery in 1927. 94

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10

11

12

Japan Weekly Mail, 4 September 1875. An account of Horse Racing in Japan by Roger Buckley is contained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2010. Reminiscences of Sonepur, Harry Edwin Abbott Other evidence of his size come from the fact that he sometimes participated in rowing events as a cox. Japan Weekly Mail, 26 May 1877 ‘The successful jockey, Mr. Abbott, was led to the Grand Stand to receive the Purse from Miss Center, who addressed him as follows:‘Please accept, Mr. Abbott, the congratulation of the ladies of Tokio and Yokohama upon your success having won this well-contested race. In their name, I take pleasure in presenting to you this purse, with the wish that in all things you may succeed as well as you have done today, in so gallantly winning the “Ladies Purse.” Mr. Abbott made a suitable reply, and wound up his grateful acknowledgements by expressing his conviction that the fair donor would always continue to be the ‘centre’ of attraction and on behalf of the jockeys presented her with a bouquet.’

13 14

15 16

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Japan Weekly Mail, 5 March 1904 See ‘Introduction of Football from Britain into Nineteenth–century Japan: Rugby Football and Soccer’ by Mike Galbraith in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015 Japan Weekly Mail, 29 November 1873 Abbott had attended the AGM held on 14 March where there was discussion about changing the club’s rules and Milne, Durant, Groom, Cope and Hearne had been elected to the Committee. Days later three of these resigned and as a quorum of three was impossible the other two also resigned. So on 4 April the first extraordinary meeting in the club’s history was held and Durrant, Groom, Melhuish, Hamilton and A.R. Robinson were elected to the committee. Three days later in the Special General Meeting the new club’s nine rules were proposed by Edgar, one by one starting with the first one proposing the new name for the club, with Hamilton, Melhuish, Robinson, and Playfair taking it in turns to second him. These rule changes had been previously printed, circulated and even discussed in the press. The incentive for the members to agree to the amalgamation was the promise of $310 in donations which would be used to enlarge the ground and improve the pavilion. A biographical portrait of Sir Nicholas Hannen is contained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. Hannen is reported to have said: ‘When he (Hannen) went home twelve years ago from Japan he remembered that he threw cold water upon this scheme, which was then busy in Mr. Abbott’s brain, and when he returned he found that 95

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in the meantime Mr. Abbott has so exerted himself as to carry out the plan to a successful termination. Those of them that served on the Committee knew that besides the labour of getting his scheme passed, he also did an enormous deal of work afterwards. They were all grateful to Mr. Abbott for having forced them into this association scheme, and he was sure that even those that opposed Mr. Abbott, were now thankful for the result. They of the Committee knew that not only did Mr. Abbott start the club, but that afterwards if anything special was to be done, it was always Mr. Abbott who did it. He got the ground enlarged. He set in motion Mr. Kirkwood, who went to the Kencho. He got the pavilion built, got the running path made and got the ground returfed. He might with bare justice say Mr. Abbott was the heart and soul of the Club, and he was sure all of them would agree in according Mr. Abbott their very grateful thanks for his services both before and after the creation of the Club. – (Loud applause) 19

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21

‘Mr. Abbott said that personally he thought he was hardly justified in accepting the kind words that had been said. Whatever good he had done has been done in conjunction, and he could only say, speaking for the rest of the Committee, that if their labours had at times been a little severe, it had been a great pleasure.’ He said: ‘During the course of the present year they had lost one who was really the originator of the Club, Mr. E. Abbott. It was owing to his energy and to the amount of work he did that a lot of scattered clubs were gathered into one, and made the Cricket and Athletic Club the Club it is now. He devoted so much time to it that he succeeded in doing what had for many years been wanted, but could not be accomplished.’ J.P. Mollison explained: The new cricket ground, with its increased dimensions, afforded facilities for both football and baseball which votaries of those games were not slow to avail themselves of, and soon two flourishing clubs were in existence, paying tribute, however, to the Cricket Club which they recognized as the parent institution and to whose numbers they felt they were indebted for the opportunity they now enjoyed of pursuing their favourite pastimes. By and by (in 1875) Lawn Tennis21 was introduced to Yokohama and quickly became one of the sports enjoyed by becoming a member of the club. This state of affairs went on until the early eighties, when it became apparent that it would be advisable, in order to prevent schism in the community, and for the general good, to combine all sporting arrangements under one management, and the result was the formation of the present “YC and AC” in 1884. As the most prominent individual in this movement, I recall the name of Edgar Abbott, one of the best all-round men, if not the very best, that ever came from England to the Far East. An old Marlborough boy, he brought with him all the best traditions of that famous school, 96

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and …… upheld them manfully at all times with honor to himself and credit to his Alma Mater. It is remarkable that Mollison could be moved to write such words about Abbott almost 20 years after he died suddenly in London in July 1890. 22 23

24

25 26

27

Japan Gazette Semi-Centennial Issue, 1909 They were Dodds, Kirkwood, Baehr, Rohde, Wilson Walker, Playfair, Grosser, Moberly, Glennie, Reynell, Strome, Abbott, Langfeldt & Talbot. The report read out at the annual general meeting of the shareholders of Japan Brewery Company held on February 26 1891 referred to Abbott as follows: ‘The directors most sincerely regret the death of Mr. Abbott which deprived them of the assistance of one of their oldest members and one to whose energy the early success of the Company was largely due.’ The Straits Times issue, 20 February 1886 Catalogue of an important collection of Japanese and Chinese porcelains, bronzes, enamels, lacquers, ivory carvings, swords, sword guards, cabinet specimens, embroideries, screens, etc., etc. belonging to Messrs. Deakin Brothers & Co., American Art Association, 1892 Japan Weekly Mail, 6 April 1889 reported: ‘Altogether the style of the decoration, as we have said, evoked general praise and greatly enhanced the enjoyment of those who attended the dance. The chief commendation for this result is undeniably owing to Mr. Abbott, under whose directions the Japanese who attended the floral decorations and the blue jackets who arranged the flags achieved such remarkable success.’

28 29 30 31

Japan Weekly Mail, 26 July 1890 Reminiscences of Sonepur, Harry Edwin Abbott Japan Weekly Mail, 27 July 1890 Japan Weekly Mail, 6 December 1890

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No. 48, Yokohama MIKE GALBRAITH

THE BUILDING

Kanagawa Prefecture’s oldest surviving Western structure is the remnant of the ruined building, currently named Mollison Shokai or Mollison & Co., located at the corner of a block of land now called No. 54, which absorbed No. 48. It is a Kanagawa prefectural cultural asset with protected status. The Mollison in the Mollison Shokai name was James Pender Mollison who lived in No. 48 for many years from 1868 (see below). There used to be two buildings at No. 48; what remains is part of the office but adjacent to it was a residence. The two buildings were the home and work place of a group of prominent Scottish businessmen who also played an important role in the sports scene in Yokohama for most of the second half of the nineteenth century. 98

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In the dining room of the residence, the Yokohama Cricket Club (YCC) was founded in 1868 and No. 48 became the de facto ‘club house’ for the cricket club and other sports clubs before a pavilion was built on the cricket ground in Yokohama Park in 1877. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, No. 48 became better known as the Japan office for Alfred Nobel’s sales of dynamite than for its association with sports. Today at Yamashitacho 54 in the old ‘foreign settlement’ area of Yokohama, just behind what used to be called Honcho Dori (main street), a huge modern theatre complex occupies what was originally designated in 1859 as several blocks of land and rented out to the first foreign merchants to come to Japan. On one corner a small strange single-storeyed structure sits awkwardly as if it had been abandoned for some reason after being half-demolished. There is no glass in its windows, no real floor and only a very basic roof. It looks as if it originally extended into the street and that the city’s planners crazily built a major street over half of it. Indeed, they did just that not long after the 1923 earthquake. A plaque on a piece of stone briefly declares that the building is a protected cultural asset. It is Kanagawa prefecture’s oldest surviving Western structure and was built in 1883. Today its most attractive feature is the stone lintel that sits at the top of the arch of what is clearly the main entrance. That stone has the number 48 carved into it because this was a part of the lot of land officially named No. 48 right up until the construction of the theatre.

When preparing for the construction of the new theatre complex, the uncovering of some unusual tiles and brickwork on the site of No. 48 triggered an investigation that led to the discovery that Mollison Shokai is Kanagawa Prefecture’s oldest surviving Western structure. 99

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The only known historical image of No. 48 is one which shows the structure in 1893 (see image at the head of the chapter). The present structure is the lower left hand-side part of the structure on the right of the image while on the left sits the residential accommodation. The two buildings look similar and look as if they were built at the same time. It is possible that at least the downstairs of the residence seen on the left of the image may date from before the office and is the same as it was on the day in the early summer in 1868 when the meeting establishing the Yokohama cricket club (YCC) was allegedly held there. THE OCCUPANTS

In the early days of the settlement the men only really had to work around the time the mail boats arrived in port, which was twice a month. For many years there was no mains water or electricity but there were lots of opportunities to play sport and there happened to be a number of young men keen on sport at that time. Those working and living in No. 48 were very often in the forefront of the sporting action in those early days in Yokohama. This chapter supplements my accounts of early sporting activities in Yokohama in ‘Cricket in Late Edo and Meiji Japan’ and ‘Introduction of Football from Britain into Nineteenth-century Japan: Rugby Football and Soccer’ contained in volume IX in this series. JAMES CAMPBELL FRASER (1840–1913)

Fraser Shokai or Fraser & Co. (sometimes also called James C. Fraser & Co. and Fraser & Co, J.C.) rented No. 48 from 1864 until 1882 when the name of the company changed first to Mollison & Fraser, Co. Ltd and finally to Mollison & Co. or Mollison Shokai. These name changes reflect the gradual rise in importance of Mollison and the gradual retirement of Fraser from his business in Japan. James Campbell Fraser who was the first person to rent the premises at No. 48 was a fairly wealthy Scottish aristocrat descended from the Lords of Lovatt and the Dukes of Argyll. The rise in the fortunes of his father William dates from when he left Scotland for South America. He started by running slave gangs on sugar plantations in Demerara in what is now Guyana and then began to acquire plantations with his partner. James Campbell Fraser was born on one of these in 1840 but was partly brought up in his father’s newly-acquired Skipness Castle in Scotland. He was sent to school at Harrow. His entry in Harrow School Register lauds him as a ‘great traveler’ who was in Japan from 1862 to 1868, rode the first train between New York and San Francisco (probably soon after the transcontinental railroad was completed in May 1869), spent a week as the guest of Brigham 100

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Young at Salt Lake City, and represented the City of Mobile in the 1892 Nicaragua Canal Convention in New Orleans. J.C. Fraser’s wealth probably made it easy for him to prosper in business in Yokohama where he arrived in 1862 at the age of twenty-two. He initially worked for Ross, Barber & Co. in partnership with James Samuel Barber and John Bailey Ross. This partnership ceased at the end of 1866 due to ‘lapse of time’ and by the time of the great fire of Yokohama in November 1866 he was living in one of the best addresses (No 6 on the Bund). He was rather unusual at the time in Yokohama as he married and had three daughters during his stay. Already in 1864 he had rented No. 48 as a godown and was involved in business with Liverpool including representing insurance companies there. By 1868 he was a managing director of Charles Saunders & Co. of Liverpool, which was owned by his wife’s family and was involved in exporting tea and even silk worms.1 Fraser acted as a Steward for the athletics meeting of 1863 and won the long jump but his passion was cricket. Although he had failed to make the school 1st XI, he played against some of England’s best and claimed to have once hit leading fast bowler John ‘Foghorn’ Jackson for six when he played for a Liverpool XI against an England XI.2 That tale was no doubt frequently heard at No. 48 in those early years, and with it the story that the next ball he received from Jackson almost removed his head and with it his plan of coming to Japan. Fraser captained the Yokohama team in what was the first cricket match ever played in Japan and he may well have been the chief instigator of the match because it was the Yokohama side that issued the challenge that resulted in the game.3 It was not really surprising that, after Fraser decided to return to the UK and sought someone to run his Yokohama office, he should choose a young Scottish cricketer working in Shanghai as a tea taster. JAMES PENDER MOLLISON (1845–1931)

James Pender Mollison was born and brought up in Glasgow where he developed his love of cricket and played for the Caledonian C.C. He came out to Hong Kong at the age of twenty before moving to Shanghai where he played three seasons of cricket while working as a tea taster. The most memorable game for him there was the second cricket Interport against Hong Kong in 1867 where he helped Shanghai avenge the terrible drubbing they got in the first Interport in 1866. He first arrived in Yokohama in January 1867 not long after the great fire of November 1866. In a speech given in 1909 to an audience 101

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of 450, he related how he stayed with Gus Farley, his ‘old chum from London’, and Jack Fraser. At the height of the great fire Fraser decided to move as many of his possessions as possible from the bungalow on the Bund where he lived with his wife and daughters to their godown (possibly No. 48) because the latter was much more fireproof. In the event, the godown was totally destroyed but the bungalow survived. After around one month in Japan, Mollison left for England returning just over a year later, several weeks after Fraser had left with his family and their nurse. One of the first things Mollison did on his return was to establish the Yokohama Cricket Club in his dining room, which was surely in the residential part of No. 48. (The first directory giving the addresses of Yokohama residents in 1870 shows Mollison living at No. 48. He later said that he lived there for twenty-six years.) The circumstances of the founding of the YCC are a little mysterious and none of cricketers then playing quite regularly every year in Yokohama were invited to participate and no report has been found in the local newspapers giving details of the meeting to found the club. The YC&AC is in possession of a wooden plaque made after the club was reconstituted in 1912 and probably made while Mollison was still alive. The plaque lists the presidents after that date and names five people as the original founders of the Yokohama Cricket Club in addition to Mollison. One of these was E.D. Murray another cricket-playing Scot who also spent a long time working and living at No. 48. His cricketing skills were not on the same level as his colleagues but he became the club treasurer. Mollison calls him a St. Pauls’ boy’ but St. Pauls have no record of his attendance at the school. The only Englishman present was Robert Ernest Price, another tea taster, who possibly first met Mollison in Shanghai where his brother Arthur also played in that famous Interport. Price tried to set up in business in Yokohama by himself, but then joined Hooper Bros and ended up working for a government school before succumbing to a fatal illness.4 The three other names on the plaque were elected as executives: Everett Frazier was a successful American businessman of Scottish descent who was actually then living in Shanghai; James Henry Scott of Butterfield & Swire who was from the famous shipbuilding family of John Scott & Co. based at Greenock near Glasgow and also principally resident in Shanghai; and, finally, George Hamilton who was also from near Glasgow. Until the first cricket ground was established in Yokohama Koen in 1876, No. 48 was where all the equipment and stumps for cricket were stored so that every time they played they first went to No. 48, 102

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gathered the kit and carried it to the ground they were to play. After they finished playing, they carried everything back to No. 48 and then drank copious jugs of claret. GEORGE HAMILTON (1845–1929)

Hamilton who went to Rugby school, was excellent at nearly every sport. It was probably Mollison who said he was ‘captain of the Yokohama Rugby team, good at cricket, played excellent games of racquets and tennis, good in cross-country paper chases and a splendid shot’. Hamilton founded the Yokohama Rowing Club and was the stroke in the four that won the first Interport in October 1871 against the highly-rated Kobe four. In his 1909 speech Mollison called Hamilton ‘the father of rowing in Yokohama’. He was also involved in the founding of the Yokohama Athletics Association. EVAN JAMES FRASER (1847–1911)

James Campbell Fraser’s younger brother Evan James, born in Scotland, arrived in Yokohama sometime around 1870 after having studied at Rugby School where he probably first met his fellow Scot George Hamilton, although the latter left the same year Evan entered. Evan Fraser was soon managing the business in Yokohama while Mollison remained, officially at least, just a clerk. Like Hamilton, Evan James was usually mentioned for his good play in all the rugby match reports of the early 1870s while the more numerous and lengthy cricket match reports suggest that he stood out more at cricket and that he was a far better and more aggressive batsman than ‘Mr Cricket’ Mollison himself as well as being a pretty good bowler. ‘Fraser’s 47 was the best score of the match, combining a good defense with free hitting. He, however, plays back too much and was stuck up twice by Captain Stammers,’ the Japan Weekly Mail’s critical reporter wrote about him in one game against the 10th regiment in which he was out hit wicket in both innings; perhaps this was the main reason the 10th won by 16 runs. On at least one occasion the sporting residents of No. 48 even put out their own team called the No. 48 Hong against the officers of the 10th. It may have been five or six a side and was clearly not a memorable match. Evan Fraser rowed behind Hamilton in the famous victory in the fours against Kobe in October 1871. An image of the crew was among the lantern slides shown by Mollison in his 1909 lecture. Evan Fraser managed the business in Yokohama for his brother for some years. From 1 January 1874 his brother became a partner in the Liverpool-based Saunders business, which was now called 103

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Saunders, Needham & Co and Evan James Fraser became a partner in the Yokohama operation. In 1878 Evan Fraser left Japan and in 1879 began working in New York as the agent for the South African Banking Corporation. As a condition for inheriting his uncle’s Dunsmore estate he changed his family name from Fraser to FraserCampbell, and then married the daughter of a famous coffee tycoon in New York who was a close friend of the US president.5 Hamilton was a close friend of Evan Fraser and seems to have followed his friend to New York leaving No. 48 and Japan in around 1885 although he returned in 1891 when he surprised all by rowing victoriously in two fours races, one after the other. At first he was representing the business at No. 48 in New York but soon after he began trading in his own name. Hamilton was still playing tennis in his eighties in America and lived very close to the main entrance to Central Park. Evan Fraser-Campbell died in November 1911 as a result of being hit by a car while crossing a road near the entrance to Central Park and was important enough to warrant quite a long obituary in the New York Times. NO. 48 AFTER THE 1880s

By the 1890s No. 48 was no longer the residence of any of Yokohama’s leading sportsmen. No. 48’s great days were over. It now became better known for Mollison’s growing business after he finally took over the firm and became the first exclusive agent for Alfred Nobel’s dynamite in Japan and this became a large business. The 1923 earthquake very nearly destroyed not only No. 48 but also Mollison’s business, and it killed one of his sporting sons and his wife. In 1926 No. 48 was acquired and used by the Helm family business until 1978. After that it was used as an office by the police and then by the Kencho (prefectural government). When plans for the new theatre were drawn up, the remaining part of the No. 48 building seemed to have reached the end of a long life. However, by a miracle, No. 48 still survives although it is not possible to enter the structure. ENDNOTES 1 2 3

North China Cricket Magazine, 14 April 1909 See BP Vol. IX. This match had disappeared from history but recentlydiscovered records make it now Japan’s best-documented cricket match prior to the first cricket Interport in 1886. J.C. Fraser presented an account of the game together with large mounted photos of both the Navy Team and the Yokohama team shown in the illustration to the MCC and these photos are likely to have proudly hung in his living 104

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4 5

room in Yokohama. He clearly regarded the 1863 game as one of the sporting highlights in his life as did several of the other players. Meiji Portraits, Bernd Lapach, http://www.meiji-portraits.de/ Obituary, New York Times, 10 November 1911

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Thomas Bates Blow (1853–1941): Antiquarian, Apiarist and Pioneer Motorist in Japan IAN CHRYSTIE

Left: from Confessions of an Un-common Attorney by Reginald L Hine. London, J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd 1945. Photograph by L.A. Leigh. Right: from “Japan Revisited” by Thomas Bates Blow. Privately printed 1930.

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INTRODUCTION

Dorothy Shuttleworth during her trip to Japan in 1906 recorded: ‘[Kyoto] We went to tea at 3 with Mr Blow an Englishman from Welwyn who has married a Japanese wife & lives here. He is a great collector & sometimes sells things.’1 Walter Tyndale in his Japan and the Japanese,2 wrote in 1909: ‘[Kyoto] I made the acquaintance of an Englishman, Mr Blow, who has lived here a good many years; he has a pretty Japanese house and garden on the slopes of the hills overlooking the city… Mrs Blow, a charming Japanese lady, asked me to lunch, with a promise that I should see her husband’s collection of prints.3 LIFE

Thomas Bates Blow was born in Welwyn, Hertfordshire, on 8 November 1853, the only child of James (a carpenter) and Mary Blow. He was educated initially at the village school, later at an academy at Tring (where he developed a flair for languages).4 In his early life his interests were botany, photography and apiary. His interest in photography led to his first commercial venture – a small laboratory manufacturing ‘Dry Plates’, but it was his interest in bee-keeping, and his development of bee-keeping appliances, that led to his setting up a factory (in Welwyn, next to the railway station) which was known worldwide. His interests in botany had led in 1872 to him providing herbarium specimens that remain in national collections. In 1873 he was instrumental in the formation of The Botanical Locality Record Club (becoming its treasurer in 1877). In 1879 he was a founder member of the Hitchin Natural History Club; in 1880, he published, in the Hertfordshire Express, a series of articles entitled ‘Outlines of a Flora of the Neighbourhood of Hitchin’; and on 18 December 1884 he was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. By 1884 he was one of the country’s expert apiarists having formed the Hertfordshire Bee Society and was instrumental in the development of similar societies in other counties. He was, by now, travelling to Europe and was responsible for ‘improving’ the quality of the British native bee by bringing in queen bees from Eastern Europe. His book A Bee-Keeper’s Experience in the East was published in 1883.5 In the 1891 census his occupation is listed as ‘Manufacturer Bee Keeping: a change from “Photographer”’ten years earlier. In 1891 he purchased land adjacent to Welwyn station (now Welwyn North), presumably to build his house ‘The Chalet’ next to his workplace: it was his residence until he died in 1941.

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BLOW AND JAPAN

His bee-keeping business was, however, only a means of providing funds for his love of travel. In the mid-1880s he visited the West Indies and Ceylon studying bee-keeping and plant collecting, and in May/June 1896 he made his first plant collecting visit to Japan.6 The following year, having sold his business, he again visited Japan meeting with Sir Ernest Satow and writing a very positive report on Bee-keeping in Japan for the then Japanese Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, Viscount Enomoto.7 Blow continued his travels for the next four years (for example, plant collecting in India in 1899 and again meeting with Satow on the train to Banff in September 1900). In 1902, however, at the age of forty-eight, he married a Japanese lady, Koyake Shoko,8 in London.9 From about 1902 he was living in Kyoto, owning the first automobile in that city (a 1904 7 h.p. Swift).10 His house at 13 Rakuto Reizan, Shimokyoku, was ‘On the east side of Kyoto between Kiyomizuderau and Kodaiji. Below which is the Yasaka pagoda and further on is Gion Temple.’11 By 1906, when Dorothy Shuttleworth visited him, he was well known as a ‘dealer in Japanese prints12 and other artifacts’. Indeed, well known enough to be commissioned, with the then British consul-general in Kobe (Henry A.C. Bonar), to acquire the damascene cabinet presented by English residents of Kobe to Prince Arthur of Connaught on his visit to present the Japanese Emperor with the Order of the Garter.13 It was also in 1906 that he commenced his long association with Alfred Baur – it being Blow who, having supplied Baur with his first prints, became Baur’s leading merchant and adviser for almost two decades.14 Blow also retained his interest in photography – having exhibited photographs of Japan at RPS exhibitions and having them published – for example, in Arthur Lloyd’s Everyday Japan.15 He also maintained his obvious love of motoring with one several hundred-mile trip from Kyoto to Karuizawa and back being reported in The Field in early 1912.16 This gives a fascinating picture of the challenges of early motoring in Japan and is reproduced in full in the appendix to this brief portrait. He had not completely given up on bee-keeping. He maintained hives for a few years at his home in Kyoto, although these did not produce honey in any significant quantity, and he also visited Mr S. Tomura, a Japanese bee-keeper in the Kyoto area.17 By then he had, however, changed his opinions on the prospects for a bee-keeping industry in Japan, believing that there were too many problems to make it viable.18 However, only a few years later a report appeared which described how Mr Tomura had redeveloped his apiary with 108

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bees of European origin (Italian and Carniolan bees) – with great success.19 Since then, the Japanese bee-keeping industry had developed countrywide. Two recent innovations deserve mention: firstly the siting of hives on the roof of the 11-storey Pulp & Paper Building in Tokyo by members of the Ginza Honey Bee Project;20 secondly, the development, since 2007, of a honey industry on the island of Tsushima using the Japanese bee and the ancient method of using hachido, or log hives.21 Throughout the pre-war years he continued with his dealings in Japanese art22 and regularly visited the UK.23 He also found time to continue with his plant-collecting activities (visiting India in 1908 and Spain in early 1914). However, the onset of war in 1914 changed his life completely for, although in his sixtieth year, rather than return to Kyoto, he remained in Europe and enlisted with the French Red Cross, serving as an ambulance driver at the Hôpital de L’Alliance in Yvetot for the duration of that conflict.24

Illustrations taken from an article in the British Bee Journal Volume XLIV, January 20th 1916, pp. 20–21 but were originally from The Hertfordshire Express.

It is noteworthy that he provided his own transport – a 15–20 h.p. Studebaker, which he purchased for £285. This vehicle, ‘after seven months’ continuous work, traversed 8,063 miles of roads up to to-day, and has never had a stop other than for tyre punctures.’25 In 109

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addition, by 1918 he was on the Executive of the British Committee of the French Red Cross.26 For this service during the war he was appointed Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the President of France.27 However, despite his arduous duties as a driver, he seems to have maintained his interest in photography, passing on his knowledge to some of his colleagues – for example, the surgeon Dr E.L. Graham.28 Following the war Blow remained in the UK – with occasional botanical trips to, for example, France and Portugal (1921) and Madagascar (1924) – where he discovered an alga in the family Characeae subsequently named after him (Nitella blowiana). He also continued to deal in Japanese prints and art, continuing his association with Alfred Baur and providing much of Baur’s collection pre-1924.29 However, his major ‘achievement’ might be considered his recommendation that Baur, when he visited Kyoto, contact the art dealer Tomita Kumasaku30 (a friend of Blow) for it was Tomita who is credited with developing the Baur collection as one of the most beautiful private collections of Chinese porcelain, jade and Japanese art in Europe today.31 Even after his dealings with Baur ended, Blow maintained his interests and, in April 1929, organized an exhibition of over sixty colour prints by modern Japanese artists (the majority from his own collection but with some from Yamanaka’s) at The Camera Club, 17 John Street, London. This exhibition was opened by ‘Mr W. Moriya, secretary to the Japanese Embassy, in the unavoidable absence of the Japanese Ambassador.’32 He left his house and wife in Kyoto in 1913 and during his absence he continued to own the house in Kyoto, where he had many friends. He did not return there until January 1930 – a visit necessitated by a ‘family bereavement’. He spent some weeks in Japan ‘on business and also took two weeks to make a long desired plant-hunting trip to Formosa’.33 Returning to the UK, he continued his botanical endeavours – perhaps the most intriguing being his recommendation to the Linnaean Society that His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Hirohito of Japan be awarded an Honorary Fellowship.34 Blow also continued with his Japanese art activities. He is reported to have sold some Japanese prints to an American, Robert O. Muller,35 in 1936. However, in 1940 he apparently announced that he had ceased collecting Japanese prints – only to purchase some 500 at an auction at Sotheby’s a week later.36 Thomas Bates Blow died 16 January 1941. In his will, he bequeathed twenty-five Japanese prints to the British Museum.37 His estate was valued as £4509 13s.

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APPENDIX

This image is taken from an advertising booklet “Swift of Coventry Limited”. (Undated, c. 1920) The image was kindly scanned by Mr Ron Walker of the Swift Car Club. The photograph was taken outside the Yasaka shrine, also known as the Gion shrine. Note that, in the Swift booklet, it is referred to as Sion Temple.

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MOTORING IN JAPAN

Mr THOMAS B. BLOW contributes the following interesting description of a motor tour in Nippon from Kyoto to Karuizawa and back. The car used is thus described – a 7–8 h.p. two-cylinder Swift – rather heavy but very strong – seating two people, and with space for luggage behind. It has accumulator ignition. I carry four accumulators to guard against ignition breakdown on long journeys, but on this occasion one accumulator carried me through. Though so small a horsepower (I believe it really develops about 10 h.p. when at its best) the car weighed, when loaded up and with its passengers, just about one ton. There was myself and wife, luggage for us both, foreign tinned food, &c., weighing 36lb., and petrol for 500 miles. This last is carried in special copper cans, some made to fit in spare space in the inside of the car, and the others at the back. Then two spare covers, three inner tubes, a Stepney wheel, and a good supply of tools and spares completed the outfit. None of these, except a cover and a tube, were wanted. We left Kyoto on Aug. 17 [1911?], and were at Nagoya at 3 p.m. It was a very pleasant morning and beautiful running (about 15 miles an hour) till we got to the horse and cart country, which begins near Sekigahara, and from there to Nagoya traffic is quite thick, and it requires constant stops and very careful driving to prevent accidents, as the horses are very restive especially when without loads. At Tarui there are two roads to Gifu, one through the country and the other through the large town of Ogaki. Always avoiding towns, we took the country road, which was not for the best, as it turned out. There had been floods, for here we were approaching the great delta formed by the many great rivers – the Kisogawa, the biggest river in Japan, among them – that fall into the sea in Owari Bay. For a mile or so there had been water over the road to a depth of a few inches, and then a bridge was three or four inches down on the side that I approached it, but I ran on, not seeing in time that the other side was up nearly a foot, and though I was going only four or five miles an hour, I could not stop the car in time, and had to drop down the foot. In doing so I strained the front axle and put the wheels asplay, but not enough to stop progress, and I considered an hour or two in Nagoya would suffice to set it right if I could find a good mechanic. So crossing the river here by the old iron railway bridge, we got to Meiji [Mieji],where the Nakasendo38 goes straight on to Kano, a suburb of Gifu, but there being no bridge it is necessary to make a ten-mile detour and cross the River Nagaragawa by the big bridge 112

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just before reaching Gifu. We stayed at a pretty little roadside teahouse for lunch and a rest, and close by was a tiny lake that was absolutely covered with the beautiful lavender-blue blossoms of the Pontederia, the finest display of this water plant that I have ever seen in Japan. Passing through Gifu, with its streets all up for laying gas or water pipes, we took a wrong turn on to a road that certainly went our way, but again a bridge was wanting, so coming back about a mile we made another detour and soon got on the way to the big bridge at Kasamatsu over the Kisogawa – the only one except railway bridges, I believe, in its course. The floods had caused one of the central piles to subside, but workmen had cleverly tied up the roadway portion by suspension chains, and the bridge – which had evidently been recently closed – was to our joy open again. To have had to ferry over the Kiso at this place would have been almost impossible. A good run through level country and fair roads brought us to Nagoya at 3 p.m., where we put up at the Sato-o Inn, near the station – this having a long, wide entrance very suitably accommodated to the car. I at once looked up my old friend Mr Hisato, the curio dealer of Fukuromachi, and explained that I wanted to find the best mechanic in Nagoya. He said he knew the master of such a man very well, as he had a large bicycle repair shop, and also repaired machinery. The telephone fetched the master to us in fifteen minutes on a bicycle, and as he said his man would do the job, we at once drove off to the works. A most intelligent workman took the job in hand, and with the assistance of myself and a boy, we had the axle off inside an hour. Fortunately, there was a very powerful press on hand, in less than forty-five minutes the axle was perfectly straightened, and in another hour was on again and we were ready for the road. All was done in a most workmanlike way, and the total charge Y2 only a trifle over four shillings. Of course, the mechanic and his boy got a good chadai. Nagoya is evidently a smart, bustling place; had I wanted this done in Kyoto I should either have had to do it myself or to wait till a workman had looked at it for a day or two to decide how he would do it. As petrol was to be had here I filled up my tank, finding that I had used just 4 gallons for ninety-eight miles. The chief reason for coming via Nagoya was to avoid the ferry over the Kisogawa at Ima Watari. At 8 a.m. we were on the way again, and a piping hot day. We were warned of the roads, as there had been great damage done by the floods near Tajimi. In several places not far out of Nagoya we found temporary bridges as the result of the floods. We had about twenty miles of fairly flat and decent roads – though covered with horses and carts taking 113

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porcelain from the Seto districts and quantities of brown lignite coal which is mined near here. We saw some of the mines – some are open workings, others with small shafts apparently of no great depth. Then the hills were entered, and for many miles the roads were really washed away, and were mere boulders and watercourses. The hills were very steep, and long, too, and particularly dangerous. At the top of the worst one was a large notice in Japanese: “This hill is extremely dangerous for motor-cars!” Inquiry at Ikeda – where we stayed a few minutes – brought out the reason for this; one or two foreign pottery buyers occasionally hire a motor-car in Nagoya (there are four in the town on hire) to come up to this – the great pottery district – to buy. The steep hills and rough surface culminated in an immense one at Takayama; after that we had decent roads and beautiful country right on to a pretty little place on the river called Toki, where we lunched. Then, following the Central Railway to Kamado, we rejoined the Nakasendo (which we had left near Gifu) before reaching Oi. Then over an up-and-down road with occasional long, good stretches brought us through many villages to Nakatsugawa. The two or three miles from here to Ochiai is a good sample of a difficult road, which, if wet, being of a slippery clay would be extremely difficult to get up, for the gradient ranges from 1 in 5, with hairpin corners which are so sharp that the car would not go round without reversing a little and starting afresh. Then from Ochiai the beautiful gorge scenery of the Kisogawa begins, and continues its beauties for fifty miles. The old road via Magome takes one straight over the Jik-koku-toge to Azuma Bashi, and is one side of a triangle; the gorge road goes round the other two sides of the triangle and is carried along the cliff high above the river, the railway running along the opposite bank until it crosses the river above Azuma Bashi by a fine bridge, and then continues to run parallel with the road all the way to the foot of the Torii-toge. The road to Azuma Bashi is only passable, and great care has to be taken, as it is narrow and clayey and slippery in places. At Azuma Bashi we pass on the right the road leading over the Odaira-toge to Iida and Tokimata for the Tenryugawa rapids. At Nojiri we halted a little, and got to Agematsu just before 7 p.m.; very tired, indeed, having been at the wheel for over ten hours. Here we found a very decent inn, with good accommodation again for the car, and stayed four days to take a well-earned rest. Agematsu is, I think, one of the most beautiful stopping places on the Nakasendo road. It is cool at night and quite free from mosquitoes; the inn people are attentive, the charges quite moderate, and good fish can be got from the river. Fruit and ice are also now 114

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obtainable, as since the railway was opened such things are regularly brought from Nagoya. Near here at Nezame one gets a fine view of Koma-ga-take. Then there is the Nezame-no-Toko, or the Bed of Awakening, the supposed spot where Urashima (the Rip Van Winkle of Japan) awoke after his long slumber, and various rocks supposed to represent certain objects connected with the legend are pointed out. Then on the other side of Agematsu, distant about two miles, is the Kiso-no-Kaka Hashi, where formerly only a narrow path was cut out of the precipice that goes down to the river, and which makes it here the narrowest part of the gorge. A little teahouse for viewing the whole scene stands at the top of the rocks that form steps from the ferry that here goes across, and is much used by the pilgrims going to and from Ontake. Our hotel was full of these – one night over forty stayed, and on arrival they chanted long prayers and indulged in great ablutions of cold water, there being a special place for this in the garden of the hotel. In the morning they were up at five, and their leader led them again in long and loud prayers, and there was again much washing in cold water. The trip to Ontake is made either from here or Fukushima – the next village – and it takes about four days to go up and down, but it is monotonous to go and return by the same way. The best plan is to go up from here and down via Yuba, where the night is spent; the accommodation is poor, but there are fine hot baths here, and on to Ko Osaka on the Takayama-Gifu road. We left Agematsu at 9 a.m. on a most beautiful day, and found the roads got worse and worse as we went on; in many places the road had been changed in making the railway, and the new portions were made of broken granite of large size, not at all worn in, and most trying for the tyres, especially as many very steep places made thus were encountered. Passing through Fukushima and Miyanokoshi we were twice misdirected at the foot of the pass, and I fear willfully. We got on to a road only just wide enough for the car, and at two miles a third inquiry at a hamlet assured us that we were wrong. There was space to turn here, which there had not been in any other part of the two miles, and with great difficulty we got back to Yabuhara and on to the right road, which was a new one made by the railway, and had apparently never been used, as it was quite overgrown with tall weeds which made us miss it in the first instance, for we had passed it. The bad four miles of road had practically settled the hash of my one weak tyre. It had ripped the rubber clean off in strips, and exposed the canvas. However, after bandaging it up with two tyre gaiters that I had carried in the car ever since I bought it I drove it a further ninety miles, and ulti115

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mately changed it for a new Michelin cover at Karuizawa to avoid the delay of a burst on the road which might have occurred at any time. This was the only tyre trouble I had throughout the whole journey. The Torii-toge took a long time to go over, as the road is very tortuous, and great care is needed in the many places where it is washed away, and in some cases there is barely room to get by. The descent is worse as far as the condition of the road is concerned, and we were glad to get down to the flat and stop to rest and have lunch. The condition of the road from Azuma Bashi to Narai made me there and then decide that under no conditions would I return by this route. The Torii-toge is, I think, just over 4000ft and the views, both ascending and descending, are very fine. After lunch we ascended the Shiojiri-toge 3400ft, but the road is so well engineered and in such fine condition that to my surprise I got right to the top on middle gear, the best performance by far that the car had ever done. The views from a little hill to the left of the summit are of the finest possible description; the day was perfect, but not too clear, and over the distant mountains huge masses of cumulus clouds hung. From just the other side of the cutting through the summit Lake Suwa lay like a mirror; while beyond the valley, looking towards Kofu, distant Fuji could be seen. We reached Shimo Suwa at 5 p.m. and found the Kameya to be a most comfortable hotel, with natural hot baths and a most obliging landlord. Here we found our first difficulty in garaging the car, and it had to be left under the wide eaves of the roof near the entrance; but the landlord borrowed a huge sheet of thick oil paper and covered it all up snugly and secure from the weather and from the attention of a crowd of boys who had gathered around. I found the boys most troublesome everywhere; they were not content to look, but fingered everything, and on one occasion turned an oil tap and lost me half a gallon of precious oil, which could not be replaced. Fortunately I had some more with me, and got another gallon sent me from Yokohama while I was en route from here to Karuizawa. After this I tied up the oil tap every night and took the wires off the accumulators, for on another occasion I found a boy had switched these on. This inn is in just the same condition as it was in the days when the Daimyos rested there en route to Tokyo. It has a fine high up third floor, with extensive view; we took this, and it was very nice, except that a public hot bath house was near, and when the people came in great numbers to bathe between 7 and 12 p.m. the loud talking rendered sleep difficult, and later we moved into the two rooms in the garden. This is quite an old garden, with the trees clipped in Dutch style, a beautiful waterfall with a large pond, and many flowers and 116

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fish. Here were a few mosquitoes, but the nights were quite cool, and it was a pleasant place for excursions, there being two paraffin motor boats on the lake constantly going to and fro. The lake contains very excellent shrimps. Showery weather set in, and it was the fifth day before we decided to try and complete the journey over the highest road pass in Japan, the Wadatoge, 5300ft. As far as I can calculate the actual rise from Shimo Suwa to the summit is about 2800ft in seven miles, but I should think that far more than half of this rise is in the last two miles. This portion was an awkward and difficult bit, as in places the road was nearly impassable, being mended with peat from a neighbouring bog, and the driving wheels went round without making the car progress; the gradients here in some places were certainly 1 in 4 to 5. I had to shed my passenger, as every pound made a difference, and we got over at last and found the descent much better, though longer. There is an enormous cutting through the top – one of the largest cuttings I have ever seen. We were soon down to Nagakubo, whence two roads are available to Karuizawa, one via the old Nakasendo going along one side of a triangle, the other on two sides via Oya and Komoro being the Hokurokudo or the western sea-coast road. We chose the shorter way over the Kasatori-toge, but found it in extremely bad condition, with bridges down in three places and fragile temporary ones in their stead. The scenery on this route was very picturesque – fine pine trees line the old highway in many places, and at Mochizuki the temples on the rocks near the river formed a very pretty picture. We lunched near here, but fared badly, as the food, including the rice, was very poor, and there was no ice to cool a drink. Then, going on through the well-cultivated country, we got to Iwamurata, when we got the first cold drink of the day, crossed the railway, and, after ploughing through five miles of roads of soft volcanic sand or ash, which brought the car to bottom gear whenever there was a rise at all, we passed through Oiwake and were soon at Karuizawa station, where we put up both ourselves and the car comfortably at the inn at which I had formerly stopped. After a wash we ran up to the village to find some friends and there was great excitement to see a motor-car. Many asked if it had come by train, and all were surprised to find it had come from so far as Kyoto, and over all the big passes. A halt of one day only was made, and was spent enjoying the pleasant company and hospitality of Mr W.B. Mason, with whom all the route passed over was duly discussed. Getting up early next morning, the damaged tyre cover and tube were replaced, and we were off at 8 a.m. This time the Hokurokudo route via Komoro and Oya was taken, and after the first 117

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seven miles proved to be a good road, and though nearly twice as far from Karuizawa to Nagakubo, it was done in rather less time. We had to negotiate a long wire and wood bridge at Oya which swung about considerably; then a fine, gently rising road took us up the valley to Nagakubo, where we got an excellent lunch at the Yamazaki-ya. About two miles from Shimo Suma we ran into a tremendous thunderstorm and were wet through before we could get the hood up, and when it was up the rain was so furious that it was little protection. However, a hot bath on arrival put us all right, and there were no bad consequences, and we stayed one day to rest. An enterprising chemist in Shimo Suma supplied us with three tins of petrol, which we were surprised to find was of the well known Shell brand. The route was down the Tenryugawa valley as far as Iida, fifty miles, which was done in between three and four hours. Then we went over the Odaira-toge to Azuma Bashi, thus avoiding the Toriitoge, and the long stretch of bad road down the Kiso valley. All the other passes were put in the shade by the Odaira-toge. The road was well engineered and in fair condition, but full of horse and cart traffic, and it was trying to have to stop in the most critical places to let carts go by but it had to he done as in many cases them was a precipice on one side with hardly any protection. In reality there were three passes, the main one – the Odaira-toge – being in the middle. It took exactly two hours on bottom gear to get over; the engine, however, was running its best, and did not falter or misfire once the whole day. Then twenty miles all downhill took us to Azuma Bashi, just before rain started, and we stayed there the night. Here it was quite cool and no mosquitoes. Running down to Nakatsugawa and on to Kamada almost without a stop, we halted for lunch at Toki, and made careful inquiries as to the road. We learned that the Hambara road was now impracticable, so went on to Mizunoumi [Mizunami], and found a new road across the hills much used and in deep ruts, but on getting over the pass a very fine road led all the way to Mitake and on to Ima Watari (the ferry). Here for the first time for many days we bowled along at twenty miles an hour there being little traffic just then. The ferry that had been so much dreaded proved to be quite an up-to-date affair. A fine stone and cement causeway led down to the low water level of the river, then there were plenty of good wide planks, so that the car was easily driven on to the boat by its own power. The ferryboat was a large decked structure, certainly capable of carrying over 10 tons. We were across in ten minutes, and though the landing there was not so good as on the other side, yet it

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presented no difficulties; smooth, natural rocks took the place of the stone causeway. There is much traffic across here, often a hundred horses and carts a day, so the ferryman told us. On asking the charge we were told that it was a free ferry owned by the Prefecture so we do find something cheap in Japan sometimes! Then a few miles only to Unuma, but through very beautiful river scenery, .the road being cut out of the steep cliffs that hem it in on this side. The Kiso is quite as picturesque here as its gorge, which we had left at Ochiai, but the beauty is of another sort. We were in the warm again here, and mosquitoes abounded, and so we were glad to be on the way early. Passing through Gifu and Ogaki, with an hour and a half for lunch and rest at Sekigahara, we ran on through Maibara and Hikone, and reached Kyoto between 5 and 6 p.m. On this and the previous day we had some delay from a leaking radiator. Thus ended quite an eventful trip – a journey that one wishes and is glad to have taken once, but once only, as the strain of driving over such roads is very great indeed. The distance actually travelled was just over 700 miles. The petrol consumed was forty gallons (a gallon or so was lost by a leaky pipe before it was noticed), cost Y20 (41s.) and the total cost of the journey, excluding petrol and foreign food taken, was Y111, or about £11.10s. not at all dear when one considers that it was for two persons for seventeen days. ENDNOTES 1

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A visit to Japan in 1906 by Dorothy Shuttleworth: extracts from a diary kept by Dorothy Shuttleworth during her ‘Round the World’ trip of 1906.Published with the permission of The Shuttleworth Trust, 2014. ISBN 9780901319111 The date of this entry was Friday, 30 March 1906 Page 74. Japan & the Japanese, by Walter Tyndale. New York: Macmillan, 1910. See biographical portrait of Walter Tyndale by Toni Huberman in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2013. Much of the biographical information on TBB is gleaned from Thomas Bates Blow (FLS, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur) An Appreciation by Reginald L Hine. Privately printed in 1941. ‘A Bee-keeper’s Experience in the East. Among the Queen-raisers in the North of Italy and Carniola by T.B. Blow’ 1887. ‘The Charophyte Collecting Tours of Thomas Bates Blow, Journal of Botany 76; 295–298. Allen, G.O., 1942. Allen records TBB as collecting charophytes during May and June however, as he was in New Zealand in March perhaps he arrived in Japan late March / early April. This would fit with his letter to Viscount Enomoto (note 5)in which he

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stated that he had ‘observed honey-yielding plants … from Nagasaki to as far north as Nikko, during the months of April, May, and June’. ‘Bees in Japan’ by Mr T.B. Blow. British Bee Journal 14 October 1897 pp. 402–403. This letter includes the text of his Report to Viscount Enomoto (presumably sent in late 1896). In this report, Blow was ‘of opinion that a large and good-paying industry could be built up in a few years in Japan’. TBB’s biographer, Reginald Hine, writes that TBB ‘....must....have been attracted to her by her seven names, all of them flower names’. Thomas Bates Blow (FLS, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur) An Appreciation by Reginald L Hine. Privately printed in 1941. From Marriage Certificate – TBB was a bachelor of forty-eight, of independent means, living at the National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place. His father was a Master Builder. Shoko Koyake was a widow, twentyeight, living at The Chalet, Welwyn. Her father was Mototada Koyake (Deceased), retainer to a Japanese Nobleman. The marriage was reported in The British Bee Journal (1902) Volume XXX p. 31 with the comment ‘After disposing of his extensive hiveworks a few years ago, Mr Blow has travelled a good deal in the East, particularly in Japan, to which country he made several journeys, his visits extending over long periods. Those who, like ourselves, have kept in touch with Mr Blow will not be surprised at his connecting himself permanently with Japan and its people as announced above. Familiar with the language, and wearing, as he did, the native dress when there, he was, we suppose, as much at home in Kyoto, Japan, as at Welwyn, Herts. Indeed, we have many times heard our friend express his appreciation of the many admirable traits of character apparent among the educated classes of that interesting country. In again expressing our good wishes for Mr Blow and his Japanese “good wife”, we shall no doubt be joined by a large number of our readers.’ From Japan Revisited by Thomas Bates Blow, Privately Printed, 1930, p. 14 ‘I took the first motor-car to Kyoto, a 7 H.P. Swift, and when I left in 1913 it was still the only car in the city.’ The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 1902 (vol. 30, p. 793) has, in its list of Ordinary Members ‘Blow, J.T., 13 Rakuto Reizan, Shimokyoku Kyoto.’ Later volumes have his name corrected to ‘Blow, Thos. B.’ His name does not appear in earlier volumes. He is quoted as saying ‘[I] was introduced to print collecting by my old friend Fenellosa, Professor of Fine Arts, University of Tokyo.’ From Japan Revisited by Thomas Bates Blow, Privately Printed, 1930, p. 21 ‘It was Koryo who made the wonderful plaque in the door of the iron and gold damascene cabinet made by Komai, that the English of Kobe presented to Prince Arthur of Connaught when he came with the Garter for the Emperor. Mr Bonar, the Consul-General at Kobe, and I were deputed to find the present. The Prince was so interested in this piece of work that I got the history of the Komai family for him and he wrote me a letter of thanks from Windsor.’ The Baur Collection, Geneva by Frank Dunand and Kevin Whiteley. Swiss Museums, 1997, ISBN 9783908184546 Every-Day Japan: Written After Twenty-Five Years’ Residence and Work in the Country by Arthur Lloyd. Cassell and Company, London, 1909 120

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‘Motoring in Japan’ by Thomas B. Blow. The Field: The Country Gentleman’s Newspaper, 10 February 1912. Number 3085 page 287 ‘Bee-keeping in Japan’ by T.B. Blow, British Bee Journal volume XXXIII (1909), pp. 124–125 describes an apiary in Fushimi, Kyoto, owned by Mr S. Tomura. Blow states that ‘Fushimi is an ideal place for bee-keeping as far as Japan is concerned; an English bee-keeper would probably not continue there more than a year…’ Letter from Thomas Bates Blow from Kyoto to Lt. Col. H.J.O. Walker, a well recognized British bee-keeper and renowned collector of books on bees and bee-keeping, of Leeford, Budleigh Salterton, Devon, dated 9 August 1908. Blow notes that ‘Fortunately by accident this account [Report to Viscount Enomoto – see note 5] was not published as was intended in the Report of the Department – a flood occurred and it was destroyed among other documents at Viscount Enomoto’s house.’ Blow considered this loss fortunate as, over subsequent years, his opinions had changed ‘During the next two years I studied the question more carefully and saw Japan through all its seasons for 2 years and this caused me to modify my opinion and as I kept bees too this made me still further modify them. I read a paper about this time before the Agricultural Society of Japan in Tokyo.’Original letter currently held by the Wisconsin Historical Society in their archive of Charles Dadant papers (See: http:// digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=wiarchives;cc=wia rchives;view=text;rgn=main;didno=uw-whs-mss00590). Scanned copy very kindly provided by Simone O. Munson (Reference Archivist). ‘Beekeeping in Japan’ by Alex. Schroder, British Beekeeping Journal XLI (1913), pp. 4–6. ‘Tokyo bees make honey high over Ginza’ by Tomoko Otake, The Japan Times, 16 August 2009. ‘Japanese Honeybee’ by Shimamura, Natsu. http://www.tokyofoundation.org/en/topics/japanese-traditional-foods/vol.-22-japanese-honeybee Many of the ceramics TBB sold were Satsuma ware signed by Takebe Shoko. These pieces usually had TBB’s name in Katakana together with Takebe’s seal. Nothing is known about Takebe besides his association with TBB. For example, 2–4 July 1912 there was a sale of Japanese Colour Prints, Fan Leaves, Books and Original Drawings, the Property of Thomas B Blow at Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge. He was a Quaker and so would have been a conscientious objector. BUT he was sixty years old so had no need to serve. British Bee Journal Volume XLIII, 19 August 1915, p. 293. See For Dauntless France, an Account of Britain’s Aid to the French Wounded and Victims of the War by Laurence Binyon. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1918, p. 324. See The London Gazette, 18 October 1921 p. 8190 ‘Whitehall, October 14, 1921. The KING has been pleased, by Warrants under His Majesty’s Royal Sign Manual, to grant permission to wear the undermentioned Decorations, which have been conferred in recognition of valuable services rendered during the War: – DECORATIONS CONFERRED 121

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BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC. LEGION OF HONOUR. Cross of Chevalier – Thomas Bates Blow, Esq.’ In November 2006 the Department of Art and Design at John Brown University exhibited photographs taken in the First Word War by surgeon and photographer Dr E.L. Graham. The exhibit was titled ‘Private View – Public War: A personal record of the “War to End All Wars”.’Dr Graham joined the British Army’s Medical Corps as a surgeon in 1915, prior to the US entering the war, and then served with the Red Cross in France after the US joined the war effort. While serving in Europe, Graham learned the art of photography from famed photographer T.B. Blow. See: http://www.jbu.edu/news/press_releases/?id=2709 Baur started collecting in 1906. TBB supplied Baur with his first prints (letter dated 9 October 1909). The First World War interrupted their relationship which resumed in 1920. Note Blow had also helped form ‘The Illingworth Collection’. For an account of Tomita Kumasaku see ‘Japanese Art Dealers’ in London by Noboru Koyama in this volume. Tomita Kumasaku (1872–1953) was sent to England in 1897 by the Japanese trading firm for which he was working. In 1903, he joined the London branch of Yamanaka & Co., a well-established art dealer based in Osaka. Tomita later became manager of the branch and remained in London until 1922, when he returned to his native land and settled in Kyoto. During his years at Yamanaka’s, Tomita played an important role in the creation of the large Oriental ceramic collections, which were being formed in London at the beginning of the twentieth century. General interest in this domain had been furthered at the time by a major Japanese art exhibition organized in 1915 by the British Red Cross, for which Tomita was a commissioner and co-author of the catalogue, as well as by the establishment in 1921 of the Oriental Ceramic Society in London. Apollo, The International Art Magazine, April 1929. A Journey to Formosa, Journal of a Tour Made in the Year 1930 by Thomas Bates Blow FLS, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. Privately Printed, 1933. See Thomas Bates Blow (FLS, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur) An Appreciation by Reginald L Hine. Privately printed in 1941, p. 11. The Showa Emperor (Hirohito) visited the Linnean Society in London on 7 October 1971 during his state visit to Britain. An art dealer and collector from around the Boston area, Robert Muller is regarded by curators, collectors and scholars as the individual who compiled the finest collection of twentieth century Japanese woodblock prints in the world. After his death in April of 2003, 4000 Japanese woodblock prints were donated to the Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian. Muller had made his first encounter with Japanese woodblock prints as a young man in New York in the 1930s, so TBB was one of his first suppliers. See Thomas Bates Blow (FLS, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur) An Appreciation by Reginald L Hine. Privately printed in 1941, p. 1. 122

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The British Museum’s registration numbers of the prints run from 1941,0208,0.1 to 1941,0208,0.25. Information on the prints (with many images) can be found by searching the British Museum’s Research Collection online database, http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx, for ‘Thomas Bates Blow’. The Nakasendo or Kisokaido was the route from Kyoto to Edo through the mountains and along the Kiso river. It was an alternative but more difficult route than the Tokaido. The stations, i.e. stopping places for rest or change of horses, were the subjects of prints by famous Japanese artists in the Edo period including (Ando) Hiroshige. For an account by Hugh Cortazzi of ‘The Nakasendo as Seen by Victorian Travellers’ see Japan Society Proceedings, No.108, Winter 1987/8. Hugh Cortazzi, who in the 1960s drove over some of the passes described by Blow, found that the road was still very narrow and rough.

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10

Ernest Harold Pickering, M.P. (1881–1957): A Convinced but Unconvincing Apologist for Japan PETER O’CONNOR

Ernest Pickering was one in a short and uneven but extremely absorbing line of Western writers, intellectuals and publicists who wrote or spoke up for Japanese interests at a time when to do so was seldom fashionable, sometimes worth their while, but often to no obvious personal advantage. In an earlier volume in this series Carmen Blacker discussed both Sir Francis T. Piggott and his son Major General Francis S.G. Piggott; in a subsequent volume Antony Best analysed the attitudes of the Japanophile Major General Piggott.1 Close on the heels of Piggott, one could also include John William Robertson-Scott, whose initially bilingual magazine The New East, financed at a discreet distance from Whitehall by an arrangement with Sale and Frazar of Yokohama, and thereby the proceeds from their corner of the Chilean bird-dropping market, in 1916–18 attempted to distil all that was most positive between East and West, but foundered on the rocks of expatriate hostility and Scott’s financial inepti-

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tude.2 John Pardoe has written about Malcolm Kennedy.3 Anthony Best has followed the fascinating and erratic life and times of Arthur Edwardes.4 J.E. Hoare has written about the flexible Captain Frances Brinkley.5 The late Bill Snell wrote a gentle portrait of R.V.C. Bodley (‘Bodley of Arabia’), whose Japanese Omelette was prepared to a recipe devised more in Tokyo than Paris.6 Deborah MacFarlane provided a rounded picture of George Gorman, sometime editor of the North China Standard and the Manchuria Daily News.7 I have written about John Russell Kennedy,8 master builder of Japan’s global propaganda schemes from about 1906 to 1923,9 and in an article on the Japan Chronicle, about the suborning by creeping subsidy of this once-noble bastion of feisty polemic and Kobe socialism.10 Pickering’s life and work overlap with many of the characteristics and attitudes of these personalities. First, he seems to have been touched with a mild dose of the condition associated with the first of these admirers, ‘Piggottry’: that is, the uncritical admiration of Japan and almost wholesale acceptance of her political economy and its extension to the case for Japanese policies, particularly in East Asia, and in Pickering’s case, a consistent and arguable acceptance of Japan’s growing economic clout, especially in the cotton industry. Pickering seems to have been to some extent flattered and even seduced by Japanese attention, favours and friendship, in this respect echoing the experience of Malcom Kennedy, who never seems to have realised that in writing for the Rengo¯ news cooperative, precursor to the much better organised Do¯mei News Agency (Do¯mei Tsu¯shinsha) of 1936–45, he was in effect writing for the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In Japan in the 1930s, following the retreat from internationalism marked most dramatically by the February 1933 withdrawal from the League of Nations, Pickering was brought into high circles and returned to his chair at Tokyo Imperial University. He gave well received speeches and was granted access to the managers of Manchukuo, Japan’s modernist showcase in China, and trusted to consider the merits and credibility of its establishment. In doing so, in his best known book, Japan’s Place in the World (1936) he painted himself into an extremely unpopular corner just as earlier, in House of Commons debates on Japanese textiles and, more significantly, on Japanese encroachments in China, he had come to occupy a position where he was at best barely heard and, in his most vital speech, ignored and adjourned in mid-sentence. Pickering was true to himself and where Japan was concerned maintained a consistent, possibly too intuitive or romantic, integrity. He can be said to have been a true friend of Japan. He was a middling scholar of literature. He held out for the gentlemanly way championed by the Liberal Party in Britain at the very time when the 126

ERNEST HAROLD PICKERING, M.P. (1881–1957):

Liberals and liberalism itself were well past their death throes. Just as Japan needed the credibility of feisty, independent newspapers such as the Japan Chronicle and therefore began subsidising it in 1938, so Pickering’s integrity and cachet, as an elected Member of Parliament, made him something of a prize. In the international purview, integrity was not the first quality associated with Japan in the 1930s, and those, like Pickering, who maintained a degree, no matter how failed or questioned, of personal integrity helped gild the master narrative of Japan’s national integrity, so severely and so dangerously thrown into doubt at Geneva and elsewhere after September 1931. PICKERING GOES TO WESTMINSTER

Pickering was a native of Leicester, born in 1881, and a student at Oxford where he first became friendly with his almost exact contemporary, Nagai Ryu¯taro¯ (1944–1981), then at Manchester College within Oxford University. Their friendship was crucial to Pickering’s life and work: Nagai was later to become one of the most vocal and flamboyant denouncers of the ‘White Peril’ in Asia, occupying the louder end of a Pan-Asianist continuum that begins with critical but ¯ kawa Shu¯mei, more studied voices such as Yanaihara Tadao and O through Ishihara Kanji, for all his involvement in the heady nationalism of the late 1920s, and continues through erratic but inspired positions such as those of Matsuoka Yo¯suke to a series of increasingly shrill voices, as Nagai’s eventually became. The friendship may have been advantageous to Pickering, who in 1927 came to Japan to teach English Literature at Tokyo Imperial University until just before the Manchurian Incident in September 1931, co-authoring an English text book with Hori Eishiro¯.11 Returning to Britain in 1931, Pickering entered parliament as a Liberal MP for Leicester West, continuing to serve his constituency until the election of October 1935, when he was defeated, and returned to Japan. He did not defend his seat at the 1935 General Election. Meanwhile, Nagai had been elected as a Rikken Minseito¯ candidate in the 1920 General Election, holding his seat over seven elections, steadily climbing to a powerful position on the party ladder. From May 1932 to July 1934, Nagai occupied the position of Minister of Colonial Affairs in the Saito¯ cabinet. From June 1937 to January 1939, Nagai moved to an even more significant position as Minister of Communications in the first Konoe cabinet, returning in 1939–1940 under the Abe administration, also taking the railway portfolio. Nagai had a clear interest in the development of a more effective foreign policy establishment. At Versailles, he had, alongside Nakano Seigo¯, been among the newspaper correspondents and younger Japanese diplomats, Matsuoka Yo¯suke (and John Russell 127

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Kennedy) among them, who witnessed the embarrassment of Japan’s delegates during propaganda debacles engineered by the Chinese delegates and their publicists and by Korean independence lobbyists. Nagai’s subsequent highly-critical reports gave wings to the reform movement in the Gaimusho¯ that led to the creation of the Gaimusho¯ Jo¯ho¯bu.12 Pickering and Nagai kept in touch as each rose in the political worlds of Whitehall and its Japanese equivalent, Nagatacho, although Pickering’s ascent was by far the less spectacular. They most probably renewed their acquaintance during Pickering’s stay in Japan in 1927–31, when Pickering took up a professorship at Tokyo Imperial University.13 Pickering was elected Liberal MP for Leicester West in 1931, a beneficiary of the National Government’s agreement that Conservatives and Liberals would not oppose each other. He was defeated, by the Conservative Harold Nicolson, in the 1933 general election. The consensus was that the vote against Pickering was a vote against the Baldwinesque tolerance and appeasement that he had come to represent, an expression of distrust of the forces among whom he would count his closest friends, and whom he had in Parliament defended and whom he would seek to represent in the public sphere. Thus, following his defeat, Pickering returned to Japan where he renewed his acquaintance with Nagai and undertook the travel and research that led him to write Japan’s Place in the Modern World (1936). Pickering had known Nagai and taught at Tokyo Imperial University until 1931 when he entered Parliament. Here he is in the 22 March 1932 debate on Chinese and Japanese disarmament, attempting to stand up to Sir John Simon, George Lansbury and others. Of the 20,806 words spoken in this debate that ran from Hansard cc897 to 948, Pickering, when called by the Speaker, managed to get in only the mildest of interventions, amounting to a mere 321 words before the house adjourned, as follows: I intervene in this Debate, although I believe the time for Adjournment is very near. I hope that I shall have an opportunity of continuing my remarks when this Debate is resumed. I should not have risen on this occasion but for the fact that I hold a unique position in regard to this Debate which has been mainly upon Japan. I lived in Japan for four years, not as an alien serving alien interests, but along with other foreigners under the Japanese Government, and very much as one of the Japanese themselves. At one time I was a ratepayer in Japan and had a vote, and voted at a municipal election in Japan. I think that is a unique experience for any Member in this House. Living with the Japanese as I did, and having some very intimate friends there who are now leading statesmen in Japan on the more Liberal side, I felt that I might be able to contribute something of interest to this Debate. In the first place, what astonishes me most is the difficulty which the people 128

ERNEST HAROLD PICKERING, M.P. (1881–1957):

of this country seem to have in understanding what all this dispute between China and Japan is about. Of course, it is impossible for us to know the full history of every foreign nation, but what we do want is some knowledge of the history of Japan, China and Manchuria, and I think I shall be able to state briefly the most recent events which led up to this crisis. It is important to remember that Manchuria, which China now speaks of as being an integral part of herself, has had a very uncertain existence for quite a generation as a member of the Chinese nation. Not only was Manchuria once under Russian influence, but the Manchurian railway was a Russian railway until Japan, by her victory, acquired the right which Russia had got up to that time — 14

Whereupon, ‘It being Half-past Seven of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed, without Question put’ and the House returned to the Bill on the Consolidated Fund (No 1), and Pickering, presumably, went home. Thus was Japan’s position in Manchuria, and the Manchurian Incident, an event seen by some scholars as a point where the first shots of the Second World War were fired, a crucial parting of the ways for all concerned, given its first full debate and Japan given Pickering’s uniquely unqualified and sadly interrupted defence in the Commons, with Pickering squeezing in just over 1/64th of the total verbiage before being cut off, almost too appropriately, with the words ‘up to that time — ’.15 Pickering was certainly naïve, standing up without qualification for Japan’s cotton exports in the very constituency that felt their impact on the Lancashire cotton industry most keenly. Here he is on 28 July 1933, in a Commons debate on Japanese competition in the textiles industry. His opponent, Sir Cyril Entwistle (1887–1974) a Liberal defector to the Conservative Party, attacked the Japanese ‘determination at all costs to capture the maximum proportion of world trade’ as if this were a wrong in itself. Entwistle felt that it was wrong-headed and fundamentally unfair that the Japanese should ‘pursue this wrong economic principle’, concluding that ‘either Japan must conform to Western standards of living or her goods must be prohibited from entering those countries’, i.e. that Japan should remove from itself its chief advantage: an efficient, highlytrained workforce of young, nimble, underpaid but largely uncomplaining female workers running the latest technology, while Japan’s financial managers used an appreciating Yen for the acquisition of raw materials and a ‘deliberately depreciated’ Yen as an export strategy.16 At 2.25 p.m. Ernest Pickering stood up for the Japanese cotton industry, explaining: 129

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One of the reasons why I rise to speak is because I have some experience of the foreign country which is very much concerned in this discussion. At the same time I must emphasise the fact that I have a peculiar interest also in the Lancashire cotton industry, because I began my career among the cotton spinners. I have a tremendous interest in them and affection for them, and I long to see Lancashire become prosperous again [but] … It is not really fair to Lancashire to encourage Lancashire people to shut their eyes to facts.

As Pickering saw it, but, as a politician, might have done better not to say it: There is nothing wicked about the Japanese competition. It is, on the whole, fair competition, and it is for Lancashire to face that fact. Only last night the city editor of the ‘Evening News’ spoke of Japanese goods as the product of cheap labour, long working hours, and the low standard of living of the Japanese working-classes. When I hear people speaking of Japan as if it were a sort of slave country or a country where people live wretched, miserable lives, almost on the level of animals, I feel that they ought to be told that they are hundreds, nay, thousands of miles from the truth.

As for gaming the yen: Another factor which we must recognise is the depreciated yen, which cannot be attributed to the workings of the wicked Japanese. It is no advantage to a country to lower its currency in view of the fact that it has to import as well as export.

Although Pickering’s response bears some of the hallmarks of classic ‘Piggottry’, especially the claim to inner knowledge backed by personal experience and Japanese friends in high places, (‘From what I hear from Japanese friends and from English friends in Japan the Japanese Government are very anxious to see the yen restored to something like its former value. The depreciated yen has certainly played an enormous part in the recent rapid increase of Japanese exports to India, but that is only a temporary factor and will be dealt with before long…’) his case certainly deserved more of a hearing than it received.17 Visiting Japan shortly after Nagai Ryu¯ taro¯’s resignation in 1934 as minister of colonization in the Saito¯ Makoto cabinet, Pickering met an unnamed senior government official who ventured to hope that Pickering might write a book dealing with ‘the great ignorance which prevailed in the Western countries regarding Japan’.18 Pickering then ‘became convinced that it was my duty to ... show the Western world something of the real nature of the Japanese character and the needs and interests of Japan in relation 130

ERNEST HAROLD PICKERING, M.P. (1881–1957):

to the rest of the world’.19 In the year that followed, Pickering was feted by the International Association of Japan, met with Amo¯ Eiji, ex-director of the foreign ministry information office and in 1936 an important figure in the new cabinet information committee (Naikaku Jo¯ho¯iinkai). Pickering also met Zumoto Motosada, founder of the Japan Times, Shidehara Kiju¯ ro¯, Tokonami Takejiro¯ and other dignitaries. The result was Japan’s Place in the Modern World (1936). Japan’s Place in the Modern World

Pickering’s considered and often thought-provoking study was dedicated to his wife and to two friends from Oxford, one of them his fellow student from Manchester College days, the journalist and academic turned politician Nagai Ryu¯taro¯, who in 1934 when Pickering again visited Japan, had just resigned from the Saito¯ cabinet In the year that followed his decision to ‘show the Western world something of the real nature of the Japanese character’, Pickering was feted by the International Association of Japan. He met with Amo¯ Eiji, head of the Gaimusho¯ Jo¯ho¯bu (Gaimusho¯ Information Bureau), who had since April 1934 become internationally prominent for his statement on China effectively claiming Japanese pre-eminence there by rights associated with the logic of what had become known as the ‘Asian Monroe Doctrine’. Pickering also met with Zumoto Motosada and other movers and shakers in Japan’s semi-official Englishlanguage publishing network, most notably Shidehara Kiju¯ro¯ and Tokonami Takejiro¯, Nagai’s successor as Minister of Communications in the new Okada cabinet. Apart from the mercurial Nagai, Pickering met few critical or reform-minded Japanese during the composition of Japan’s Place in the Modern World. The independent English language press is barely mentioned. Like other accounts by foreign friends of Japan invited by semi-official bodies to visit Japan, look, listen and form their own conclusions, Japan’s Place in the Modern World is the product of a limited, self-referential circle of opinion. Pickering certainly gives the impression of a researcher eager to meet as wide a variety of sources as possible, the internal coherence of his book might have been improved by greater exposure to a more catholic range of views and thus to Mill’s classic liberal argument in favour of truth’s ‘collision with error’.20 Japan’s Place in the Modern World provided Western readers with a good-hearted overview of Japan’s case. ‘Britain forgets that once she too was an expanding country, with a rapidly increasing population which she had to provide for (a) by imperial expansion coupled with emigration, and (b) by the development of a great export trade’.21 131

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Pickering felt assured that Japanese militarism was on the wane in 1934–35. ‘I do not think that the consistently pacific policy of the Japanese Foreign Office has been widely enough appreciated,’ he maintained.22 His account of Japan’s mission in China was illustrated with photographs supplied by the ‘Photo Bureau of Information and Publicity Department of Foreign Affairs, Hsinking, Manchukuo’. Japan’s Place on the Modern World was reviewed favourably in Pacific Affairs and, very probably by the editor Morgan Young in the last few months of his time in Japan, in the Japan Chronicle Weekly, although elsewhere in the same issue the Chronicle quoted a Manchester Guardian review which discerned some perception in Pickering that militarism was returning to Japan, but that this might not be such a bad thing. The Chronicle reviewer commented ‘As one who has served in Government as well as lived in Japan, he might have been expected to be more prophetic in political matters.’23 In March 1936, Pickering visited Shanghai where he gave some speeches and brought some interest to his forthcoming publication. When he returned to Japan the North-China Herald reported that according to the Morning Post Pickering had taken up two professorships, one at Tokyo Imperial University, his previous employer, the other at the ‘University of Literature and Science’.24 Pickering also joined the editorial staff of the Japan Advertiser. In the autumn of 1939, he mediated an effort to interest the British government in buying the Advertiser, but the ministry of information turned him down and he left, ‘in a rather disgruntled frame of mind’.25 Pickering then became involved in negotiating terms of sale between the Fleisher family, owners of the Japan Advertiser and the Japan Times. Although the editor of the Japan Times, Toshi Go¯, would eventually tell Wilfrid Fleisher that he had no other buyer than the Japan Times, when the Advertiser was finally sold to the Japan Times in October 1940, Pickering was one of only four editorial staff to stay on, the others being two Americans, Richard A. Tennelly, Ernest Newman, and a British journalist, George W. Gorman.26 Gorman, a sometime Beijing correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, was known to the Far East department in the foreign office as an ‘Irish-Canadian adventurer-journalist’ ‘hand-in-glove with the Japanese’ for his work on the North China Standard and the Manchuria Daily News and for negotiating the sale to Japanese interests of the British-owned Peking Chronicle in October 1937.27 Such was the company that Pickering found himself keeping on the brink of war. He had travelled far, from a student friendship with Nagai Ryu¯taro¯ to political and academic respectability and cultivation by Japan’s elites, to authorship and then to brokering the knockdown sale of the premier American newspaper in East Asia and an uncertain future as a favoured enemy alien. 132

ERNEST HAROLD PICKERING, M.P. (1881–1957):

The media historian, Ariyama Teruo has written of Japan’s Place in The Modern World ‘not as a commentary on current affairs, but rather as an introduction to Japanese culture and society’.28 As Professor Ariyama points out, in meeting Shidehara Kiju¯ro¯ and others, Pickering moved in circles that ‘stressed the importance of cooperating with the West’. Thus, ‘Pickering’s view of Japan did not consist of looking at Japan from the outside and criticizing it, but rather had the special feature of attempting to understand Japan by looking at her history and the situation in which she found herself.’ In this sense, we can say that he was favourably disposed toward Japan, but his standard was always the politics and society of Britain, and, in Professor Ariyama’s view, Pickering saw Japan as a country in too much of a hurry to catch up with the society and political economies of Europe and America. Ariyama sees Pickering taking a more ambiguous view of the Japanese military, understanding it as being run in the spirit of what he describes as bushido, but in a way that implies no profound familiarity with the term and its provenance. With regard to the interference of the military in politics at that time, Pickering maintains that the military has a strong antipathy to party politics and a strong sympathy for National Socialism. To Ariyama, this is clearly an ‘implicit criticism of the military’. However, in discussing the Manchurian Incident and Manchukuo, Pickering showed ‘a certain understanding of the Japanese position, regarding the state of affair as the inevitable consequence of Japan’s own development as a country’, arguing that Britain and the United States had no right to criticize Japan for its actions.29 While in Britain and the US a strong impression of Japanese military expansion obtained, Pickering argued ‘that the aim of the leading politicians of Japan is simply to establish their country as a good citizen of the world, giving an extremely favourable gloss on Japan’s standpoint’.30 This is presumably closely connected to his relationship with those politicians who urged cooperation with the West. Their stance was to maintain cooperation with the West while at the same time effecting Japan’s expansion into continental China. In a sense, for this group, if such pro-Japan politicians as Pickering could achieve leadership positions within Britain, then the two countries could become good partners to one another.31 In a fascinating aside, Professor Ariyama also notes that the Diet Library copy of Japan’s Place in the Modern World previously belonged to Tsuchiya Sho¯zo¯, a home ministry (Naimusho¯) bureaucrat who went on to become a researcher at the library when it was instituted, at the behest of SCAP, after the war. This volume became Tsuchiya’s gift to the library, and Ariyama found written inside the flyleaf an interesting inscription by Tsuchiya himself, from his official residence at Ko¯fu, during his time as Governor of Yamanashi:32

133

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1–12 April, Sho¯wa 11 (1936) The Governor’s Residence, Ko¯fu This is undoubtedly a book for foreigners about conditions in Japan, rather than a book for Japanese. Yet in connection with the criticisms in the April issue of Kokusai hyo¯ron of today’s Japan, where almost no freedom of expression is allowed, there are not so many Japanese who have such an accurate grasp of conditions. At the same time, if even a foreigner can have such an accurate grasp of conditions, then it is only reasonable that views like those should appear among part of the military. I would like to hear the author’s views on the February 26th Incident.

As Ariyama points out, ‘These are the views of Tsuchiya when he read the book just after its publication. They are very interesting as an expression of a contemporary Japanese reader’s response to the work.’ What ‘the views like those … among part of the military’ were is impossible to say now, but presumably this refers to military interference in politics. Following the outbreak of war, Pickering returned to Britain on an exchange ship. He must have been disappointed. Practically everything he had said or claimed for Japan during his political career had either been ignored in the British public sphere or utterly disproved by the course of events. Nevertheless, his sense of public duty compelled him to stand as the Liberal candidate for the Newark division of Nottinghamshire at the 1950 General Election. He came last, attracting only one tenth as many votes as the Labour candidate, and did not stand for parliament again. He died five years later, a liberal in an age when traditional liberal values and those who held them were increasingly at odds with the zeitgeist, and their spokesmen fair game for an increasingly fearful electorate and an even harder-headed corps of political managers and performers. Most Japan specialists will be familiar with the notion of the ‘nobility of failure’. The generally muddled and erratic course of E.H. Pickering’s political wanderings and pronouncements between Japan and Britain suggest not so much failure as good-hearted bewilderment. Or if Pickering did fail, he could be said to have ‘failed better’, in Becket’s phrase, than most of his contemporaries in the line from Piggott to Kennedy with whom this essay begins. REFERENCES

O’Connor, Peter (2004) (Ed. and General Introduction): Japanese Propaganda: Selected Readings, Series 1: Books, 1872–1943, Volume 1, and in particular the scholarly introduction to Volume 8 by Professor Ariyama Teruo (2004 Global Oriental, Folkestone UK & Edition Synapse, Tokyo, Japan).

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Matsumura Masayoshi (2001, trans. O’Connor) ‘Japan Calling: The origins of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Information Department in the early 1920s’, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, series 4, vol. 16. Matsuo M., (1936) Review, Japan’s Place in the Modern World by E.H. Pickering (1936) in Pacific Affairs Vol.9, No.2 (June 1936) pp.278–281. Pickering, E.H. (1936) Japan’s Place in the Modern World (London: Harrap). NOTES

This Portrait was originally proposed by and, out of sheer sloth, abandoned by me, then taken up by the late mediaevalist William Snell of Keio University. Bill was working on this portrait when he took his own life, and I returned to it. Besides drawing some attention to Ernest Pickering’s failing but valuable demonstration of liberalism in an increasingly ungenerous age, I hope this essay will also somehow remind some of us of Bill Snell, his sidelong, rueful grace and humour, his kindness and his obvious goodness of heart. ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Carmen Blacker’s dual portrait of the Piggotts appeared in Britain and Japan 1859–1991, Themes and Personalities, ed. Hugh Cortazzi and Gordon Daniels (London and New York: Routledge, 1991) and Hugh Cortazzi (ed.) Japan Experiences. Fifty Years, One Hundred Views, Post-War Japan Through British Eyes (Richmond: Japan Library, 2001). Antony Best focused on the younger and more disappointed F.S.G. Piggot in Hugh Cortazzi (ed.) Britain and Japan, Biographical Portraits Volume VIII (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2013). In Britain and Japan 1859–1991, Themes and Personalities, ed. Hugh Cortazzi and Gordon Daniels (London and New York: Routledge, 1991). In Britain and Japan, 1859–1991: Themes and Personalities, ed. Hugh Cortazzi and Gordon Daniels, Routledge, 1991. In Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi (Richmond: Japan Library, 2013). Also in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume III, ed. J.E. Hoare (Richmond: Japan Library, 1999). In Britain and Japan, Biographical Portraits Volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books Folkestone: 2015). In Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2013). In Mari Nakami’s Portrait in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits Volume III, ed. Ian Nish (ed.) (Richmond: Japan Library, 2013). In Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume V, ed. Hugh Cortazzi (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2004). In Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume IV ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Library, 2002). Published in Tokyo by Taishu¯ Kan. 135

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12

13

14

15 16

17 18

19 20 21 22 23

24

25

26

27

28

29 30

See Matsumura Masayoshi’s authoritative, ‘Gaimusho¯ Jo¯ho¯bu no so¯setsu to Iju¯in sho¯dai bucho¯’ (the founding of the Foreign Office Information Department and its first head, Iju¯in [Hikokichi])’ in Kokusai ho¯ gaiko¯ zasshi, vol.70, no.2 in 1971. An English version (trans. O’Connor), ‘The Gaimusho¯ Jo¯ho¯bu and Iju¯in Hikokichi in the early 1920s’ with revisions and additions, was published in The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan in 2001, as noted above. Note also that jo¯ho¯, as in in Gaimusho¯ Jo¯ho¯bu (Foreign Ministry Information Department), can also mean intelligence. Nagai was himself a Waseda graduate, so a connection cannot be assumed. Hansard: Disarmament — China and Japan: HC Deb 22 March 1932 vol 263 cc897–948 http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1932/ mar/22/disarmament-china-and-japan#S5CV0263P0_19320322_ HOC_301. (Viewed 16 October 2015). Hansard, op. cit. n.14. Hansard, Trade and Commerce: Japanese Competition, 28 July 1933, p1/19. Online in October 2015 at http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1933/jul/28/trade-and-commerce-japanesecompetition#S5CV0280P0_19330728_HOC_208. (Viewed 16 October 2015). Hansard, op. cit. n.16, Japanese Competition debate of 28 July 1933. In Pickering (1936), Japan’s Place in the Modern World (London: Harrap): 13. Pickering op. cit.: 23. JS Mill. On Liberty (1864). Pickering op. cit.: 14. Pickering op. cit.: 243. Pacific Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 2, June 1936, review by M. Matsuo pp. 278–281. Japan Chronicle Weekly, 2 April 1936; online at http://primarysources.brillonline.com/browse/japan-chronicle (viewed 16 October 2015). North-China Herald. 4 March 1936. Online at http://nch.primarysourcesonline.nl/nch/ (viewed 16 October 2015). FO 371/23574 [F10795/10795/23], J. Pratt (Ministry of Information) to Ashley Clarke, F.E. Dept., 3 October 1939. FO 371/24728 [F 5516/], Craigie to Halifax, 7 November 1940. Richard A. Tennelly: FO 371/24740 [F4318/653/23], K. Selby Walker to Reuters, London, 14 August 1940. FO 395/458 [P1113/2/150], M. E. Dening to Chancery, 2 April 1932; Miles Lampson to Arthur Willert, 15 April 1932. FO 371/21001 [F8927/1043/10], Young telegram to FO, 1 November 1937. See again Ariyama Teruo Introduction to E.H. Pickering, Japan’s Place in the Modern World, in O’Connor, Peter (2004) (Ed. and General Introduction): Japanese Propaganda: Selected Readings, Series 1: Books, 1872– 1943, Volume 3, (2004 Global Oriental, Folkestone UK & Edition Synapse, Tokyo, Japan). In Ariyama op cit., n.28: 2004: 240. In Ariyama op cit., n.28 2004: 244. 136

ERNEST HAROLD PICKERING, M.P. (1881–1957):

31 32

In Ariyama op cit., n.28 2004: 240. Shozo¯ Tsuchiya, born in Shizuoka Prefecture in August 1893. Attended Shizuoka Chu¯gakko¯, Daiichi Ko¯to¯gakko¯, and graduated from the Law Department, Tokyo Imperial University. Passed Higher Civilian Officers’ Exam and joined the Home Ministry. Served as Keihokyoku Tosho Kacho¯, Keimu Kacho¯, Governor of Yamanashi Prefecture (January 1935), Governor of Gunma Prefecture (July 1937), and Head of the Agriculture Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. After the war, he worked as a special investigation commissioner for the National Diet Library. (Note from Ariyama (2004), op. cit.: n.28).

137

11

Dorothy Britton (Lady Bouchier, 1922–2015): Gifted Composer, Author and Translator HUGH CORTAZZI AND PAUL NORBURY

Dorothy Britton with her harp

Dorothy Bouchier was a poet, composer, teacher, author and translator, who was bilingual in English and Japanese and bridged English and Japanese culture. She was so in tune with Japanese culture that one of her mother’s Japanese friends described her as ‘Japanese wearing a Western skin’. Dorothy Guyver Britton (Lady Bouchier), who died on 25 February 2015 aged ninety-three, was born on Valentine’s Day (14 February) 1922. She had been due to visit London in early March to make a presentation to the Japan Society on her newly published memoir, which is memorably entitled Rhythms, Rites and Rituals and is subtitled My Life in Japan in Two-step and Waltz-time.1 Dorothy lived in a sea-side cottage built by her father in the late 1920s in Hayama, about an hour by train from Tokyo and a short walk from a summer villa used by the Emperor and Empress.2 One day, many years ago at the British Embassy the Empress found herself sitting next to Dorothy, and, after enquiring where she lived, 138

DOROTHY BRITTON (LADY BOUCHIER, 1922–2015)

promptly declared: ‘So we are neighbours!’ Thereafter, from time to time, a chamberlain would telephone to say the Empress would like to come to tea. These visits would blossom into musical afternoons. On one such occasion, they performed an arrangement for flute, voice and Irish harp of The Last Rose of Summer in both English and Japanese, joined by Danish flautist Marie Lorenz Okabe. The Empress, who plays the harp as well as the piano, ‘then played and sang for us a charming lullaby she had composed’. On another occasion during a visit to Dorothy’s cottage the Emperor said how nice it was to hear the sound of the sea. Unfortunately, at their own villa, the walls were so thick that they could not hear the waves. Dorothy Britton was born in Yokohama as the only child of Frank Britton, an English mechanical engineer, and his American wife Alice Hillier. Earlier in his career Frank had been Chief Engineer on board the Shinano Maru which famously was the ship that first spotted the arrival of the Russian fleet off the straits of Tsushima resulting in a great Japanese victory marking the end of the Russo-Japanese War in May 1905. Latterly, he became managing director of the engineering company Toyo Babcock. Dorothy was sixteen months old when Yokohama was struck by the devastating earthquake just before midday on 1 September 1923, which came to be called The Great Kanto Disaster, and survived because her nanny had the presence of mind to shelter her under the bed. Her father organized a bucket brigade, and with additional help demolished a line of buildings and houses to create a wide enough empty zone to prevent the fire spreading and by doing so saved the neighbours’ houses. After spending a few nights in the garden Frank managed to get Dorothy and her mother on a ship to Kobe. Sadly, her aunt Dorothy was one of the many casualties. Her father died of a heart attack at the age of 55 in 1936 when Dorothy was twelve. The following year, they left for England via the USA and Dorothy was sent to Claremont school in Surrey where she greatly missed her life in Japan. Her ‘happiest times…were some free periods in which I continued my study of written Japanese’ instead of learning Latin as her teachers urged her. Her mother then took her to Boston where she went to a private school and started to write poetry, but after graduation as she was suffering from eye-strain she and her mother went to Bermuda to relax. There she took up sailing with youthful enthusiasm, but music was her prime interest. She played the piano and the ukulele and later became an accomplished player of the Irish harp. In the early days she also collected folksongs from around the world. When the war in Europe began in 1939 she was recruited by the censorship department in Bermuda to deal with postcards in Japanese. Fortunately, there were very few of these to deal with as in those days 139

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her ability to read Japanese was limited. She had time, however, to fall in love with a Punch artist who had recently been shipwrecked. Her education having been interrupted, from 1943 to 1945 she studied at Mills College in California where, thanks to her proficiency in French, she was introduced to Darius Milhaud, the French composer, and was able to learn about musical composition from him. When the war ended, Dorothy and her mother went to New York and then on to London where she remained until 1949. She was employed by the BBC and worked in the Japanese service for Trevor Leggett, who was a leading figure in British judo. Her mother had retained their cottage by the sea at Hayama. Postwar it had been let to the British ambassador, and later passed on to other members of the embassy staff. They tried to get permission to return to Japan, but it took much time and effort to persuade the American occupation authorities to issue the necessary visas. They travelled via the USA back to Japan where finally, in 1951, they were able to regain possession of the Hayama property. Dorothy was employed in the information section of the British embassy then the UK liaison mission to the Supreme Commander General MacArthur. ‘Occupied Japan turned out to be a rush course for me in love and sex!’ Dorothy recorded in her memoir. She enjoyed an active social life but some young men may have found her powerful American mother rather formidable. She learnt, too, about homosexuality as one of those with whom she fell in love in this period was a young Australian actor who turned out to be gay. She was also particularly amazed by the way nobody talked about the war. ‘Everyone seemed far too busy looking towards the future to dwell on what was the past.’3 Of the stories she records concerning her mother, the most famous is the incident concerning the visit to their house of the Dowager Princess who came for tea one day with her elder daughter. Mrs Britton spoke no Japanese but the previous Christmas she had learned from Dorothy the correct Japanese expression when giving a gift which implies (according to Japanese custom) that it is an insignificant, trifling and worthless thing. On this occasion the Princess handed Mrs Britton a gift saying, ‘This belonged to my father’. Dorothy records how her mother knew perfectly well that the Princess’s father was the Emperor Meiji, but in her excitement could only think of the phrase she had learned when giving gifts. ‘But just before she got to the ‘trifling and worthless’ part, I managed to knock a priceless Crown Derby cup we had off the tea table and caused an effective distraction.’ Among the many people she met at this time was Cecil Bouchier (Air Vice-Marshal Sir Cecil – generally known as ‘Boy’) who had com140

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manded the air contingent for the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Western Japan but at this time was acting as representative of the British Chiefs of Staff to the Supreme Commander of UN Forces in Korea. They ‘tried very hard not to fall in love’ as he was married and had a severely handicapped son to whom he was devoted. Her love of music brought her into contact with the Japanese composer Ikuma Dan. Dorothy translated into English the libretto of Ikuma Dan’s opera Yuzuru and they became increasingly intimate, but he, too, was married and was much attached to his son. Some time after Boy’s wife died, Dorothy met him again and when he realized that, after all, she was still single, he proposed, they married (1968) and Boy and his handicapped son Derek, who was only a few years younger than Dorothy, moved into her cottage in Hayama where they were ‘immensely happy’. Boy, who was twenty-six years older than Dorothy, was temperamental and jealous and sometimes a challenge for those who knew Dorothy at this time. In his old age, the three of them moved back to England in the late 1970s and lived in Boy’s rented flat in Worthing, where he died in June 1979. Dorothy immediately returned to Japan with Derek whom she loved (sometimes referring to him as her ‘walking doll’- the one, she said she wanted as a child but never received) and devoted the rest of her life to caring for him. It was a remarkable relationship. ‘If one is talking about something happy, his face is filled with joy, but if the subject is sad so is he.’ As a fluent Japanese speaker, poet and musician, she developed a particular theory regarding language, seeing it in rhythmic terms, hence the title of her memoir. She was convinced that by mastering the sounds and rhythm of a language she could sound like a native when speaking it. ‘It does not matter how good your grammar is if it does not “sound” like the language.’ Despite her peripatetic life Dorothy found time not only to write poetry and to compose music and songs but also to write about Japan and translate from Japanese into English. Among other books she wrote Prince and Princess Chichibu: Two Lives Lived Above and Below the Clouds, (Global Oriental, 2010) and the text for The Japanese Crane, Bird of Happiness with photographs by Tsuneo Hayashida (Kodansha International, 1981). She made a new translation of the poetic journey Oku no Hosomichi of the famous Haiku poet Basho (A Haiku Journey: Basho’s Narrow Road to a Far Province, Kodansha International,1980) and Tetsuko Kuroyanagi’s memoir Madogiwa ni Tottochan (Tottochan:The Little Girl in the Window, Kodansha International, 1982). Her musical compositions included a cantata entitled ‘And Certain Women Followed Him’, various suites and songs including Chinoiserie: Histoire d’un Amour Oriental for mezzosoprano and string quartet. 141

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Amongst her other achievements as a musician was an LP entitled ‘Japanese Sketches’ released by Capitol Records in the late 1950s. It combined Japanese-style music played on Western instruments and was used by Koizaburo Nishikawa in his annual geisha dance show in Osaka. In 1986, a New York-based poet Hiroaki Sato published a book entitled One Hundred Frogs which included Dorothy’s version of Basho’s most famous haiku: ‘Listen! A frog Jumping into the stillness Of an ancient pond’

From 1958, for twelve years, Dorothy taught an English course on TV called ‘Junior High English Classroom’; it was broadcast by Japan’s national broadcasting organization NHK and went out to schools throughout Japan. She was also an active member of the Asiatic Society of Japan as well as of the Japan-British Society in Tokyo becoming a founding member of the ladies branch, the Elizabeth-kai. For her services to Anglo-Japanese Relations she was made an MBE in 2011. She was survived by her stepson Derek. Dorothy, who was kind, forgiving, cheerful and full of vitality, made friends wherever she went and all were welcome at Hayama. She was interested in everything from sea shells to musical instruments and her enthusiasms were infectious. She was not attracted to organized religion, yet was sustained by a profound personal spirituality grounded in the writings of St Paul. She believed that ‘Providence would provide’. She concludes her memoir with the words: ‘Now Derek and I spend as much time as we can on our veranda, communing with Nature and God and so much Beauty: the shore, the pine trees, the ocean, and that fabulous hill shape floating o’er the sea – my beloved Mount Fuji, majestic, glorious!.’ ENDNOTE 1

2

3

Rhythms, Rites and Rituals: My Life in Japan in Two-step and waltz-time, Folkestone, Rennaissance Books, 2015 Frank Britton built the cottage on land leased from a local fisherman and subsequently his estate; this arrangement continues to the present day. In her contribution entitled ‘Return of a Native’ in Japan Experiences, Fifty Years, One Hundred Views, Post-War Japan Through British Eyes, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Library, 2001, she provided an earlier account of her return to Japan after the end of the Pacific War.

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John Newman (1935–1993): Ju¯do¯ka, Broadcaster and Academic IAN RUXTON (WITH INPUT FROM OTHERS)

INTRODUCTION

John Edward Brian Newman was born in Kingsbury in the London suburb of Brent on 13 December 1935. He attended a primary school, St. Andrews Junior School run by the Church of England from 1941 to 1945, and Dudden Hill Secondary County School in West London (North Willesden) from 1946 to 1952 where he became school captain. During his national service in the Royal Marines in Malta, Italy and Turkey from 1953 to 1956 he served in the elite Special Boat Squadron (SBS). From 1956 to 1958 he was a trainee in the printing house of E.S. & A. Robinson in London. From 1958 to 1962 (i.e. in his mid-twenties) he was an External Lecturer in English and a Japanese language student at Tenri University, the centre of ju¯do¯, in Nara prefecture, Japan. During this time he obtained a Diploma in Japanese Studies from Tenri University (1961) and in 1964 a London University GCE A-level in Japanese after a two-year period studying Japanese at 143

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SOAS (1962–64). On his curriculum vitae submitted later to Nihon University medical school he wrote: ‘In 1964 I received an attractive offer from the BBC to join their newly-expanding Japanese Service. This offered a good prospect of ultimately succeeding Mr Trevor Leggett as Head of the Service. I interrupted my studies and accepted it.’ From 1967 to 1969 Newman was seconded by the BBC to NHK’s Radio Japan in Tokyo as an English announcer and news editor. His duties, as stipulated by NHK, included translation, rewriting and announcement of English news and language programmes, and training of NHK staff. He contributed to programmes such as ‘Hello from Tokyo’ into which he introduced for foreign listeners information about the way of life of Japanese people. On trips with his Japanese producer he covered such Japanese traditional events as cormorant fishing on the river Nagara in Gifu prefecture, Central Japan. On other broadcasts he described the famous whirlpools created by rapid tidal currents in the Naruto Strait by Shikoku Island as well as other scenic spots and places of historic interest in Japan. He established a good rapport with his Japanese colleagues who appreciated his gentle and polite demeanour. In 1969 he was the BBC representative for British Week in Tokyo,1 and in 1970 BBC representative to Expo ‘70 in Osaka.2 In 1970 he was appointed in his mid-thirties to head the Japanese service and in 1988 was awarded the MBE for services to broadcasting. He continued as head of the Japanese service until the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) decided to close down the service in 1991. At that point he declined promotion within the BBC and chose early retirement, whereupon he was offered a position as professor of English and international studies at the Nihon University’s medical school. There were three main strands to Newman’s life in and involvement with Japan: like his predecessor as the BBC’s correspondent and ‘man in Japan’ Trevor Pryce Leggett (1914–2000) who was portrayed in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume IV3 (Ch. 28, pp. 323–333) and with whom he co-authored some books, he was a highly competent ju¯do¯ka, and also a first-class teacher of ju¯do¯ and English. ¯ DO ¯ KA (JU ¯ DO ¯ PRACTITIONER) AND AT TENRI UNIVERSITY JU In a self-introduction written for Nihon University medical school’s Igakubu News John Newman wrote that his relationship with Japan began with ju¯do¯. It was an ‘obscure sport’ introduced to Britain by Tani Yukio in 1904. Reference to the martial art appears in George Bernard Shaw’s play Major Barbara (1905); Sherlock Holmes uses 144

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‘Japanese wrestling’ to escape from Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls in Conan Doyle’s Return of Sherlock Holmes. It was these stories, probably introduced by the highly literate Leggett, which encouraged Newman to learn ju¯do¯. Newman began ju¯do¯ at the Central YMCA in London under John Barnes4 of the Budokwai. He was identified as talented, and referred to the Budokwai in the 1950s. At the Budokwai Trevor Leggett was the most influential teacher. He encouraged his pupils to go to Japan to learn ju¯do¯, where he had been interned during the war. Leggett was a concert pianist, a Japanese chess player, author and a great linguist. He demanded high standards, and according to his reputation he did not suffer fools gladly. Newman was a stylist, with good technique in ju¯do¯.5 He had an upright posture, and mastered the major throws such as uchimata, a big overt movement, which Westerners usually find hard. He was also good at ashiwaza (foot sweeping). During his national service in the Royal Marines he was kept fit, but there were no opportunities to practise the sport. He made a great impression at Tenri University with his effective and stylish technique, his personable, polite and gentlemanly manners. Already with two European championships under his belt, he proved his efficiency by winning the groundwork (newaza) competition, a remarkable achievement. Tenri is a hard and serious ju¯do¯ school, whose trainer at the time was the Japanese Olympic team manager. Training included early morning runs with his small dog in pursuit, yapping at the heels of stragglers. On his first day at Tenri in April 1959 Newman met Kobayashi Takanobu, who like Newman was freshman at Tenri. When Kobayashi, a country-born boy from Hiroshima, tried his limited English with Newman he received a friendly reply and the two became firm friends. After Trevor Leggett, the former president of the World Ju¯do¯ Association, introduced him to Nakayama Sho¯zen, the founder of Tenri University and the second head (Shimbashira) of the Tenri religion, Nakayama arranged for Newman to perfect his skills at Tenri. Newman practised from 5 to 7 p.m. on weekdays with the ju¯do¯-major students. He struggled to communicate. One day, he wanted bananas and hamburger buns. He drew pictures, and asked his caretaker to go shopping for them. She brought back takuan (yellow pickled radish) and anpan (bean-paste buns). He missed London, and read J.B. Priestley’s novels and Noel Coward’s plays. He recalled that during the blitz when his family sheltered in the tube he had stumbled and broken his chin, but he had not cried; the scar remained. While at Tenri he enrolled on the Japanese language course for foreign students. One summer, he hitch-hiked with a Hawaiian 145

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friend for ten days along the Fifty-Three Stations of the To¯kaido¯. He came back sunburned and exhausted, but was able to tell many funny stories of his adventures like Yajirobei and Kitahachi of Jippensha Ikku’s Hizakurige. He was blessed with the necessary intelligence, strength, perseverance and fortitude to be a great athlete. He was proficient in sports and physical exercise, and he mastered new sports very quickly. On a skiing training camp he was able to ski down a hill on his first day, much to the surprise of all. He was always well dressed in a tie, even in the heat of summer, and he was never carried away by radical emotions. Kobayashi thought he held his passions in check like a disciplined Japanese samurai. Yet he was also agreeable and sociable, joining picnics, speech contests and other outings with Japanese students. He and Kobayashi wandered round the hills and historic sites of the Kansai region (Osaka, Kyoto and Nara). They played table tennis and listened to scratchy phonograph records of musicals, which Newman had brought from London. His farewell present to Kobayashi in March 1962 was a phonograph record of ‘Oklahoma’. Newman was awarded a scholarship by Tenri University, and he taught four classes to English majors. He was paid 20,000 yen a month for this. He lived simply, toasting loaves of plain bread when hungry. He cheerfully called charred toast ‘golden brown’. When he had money he went with Kobayashi to a cinema in Nara, and they ate heartily at a cheap restaurant. In 1961 Newman had an operation for sciatic neuralgia at a hospital in Kyoto. Although confined in a stuffy and crowded hospital for several months, he recovered. The doctor, however, told him that he had to give up his ju¯do¯ career. This must have been a great shock to him. Kobayashi remarked: ‘I did not know how to console him. He courageously challenged his trial, and did as much rehabilitation exercise as he could. I thought he was a real samurai with discipline, stoicism and perseverance. For rehabilitation, we walked together even in the snow-covered mountains and hills in Nara. He was always hopeful and optimistic.’ Another Japanese who remembered Newman at Tenri University was Imamura Haruo who had been studying in Fresno, California and returned to Japan in April 1961 for four months to renew his visa and taught as a part-time ju¯do¯ instructor at Tenri. As they both spoke English, he and Newman often went drinking together, and he remembered that John associated for a while with the American ‘talent’ (TV personality) Edith Hanson (born 1939). Yoshida Shintaro¯, who remembered Newman’s strong British accent in Japanese; was surprised when John refused to remove his jacket in a poorly air-conditioned train heading from Tenri to Osaka in the height of 146

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summer when everyone else was in shirt sleeves. John never took it off and just said ‘Oh I am fine.’ John told him he was a Green Beret, a headdress worn by all Royal Marines who have passed the Commando Course.6 A tall man at 6 feet 4.5 inches, and with very large feet (UK size 13) which ‘probably helped root him to the ground’,7 he won the British ju¯do¯ championship four times and the European championship twice, all before going to Tenri. He became a fifth Dan, and was manager-cum-coach of the British ju¯do¯ team at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964.8 Before the Olympics he had retired from active ju¯do¯ due to back pain.9 As the team manager in 1964 he met the British team, which travelled part of the way to Japan on the Trans-Siberian railway. He organized railway tickets for them to go to Tenri University for their training camp. His time at Tenri was a loss for the British team, and if he had not been injured he could have been a team member at the Tokyo Olympics. John Newman followed his own path in ju¯do¯ and Japanese culture. He was an excellent example of what Leggett set out to achieve. Ju¯do¯ was not to be practied merely for a sporting outcome but for self-improvement. Training hard in ju¯do¯, he believed, led to excellence in other areas of life as well. It was a means of gaining the wisdom to achieve excellence in other fields. For Newman who had no career pathway, ju¯do¯ not only introduced him to Japan, but helped him to rise to become head of the Japanese service of the BBC. Of course, the fact that his ju¯do¯ teacher was also employed at the BBC helped him. Newman taught ju¯do¯ at the Budokwai in the Chelsea area of London, and at Harlesden. The Budokwai had been founded in 1918 by Koizumi Gunji,1 a Japanese immigrant. He sought to repay the kindness he had received in Britain, by introducing the martial arts of kendo¯ and ju¯do¯. It is the oldest martial arts club in Europe. BROADCASTER WITH THE BBC AND NHK (1964–91)

Newman had assisted the BBC Japanese service on a part-time basis before he joined as a full-time staff member (producer) in November 1964. In his first year he was responsible for the morning transmission (evening in the UK, due to the eight-nine hours time difference). This was his first experience of live broadcasting. It was nervewracking, and he began to smoke more heavily. From 1967 to 1969 he was seconded to Radio Japan, the external service of NHK, and worked in Tokyo. John Newman succeeded Trevor Leggett in October 1969 as programme organizer, and worked at Bush House in London. Leggett 147

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had stayed in this position for twenty-three years, refusing any promotion. When Newman started the job he discussed with the Japanese staff how to make the content of programmes more varied. The success of this policy was reflected in the increase in the number of letters from listeners: from an annual number of about 3,500 in 1969 it increased year on year until in 1975 it reached a peak of 140,000 letters.11 Although Japanese businessmen overseas frequently listened to the BBC Japanese service the majority of listeners were in Japan. Teenage boys who had a fascination for listening to shortwave radio from abroad formed the core of the most enthusiastic listeners. When they listened to the BBC and sent letters to London they were able to receive ‘verification cards’ which they enjoyed collecting. When in 1970 Newman attended EXPO ’70 in Osaka his fluent Japanese was a great help in promoting the British Pavilion. He also frequently appeared on Japanese television, where, since few Japanese grew beards, his trademark black beard was a distinguishing asset. (On one occasion he appeared in a Nescafé instant coffee advert in a Japanese newspaper, without the beard.) The Japanese service under Newman included as producer (later senior producer) Anthony Lightley who joined in 1971 after a career, which included involvement with the Doctor Who series, and who had studied Japanese at Durham University. There were also nine programme assistants (Japanese broadcasters). Most of them were seconded, for periods of up to three years, from Japanese radio and television stations. In all some hundred Japanese were seconded to the BBC Japanese service. In addition, there were a number of audience researchers who worked in a different building and dealt with letters from listeners. Some of the Japanese producers after returning to Japan wrote articles and books about various aspects of life in Britain. Simul Press in Tokyo with whom John had established close contacts published these in a BBC series. Lightley was a well-organized and precise man, whereas Newman was easy-going and did not pay much attention to details, although he was generous and broad-minded. They formed an excellent combination creating a pleasant working environment for their staff. One BBC Japanese programme had a segment called ‘Letter Box’ once every two weeks, in which Newman and Lightley spoke Japanese. They discussed letters from the audience and answered questions from them. Newman’s deep, soft voice was very popular, and he was voted ‘Foreign Broadcaster of the Year’ several times. Lightley spoke Japanese with a typical ‘English’ accent, but Newman’s Japanese sounded natural. Lightley was shy and never spoke Japanese with the Japanese staff, but Newman sometimes spoke Japanese with 148

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them. They were impressed by the colloquial expressions he used, presumably picked up while at Tenri University. Newman also gave short English conversation lessons in a segment called ‘Eigo de Do¯zo¯’ (In English, Please). Secondees from NHK Radio Japan wrote the script, and Newman modelled the English phrases. After Newman established a close relationship with the British Tourist Authority (BTA) a series of mini travel guides to the British countryside were broadcast. The BTA arranged tours to various parts of Britain, and every summer Newman sent his programme assistants to the countryside. These short guides proved quite popular. The Japanese Service programme sometimes broadcast radio dramas such as Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood. While major roles were played by Japanese programme assistants, Newman sometimes joined in minor roles and acted in Japanese. He appeared to enjoy these chances for amateur dramatics. One of the most successful transmissions in which John Newman was involved was the coverage of the Sapporo Snow Festival in 1977. Sapporo Snow Festival, one of Japan’s largest winter events, every year attracts about two million people from Japan and abroad. Its main attraction is a large number of huge, splendid snow and ice sculptures lining the main street of the city for a week in the beginning of February. When the Sapporo Branch of the Japan BCL (Broadcasting Listeners12) League started in 1976, they planned to build a snow sculpture of the Palace of Westminster13 with 4.5 metre-high clock tower, and sought from BBC Japanese service details of the design of the building. John Newman saw this as a great opportunity for publicity for the BBC Japanese service and featured a simultaneous transmission from London and Sapporo in February 1977. John travelled to Sapporo and broadcast live in Japanese on the spot in front of the snow Big Ben. After the event he and his Japanese producer went to Jo¯zankei Spa in the suburbs of Sapporo to recuperate and absorb some warmth. While working with Radio Japan John like many other foreigners who lived in Japan climbed Mt Fuji. He did so together with his Japanese producer, Hosokawa Yukimasa, who had a hard time keeping up because of John’s long legs. They stayed at the lodge on the eighth station and started before dawn the next morning for the summit toiling up the zig-zag path and through volcanic ash together with a crowd of other climbers. Unfortunately, as so many others have found, the panorama was hidden by fog. John quoted to his Japanese producer the saying ‘Mt Fuji is best seen from a distance.’

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On 1 April 1980, the Japanese service announced that the clock on the tower of Big Ben (officially known since 2012 as ‘Elizabeth Tower’) was going digital, and that therefore the hands would be removed; the first person to write to the Japanese service would get one of the 6.5 metre long ‘big hands’ which were no longer required. They embellished this tall story by saying that a flood warning alarm would be installed as well as a stopwatch to time the London Marathon. It was normal practice to make clear that the April Fools Day transmissions were jokes, but on this occasion Newman told his staff not to mention this, saying he would take responsibility for the consequences. Within an hour of the transmission the Japanese service received a telegram from a seaman on board a tanker asking for the hand; soon they had received about 300 letters from all over Japan applying for the Big Ben hand. John Newman revealed the joke about three days later. Major Japanese newspapers reported this as an example of the failure of Japanese to understand British humour, but no serious complaints were received by the Japanese service. The listeners seemed to have understood the humour and joined in the fun. When the FCO under budgetary pressure decided in 1991 to close down BBC services to Malaysia and Japan, the BBC was not given the option to continue the services by making savings elsewhere. The savings (a mere £300–400,000) were miniscule, especially compared to the investment by Japanese firms in Britain, and many Japanese received it as a snub, but ‘…John Newman accepted what was a bitter blow with dignity. He managed the dispersal of his talented Japanese staff without losing their respect.’14 In the Japan Digest of January 1991 in an article headed ‘Sayonara Japan’ Newman gave an overview of the forty-seven years of broadcasting to Japan. The service began on 4 July 1943 when the mere possession of a shortwave radio was dangerous. Many listeners were in the Japanese armed forces in Southeast Asia, and later the 50,000-strong Japanese community in Brazil also joined in. Trevor Leggett organized a game of sho¯gi over the air to prove that the service could be heard in Japan, and it lasted a year! Moves from London were broadcast once a week and the Japanese player would send his moves in reply two days later by airmail. Leggett persuaded a noted blind koto player, Miyagi Michio, to compose ‘Rondon no Yoru no Ame’ (A Rainy London Evening) for the Japan service. Newman also recalled the April fool episode, and the more than a hundreed Japanese seconded to the BBC from Japan who had used their experience at Bush House to further their careers.

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ACADEMIC

In 1991 Anesaki Masahira was a professor of sociology at Nihon University School of Medicine, which was looking for a professor of English and International Studies. He saw a news item on television about the abolition of the Japan service of the BBC in which John Newman appeared. This inspired him to write to John Newman suggesting that he apply for the post. Newman, being at the time at a loose end, replied expressing great interest. At the interview Anesaki recalls that ‘…[H]e made a very good impression on us, not only with his height, handsome looks and articulate speech but also his gentlemanly demeanour.’15 He got the job quite easily, with few reservations expressed. Anesaki told him he would be accepted as easily as William Adams was by Tokugawa Ieyasu. He continues: He brought big ideas about teaching English to future physicians as well as various audio-visual materials with him from Britain. His serious attitude to his teaching and his good sense of humour motivated his students to try hard…

Newman was popular, not only with the students but also with the teaching and administrative staff. Anesaki became a close colleague and friend, and they often watched sumo together and spoke about martial arts. They also discussed the state of Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. Anesaki tried to learn BBC English pronunciation and ‘courtliness’ from Newman. CONCLUSION

John Newman did not drink alcohol because he had cirrhosis of the liver. Despite having to go into hospital repeatedly, he completed the academic year 1992–3 including all his freshman classes and exams. At the start of the spring vacation he returned to London and decided to have a liver transplant on 10 April 1993 at King’s College Hospital. Unfortunately, one week later, his body began to reject the new liver. On 18 May 1993, he passed away in the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital, aged fifty-seven. The funeral at the West London Crematorium on 27 May was well attended, with all 200 seats filled and the rest of the mourners standing. Pauline Webb conducted the ceremony. A Japanese version of the 23rd Psalm was read, and Trevor Leggett gave a tribute. There was a reading by his friend Gill Wilkie, of the BBC Malaysian service, from Coleridge’s ‘Ancient Mariner’ and in conclusion a version of ‘Stand By Me’, somehow fitting for its emphasis on how love can conquer all adversity and hardship. It was a modern pop song, which John Newman liked. Professor Anesaki attended the 151

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funeral and wake, and later reported on it to the university. In the evening he and Watanabe Kisaburo (a former Asian ju¯do¯ champion and instructor at the Budokan ju¯do¯ club in London) dined with Newman’s daughters, Martha and Sophie. Donations were to the Liver Failure Unit, King’s College Hospital, and Cancer Research. John Newman was a deeply patriotic Briton from a working-class West London family background who was proud of his country and London, and eager to show them off to Japanese visitors. He was a man with a great sense of adventure and fun, personal warmth, selfdiscipline and physical toughness. He is fondly remembered not only by his family, but also by his many friends in Japan and Britain. His love affair with Japan began through ju¯do¯ at a time in the post-war period when memories of the war were still very fresh, and when many people in Britain viewed Japan with suspicion and hostility. In the Newman family, his daughter Sophie recalls that ‘can’t’ was a taboo word, and he was always keen to let his children experience adventures: he once had them camping overnight near St. Paul’s Cathedral before the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana to get a good view of the procession. On another occasion he had Sophie travel alone in her early teens from Tokyo to Kyoto, although she knew no Japanese. It was on this occasion that Kobayashi met her, while her father was still working for the BBC. Later whenever Kobayashi went to London he would meet Newman at the BBC or at his flat in Russell Road, West Kensington. In the summer of 1992 he stayed one month there, and Newman took him to the golf course, swimming pool and Richmond where his family lived. John Newman’s secretary at the BBC in London for fourteen and a half years was Afsaneh Dekan. She considered him as family, and a gentle giant, and felt very lucky to be working for him. He did not work on Mondays but would occasionally pay surprise visits on that day, opening the office door quickly and saying with characteristic English humour learned in the Marines and, one imagines, a wry grin: ‘What do you think this place is, a holiday camp?’ He sometimes called his daughters and announced that ‘the Monsters’ were coming to the office for lunch. Observing Japanese custom, Newman would always start a letter to Japan with a comment on the season or weather. His nickname in the office was ‘Big Bad John’.16 In the county of Dorset there is an oak tree planted by the parish in the cemetery of St. Mary’s church in the village of Blandford St. Mary in commemoration of the man they called ‘The Oak’. This very English tree testifies to the high regard in which he was held for his friendliness and community spirit. The Newman family used to go there for holidays for many years, and sometimes John stayed in the cottage (which belonged to a BBC colleague) for weekend breaks. 152

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The author is very grateful to the following for their cooperation, encouragement and materials (in alphabetical order): Professor Anesaki Masahira, Hosokawa Yukimasa, Sue Hudson, Kobayashi Takanobu, Sophie Newman, Tony Sweeney and Tsujikawa Kazunori ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

For an account of British Week in Tokyo see essay by Ben Thorne in Britain and Japan; Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi. Renaissance Books, 2015. For an account of Expo ’70 see report by Sir John Pilcher, HM ambassador to Japan, in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. Ch. 28, pp. 323–333. This volume was edited by Hugh Cortazzi and published in 2002 by Japan Library. John Barnes (1911–1998), educated at Bradfield College, Berkshire. Later a wing commander in the RAF, he became interested in ju¯do¯ in 1936 and studied intensively at the Budokwai for two-and-a-half years. After the war he helped Koizumi Gunji found the British Ju¯do¯ Association and the European Ju¯do¯ Union. In August 1937 he got ju¯do¯ onto television for the first time when the Budokwai gave a demonstration for the BBC. He was honorary president of the British Universities Ju¯do¯ Association for forty years until his death. (Tony Sweeney, EJU News, November 1998). With thanks to Tony Sweeney for comments on John Newman as a ju¯do¯ka to the author at the Budokwai on 2 September 2014. From a fax of two letters to him sent by Professor Anesaki on 26 December 2014. Email to author from Sophie Newman, daughter of John, 8 August 2014. For an account of the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo see pp.160–166 of The Japan Society Proceedings number 150, 2013. Notes from Tsujikawa Kazunori entitled ‘John Newman and the BBC Japanese Section’, received 21 June 2014, based partly on Okura Yu¯nosuke, This is the BBC London – Forty Years of Japanese Language BroadcastsࡇࡕࡽࣟࣥࢻࣥBBC BBC᪥ᮏㄒ㒊ࡢṌࡳ, (Tokyo: Simul 1983), and John Newman’s own comments in ‘Sayonara Japan’, Japan Digest, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1991. The photograph of Newman is from the Simul publication, facing p. 196. See biographical portrait of Koizumi Gunji in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IV ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Library, 2002. The full table from 1959 is given in Okura Yu¯nosuke, This is the BBC London: 40 Years of Broadcasting to Japan, 1943–83 (Simul Press, 1983) p.189, but the part relating to Newman’s tenure is as follows: 1969, 3,539 1970, 4,452 1971, 5,002 1972, 7,240 1973, 19,811 1974 57,811 1975 140,621 1976, 101,634 1977, 70,030 1978, 40, 693 1979, 28,388 1980, 20,741 1981, 16,866 1982. 7,954 (Data not available for 1983–91.) 153

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12

13

14

15

16

Broadcasting Listeners were groups of people who enjoy listening to radio – mostly short wave radio – from abroad. In 1984 the snow festival at Sapporo included a copy in snow of Buckingham Palace. Leonard Miall, Obituary of John Newman, The Independent, 21 May 1993. Masahira Anesaki, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan (TASJ), Series IV, Volume 20, 2006, Supplement, p. 2. From an email sent by Nina Afsaneh Denkan to Sophie Newman, 22 September 2014.

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Peter Martin, (1931–2014): Successful Author and British Council Representative MIKE BARRETT

INTRODUCTION

‘It is always in a funny sense work to be a gaijin here. Or perhaps like walking a tightrope all the time: exhilarating but exhausting.’ The bare facts of Peter Martin’s ‘official’ career reveal little about his deep engagement with Japan and his impact as a writer of note. Japan affected him profoundly and he in turn contributed enormously to the interpretation and understanding of its culture and society, both through his British Council work and his books. EARLY DAYS

Roy Peter Martin (he hated the ‘Roy’) was born in 1931, the son of a postal worker, and was educated at Highbury Grammar School and then at Birkbeck College, University of London, where he completed a bachelor’s degree in philosophy with honours in 1953. His university studies were interrupted by national service in the Royal

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Air Force Education Branch from 1950 to 1951. Before and after military service, he worked briefly as a local government officer for the London County Council, and after graduation, as a schoolteacher. In 1954 he returned to Birkbeck, and completed a master’s degree in political philosophy in 1956. He was a deputy publicity officer for the Royal Festival Hall (1956–1960) and undertook additional graduate study (1958–1959) at the University of Tübingen, where he met his Americanborn second wife, Joan Drumwright, who was later to accompany him to Japan. He had married his first wife, Marjorie Peacock, in 1951 but this relationship was dissolved in 1960, the year that he joined the British Council, which became his career base for the next twenty-three years. KYOTO 1963–70

His first British Council job, curtailed by political instability, was in Surabaya in Indonesia, but it was his posting to Kyoto in 1963 which began a long and productive relationship with Japan. Kyoto was where all the British visitors to Japan wanted to go, or where the Embassy sent them to fill out a programme, and, as the only ‘official’ British figure there, Peter (who had taken over from Francis King, another writer) was expected to entertain politicians and other dignitaries as well as writers, artists, musicians and actors. ‘Right, Martin’, said the General briskly in his clipped senior officer’s voice, ‘They tell me that while I’m here I should see a temple, a shrine and a garden. Take me to one of each, would you, there’s a good chap.’ The list of celebrities included Janet Baker – his particular favourite, whose voice was heard at his funeral, Tony Benn, Iris Murdoch, Angus Wilson, Bridget Riley, Paul McCartney and Emlyn Williams – ‘All I require from you is a bottle of gin and to be left alone!’ Peter managed to spill drinks twice on Princess Margaret at the opening of the new centre. (The quotations above are from his amusing account of various encounters in Japan Experiences: Post-war Japan through British Eyes Ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Library, 2001, pp. 125–128.) The original British Council office in Kyoto had been opened in 1954 in an area identified with ‘hinin’ (social outcasts) – see Francis King’s comments in Japan Experiences. Peter overcame numerous bureaucratic hurdles to negotiate with the Kyoto authorities a new building on donated land in the Kitashirakawa area, conveniently placed for Kyoto and Ritsumeikan universities, and created a centre with an extensive library, meeting rooms and an apartment for the resident Director. This remained an important landmark for traditional British Council activity until it closed in 2001 in favour of a more central location for English teaching. Behind the role of entertaining and educating visitors, there was the serious task of running an office and information cen156

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tre, creating cultural and academic contacts, maintaining relations with universities and arts institutions, and liaising with local and regional authorities throughout the Kansai and southern Japan. Highly motivated, Peter learned Japanese to a level of practical competence in the written language and fluency in speaking, with a refined Kyoto accent, which earned him considerable respect. This enabled him to engage with a changing Japanese society at first hand and his enthusiastic exploration and sharp observation of all aspects of the culture, including the less salubrious, fed into his later writing. Thanks to Expo ’70 in Osaka, Peter managed to stay on in Kyoto beyond the usual posting period. ‘…being intensely reluctant to leave Japan, I was delighted to be permitted to stay on in order to act as cultural affairs officer attached on a part-time basis to the British Pavilion, with responsibility for a varied programme of cultural events’ (see Japan Experiences pp.227–229). His work was rewarded with an MBE in 1970. Deeply involved in the daily life of Japan, Peter and his wife, Joan, produced one of the first and best-known books on Japanese food, as well as bringing up two sons, Adam and James. Adam notes that family photo albums of the period are full of pictures of temples, shrines, conferences, dinners, etc. ‘They clearly both loved the place’, he says. ‘The mixture of tradition, modernity and an essentially urban culture clearly appealed. I think they also very much enjoyed being quite exotic. There were very few gaijin in Kyoto.’ Joan also learned Japanese, and made a long trip to Northern Japan with Carmen Blacker,1 who had become a friend. Joan went on to do a degree in Japanese at SOAS and later worked for a Japanese insurance company in London. Japanese Cooking (André Deutsch 1970, Penguin Books 1972, reprinted 1974, 1978) is a practical guide, but remarkable for its authenticity and detail. Its historical introduction comments on foreign influences, from Portuguese to Chinese and Korean, and the changing eating habits of the Japanese. It is as much about the culture of food in Japanese society, with its seasonal sensitivities, as it is about the ingredients. There are quotations from the Foreword by Sir John Pilcher and the author’s introduction in Japan Experiences, but it is worth noting the authors’ acknowledgment of the help they had from Fujikawa Mariko, their housekeeper, who was a ‘mother’ and invaluable go-between for subsequent Directors of the Kyoto centre and their guests over the next twenty years. They also mention the influence of Sen Sumiko (1920–2004), the doyenne of Kyoto kaiseki cuisine and of Robert Strickland, who ran the Ashiya Restaurant in Kyoto.

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HUNGARY AND LONDON (1970–1979)

After Japan, Hungary was a sombre posting for a cultural attaché under constant surveillance. Peter’s marriage with Joan was over and he pined for Japan. He imported Japanese food and saké and prepared delicacies such as chawan mushi. Peter later exorcised the experience of working under diplomatic constraints in the cold war atmosphere through one of two comedic novels starring his alter ego, Ben Lazenby, written under his nom de plume of James Melville (taken from his sons’ first and middle names). In the story set in Hungary, Diplomatic Baggage (Severn House Publishing 1995), a British Council art exhibition goes missing, and the mystery involves a circus of characters from gypsies to three intelligence services, and a romantic involvement with visiting researcher Dr Emma Jarvis. The novel gives Peter the opportunity to poke fun at diplomats and bureaucrats as well as at his own cultural world. It was in Budapest that Peter met his third wife, Catherine (née Sydee), who was training as a singer. (Coincidentally, another British post-graduate student in Hungary at the time was Rosalind Marsden – now Dame Rosalind Marsden DCMG – who later held FCO posts in Tokyo in 1976–80 and 1993–96.) Catherine eventually studied kumihimo techniques in Japan and is a respected textile and jewellery artist. Peter left Hungary in 1974 under unfortunate circumstances following a car accident, which, although not his fault, was nonetheless a traumatic experience. The British Council were sympathetic and posted him to senior positions in London, running Scholarships, then Visitors Department. These were difficult times, with financial problems, the end of his marriage with Joan and two young sons, but, with Catherine’s encouragement, writing became a lifeline. TOKYO 1979–1983

After a frustrating wait for the Japan posting to come up, at last Peter was asked to take over as Representative in Tokyo in 1979. In Catherine’s words, ‘He was delighted and couldn’t wait to go back. He had great hopes for what he could do there; always passionate about culture, scholarships and exchanges, though less so about ELT (English Language Teaching).’ Things initially went well. Peter was liked and respected both professionally and personally by his staff and his Japanese contacts. He was fun to work with, at home in Japan and with the Japanese, and with a strong sense of purpose. He especially valued the scholarships programme and the relationship with the British Council Scholars Association, including close friendships with eminent academics such as Takahashi Yasunari and Yamanouchi Hisaaki. As 158

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well as literary seminars, he encouraged a shift into more contemporary work in the arts, and exchanges in social development and in the sciences. One major event was the first ever exhibition of twentieth-century art from Britain in 1982, which was visited by Princess Chichibu. Peter attempted to steer her swiftly past a sprawling female nude by Lucian Freud, but she stopped and inspected it in detail, putting Peter’s art knowledge and blood pressure to the test. Later, she commented charmingly, ‘I enjoyed that much more than I expected’, which became a catch phrase for British Council staff thereafter. Dr John Richards, who succeeded Dr Tony Cassidy as science officer in 1981 under Peter’s direction, recounts a key initiative: The Rector of Imperial College of Science and Technology, Lord Flowers, made a visit to Japan in July 1981 under British Council auspices, which led one of the scientists in the Scholars Association to make enquiries about possible Japanese investment and sponsorship at Imperial. Eventually, Peter Martin and I were invited to a rather mysterious meeting at Keidanren, where senior officials asked about Imperial and its research record and standing. Peter handled the whole meeting in Japanese, translating for me when necessary, but he did most of the talking. Somewhat later we were informed that Honda was exploring the possibility of a major investment in a state-of-the-art wind tunnel at Imperial. This was well before Honda’s investment in its Swindon plant and was also the first major Japanese investment in British research and development.

Peter also supported efforts to integrate the Council’s science work in Japan with that of the UK research councils and the Royal Society, which became a significant and successful programme. In spite of the satisfactions, Catherine Martin recalls the downside to the cultural life: The job did have a lot of responsibility and was extremely exhausting. Of course Peter enjoyed the visits of fellow authors such as David Lodge and Pat Barker and most of the cultural activities, although I remember him complaining after a long night at Narita airport’s customs office, counting amongst other things the wellington boots for a Royal Opera House production of Peter Grimes!

Additional administrative burdens also arose for Peter and Stephen McEnally, then assistant representative, from the incipient ‘Wolfers scheme’, later to become the JET scheme. The first batch of UK participants had arrived in 1978, and, in the early years, the British Council was responsible for their welfare and for liaison with the ministry of education. 159

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One complicating factor in Peter’s role in Japan was his diplomatic status as nominally cultural counsellor of the British Embassy as well as head of the British Council. In contrast with his Kyoto experience, the diplomatic life did not suit Peter. The constant high profile appearances, the stream of official visitors and increasingly intrusive extraneous demands on his time from the embassy took him away from the cultural relations work he wanted to concentrate on (as well as his writing). In spite of his sociable character, he would occasionally sigh about ‘suffering from people poisoning’. In addition to the distracting pressures in Tokyo, he was frustrated by the British Council’s growing insistence on developing English Language teaching facilities (which were already well served by private sector schools in Japan), by financial constraints resulting from government cuts in budgets and by increasingly bureaucratic managerial demands, which he regarded as ‘meta-work’. Eventually Peter’s health suffered, with a worsening heart condition, and although he had considered accepting a posting to Indonesia after four years in Japan, when the opportunity arose to take early retirement in 1983, he seized his chance to concentrate on what he really wanted to do, which was to become a full-time writer. THE DETECTIVE NOVELS

Peter Martin’s reputation as a writer was formed primarily by his series of thirteen detective novels, written under the name of James Melville, involving Inspector (later Superintendent) Otani Tetsuo of the Hyogo prefectural police. But there are also serious novels with an historical or political background and scholarly non-fiction works which reveal the scope and depth of Peter’s knowledge and interest in all aspects of Japan. It is not possible in the space available to do justice to all these in detail, but a summary of some representative work will illustrate his range. The first Otani novel to be written was The Chrysanthemum Chain, actually published in 1980, a year after The Wages of Zen, the first to be published. Catherine Martin takes up the story of how the series started: Peter told me about the murder of Robin Curtis in Kyoto and how the police came to him in the middle of the night, confusing the British Council with the British Consul, which is why he got involved. Curtis had been running a ‘Daisy Chain’ of young boys for sexual exploitation by well-known Japanese politicians…he knew too much and had to be disposed of. I suggested to Peter that this would be a great basis for a book. He had always written so elegantly and easily. He agreed and began to write at the weekends…Nothing gave him so much pleasure as writing, getting published and being acknowledged as a writer. He just couldn’t wait for the weekends to get back to it. 160

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Secker and Warburg, to whom he impulsively sent off his first manuscript, responded by promising to publish only if he would deliver five more for a series of Otani books. Peter’s aim was to inform a Western audience about Japan but to do it in an entertaining way, using his plots and his characters to convey his passion for Japanese culture and society. In a speech to the Japan Society in London in December 1984, Peter said ‘I owe my present happy way of life … to the fact that from my very earliest day in Japan I was fascinated by Japanese attitudes to authority in general and the law in particular, and by those two remarkable species of Japanese fauna, policemen and gangsters.’ A Haiku for Hanae (Headline Book Publishing, 1989), to take an example, contains all the typical elements of Peter’s knowledge of Japan and his creative story-telling, combining themes of shamanistic foxcults (with acknowledgments to Lafcadio Hearn and Carmen Blacker), Shinto practices, yakuza interest in wealthy shrines, foreign missionaries, social hierarchies, political tensions between young radicals and traditionalists, police hierarchies and procedures and, of course, food and sex. Some passages in the novels are, however, simple descriptions of daily life in Japan. To those familiar with Japan, such digressions, with detailed accounts of meals, clothing, bathing customs and so on, can seem unnecessary interruptions to the unfolding of the crime mystery, but they were part of the essential appeal of the books at a time when Japan was still an obscure society for most foreign readers. Peter took great delight in confirming the authenticity of his creations. In the Author’s Note to The Bogus Buddha (Headline, 1990), he describes being invited by the commander of the Hyogo police force to meet his criminal investigation colleagues, who expressed their admiration for Peter’s novels. The Bogus Buddha is a good source for anyone wanting to know more about the seamy side of Japan. Set in Nara and Kyoto, it interweaves the story of a murdered Japanese historian at an international summer school with that of a yakuza boss bumped off by his partner in property development. Besides the academic intrigue and several parallel love affairs, there are detailed descriptions of criminal activity in protection, blackmailing and prostitution rackets, fraud and so on; the modernisation changing the face of Kyoto and the layers of bureaucracy in the Prefectural and City planning departments (which Peter had experienced at first hand); a traditional murder method using damp washi to suffocate a victim without trace; and cross-references to the Onin War and the War of the Roses. There is a smart British medieval historian in the novel, Philippa Kilpeck; the book is actually dedicated to Dr Carole Rawcliffe, now Professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia, who was Peter’s partner for the last third of his life. 161

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Peter enjoyed slipping in references in his stories to real-life acquaintances. Sayonara, Sweet Amaryllis (Secker & Warburg, 1983) is a murder mystery set in Kobe, but at the same time a tongue-incheek satire on the Tokyo Madrigal Society run by ‘Peter’ Kurosawa (Hiroshi), which met at the British Council and included members of staff such as Peter’s secretary Yoshida Kazuko. It still exists. Catherine Martin recalls that while Peter was desperately frustrated with the work situation in Tokyo before they left in 1983, his solace was his writing. ‘I think he wrote his best Otani books there: A Sort of Samurai, and Sayonara Sweet Amaryllis. I remember him in the worst times giggling away in his study as he wrote the latter.’ THE ‘SERIOUS’ NOVELS

Catherine Martin continues, ‘He then became a full-time writer. Once he had gone down that path and was successful, nothing else would come near that experience. We came back to England and bought a house in Elgar land (another great passion) in Herefordshire, as the doctors prescribed a quiet life for him. It worked and he gradually got better. He continued with the Otani books, writing from very early morning up until midday. Plots were hatched and discussed endlessly. I typed and edited all the books until he got a word processor. He then went back to Japan to research The Imperial Way, one of his most important books.’ The Imperial Way (Andre Deutsch, 1986, Methuen, 1987) is centred on the events and atmosphere around the failed anti-government coup of 1936, with its political plots and assassinations, growing military and right-wing influence, family divisions, and tensions between traditional vested interests and liberal modernisers. Seen through the eyes of a nisei woman journalist’s attempts fifty years later to penetrate the background of a Japanese business leader, the story intertwines detailed historical references and sharply drawn pictures of the social and cultural milieu. Always rooted in factual verisimilitude, there are explorations of the political motivations of the military coup leaders, influenced by the ideas of Kita Ikki, divisions between the Japanese army and navy, American and British pressures on Japanese expansionism, and the shadowy role of the zaibatsu. Specific period references draw the reader into the political scene, such as the persecution of Professor Minobe Tatsukichi (1873–1948), who dared to describe the Emperor’s status as an ‘organ of the state’. But the novel also gives ‘James Melville’ the opportunity to weave in his usual cast of memorable characters, plenty of sexual encounters, shocking family secrets (including incest and madness), black-marketeering and contemporary colour such as the popular music of the 1930s and the newly-opened Kyushu tunnel. 162

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The Mainichi Daily News described the book as ‘A work of superb attainment’ and the New Statesman said it deserved a broad audience. It is a gripping read. This was followed by A Tarnished Phoenix (Barrie & Jenkins, 1990), set in the Japan of the post-war American occupation, commanded by General Douglas MacArthur. By 1947, the reconstruction of a new non-militarist and economically stable Japan was the official aim of both the Allies and the Japanese administration, but the plot of the novel hinges on two irreconcilable policies. On the one hand, there were those who genuinely wanted a liberal society, with disempowerment of the military-industrial complex and the deeply entrenched zaibatsu, and introduction of new labour rights and democratic freedoms. On the other hand, there were Americans who for reasons of realpolitik were determined to rebuild Japan as an anti-communist bulwark, allied to the old guard of former Japanese nationalists and business leaders who were ready to seize the opportunity to recover power. In the novel, a conspiracy, ‘Operation High Flyer’, is discovered by an officer in G2, MacArthur’s Intelligence Department, and the dangerous information eventually delivered to the right people by a brave and quick-witted young woman sergeant in a well-crafted thriller set in the context of this key period in Japan’s recent past. As we know, some influential Japanese held in Sugamo prison as war criminals were in fact released without trial, including later Prime Minister Kishi Nobosuke (1896–1987),and the story explores the potential intrigue behind the historical facts. As the author says with somewhat menacing irony, ‘What I suggest in this novel might possibly have happened is not, however, to be confused with history. Not yet, anyway.’ NON-FICTION

The book that reveals Peter Martin as an historian as much as a novelist, however, is The Chrysanthemum Throne: A History of the Emperors of Japan (Sutton Publishing Ltd, 1997, University of Hawaii, 1998, Diane Publishing Co., 2004). In what the publisher’s blurb claims as the first general study of the Japanese imperial institution throughout its history, Peter Martin covers in only 175 pages the fluctuating fortunes of the Japanese imperial dynasty from its origins to the twentieth century, with vivid portraits of individual emperors and empresses regnant and the historical, political and cultural world in which they lived. Full of incident and character, as one might expect from an author who announces himself as ‘a novelist by avocation’, this is nevertheless a meticulously researched and highly readable account of Japan’s history overall. Peter had, of course, lived in Kyoto, had contact with the Imperial Household Agency and made many visits to 163

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the Katsura Villa and Shugakuin. His early historical interest had been encouraged by Carmen Blacker, Geoffrey Bownas and Ivan Morris and it is interesting to note some of the other names in his acknowledgments, which include Princess Chichibu, Aso Kazuko DBE, Otis Cary, Tom Rimer, Joseph Moran, Edward Seidensticker, Donald Keene, Arthur Stockwin, Tokugawa Yoshihiro and others. He had also had the opportunity to meet members of the imperial family on occasion, including the present Emperor when he was Crown Prince. Probably the least known of Peter’s published works is Modern Japan (York Insights, 1989), a brilliantly compressed 130 pages in which the author attempts to get away from stereotypes, using history to illuminate the present in ‘an honest portrait of Japan and the Japanese, warts and all, by a critical friend of that fascinating nation’. From cultural origins, the land, religion and literature, the book moves swiftly through the politics of war, occupation and recovery to cover aspects of government (including ‘gravy trains and pork barrels’), education, agriculture, industry, social structures, organised crime and popular entertainment. The ambivalence of a nation of ‘capitalist collectivists’ and ‘orderly non-conformists’ is used to explain cracks in the social fabric, but the book ends with a firm belief that ‘the 21st century will belong to Japan’. That things did not work out quite that way does not undermine what is still an excellent overview, though now inevitably dated. OTHER WORK

As James Melville, Peter edited Japanese Short Stories (Folio Society, 2000) and in The Oxford Book of Detective Stories (ed. Patricia Craig, OUP 2000, reissued 2002) he appears alongside Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Ian Rankin. He was particularly proud that the Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University considered him of sufficient importance to archive his papers. He was apparently meticulous about sending off anything associated with his writing to Boston, and as well as manuscripts of his published work (including three crime mysteries in the Miss Seeton series written under the name of Hampton Charles), there are some unpublished items of Japanese interest. A sixty-page draft of My Friends the Japanese, with chapter titles referring to various professions, leisure, home life and social behaviour suggests that the material may have been drafted in the early 1980s but later incorporated into Modern Japan. There is also an undated outline for The Tempura Book, a radio play entitled The Vetting, and various articles, short stories, book reviews, lecture notes, fan mail and letters to and from other writers. Notable correspondents include Frederick Forsyth and Antonia Fraser. Peter had apparently been thinking of a serious novel based on Saigo Takamori as well as 164

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a history of the Tokugawas, but these sadly remained unwritten. The Chrysanthemum Throne was his last published book and he ceased to write seriously after a stroke in 2001. AN ACTIVE LIFE

Peter’s intellectual capacity and energy were enormous. In addition to his British Council responsibilities and writing, he was lecturing on ‘Problems of Ethics’ at International Christian University in Tokyo in 1982–83 and became a member of the Japan Society of British Philosophy. It was when lecturing on philosophy at a Wye College summer school that he first met Dr Carole Rawcliffe, with whom he spent the last twenty-five years of his life. He made frequent visits to Japan between 1983 and 1991 and taught for a while in Tokyo in 1987. From December 1989 to March 1990, he travelled with Carole in Kansai and Kyushu, before spending three months of research, lectures and reunions in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo, arranged by his ‘Mr Fixit’, Professor ‘Frank’ Hirata Shigeyuki, and the British Council. Among the pieces of travel writing commissioned by The Times, Peter wrote a lively portrait of Nagasaki in Japan’s Western Window, with a moving account of the Suwa shrine, where ‘the sacred and the profane are on perfectly friendly terms’ in the blessings of vehicles, including Coca Cola vans, and a ritual service for firemen. His lecture schedule included a series on crime fiction, talks on British and American English and Language and Society and one to the Association of Foreign Teachers, which records his belief that ‘popular literature does not have to be second-rate’. He declared himself ‘proud to be a story-teller’. In 1991 he was invited by Japanese contacts to attend the World Shakespeare Congress, which he reported on for the TLS. That was his last visit to Japan but not, of course, the end of his involvement in research and writing and other contributions to the understanding of Japan. In 1994, for example, he presented a detailed seminar for the UEA School of Economic and Social Studies course on ‘Modernisation in Britain and Japan’, covering aspects such as Japan’s feudal system, land holding, resources and capacity for innovation. In 1995 he lectured on Lafcadio Hearn at Durham University. He was also a Trustee of Winchester Shoei College for several years. His other interests and status as a novelist also kept him busy. He had become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1989. He was a member of The Detection Club and the Crime Writers’ Association of Great Britain and enjoyed their annual ‘Golden Dagger’ awards. He took pleasure in the writer’s life, including book signings and literary events such as a Crime Writing Conference in Brazil in 1992. He was also a member of PEN for many years, 165

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having been introduced by Francis King, and was justifiably proud of its work. Peter moved to Norwich with Carole Rawcliffe when she took up an academic post there in 1992. In 1996, he was devastated by the death of his granddaughter Natasha, and although he was still deeply interested in Japanese history, he published no more after The Chrysanthemum Throne. His stroke in 2001 limited long-distance travel, but by then he had taken up Ancient Greek with enthusiasm, gaining an ‘A’ level, and would recite chunks of Homer on demand. His tutor commented wryly that his translations had a touch of the crime writer’s style. Peter was disappointed not to be involved in the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, especially since Carole had her own interest in Japanese art, but they visited Japanese exhibitions and he kept up his reading on matters Japanese. He joined the Norwich branch of the Historical Association, won the respect and affection of Carole Rawcliffe’s colleagues, attending seminars and lectures, and spent considerable time helping her and others with his keen editorial eye. He was devoted to his dog Basil and to Norwich City Football Club. He died in March 2014 after a period of decline, just before Ostara Publishing were about to re-issue his first three novels and produce the first e-book version. Peter’s encounter with Japan was a passion for him and became a gift to others. Dedicated to cultural relations, with enormous intellectual curiosity, he led a well-focussed and productive British Council team in Tokyo, in spite of finding administration irksome. One ex-diplomat queried Peter’s ‘somewhat disreputable image?’, perhaps confusing him with the fictional Ben Lazenby. That would have amused him. His colleagues and contacts remember him fondly for his warmth, generosity, professionalism and sense of humour. I worked closely with Peter as his deputy in the British Council in Tokyo from 1980 and took over from him in an acting capacity on his departure in 1983. His novel Sayonara, Sweet Amaryllis is dedicated: ‘For Mike and Maitou – Gambatte ne?’ I especially remember enjoyable tours to Kansai together, full of fun, shared insights, good food and conversations about everything imaginable. Peter’s success as a novelist perhaps detracted from his serious contribution to the perception and understanding of Japan, which has not had the recognition it deserves. In spite of numerous publications and translations of his work into many languages, The Japan Society Library, for example, sadly contains none of his books at the time of writing. They merit attention. Acknowledgments:This portrait could not have been written without the generous contributions of those close to Peter, especially Adam and James Martin, Catherine Martin and Carole Rawcliffe. 166

PETER MARTIN 1931–2014

Thanks for additional comments are also due to John Richards, Stephen McEnally, Brendan Griggs, David Hale and Heidi Potter. Bibliography: Space prevents a full list of publications here, but useful references include: the Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Center, whose cooperation is gratefully acknowledged, www.hgarsrv3.bu.edu; also www.goodreads.com/author/show/51500James_ Melville; www.stopyourekillingme.com; www.ranker.com. ENDNOTE 1

A biographical portrait of Carmen Blacker by Peter Kornicki is in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2010.

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sMISSIONARIES s

14

Charles Frederick Warren (1841–1899): Anglican Missionary in Osaka HAMISH ION

Archdeacon C.F. Warren

INTRODUCTION

The connection between the Warren family and Japan began with Charles Frederick Warren (1841–1899).1 It was continued on into the second generation by his sons, Charles Theodore Warren (1865– 1949) and Horace George Warren who followed their father into the priesthood and also became Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries in Osaka. Charles Theodore Warren served in Osaka between 1890 and 1910, and his brother Horace George between 1893 and 1899.2 This essay, however, focuses on the father, Charles Frederick Warren, the pioneer CMS missionary in Osaka who laid the foundations for lasting British Anglican work in that city and outlying areas between 1873 and his death in Fukuyama (⚟ᒣ) in 169

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1899. He was the son of George Warren of Margate in Kent, a man known locally as ‘Dr Warren’ because he was a herbalist, in addition to operating a small leather shop. C.F. Warren’s three brothers were all in trade in Margate and district or in London. His two sisters were married to well-to-do tradesmen. Warren’s wife, Mary Ann Ada Tibbatts (d. 1886) whom he met at the local Mission Hall in the neighbourhood of the Essex Road while he attended the CMS Training College in Islington, was the daughter of Horace Nelson Tibbatts, a doctor in Islington.3 His second wife, Sarah Lizzie Fawcett, was a CMS missionary in Osaka whom Warren married in 1892. She left Japan in 1908. In 1865 Warren became a CMS missionary in Hong Kong,4 and worked there for three years serving at the newly-established St Stephen Mission Church with its Chinese congregation. In 1868, unfortunately, ill health forced him to return to England. In 1873 when the CMS announced its intention to send more missionaries to Japan, Warren competed for a place and was selected. FIRST YEARS IN OSAKA

On 2 December 1873, Warren arrived in Kobe but soon moved to live in the treaty port concession in Osaka. He was the vanguard of the CMS contingent sent to Osaka to reinforce the American Protestant Episcopalian missionaries already at work there.5 To a great extent, because of Warren’s effort and leadership, Osaka would quickly develop into the most significant CMS mission station in Japan. His leading role within the CMS Japan Mission was consolidated in 1880 when he became its Japan secretary, a position that he held until 1888. In 1888, he was named archdeacon for the Central Japan district. Initially, however, Warren devoted his time to language study and preaching at the church for the English community in Kobe. By 1875, he had begun to give Japanese language services in his home.6 With money provided by the foreign community in the Hanshin (Osaka-Kobe) area, he was able to build a small chapel and by June 1876 had converted six people to Christianity.7 Among the first to be baptized by Warren were Nakanishi Yoshiyuki (୰す ⩏அ) and his wife. Nakanishi who was sixty when he was baptized, later graduated from theological college and was ordained a priest.8 A missionary’s success in evangelistic work was often dependent on his Japanese assistants, and Nakanishi and his wife were clearly very helpful to Warren in his early work.9 At the same time, Mrs Warren began Bible classes for Japanese women. CMS reinforcements had also begun to arrive. Henry Evington (1848–1912),10 later the missionary bishop of Kyu¯shu¯, arrived in Japan at the end of 1874. Like Warren, Evington served as priest to 170

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the English community in Kobe for a year before becoming Warren’s assistant in missionary work among the Japanese. In 1877, a new church was built to accommodate the growing numbers of Japanese Christians. This church (Osaka Trinity Church, ኱㜰୕୍ᩍ ఍) was consecrated by Bishop John Shaw Burdon (1826–1907) in 1878.ࠉThe number of Christian converts steadily grew as witnessed by the fact that Bishop Burdon was able to baptize seventeen people in a special service during his visit to Osaka.11 OPENING SCHOOLS

In 1879, the CMS missionaries in Osaka were joined by a former missionary in Hong Kong, Miss Mary Jane Oxlad (d. 1922)12 of the British Society for the Promotion of Female Education. In June 1879, she started a girls’ school, the Eisei Jo Gakko¯ (Ọ⏕ዪᏛᰯ, later renamed in 1890 Bishop Poole Memorial Girls’ School ࣉ࣮ ࣝዪᏛᰯ),13 with three boarders and eleven day students.14 In 1884 the school was located in the treaty settlement, Kawaguchi Gaikokujin Kyoryûchi (ᕝཱྀእᅜேᒃ␃ᆅ, now Osaka City West Ward Kawaguchi), at lot no. 3, and opposite to Warren’s house at lot no. 4.15 In 1881, George Henry Pole (1850–1929) arrived to reinforce the CMS group. Pole had worked for three years as an engineer for the Japanese government helping to build the Hanshin railway before returning to England to take theological training at Cambridge University. Pole was useful because he could design buildings, and would be the architect of the theological college that the CMS built in Osaka. In 1882, Warren began a divinity class in his own home in Osaka. Two years later the Osaka Theological College (also known as Trinity College, ୕୍⚄Ꮫᰯ) was opened with Pole as its first principal.16 The funds for the buildings were provided through a special grant from the W.C. Jones China and Japan Fund. In 1895, Canon Henry Baker Tristam (1822–1906) of Durham, on visiting the theological college, declared that its buildings were excellent and its quadrangle ‘has quite an Oxford air’.17 Warren became the Principal of Trinity College in 1883 but the ill-health of his wife meant that he had to return to England in 1885, and, unfortunately, Mrs Warren died within the year. From 1885 until 1899, Pole was the Principal of the Trinity College. It was a divinity college on a modest scale for between 1884 and its closure in 1908, there were only some sixtythree graduates.18 Yet, among them was Terasawa Hisayoshi (ᑎἑஂ ྜྷ, died 1945) who became priest at Trinity Church and later worked in San Francisco,19 Koba Magohiko (ᮌᗞᏞᙪ, 1855–1928),20 a Kumamoto samurai who became the vice-president of Trinity College in 1905, and Fukata Naotarô (῝⏣┤ኴᮁ, 1866–1945)21 who 171

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was baptized by Warren and went on to teach at Trinity College as well as proving to be an energetic evangelist in Osaka. The success of the CMS Mission depended greatly on the evangelistic ability of these men to help draw other Japanese into the church. At the same time, the development of Trinity College and the opening of the Eisei Jo Gakko provided not only educational opportunities for the early converts but also employment as teachers. The need for education did not stop with the opening of the theological college and the girls’ school. In September 1884, Warren opened Trinity Boy’s School (୕୍ᑠᏛᰯ) in the treaty port concession with eleven pupils.22 In 1886, the school had forty-two students of whom fifteen were boarders. In 1890, a High School (㧗➼ⱥᏛᰯ) was opened and the now two schools moved from the treaty settlement to a site some three miles away in metropolitan Osaka. At the end of 1890, a new dormitory for students with a pronounced Western feeling to it and whose facilities included tennis courts was built in a new location, which was popularly known as Momoyama.23 In 1890, there were approximately a hundred students of whom fifty were boarders. In 1896 the name of the school was changed to Momoyama. The school enjoyed considerable growth during the 1890s. However, the efficacy of the boys’ school as an agency that resulted in many of its students becoming Christians can perhaps be challenged, but still a steady number of them were baptized. The chapel of the Momoyama School would become St Andrew’s Church (኱㜰⪷࢔ࣥࢹࣝᩍ఍). The school provided an education in a Christian atmosphere with an emphasis on English studies but it faced competition from the rapid development of municipal and government schools during the 1890s and from the need to comply to government educational regulations especially in regards to the teaching of Christianity in the classroom in order to achieve government recognition. Warren was a member of staff of the boys’ school from the beginning, and his son Charles Theodore joined the faculty in 1908, the same year that he was named in charge of the Principal of main school (タ❧⪅). In 1902 his brother Horace George was named temporarily Principal of the High and Middle School.24 THE OSAKA CONFERENCE AND EXPANSION OF THE MISSION

In April 1883, the second conference of the Protestant missionaries of Japan was held in the municipal hall in the treaty concession in Osaka.25 It was attended by one hundred and six missionaries (fiftyeight men and forty-eight women) representing sixteen missionary societies, four Bible societies, and two societies working for seamen.26 Warren was a key organizer of the conference and one of the 172

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three chairmen of it.27 The conference generated optimism about the future prospects of Christianity, even possibly the immediate Christianization of Japan. Pole was one CMS missionary who thought this goal might be achievable because of the recent progress but still malleable state of Japan.28 Warren was one of the voices at the conference who called for a united appeal to the Churches represented in Japan to send out ‘educationalists for the schoolroom, theological professors for the college, zealous evangelists for the open field, men of ripe Christian experience and thoroughly acquainted with the native character to guide and help the native churches to the higher Christian life’.29 This was much in line with his drive to open mission schools in Osaka. Evangelistic work was also extended beyond Osaka. This largely followed along networks of friends and acquaintances of Japanese converts.30 In 1884–1885, work was begun in Hiroshima, which was easy to reach from Osaka by sea, and overland to Fukuyama, and to Matsue on the Japan Sea coast. Evington was also able to make contact with some Russian Orthodox converts in Tokushima on Shikoku who asked him for further Christian instruction. In 1884, Warren was able to baptize seven adults there. In 1886 Makioka Tetsuya (∾ᒸ㕲ᘺ1855–1919),31 a Japanese catechist was posted to Tokushima. In 1888 it was decided to open a regular mission station in Tokushima, and the newly-arrived William Pengelly Buncombe (1856–1942) and his wife were stationed there.32 The expansion of the CMS mission beyond Osaka was certainly in keeping with Warren’s hopes for the rapid spread of Christianity in the years after the Osaka conference. The prominent position of Osaka as a CMS mission centre was confirmed when the first British Anglican missionary bishop of Japan, Arthur William Poole (1852–1885),33 came out to Japan in December 1883 and made Osaka his ecclesiastical seat. Unfortunately, Poole was only there for ten months before he returned to England to die in Shrewsbury. His successor, Edward Bickersteth (1850–1897), chose to live in Tokyo. In 1887, Osaka was the site of the first Anglican General Conference in Japan which resulted in the formation of the Nippon Seiko¯kai. (᪥ᮏ⪷බ఍, NSKK).34 One of the results of the ecclesiastical organization of the new Church was that Warren was made archdeacon for the Osaka region in 1888. LITERARY TASKS AND DEATH

Like many of his CMS missionary contemporaries, Warren as well as his evangelistic activities was also involved in making translations of Anglican materials. While in Hong Kong in the 1860s, Warren edited a new edition of a catechism that had been translated from the 173

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Sarawak language into Chinese, and an anthology of family prayers into Chinese.35 In 1878, he edited and published in Osaka a hymn book containing thirty hymns for use in Anglican churches.36 In 1896 at the fifth general meeting of the Nippon Seiko¯kai, Warren was one of a five-man committee tasked with compiling an Anglican hymnal, which was later published in 1902.37 In 1879, he published in Osaka an Anglican Prayer Book (ᖺ୰⪷᪥⚃, Year Round Sunday Celebratory Addresses).38 Primarily, though, he was an evangelist. In June 1899 when Warren was on an evangelistic trip to Fukuyama, he had a bad fall and hit his head. Even though his son, Charles Theodore, rushed with a doctor from Kobe, there was nothing that could be done and he died soon after.39 During the twenty-six years that he had worked as a missionary in Osaka, Warren had laid down the foundations of CMS work there. The educational institutions that he helped to establish, Momoyama Gakuin University and associated schools and Poole Gakuin, are still in existence, and his contribution is recognized. There are some twenty-two Anglican churches in what is now Osaka diocese. His career was about making a mark at the local level, which is still remembered by the Japanese Anglican community in Osaka. It was a manifestation of Anglo-Japanese relations of the person-to-person type. Life for Warren would have been very different had he remained in Margate. Missionary work first in Hong Kong and then Osaka allowed him to escape from what might well have been a much more humdrum existence. His sons continued the connection with Japan and in service to the Church, but there is a sting in this family relationship with Osaka and Japan for C.F. Warren’s grandson, D.F.W. Warren, one of William Slim’s divisional commanders, was killed in Burma in the War against the Japanese. Yet such ironic twists are not unusual in family histories, and do not detract from the lasting positive legacy that has resulted from the Warrens going to Osaka. ENDNOTES 1

2

For a short biographical note for Archdeacon C.F. Warren, see Nihon Kirisutokyo¯ Rekishi Daijiten Henshu¯ Iinkai, Nihon Kirisutokyo¯ Rekishi Daijiten (᪥ᮏ࢟ࣜࢫࢺᩍṔྐ኱஦඾, Dictionary of Japanese Christian History) (Tokyo: Kyo¯bunkan, 1988) hereafter cited as NKRD, p. 1548. See also Nippon Seiko¯kai Rekishi Henshu¯ Iinkai, Akashi Bitotachi: Nippon Seiko¯kai Jinbutsushi ࠶࠿ࡋࡧ࡜ࡓࡕ㸸᪥ᮏ⪷බ఍ே≀ ྐ, Witnesses: A History of the Leading Personalities in the Nippon Seiko¯kai) (Tokyo: Nippon Seikôkai Shuppan Jigyo¯bu, 1974), hereafter cited as Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 23–25. Charles Theodore graduated from Corpus Christi, Cambridge in 1890. His father officiated his marriage to Catherine Florence Wolston (1862– 1945) in Osaka in May 1892. On his return to England, he became the

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3

4

5

6 7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17

18

19

20 21 22 23

vicar of Chilthorne Dormer in Somerset. His son, Theodore Stewart Warren was killed in 1916. Horace George Warren spent much of his life after he left Japan in Ireland where he became Canon of Kilteskill. Canon Warren’s son, Acting Major-General Dermot Frederick William Warren CBE DSO (1895–1945), commander of the 5th Indian Infantry Division, died in an air crash in Burma in February 1945. The information for Warren’s early life comes from Mrs Kenneth Warren, Pewsey, Wiltshire. Momoyama Gakuin Hyakunenshi Hensan Iinkai, Momoyama Gakuin Hyakunenshi (᱈ᒣᏛ㝔ⓒᖺྐ, The Centennial History of Momoyama Gakuin University) (Osaka: Momoyama, 1987), hereafter cited Momoyama, p. 35. For the work of American Protestant Episcopalian missionaries in Osaka prior to Warren’s arrival see Hamish Ion, American Missionaries Christian Oyatio and Japan 1859–73 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2009), pp. 203–210. Akashi Bitotachi, p. 23. Nippon Seiko¯kai Rekishi Hensan Iinkai, Nippon Seiko¯kai Hyakunenshi ( ᪥⪷බ఍ⓒྐ, The Centennial History of the Nippon Seiko¯kai) (Tokyo: Nippon Seiko¯kai Kyômuin Bunsho Kyoku, 1959), hereafter cited Hyakunenshi, p. 68. Eugene Stock, The History of the Church Missionary Society, 4 vols. Volume 3 (London: Church Missionary Society, 1899), p. 596. Hyakunenshi, p. 68. For Evington, see NKRD, p. 188; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 28–29. Hyakunenshi, p. 69. For Oxlad, see NKRD, p. 263. For the Poole School, see NKRD, pp. 1243–1244. Hyakunenshi, p. 69. Momoyama, p. 59. Trinity Church and Trinity Boys’ School occupied lot no. 12, which was beside Warren’s house. George Pole lived at lot no. 9, which was across from the home of John McKim (1852–1936), the American Protestant Episcopalian missionary. Trinity College was at lot no. 18. There were twenty-six lots in the treaty settlement, the majority of them in 1884 were occupied by missionaries and their various churches and institutions rather than by Western merchants and their godowns. Ibid., pp. 279–280. H.B. Tristam, Rambles in Japan: The Land of the Rising Sun (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1895), p. 228. Hyakunenshi, p. 280. Trinity College was closed as theological training was to be concentrated in the new Central Theological College in Tokyo. For a description of Terasawa at work, see Tristam, Rambles in Japan, pp. 232–233. For Koba, see NKRD, p. 533; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 226–228. For Fukata, see NKRD, p. 1197; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 190–192. Momoyama, pp. 49–51. Momoyama, pp .76–79. 175

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24

25 26

27

28 29 30

31

32

33 34 35 36

37 38

39

Momoyama, pp. 941,927, 933. As H.G. Warren had apparently returned to England by this time, it is unlikely that he held the position in more than name. What it does show, however, was that both brothers were involved with Momoyama. The First Conference had been held in Yokohama in 1872. Otis Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan: Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Protestant Missions (Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle, 1982 edition), p. 164. The others were the American Presbyterian, James Curtis Hepburn (1815–1911) and the American Methodist Episcopal Robert Samuel Maclay (1824–1907). Pole cited in Fox, Britain and Japan, p. 530. Warren cited in Fox, Britain and Japan, pp. 530–531. Eugene Stock cites the example of a Mrs Kubota in Osaka who became a shampooer in order to be able to evangelize her customers, and as a result of persuading a visiting young doctor and his wife to read the New Testament, a village on Japan’s north coast where the doctor lived was opened to Christian work. See Stock, History of the Church Missionary Society, volume 3, p. 235. For Makioka, see NKRD, pp. 1309–1310; see also Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 76–78. For a short description of the beginning of CMS work in Tokushima, see entries for Tokushima Immanuel Church (ᚨᓥ࢖࣐ࢾ࢚ࣝᩍ఍) and Tokushima Ken (ᚨᓥ┴) in NKRD, pp. 943–944. For Poole, see NKRD, p. 1243; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 102–104. Hyakunenshi, pp. 115–136. Momoyama, p. 40. Teshirogi Shunichi, Nihon Purotesutanto Sambika Seikashi Jiten, Meiji hen, A Dictionary of Japanese Protestant Hymns and Chants, Meiji Edition) (Kamakura: Minatonohito, 2008), p. 237. Warren contributed hymns to other Anglican hymnals in the 1880s and 1902, see pp. 243, 295. Hyakunenshi, p. 342. Ebisawa Arimichi, Nihon no Seisho: Seisho wayaku no rekishi ᪥ᮏࡢ⪷ ᭩㸸⪷᭩࿴ヂࡢṔྐThe Bible of Japan: A History of the Translation of the Bible into Japanese) (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyo¯dan Shuppan Kyoku, 1981), p. 266. Momoyama, p. 39.

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15

Barclay Fowell Buxton (1860–1946): Evangelistic Missionary in Japan HAMISH ION

B.F. Buxton in 1913

INTRODUCTION

Barclay Fowell Buxton (1860–1946)1 was an independent evangelistic missionary associated with the Church Missionary Society (CMS) who first came out to Japan in 1890. He is best-known for creating the Matsue Christian Band (ᯇỤࣂࣥࢻ)2 and forming in 1903, at the Keswick Convention, the Japan Evangelistic Band (JEB, Nihon Dendôtai,᪥ᮏఏ㐨㝲),3 an evangelistic missionary organization, with his colleague, Alpheus Paget Wilkes (1871–1934).4 Cyril Powles has noted that ‘British missionary societies reflected the tendency of Englishmen to form voluntary associations for specific purposes,’5 and Buxton and Paget Wilkes in establishing the JEB were certainly conforming to that. The JEB stressed pure evangelism. In 1913 Buxton wrote that he believed that Japan ‘does not need a ritualistic religion for she already has one. She does not need 177

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an intellectual Gospel, for she has found that education, alone, does not transform and build character. She wants the religion of God who answers by Fire.’6 For Buxton, ‘Fire’ was the living, personal, Holy Spirit, which was God’s great answer to all real prayer. He was an evangelist first and foremost, and not interested in creating brick and mortar institutions. This essay focuses on his first years in Japan when he was still a CMS missionary, and the formation of the Matsue Christian Band. Barclay Buxton, while he was extraordinary in the scope of his activity which ultimately went beyond the CMS in Japan and the Church of England, fits into a pattern of British Anglican missionary activity in Meiji and Taisho¯ Japan. Missionary work was often a family affair, with husbands and wives, fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and extended family serving in the mission field or manning support organizations at home aimed at engendering financial giving or continued interest in a specific mission or project. Among Buxton’s missionary contemporaries, the Hutchinsons, the Shaws, and the Warrens were missionary families where sons followed fathers into the Japan mission field. Even more common were combinations of fathers and daughters or brothers and sisters, which would include only looking at the beginning of the alphabet of British Anglicans serving in Japan: Andrews, Bosanquet, Boutflower, Burnside, Buxton, Cockram. Ensor and Foss.7 The Bickersteth family offers an example of continued family identification with the institutions that Bishop Edward Bickersteth (1850–1897) had created through their support of the home organizations of St Hilda’s and St Andrew’s Missions in the South Tokyo diocese of the Nippon Seiko¯kai (᪥ᮏ⪷බ఍, the Japanese Anglican Church, NSKK).8 Financial help from friends and family was crucial for Lionel Cholmondeley (1858–1945) who could not have built St Barnabas Church in Ushigome, Tokyo or St George’s, Bonin Islands, without it.9 Walter Weston (1860–1940) was another missionary who came from a wealthy family and liberally spent its wealth in support of church projects.10 Like Barclay Buxton whose extended family had many prominent figures in it, there are many examples, especially among single women missionaries, of missionaries with famous relatives including Audrey M. Henty (1878–1970), Amy Kathleen Woolley (1887–1976), Katherine Tristam (1858–1948) and Susan Ballard (1863–1945). Buxton was by no means unusual among British Anglican missionaries in Japan in terms of the family background (Cholmondeley had barons and earls in his family tree, Buxton only baronets) or even money (except that probably Buxton and his family were much wealthier than most others).

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BARCLAY FOWELL BUXTON (1860–1946)

Other British Anglican missionaries before Buxton had thought of schemes to bring out more missionaries, both men and women, to Japan. Arthur Lloyd (1852–1911) had thought in the 1880s about the creation of a teaching mission, an evangelistic band of young Englishmen to aid in the spread of the Christian message through taking advantage of the Japanese demand for English-language teachers in school.11 Edward Bickersteth had created the St Andrew’s and St Hilda’s Missions in the South Tokyo diocese based loosely on the model of the Cambridge University Mission to Delhi.12 What was different about the JEB, which Buxton and Wilkes formed in 1903, was that it was not about creating educational institutions or building churches, it was about evangelizing and spreading the pure Christian Gospel message. The home organization in Britain was under the chairmanship of Buxton himself and then his son, Barclay Godfrey Buxton (1895–1986). It was a family affair. Buxton family history would suggest that Africa was the logical place for a Buxton to have a missionary interest in.13 Indeed B.F. Buxton’s son, Alfred Buxton (1891–1940), was a missionary in the Congo and Ethiopia, but Barclay himself went to Japan. Beer, largely in the form of porter, was at the heart of the Buxton family fortune. Barclay Buxton’s grandfather, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart (1786–1845), MP, social reformer, abolitionist and associate of William Wilberforce (1759–1833), became after 1811 the owner of Truman, Hanbury, Buxton and Co., the East London brewers. As a testament to his wealth and need for space for a growing family, Thomas Fowell Buxton (1822–1908), Barclay’s father, built in 1868 Easneye House,14 Ware, Hertfordshire, set in 2,300 acres. Barclay, named after his mother’s banking relatives, was born in Leytonstone, Essex, in 1860, twelfth of a total of fourteen children. His mother, Rachel Jane Buxton (nee Gurney, 1823–1905), who had Quaker connections, was deeply religious. Barclay was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, receiving his BA in 1883, and MA in 1886. In November 1882, while he was a student at Cambridge, the American revivalist preacher Dwight Lyman Moody (1837–1899) and Ira David Sankey (1840–1908), the Gospel hymn singer and composer, held a great revivalist rally, which greatly influenced Buxton.15 The revivalism that swept up Buxton in England produced the Cambridge Seven, also influenced by Moody’s Cambridge rallies, who volunteered for service with the China Inland Mission in 1885, and in keeping with the emergence of the Student Volunteer Movement in the United States in 1886, which would have an enormous impact on American overseas missionary endeavour.

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Buxton was ordained a deacon in 1884, and a priest in 1885. He was curate of Onslow Square church in London between 1884 and 1887. In 1886 he married Margaret Maria Amelia Railton (d. 1947), the daughter of William Railton (1800–1877), the architect designer of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square, whose family home was in Onslow Square. They had four sons and one daughter.16 From 1887 to 1889 he was curate of Stanwix in Cumberland. In 1890, he became an independent (honorary) missionary (which meant that he received no salary) with the Church Missionary Society. He returned to England in 1902, and the next year became the first chairman of the JEB (initially called the One By One Band in Japan) and left the CMS Japan Mission. It was during this first extended stay from 1890 to 1902 that he was able to form the Matsue Christian Band. THE MATSUE BAND

In November 1890, Buxton arrived in Kobe with his wife and eldest son. They were the leaders of an evangelistic party that included Frederick Parrott (1870–1934)17 and his wife and some six others, including Violet Jane Head (1859–1936). Since 1888, the NSKK had maintained a preaching station in Matsue, but there was no resident priest. In 1891, in response to a request for one from Christians in Matsue, Buxton and his group were posted there. Fortunately, Buxton had as his Japanese assistant from the Kobe diocese, Arato Takuya (Ⲩ◒ᣅဢ, 1860–1931), an experienced evangelist who had been converted to Christianity by Walter Dening (1846–1913) in Hokkaido¯.18 The two key Japanese figures in Matsue who helped Buxton start his missionary work there were Nagano Bujirô (Ọ㔝Ṋ ஧㑻, 1874–1946), who worked in a shop in downtown Matsue and his younger brother Nagano Busaburo¯ (1877–1898), who went on to attend Do¯shisha Middle School (ྠᚿ♫୰Ꮫᰯ) in Kyoto.19 Soon after his arrival in Matsue in 1891, Buxton baptized the two brothers and two others. Quickly these converts and the British evangelists began to proselytize in Matsue and to make evangelistic trips into the surrounding Sanin (ᒣ㝜) region. Buxton established his headquarters on Matsue’s Red Mountain (ᯇỤࡢ㉥ᒣ) where he refurbished a Japanese-style mansion in which there was an evangelist training centre, and accommodation for students. This was a place that allowed young Japanese from different locales to stay for months or even years and to enjoy daily life in a communal setting while they were engaged in Bible study, spiritual training and evangelistic work.20 In the evangelist training centre, Bible lectures were offered to working people beginning at five in the morning. However, for most of the students the training day 180

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began with an hour of prayer and Bible reading followed by three hours of study throughout the morning, which consisted of the Bible study, reading and writing about spiritual training, and writing a letter about Divine nature. The afternoon was taken up by interviews. In the evening there was an assembly, which was not so much taken up with preaching but rather filled with prayer. The study format was designed to engender enthusiasm and competition among the students so that they learnt. Buxton welcomed all as his students and many of them came from outside the NSKK. This posed some difficulty when Bishop Hugh James Foss (1848–1932)21 of Kobe visited Red Mountain in order to confirm Japanese because Buxton had to make sure that those being confirmed did not misunderstand Anglican ideas.22 In his first years in Matsue, Buxton was joined by his sister, Effie Priscilla Buxton (1861–1940),23 who was officially listed as a CMS missionary in Matsue between 1891 and 1893. She engaged in evangelistic work among women. Elizabeth Nash (d. 1947) also came out in 1891 and remained in Matsue for many years after Buxton’s departure as a regular CMS missionary. Oliver Hayward Knight (1875– 1969) was another Buxton recruit to Matsue who in 1899 joined CMS mission as a regular clerical member.24 Much of the benefit for the CMS from Buxton’s early work in Matsue came in the fact that four English members of the original Buxton group became regular CMS missionaries. Buxton’s activities are recognized as helping to strengthen the NSKK in Matsue and that he undertook important pioneering evangelistic work in surrounding Sanin region. He was seen as being important in helping to establish churches including in Yonago (⡿Ꮚ) and Hirose (ᗈ℩).25 There were also Japanese converts who joined the NSKK as a result of Buxton’s work. Among other Japanese who came to form the Matsue Band was Takeda Shunzo¯ (➉⏣ಇ㐀, 1873–1950)26who had been baptized a Christian in 1889, and gone to Do¯shisha in 1893 where he heard Buxton speak and was deeply influenced. With Paget Wilkes’ encouragement, Takeda became an evangelist, and later active in the JEB. Christian ideas often spread through a convert’s network of family and friends, and in the Matsue Band’s case Takeda’s school friends at the Do¯shisha Middle School were particularly important. Anothermember was Mitani Tanekichi (1868–1945)27 who, after graduating from Do¯shisha, joined a foreign business in Kobe where an Italian taught him music. As he was talented in English, Mitani acted as an interpreter and translator for Buxton. From 1893, he engaged in musical evangelism with his accordion. Fujimoto Ju¯saku (⸨ᮏᑑ స, 1873–1969) was yet another Christian Do¯shisha graduate who in 1896 became an NSKK evangelist in Matsue and later a priest in Osaka diocese. 181

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A later member, Sasao Tetsusaburo¯ (➲ᑿ㕲୕㑻, 1868–1914),28 was a Keio Gijuku (៞᠕⩏ሿ) college graduate who had gone to study at university in California where he had become a Christian and a missionary to the Japanese immigrants in the Pacific Northwest. In 1894, Sasao had returned to Japan, and only met Buxton and started to cooperate in evangelistic work with him in 1899. Sasao became a member of the Japan Holiness Church (To¯yo¯ Senkyo¯kai Nihon Horinesu Kyo¯kai, ᮾὒᐉᩍ఍᪥ᮏ࣮࣍ࣜࢿࢫᩍ఍)29 and became the principal of its Bible School in Tokyo. Kawabe Teikichi (Ἑ㎶㈆ ྜྷ, 1864–1953)30 was another who came into contact with Buxton after he returned from the United States in 1894. He was associated with the Free Methodist Church of Japan (Nihon Jiyu¯ Mesojisuto Kyo¯dan, ᪥ᮏ⮬⏤࣓ࢯࢪࢫࢺᩍᅋ) and evangelized for them in the rural areas around Matsue. Buxton was clearly able to attract energetic and enthusiastic Japanese evangelists to the Matsue Band. The leaders among them, like the Do¯shisha graduates, were highly educated, English-speaking and often already Christians by the time that Buxton had contact with them. As was clear in the case of Sasao and Kawabe, Buxton’s appeal went beyond the confines of Anglican missionary work and was influencing people who were evangelistic in outlook but clearly not Anglican or interested in becoming Anglican. By the end of the 1890s, Buxton was finding his work to promoting solely the interests of the CMS and NSKK restricting, and so the stage was set for the creation of his own non-denominational organization. In this, he was supported by his friend, Paget Wilkes. THE JEB

In October 1903, Wilkes led the first JEB missionary party out to Japan. Ultimately it was decided that Kobe should be the centre of JEB activity. It was there that the JEB’s two major institutions were located: the Kobe Mission Hall and the JEB Kansai Bible College (㛵す⪷᭩⚄Ꮫᰯ)31 which was opened in 1907 as a training school for Japanese evangelists. From 1905, Takeda Shunzo¯ was important in consolidating the Japanese side of the JEB in Kobe. The JEB was known for its aggressive evangelism and emphasis on personal holiness. The JEB did not see itself as a missionary society attempting to establish new churches but rather as an evangelistic agency that assisted existing missions and churches and organizing Christian Conventions for Bible Study and Prayer. ¯ uchi Saburo¯ (኱ෆ୕㑻) Ebisawa Arimichi (ᾏ⪁ἑ᭷㐨) and O make the point that the religious belief held by Buxton and his followers, which called for the propagation of a pure evangelism (⣧ ⚟㡢[୺⩏]), was close to that of the Free Methodists and the Japan Holiness Church.32 Clearly there was a niche place for the JEB on 182

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the fringes of the evolving Christian movement in Japan by training Japanese evangelists. It remained true to its evangelistic roots. In sharp contrast, the mainstream Protestant denominations in Japan including the NSKK by the 1880s had realized that evangelistic fire and the Christian message alone were not enough to convince many Japanese to become Christian, and so decided to invest in educational institutions, hospitals, and Church buildings to attract more Japanese to them. Buxton’s grandfather in 1839 held ideas ahead of his time in his promotion of the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and for the Civilization of Africa. Influenced by Moody, Buxton was applying in Japan the latest evangelistic techniques. In Matsue Buxton was able to generate enthusiasm for Christianity but this was in danger of disappearing when he and his group left. The same could also be said of lasting impact of the mass rallies and Kingdom of God movements that Kagawa Toyohiko (㈡ᕝ㇏ᙪ, 1888–1960), one of Japan’s most famous Christians, conducted, and which generated immediate interest in Christianity but produced less clear results in terms of actual conversions. The lasting benefit of Buxton’s work in Matsue for the NSKK came because it was able both to build the churches and denominational structure that could continue to sustain Christian communities that Buxton’s activities had helped to create and also to employ as regular missionaries or evangelists some of those Britons and Japanese who had belonged to Buxton’s group there. While the Bickersteth and other British Anglican families sought to build up institutions within the NSKK, Buxton had broader interests in creating a voluntary association for specific purposes that could help the Christian movement in Japan as a whole. Even so, the JEB was the creation of Barclay Buxton and his friends. It represented a family commitment to a certain vision of Christian evangelism and to Christian service for the spiritual benefit of the Japanese. Buxton stayed in Japan again between 1913 and 1917. Returning to England, he served between 1921 and 1935 as vicar of Holy Trinity, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. As his tours to many parts of the world after the First World War attest, he became an evangelistic missionary statesman with an international reputation. He went to Japan for the last time in 1937. He travelled extensively throughout Japan and gave a large number of talks to enthusiastic crowds. On his return home, he retired to Wimbledon, where he died in 1946. ENDNOTES 1

For a short biographical note on Buxton, see Nihon Kirisutokyo¯ Rekishi Daijiten Henshû Iinkai, Nihon Kirisutokyo¯ Rekishi Daijiten (᪥ᮏ࢟ࣜ ࢫࢺᩍṔྐ኱஦඾, Dictionary of Japanese Christian History) (Tokyo: 183

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2 3

4 5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Kyo¯bunkan, 1988) hereafter cited as NKRD, p. 1120. See also Nippon Seiko¯kai Rekishi Henshû Iinkai, Akashi Bitotachi: Nippon Seiko¯kai Jinbutsushi (࠶࠿ࡋࡧ࡜ࡓࡕ㸸᪥ᮏ⪷බ఍ே≀ྐ, Witnesses: A History of the Leading Personalities in the Nippon Seiko¯kai) (Tokyo: Nippon Seiko¯kai Shuppan Jigyo¯bu, 1974), hereafter cited as Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 88–90. See NKRD, p. 1321. See NKRD, p. 1061. The organization, which Buxton founded, still exists to the present day with its British side, now known as Japan Christian Link, directing its efforts towards the Japanese communities in Europe. The Nihon Dendo¯tai under Japanese management continues to work in Japan. See NKRD, p. 157. Cyril H. Powles, Victorian Missionaries in Meiji Japan: The Shiba Sect, 1873–1900, (Toronto: University of Toronto-York University Joint Centre on Modern East Asia, 1987), p. 46. Paget Wilkes, Missionary Joys in Japan or Leaves from My Journal (New York: George H. Doran Company), p. viii. Buxton believed the Fire was the living, personal, Holy Spirit, which was God’s great answer to all real prayer. See Nippon Seiko¯kai Rekishi Henshu¯ Iinkai, Nippon Seiko¯kai Ekisha Meibo (᪥ᮏ⪷බ఍ᙺ⪅ྡ⡙, Register of Ministers and Church Workers of the Nippon Seiko¯kai) (Tokyo: Nippon Seiko¯kai Kanku Jimusho¯, 1981). For a short biographical note for Bickersteth see NKRD, pp.1154– 1155; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 104–107. The NSKK had been formed in 1887 by the union of the missions of the CMS, Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) and the Protestant Episcopal Church. The standard history of the NSKK is Nippon Seiko¯kai Rekishi Hensan Iinkai, Nippon Seiko¯kai Hyakunenshi (᪥ᮏ⪷බ఍ⓒ ྐ, The Centennial History of the Nippon Seiko¯kai) (Tokyo: Nippon Seiko¯kai Kyo¯muin Bunsho Kyoku, 1959). As Buxton resigned from the CMS in 1903, his Matsue activities are documented as part of NSKK history, but the activities of the JEB are not as the latter was not part of the NSKK. As far as the Nippon Seikôkai Ekisha Meibo is concerned he departed from Japan in 1902 and that was the end of his career, see entry p. 87. See Hamish Ion, ‘Lionel Berners Cholmondeley: A Chaplain in Tokyo, 1887–1921,’ in Ian Nish, editor, Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, hereafter cited as BP, Volume II (Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 1997), pp. 180–189. See A.H. Ion, ‘Mountain High and Valley Low: Walter Weston (1861– 1940) and Japan,’ in Sir Hugh Cortazzi and Gordon Daniels, editors, Britain and Japan 1859–1991: Themes and Personalities (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), pp. 94–106. Hamish Ion, ‘Arthur Lloyd (1852–1911 and Japan: Dancing with Amida,’ in Hugh Cortazzi, compiler and editor, Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, hereafter cited as BP, Volume VII (Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental, 2010), pp. 402–419, p. 406.

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12

13

14 15

16

17

18

19

20 21 22 23

Hamish Ion, ‘The Archdeacon and the Bishop: Alexander Croft Shaw, Edward Bickersteth, and Meiji Japan,’ in J.E. Hoare, editor, BP, Volume III (Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 1999), pp. 108–120, p. 117, Max Warren notes that Thomas Fowell Buxton, the chief promoter of the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and for the Civilization of Africa, when he produced the Prospectus for the new Society in 1839 was ahead of his time in his ideas for African development. As it turned out the immediate enterprises of the Society were not conspicuously successful. See Max Warren, Social History and Christian Mission (London: SCM Press, 1967), pp. 125–126. Now the site of All Nations College. Ho¯rinesu Bando Showa Kirisutokyo¯ Dan’atsu Shi Kanko¯kai, Ho¯rinesu Bando no Kiseki: Ribaibaru to Kirisutokyo¯ Dan’atsu (࣮࣍ࣜࢿࢫࣂࣥࢻ ࡢ㌶㊧㸸ࣜࣂ࢖ࣂࣝ࡜࢟ࣜࢫࢺᩍᙎᅽ, The Wagon Tracks of the Holiness Band: Revival and Christian Oppression) (Tokyo: Shinkyo¯ Shuppansha, 1983), pp. 16–17. Dohi Akio (ᅵ⫧᫛ኵ) stresses that Buxton brought Moody’s evangelistic ideas to play in his work in Japan. See Dohi Akio, Rekishi no Sho¯gen: Nihon Purotesutanto Kirisutokyo¯shi yori (Ṕ ྐࡢドゝ㸸᪥ᮏࣉࣟࢸࢫࢱࣥࢺ࢟ࣜࢫࢺᩍྐࡼࡾ, The Testimony of History: From the History of Japanese Protestant Christianity) (Tokyo: Kyo¯bunkan, 2004),p. 13; see also Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 88–89. His sons born between 1889 and 1895 were of prime military age at the beginning of the First World War. Murray Barclay Buxton (1889–1940) was wounded as was his brother, Barclay Godfrey Buxton (1895–1986). George Barclay Buxton (1892–1917) was killed by the same shell blast that crippled his brother Godfrey for life. Unfortunately, Murray Barclay Buxton and his brother Alfred Barclay Buxton (1891–1940) were both killed in Church House in London in 1940 when it was hit by a bomb during the Blitz. In 1899 Parrott joined the British and Foreign Bible Society as its Japan manager. See Nihon Seisho Kokai, Nihon Seisho Kyo¯kai Hyakunenshi (᪥ᮏ⪷᭩༠఍ⓒᖺ㸯㸮㸮ᖺྐ, The Hundred Year History of the Japan Bible Society) (Nihon Seisho Kyo¯kai, 1975), p. 113. For Arato, see NKRD, p. 65; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 91–92. In the aftermath of the Sino-Japanese War, Arato became the first NSKK missionary in Taiwan. For Walter Dening, see Hamish Ion, ‘Walter Dening (1846–1913) and Japan,’ in Hugh Cortazzi, compiler and editor, BP, Volume VII (Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental, 2010), pp. 384–401. For both Nagano Busaburo¯ and Nagano Bujiro¯, see entries in NKRD, p. 994. Nagano Bujiro¯ eventually became a NSKK clergyman. He spoke good English and worked for a time as a priest in Australia and later in Taiwan. In 1936 he took charge of the NSKK Church in Fengtian (Mukden), Manchuria. Akashi Bitotachi, p. 89. See NKRD, p. 1194; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 25–27. See NKRD, p. 1194; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 25–27. Ibid., p. 89. Effie Buxton married in 1893, which it can be assumed was the reason that she left Japan.

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24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Eugene Stock, The History of the Church Missionary Society, 4 vols. Volume 4 (London: Church Missionary Society, 1915), p. 355. Hyakunenshi, pp. 263–264. See NKRD, p. 836. See NKRD, p. 1359. See NKRD, p. 571. See NKRD, p. 939. See NKRD, p. 339, See NKRD, p. 345. ¯ uchi Saburô, Nihon Kirisutokyo¯shi (᪥ᮏ࢟ࣜ Ebisawa Arimichi and O ࢫࢺᩍྐ, A History of Japanese Christianity) (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyo¯dan Shuppan Kyoku, 1971), p. 254; see also pp. 450–451.

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16

The Archdeacon and the Canon: The Hutchinsons of Japan HAMISH ION

Christ Church, Yokohama, founded 1863

INTRODUCTION

In retirement the former canon of Fukuoka lived in Bristol, much colder if not bleaker than either Kyu¯shu¯ where he had spent so many years or the West Indies where he worked in the war years after 1941. Archibald Campbell Hutchinson (1883–1981) was a member of the second generation of his family to serve as Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries in Japan, and like his father, Archdeacon Arthur Blockey Hutchinson (1841–1918)1 worked in Kyu¯shu¯ diocese of the Nippon Seiko¯kai (᪥ᮏ⪷බ఍, Japan Anglican Church). His younger brother, Ernest Gordon Hutchinson (1889–1973) also served in Japan but in Kobe and Tokyo dioceses rather than in Kyu¯shu¯. This article focuses on the archdeacon and his son, the

187

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canon, who were both significant Anglican missionary figures in Kyu¯shu¯ diocese. A.B. Hutchinson was the son of a cloth merchant in London. Although Hutchinson wanted to become a missionary early in life, his father insisted that it was his duty as the eldest son to enter the family firm and business. It was only after a bank failure in which the family lost everything that his father allowed him to do as he wanted. Hutchinson was twenty-five when he offered himself to the CMS, attending their training college in Islington and graduating in 1867. After ordination and a curacy in England, Hutchinson was sent to Hong Kong in 1871. The ministry and then missionary work allowed both Hutchinson and his CMS colleague, Charles Frederick Warren (1841–1899),2 who had few financial or social advantages, to break away from the pattern of long hours, financial insecurity, and trade which characterized the history of their families. Missionary work was the path which provided the opportunity of upward social movement for themselves and their children. The opportunity of being a missionary in Japan undoubtedly brought with it the possibility of a higher standard of living than that which a rural curate with a growing family could ever hope to aspire to. If Hutchinson and Warren had to struggle to reach first Hong Kong and then Japan, the second generation of Hutchinsons and Warrens, like the second generation of CMS missionaries generally, were Monkton Combe and Oxford graduates. There was a strong element of self-improvement at work in both families. HONG KONG AND LITERARY ENDEAVOURS

Arriving in 1871, Hutchinson served as priest at St Stephen Mission Church, which had a solely Chinese congregation. For much of his time there, which lasted until 1879 when he returned to England on furlough, he was the only CMS actively evangelizing among the Chinese in Hong Kong. His missionary activities at St Stephen in terms of conversions and growing the Chinese congregation appeared to have been quite successful, the number of baptized Christians, for instance, rising from 25 in 1871 to 157 in 1879.3 Yet it was his literary and translation work that should be highlighted during his time in Hong Kong. According to Canon Hutchinson, his father had a good knowledge of Chinese and translated the Prayer Book into Cantonese. This was true, but his languages also included German as well as later Japanese, all of which he used in his translation work. In 1872, John Shaw Burdon (1826–1907) who became Bishop of Victoria (Hong Kong) in 1873 had translated the Anglican Prayer Book into Mandarin together with Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky (1831– 188

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1906),4 the missionary bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of America in Shanghai from 1877 to 1883. This Mandarin Prayer Book in roman characters was the basis for Hutchinson’s Cantonese translation, which was published in its entirety in 1878. The Psalter had appeared as early as 1875. The issue of the term question5 also made an appearance in these translations for Hutchinson used the term Theos [ୖᖇ] for God in deference to his Cantonese speaking congregation at St Stephen instead of Lord of Heaven [ኳ୺] which Bishop Burdon preferred.6 As well as Prayer Book translation, Hutchinson was also interested in Chinese philosophy, especially Mencius. He was responsible for translating a work on Mencius7 by E. Faber of the Rhenish Mission Society into English, which he completed in Exeter while on furlough in England in late 1881. Hutchinson believed that his translation efforts would contribute ‘to the much to-be-desired transference of the Chinese from the sway of the “mind of Mencius” to the easy yoke and rightful dominion of the “mind of Christ”.’8 Other translations of Chinese philosophy, which appeared in The China Review and Chinese Missionary Recorder between 1872 and 1879 were later collected together as a single bound volume. Hutchinson thought that the better acquainted missionaries were with Chinese philosophy, the easier it would be for them to understand the Chinese mind and to comprehend the difficulties the literati had when confronted with the Christian message.9 There was very much a clear Christian aim in this translation work, which was ‘carried on amidst numberless distractions incidental to the sole management of a steadily increasing Mission from 1872 to 1879’.10 In 1879 he returned to England on furlough. During this furlough spent in Exeter his first wife who was a member of the Wippell family, the ecclesiastical suppliers of Exeter, died, leaving their six children motherless. His second wife, Elizabeth Wippell Gibbings, came from a farming family who were relatives of the Wippells. Another six children resulted from this second marriage, of whom the future Canon of Fukuoka, who was born in Nagasaki, was the eldest, and Ernest, the youngest son. Instead of returning to work in Hong Kong, the CMS decided to transfer Hutchinson to Japan. Burdon, as Bishop of Victoria, did have ecclesiastical supervision over CMS missionaries in Japan before Arthur William Poole (1852–1885)11 was made the first British bishop resident there in 1883. It was by no means unusual to transfer China missionaries to Japan for C.F. Warren had also served in Hong Kong, and at St Stephen, between 1865 and 1873 before being translated to Osaka in 1873; likewise, John Piper (1840–1932) had served there from 1869 before being posted to Tokyo in 1874, and John Batchelor (1854–1944), had been a student of Bishop Burdon’s at St Paul’s College in Hong Kong from 189

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1876 before going to Hokkaido¯.12 In May 1882, Hutchinson arrived in Nagasaki where he joined Herbert Maundrell (1840–1896),13 who had been invalided from Mauritius and Madagascar and transferred to Nagasaki in 1875. NAGASAKI AND FUKUOKA

The American Protestant Episcopal mission had opened work in Nagasaki in 1859, and had built the first Protestant Chapel in Japan there.14 In 1869, the CMS took over Anglican missionary work in Nagasaki15 and by the time that Hutchinson arrived in 1882 the mission under Maundrell was well-established. The mission expanded along networks of friends and acquaintances. In 1876, for instance, Maundrell baptized Koba Magohiko (ᮌᗞᏞᙪ, 1855–1928)16 from Kumamoto who was later responsible for opening evangelistic work in Kagoshima. A friend of Mizuno Isao (Ỉ㔝ຌ, 1854–1926), an early Japanese Anglican evangelist, Yoshii Kiyonari (ྜྷ஭Ύᡂ) was also important in the beginning of Anglican work in Kagoshima and the founding of the Kagoshima Futsukatsu Kyo¯kai (㮵ඣᓥ᚟άᩍ఍)17 In 1877 Maundrell baptized Ko¯ Tsunetaro¯ (ὥᜏኴ㑻, 1856–1938),18 the scion of a Saga han samurai family, at the Deshima Church in Nagasaki which led to missionary work being undertaken in Saga by 1881. Key to this expansion was the opening of a theological school by Maundrell in Nagasaki in 1877 in order to train those who wanted to become school teachers, catechists or ordained clergymen. The first pupils included those Japanese mentioned above who went to open Anglican work in Kagoshima, Kumamoto and Saga. As Grace Fox points out, Vice-Admiral Sir Alfred Ryder (1820–1888), C in C China Station and son of a Bishop of Lichfield, visited the theological school shortly after its opening and gave generously together with his officers to its support.19 Unfortunately, the Nagasaki Theological College was closed in 1882 when CMS decided to concentrate their theological training at the Osaka Theological College, which C.F. Warren played a prominent role in opening. Nevertheless, by 1882 the CMS were operating a small girls’ boarding school in Nagasaki and had eight day schools there and at their outstations in Kagoshima and Kumamoto. Hutchinson worked in Nagasaki from 1882 to 1885 helping Maundrell at the Deshima Church, founding a Seaman’s Institute and engaging in literary work producing in 1887 a handbook on the Gospels (⚟㡢᤼അ౽ぴ).20 As he had been in Hong Kong, he remained very active translating as late as the 1900s. Eugene Stock (1836–1928), the historian of the CMS, noted Hutchinson had translated Lightfoot on the Christian Ministry, Dale on the Atonement 190

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and some other pieces.21 Yet, Hutchinson was at heart an evangelist, and eager to bring Japanese into the Church. In 1885, Hutchinson moved to Fukuoka where his son Ernest was born. Hutchinson would live in Fukuoka until 1911. During this time he was responsible for founding in 1888 the Alpha Church (࢔ࣝࣃᩍ఍), and for extending evangelistic work into Hakata where the Hakata Church (༤ከᩍ఍) was opened in 1901.22 As part of the organizational changes that resulted from the formation of the Nippon Seiko¯kai by the union of the three British Anglican and American Protestant Episcopal missions in 1887, Henry Evington (1848–1912),23 a long-serving CMS missionary in Osaka, was consecrated Bishop of Kyu¯shu¯. Evington lived in Nagasaki, which allowed Hutchinson full rein in northern Kyu¯shu¯. However, in 1909 Arthur Lea (1868–1958),24 a Canadian Anglican, replaced Evington as Bishop of Kyu¯shu¯ and he chose Fukuoka as his place of residence. In 1911 Hutchinson was named archdeacon and moved back to Nagasaki. Together with Ushijima Sôtarô (∵ᓥ᝷ኴ㑻, 1867– 1944)25 and Kurashiki Taketoshi (಴ᩜṊ㥴) who had been trained at Barclay Fowell Buxton (1860–1946)’s Bible School, Hutchinson undertook evangelistic work in central Nagasaki.26 Eventually, old age caught up with him and Hutchinson died in Karuizawa in 1918, and is buried there. THE NEW GENERATION

By that time, both A.C. and E.G. Hutchinson were working in Japan. Ernest who had arrived in 1916 was in the Kansai, and stayed in Japan until 1939. His older brother, Archibald, had come out in 1909, and after three years of language study was placed in charge of half the churches in a diocese that was the size of Ireland. A.C. Hutchinson was based in Kagoshima and was helped by three Japanese priests in charge of self-supporting churches but he had personal responsibility for some ten churches, which were staffed only by Japanese catechists.27 This was typical of the Anglican situation in Kyu¯shu¯, which was served by no more than four British male clerical missionaries. There was also a great shortage of trained Japanese catechists which was made all the more acute when the CMS decided to close the Osaka Theological College in 1916. As few candidates for theological training in Kyu¯shu¯ had more than middle school education, many fell below the standard for entry to the new Anglican Central Theological College (୰ኸ⚄Ꮫ)28 in Tokyo. Bishop Lea’s answer was to train catechists in his own home in Fukuoka, and to impress, successfully as it turned out, on the CMS the need for a Bible School in Kyu¯shu¯ diocese to provide training in practical evangelism, Sunday school work, and doctrinal teaching. In 1918 191

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the CMS opened the Fukuoka Divinity School (⚟ᒸ⚄Ꮫᰯ)in which Lea and Hutchinson were the key missionary teachers.29 The emphasis was on practical training. In 1933, Bishop Lea retired and the Divinity School was closed in part because the need for it had lessened as the Central Theological College in Tokyo had lowered its entrance standards. In 1935 John Charles Mann (1880–1967)30 was consecrated as Bishop of Kyu¯shu¯. Mann’s five years as bishop coincided with growing restlessness within the Nippon Seiko¯kai that increasingly coalesced over continued foreign domination of the house of bishops and was driven by the changing political atmosphere in Japan as the war with China escalated. Hutchinson’s experiences reflected some of the changes taking place. It became difficult for him to evangelize among the Japanese in Fukuoka. Indeed, he wondered whether it was justified to ask for missionary recruits to come out from England to Japan except to undertake specialized work such as theological training. Yet, Hutchinson did maintain during the 1930s that ‘in spite of press propaganda there was no great popular hostility to Britain, but a great deal of failure to understand why a country which had built an Empire by conquest was so critical of Japan for trying to do the same’.31 To him it was not anti-British feeling among Japanese Christians but rather the desire of missionaries to save Japanese Christians from police harassment that led British missionaries to withdraw voluntarily from Japan. This was certainly a rose-tinted view of what occurred in the late 1930s. Yet, Hutchinson had been born in Japan and spent most of his life up until he left Japan in 1941 in that country. There was probably not an Anglican in Kyu¯shu¯ who did not know him or his father before him. The Archdeacon and his sons represent a shining example of Christian service to the Anglican community in Japan, and an abiding British familial commitment to the Japanese people that was broken by the catastrophe of the Second World War in the Pacific. At the same time, it was not all one way for Japan and missionary life there had benefitted the Hutchinsons for it allowed an upwards social and educational advancement that might have taken a good deal longer had not Arthur Blockey Hutchinson determined to give up trade and become a missionary first in Hong Kong and then in Japan. ENDNOTES 1

For a short biographical note about Archdeacon Hutchinson, see Nihon Kirisutokyo¯ Rekishi Daijiten Henshu¯ Iinkai, Nihon Kirisutokyo¯ Rekishi Daijiten (᪥ᮏ࢟ࣜࢫࢺᩍṔྐ኱஦඾, Dictionary of Japanese Christian History) (Tokyo: Kyo¯bunkan, 1988) hereafter cited as NKRD, p. 1120–21. A.C. and E.G. Hutchinson are noted on p. 1121. See also 192

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2 3

4

5

6 7

8 9 10 11 12

13 14

15

16 17

18 19

Nippon Seiko¯kai Rekishi Henshu¯ Iinkai, Akashi Bitotachi: Nippon Seiko¯kai Jinbutsushi (࠶࠿ࡋࡧ࡜ࡓࡕ㸸᪥ᮏ⪷බ఍ே≀ྐ, Witnesses: A History of the Leading Personalities in the Nippon Seiko¯kai) (Tokyo: Nippon Seiko¯kai Shuppan Jigyo¯bu, 1974), hereafter cited as Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 33–34. For C.F. Warren, see NKRD, p. 1548; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 23–24. Rev. A.B. Hutchinson, translator, Chapters of Chinese Philosophy, bound volume in University of Michigan Library [B125.H97] dated 1879, preface. In the preface Hutchinson provides a statistical chart of the membership of St Stephen Mission Church between 1871 and 1879. For Schereschewsky, see NKRD, p. 601. See also Ebisawa Arimichi, Nihon no Seisho: Seisho wayaku no rekishi (᪥ᮏࡢ⪷᭩㸸⪷᭩࿴ヂࡢ Ṕྐ, The Bible of Japan: A History of the Japanese Translation of the Bible) (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyo¯dan Shuppan Kyoku, 2005 edition), pp. 103–104. For the term question and early Protestant attempts to translate the Bible into Chinese and Japanese, see Hamish Ion, ‘British Bible Societies and the Translation of the Bible into Japanese in the Nineteenth Century’, in BP, IX, pp. 185–196, especially pp. 187–189. See entry for A. B. Hutchinson in Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 33–34, p. 33. See Arthur B. Hutchinson, translator and reviser, The Mind of Mencius or Political Economy Founded upon Moral Philosophy: A Systematic Digest of the Chinese Philosopher Mencius B.C. 325. Original text classified and Translated with Notes and Explanations by Rev. E. Faber D.D., Rhenish Mission Society (Ginza: Nippon Seikokwai Shuppan Kwaisha, 2nd edition, 1897). Ibid., p. vii. Hutchinson, Chapters of Chinese Philosophy, preface. Ibid. For A.W. Poole, see NKRD, p. 1243; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 102–104. For Piper, see NKRD, p. 1548;Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 15–17. For Batchelor, see NKRD, p. 1117–18; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 52–55. For Maundrell, see NKRD, p. 1415; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 30–32. For the beginning of American Protestant Episcopal work in Nagasaki, ¯ yatoi and Japan 1859– see Hamish Ion, American Missionaries Christian O 73 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2009), p. 21. For the beginning of CMS work in Nagasaki, see Hamish Ion, The Cross and the Rising Sun: Volume 2: The British Protestant Missionary Movement in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, 1865–1945 (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1993), pp. 23–26. For Koba, see NKRD, p. 533. For Mizuno, see NKRD, p. 1355; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 78–80; for Yoshii, see NKRD, pp. 290, 291. For the Kagoshima Futsukatsu Kyo¯kai, see p. 291. See also Nippon Seiko¯kai Rekishi Hensan Iinkai, Nippon Seiko¯kai Hyakunenshi (᪥ᮏ⪷බ఍ⓒྐ, The Centennial History of the Nippon Seiko¯kai) (Tokyo: Nippon Seiko¯kai Kyo¯muin Bunsho Kyoku, 1959), hereafter cited Hyakunenshi, pp. 75–76. For Kô, see NKRD, p. 506; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 93–95. See Grace Fox, Britain and Japan 1858–1883 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), p. 533. 193

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20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29

30 31

Ebisawa, p. 342. Eugene Stock, The History of the Church Missionary Society, 4 vols. Volume 4 (London: Church Missionary Society, 1916), p. 363. Hyakunenshi, p. 266. For Evington, see NKRD, p. 188; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 28–29. For Lea, see NKRD, p. 1493; Akashi Bitotachi, pp. 122–124. For Ushijima, see NKRD, p. 172; Akashi Bitotachi, pp, 203–205. Akashi Bitotachi, p. 34. Gordon Hewitt, The Problems of Success: A History of the Church Missionary Society, 1910–1942. Volume 2: Asia: Overseas Partners (London: SCM Press, 1977), p. 331. See, Hyakunenshi, pp. 280–282. Ion, Cross and the Rising Sun, volume 2, p. 169; Hyakunenshi, pp. 282– 283. For Mann, see NKRD, p. 1345. Ion, Cross and the Rising Sun, volume 2, pp. 223–224.

194

sPOLITICIANS s

17

The Fifteenth Earl of Derby (1826-1893): Foreign Secretary ROBERT MORTON AND ANDREW COBBING

INTRODUCTION

The Fifteenth Earl of Derby (1826–1893) served twice as Foreign Secretary in Conservative governments, from 1866 to 1868 and again from 1874 to 1878. This portrait is therefore, after this introduction, divided into two parts, treating his first and second stints in office separately. To make things complicated, he has to be described as Lord Stanley in the first part – the courtesy title by which he was known until he succeeded to the title of Lord Derby on the death of his father on 23 October 1869. The Fifteenth Earl’s father was Prime Minister three times, albeit for a total of less than four years, and they are the only father and son to have served together in a British cabinet. In their public manner they were opposites: the father, flamboy195

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ant and dazzling, the son, plodding and conscientious. In photographs, the younger Derby looks overweight and sedentary, but the diplomat A.B. Mitford (who served at the British Legation in Japan in the late 1860s), recorded that he regularly exercised in a gymnasium; Mitford considered that his approach at the Foreign Office was the same he showed in the gym: he had ‘the strength of a bull and the determination of a gladiator, [but] without one spark of enthusiasm’.1 The historian John Vincent uses the adjectives ‘punctual’, ‘exact’, ‘careful’, ‘lonely’ and ‘shy’ to describe him.2 He adds, ‘In most ways he was not a remarkable man. He could not speak on his feet. He had no phrases. He was overshadowed by the black genius of his father and by the arts of Disraeli. He did not represent concentrated power in any form. But he represented integrity.’3 FOREIGN SECRETARY, 1866–1868 (ROBERT MORTON)

Lord Stanley’s two and a half years at the Foreign office in the late 1860s exactly coincided with the critical period in Japan that saw the fall of the Shogun and the Meiji Restoration. However, he showed relatively little interest in the country and almost never mentioned it in his diary. There were, of course, far more pressing matters for a British Foreign Secretary at the time – to name just two, the American Civil War had just ended and the Franco-Prussian War was about to begin. In Japan, there were few British interests at stake, although Britain’s trade with east Asia as a whole was immense, worth around £40 million a year (for comparison, national taxation in the United Kingdom raised less than £70 million a year at the time).4 Most of this money was made in China – Stanley told the House of Commons that Chinese trade was exactly ten times greater than Japanese.5 He was keen that restrictions be removed that were preventing Chinese levels of trade flourishing with Japan. RELATIONSHIP WITH SIR HARRY PARKES

The enactor of Stanley’s policies in Japan was the British Minister, Sir Harry Parkes (1828–1885). The two men could hardly have been more different; Derby was the scion of one of the richest and most powerful aristocratic dynasties in Britain, while Parkes was the son of a Walsall iron merchant. Their correspondence suggests a harmonious, correct relationship, with Stanley displaying a high degree of trust in Parkes. For example, in March 1868, Stanley was telling Parkes, ‘Her Majesty’s Government place full reliance on your discretion in dealing with all the difficult and perplexing questions which may arise out of the existing state of things in Japan.’ Parkes reciprocating by hewing very carefully to the line laid down by Stanley.6 196

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At the same time, Stanley must surely have known about Parkes’ often aggressive manner of diplomacy, which was the antithesis of his own measured style. Indeed, Stanley’s letters to Parkes are peppered with requests to Parkes to be restrained in his dealings with Japanese interlocutors, with much use of phrases such as ‘friendly representation and remonstrance’, ‘representation in moderate terms’ and ‘you may point out in a friendly way’.7 But Parkes had learned his trade in rough postings in China and had no experience of the graceful quadrille of European diplomacy. Perhaps he was simply incapable of keeping his temper when he did not get his way. When he left Japan, a Japanese newspaper wrote of his ‘Smashing of glasses at our prime minister’s table; physically assaulting… an individual now of elevated rank; insulting the ex-minister for foreign affairs, Terashima.’8 If Stanley was aware of this kind of thing, he would probably have felt that it was unfortunate, but excusable in a place like Japan which, if it was not exactly barbaric, was certainly a place that followed its own strange rules. BRITISH NEUTRALITY

Stanley’s policy aims in Japan were modest. He did not care whether Japan was governed by a Shogun or an Emperor, and indeed thought this was none of Britain’s business. He certainly did not intend to colonise Japan or create Chinese-style concessions there, as many Japanese feared. He wanted Britain to remain strictly neutral in any internal conflict and avoid any risk of military involvement, while defending its rights. He expressed it like this to Parkes on 10 March 1868: Her Majesty’s Government have only one object in Japan, the maintenance of friendly intercourse and trade with the ruling Powers and the people of the country. They have no intention of identifying themselves with any party that may spring up, or of aiming at any influence beyond what is required for upholding their Treaty rights. These rights you will steadily uphold, though without enforcing them by any other means than by argument…. [O]nly in the last extremity… is recurrence to be had to force.9

Nevertheless, Ernest Satow and others claimed that the British had quietly supported anti-bakufu domains from as early as 1864.10 Gordon Daniels has disputed this, but it is nevertheless possible to identify some bias in that direction on the part of Parkes, that was condoned, and even occasionally initiated by Stanley.11 For example, in instructions to Parkes dated 28 November 1867, Stanley tells Parkes to make independent arrangements with domains – something that would undermine the Shogunate – instructing him to promote as far 197

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as you can any system which, by securing to the Daimios a fair share in the commerce of Japan, will enlist their sympathies in behalf of foreign nations and so promote the development of trade.12 This trade included British arms, such as those being sold with Parkes’ knowledge by Thomas Glover to the Satsuma domain, that would be turned on the bakufu. In another sign of apparent British sympathy for anti-Shogunate forces, Parkes admitted to Stanley that his staff (Satow and Mitford) were forging connections with rebellious daimyo¯, explaining it in this way in February 1867: It is by no means desirable that our communications with the Daimios should be confined to that section who appear opposed to the existing government, but the efforts hitherto made by myself and the officers of this Legation to cultivate, while in Yedo, the acquaintance of this class, have hitherto met with little encouragement either from the Daimios themselves or from the Tycoon’s Government.13

Satow went well beyond the official policy of neutrality at these meetings, Saigo¯ Takamori writing after one on 12 January 1867 that Satow had actively encouraged him to challenge the Shogun’s regime.14 However, even if Parkes was aware that such things were being said by his juniors, he did not give any hint of it to Stanley. Consequently, Stanley made no comment on issues like this, beyond reiterating the official line of maintaining neutrality. Generally, he left the details of how his instructions would be carried out to Parkes. He did, however, give specific instructions relating to issues that seemed more clear cut, like the problem of Japanese officials showing insufficient respect for Queen Victoria: You will take an opportunity of informing the Japanese Government that you are prohibited from accepting any letter or listening to any verbal communication, in which any title inferior to that of the Mikado, or any foreign sovereign whatever, is applied to the Queen.15

RECOGNIZING THE NEW REGIME

Immediately after the Shogun resigned, Parkes asked for new credentials as his existing ones named the Shogun, not the Emperor, as Head of State. He told Stanley on 28 November 1867: In view of the change in the constitution of the Government of Japan… I would submit to your Lordship the propriety of my being furnished at once with a letter of credence from Her Majesty to the

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Mikado, whose position as Sovereign of this country de facto, as well as de jure, cannot now, I presume, admit of question.16

Nevertheless, in spite of Parkes’ last comment, the question of who was in charge of Japan was still open, and remained so, the civil war, known as the Boshin War, continuing well into 1869. However, Stanley agreed with him about the need for fresh credentials, and managed to get them quickly prepared – they reached Japan in April 1868, long before any other foreign Minister had them. When Parkes presented them, on 22 May, the Emperor’s forces were still not completely in control of Edo (which was about to be renamed Tokyo), much less the north of the country. But Britain was nonetheless sending the message that it was treating the Emperor’s government to be that of the whole nation. It turned out to be a shrewd move, but it was a gamble – had the Emperor’s forces been defeated, the Shogunate could have regained power and the British would have had to backtrack. JAPANESE CHRISTIANS

One of the stickiest problems Parkes and Stanley had to deal with was the persecution of Christians that resumed in 1867. Christianity had been illegal in Japan for two hundred and fifty years, but substantial pockets of ‘hidden Christians’ had held on to the faith through the generations, particularly in western Kyushu. French missionaries discovered these Christians and encouraged them to come out of hiding in spite of the fact that the religion was still illegal in Japan. The initial reaction of the Emperor’s regime was harsh – most of his ministers thought they should be forced to recant, and any that did not should be executed. At first Stanley was relaxed about the issue; he himself was not particularly religious and he did not feel it was an issue that Britain could interfere in. He adopted a typically mild tone in his instructions to Parkes: H.M. Govt. regret much to hear that native Christians have been subjected to persecution, and although in this case the Christians seem in some degree to have brought on themselves the persecution to which they have been exposed, yet there does not seem to be any objection to your using your influence privately with the authorities to mitigate any severities which may be threatened against them.17

Some progress was made, with Parkes managing to get an official description of Christianity as a ‘heretical’ and ‘evil’ sect toned down. When he heard about this, Stanley wrote, ‘I have the satisfaction to

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convey to you Her Majesty’s entire approval of your conduct…, which is in no particular more complete than as regards the manner in which you dealt with the obnoxious Edict respecting Christianity.’18 However, while this appeased the feelings of Westerners, it did nothing to help the Japanese Christians. It looks like pressure mounted on Stanley, because he sounds a good deal more concerned about the problem in September 1868, in a letter which shows him considering a more active policy: It is certain that the ill-treatment of native Christians on account of the religion they profess will not be regarded with indifference either in Europe or the United States; and whatever may be the abstract right of Japan, as an independent nation, to enforce its own laws, however unsuited to modern habits of thought, there is a point beyond which the enforcement of those laws could not be carried without provoking among European nations a feeling of indignation and a demand for action on the part of their Governments which it might be difficult for those Governments to resist. But in seeking to avert the threatened evil, it is necessary to proceed with caution. A rupture with Japan would paralyse a trade which promises to be of great value, while its immediate effect would scarcely be other than to increase, for a time at least, the pressure for persecution which the governing Powers in Japan, however well disposed, might be unable to withstand.19

Many of Stanley’s contemporaries, particularly William Gladstone, who was about to become Prime Minister, would have been outraged at the idea of treating trade as being a higher British priority than the lives of Christians.20 His victory in the General Election at the end of 1868 meant that Stanley no longer had to worry about the Japanese Christians; his responsibilities transferred to Lord Clarendon, who essentially followed the same policies with respect to Japan. Western pressure managed to prevent any executions, but not the separating and dispersing of those Christians who refused to recant. However, toleration of Christianity officially started in Japan in 1872. FOREIGN SECRETARY, 1874–1878 (Andrew Cobbing)

Six years later the former Lord Stanley returned to the Foreign Office as the Earl of Derby with Disraeli’s second Conservative government. In 1875, he assented to Disraeli’s controversial purchase of shares in the Suez Canal. Increasingly, however, it was the Eastern Question21 that dominated foreign affairs. The plight of Japanese Christians may have caught the attention of the Victorian public, but not with quite the sense of alarm that greeted reports of Christian populations massacred in Bulgaria,22 and the resulting Russo-Turkish War. 200

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When he did cast his mind farther east to Japan, Derby was surely struck by the changes since his last term in office. Back in the 1860s this was a crumbling regime, facing revolution and the turmoil of civil war. Now it was a unified modernizing state, spared the infighting of all those fractious daimyo, and stunning the world with its remarkable progress. Derby did not seem altogether convinced; on reading Baron von Hübner’s23 A Ramble Around the World, published in 1871 (English translation 1874), he agreed with him that China’s slower implementation of European ideas stood a better chance of success than Japan’s, ‘because they do not adopt them in haste’.24 He also found that managing Britain’s affairs with Japan had become a more complex business these days. Previously it was largely a matter of receiving and responding to despatches from Sir Harry Parkes. Now Derby’s assistants handled a steady flow of correspondence from the Japanese legation, established in London in September 1872. Another innovation was the recently installed telegraph line at Whitehall, connecting the Foreign Office to a growing cable network and various ‘men on the spot’. None were farther away than Sir Harry, but the completion of a Japanese telegraph line between Nagasaki and Tokyo in 1874 allowed messages to be sent from London to the British legation within a matter of hours. FURTHER CORRESPONDENCE WITH PARKES

The telegraph might come in useful if Derby ever needed to restrain Britain’s single-minded representative in Japan. In these early years, however, telegrams were expensive and unreliable, so the Foreign Office still depended on the usual despatches, taking two months to reach Japan by sea.25 The Foreign Office could only hope that Sir Harry had mellowed since the days in 1856 when his actions in Canton helped precipitate the Second Opium War. Perhaps the only time Derby hurried to intervene was in 1875 when, convinced of an imminent Russian threat to British interests, Parkes wanted to send Royal Navy ships to occupy the island of Port Hamilton off the south coast of Korea. Viewed from Whitehall this looked more like an unprovoked invasion, and satisfied there was no danger, Derby instructed Parkes to stay his hand.26 The various campaigns involving Japanese troops in the 1870s rarely caused much concern in the Foreign Office. The Saga Rebellion in 1874 and subsequent samurai revolts in 1876 were quickly supressed. The first stand-offs between Japan and China soon blew over as well. The Formosa expedition in 1874 was resolved by the end of the year, and Japan’s success in securing the Treaty of Ganghwa with Korea in 1876 was generally hailed for opening this ‘Hermit Nation’ to trade.27 The only mention of Sino-Japanese tensions 201

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to appear in Derby’s diary was in 1875 when Sir Thomas Wade, the British minister to China, suggested that ‘Russian agents were busy stirring up the Japanese to fight, and advising the authorities at Pekin not to give way.’ Even then his preoccupation with the Eastern Question shone through as he commented, ‘If true, this is exactly their policy in Turkey.’28 Similarly, news of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877 sounded alarming at first but posed little danger to British subjects, especially once Saigo¯ Takamori’s advance north was halted in March. Russia’s declaration of war on Turkey in April caused far more disquiet in Whitehall. CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE JAPANESE LEGATION

It was a new experience for Derby to communicate with accredited Japanese diplomats in London. To some extent their presence also reduced his dependence on information from Parkes. Despite the cost of maintaining such permanent missions abroad, the Meiji regime considered this money well spent as they tried to outmanoeuvre Western diplomats in Japan. As a correspondent for the Japan Gazette put it in 1876: The fact of there being Japanese Ministers Plenipotentiary, who are recognized as on an equality with those of other nations, the Government, and it may be added, the more educated people generally, have come to consider ministers much as other men, and not as formerly in the light of ministering or destructive angels sustained by heaven-like power.29

When Derby returned to Whitehall in 1874, the Japanese Legation was housed in a terraced building at No. 9 Upper Belgrave Street not far from Buckingham Palace. Then in September the mission moved into larger premises, if slightly out of the way, at No. 9 Kensington Park Gardens in Notting Hill. Motono Morimichi had recently been supervising there as chargé d’affaires, but now he handed over to Ueno Kagenori,30 the new minister plenipotentiary to Britain. Messages from the legation became a regular feature of the Foreign Office’s dealings with Japan. Often these were simple requests on behalf of Japanese students to obtain permission from the War Office or the Royal Navy to visit military installations such as Woolwich Arsenal or Portsmouth Dockyard. Once a year, they also submitted a detailed report on the coinage produced at the new Imperial Mint in Osaka. For most of this business Derby could simply nod when briefed, but occasionally a letter from Ueno prompted some discussion, especially when it concerned the rights of British subjects in Japan.

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EARLY SKIRMISHES OVER TREATY REVISION

It was during the early 1870s that the Meiji government launched its first initiatives to try and revise the Ansei Treaties,31 and inherited from the Tokugawa regime. Derby’s predecessor Lord Granville32 discussed this in general terms when the Iwakura33 Embassy visited London in 1872. In the absence of any specific demands he encouraged his guests to consider mixed courts – a compromise solution introduced in Egypt – and advised (or warned) that any concessions over jurisdiction depended on their reaching some notional ‘standard of civilization’.34 Derby, however, remained sceptical about the reports of progress in Japan, possibly with von Hübner’s counsel in mind. This was surprising given the principled stand he took over Egypt during his earlier term as foreign secretary. As he told the House of Commons in 1868, ‘the exercise of this Consular jurisdiction was an anomaly which it was desirable to remove’ and he even declared, ‘there is no doubt that jurisdiction extra territorial of that kind is in itself an evil’.35 For Derby, however, Japan was a more distant, still mysterious land. The issue first arose in May 1874 when he agreed to meet Frederick Marshall, a British expatriate employed by the Japanese Legation in Paris.36 Sent to London to sound out the views of the Foreign Office, Marshall wanted to know if Britain might follow the lead of the United States in signing a postal convention with Japan.37 Derby seemed sympathetic at first, but ended up disparaging the superficial nature of Japan’s reforms, and anyway the Postmaster General objected. More broadly he conceded that tariffs might need some adjustment, but abolishing consular jurisdiction was out of the question.38 Nevertheless, the Meiji state was beginning to show its mettle. The British garrison stationed at Yokohama since 1863 would finally depart in 1875, as agreed in principle when Iwakura had met Granville in London. From a Japanese viewpoint, the treaty port no longer felt quite so much like occupied territory (at least not by the army). The Meiji authorities’ officious new policy of observing regulations to the letter was also now having an effect on life in the treaty ports. As the same Japan Gazette correspondent observed in 1876: The action which the government of this country has lately taken regarding shooting licences, the treaty limits, and other questions, so small and petty in themselves as to be almost beneath the attention of a government, shows nevertheless the determination of the Japanese to keep foreigners to the literal meaning of a treaty so long as it continues in force.39

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When Ueno announced the proposals for shooting licences in London, Derby immediately protested, ‘the principle at stake involves in fact the question of extraterritorial jurisdiction’. Lord Tenterden, the permanent undersecretary of state, was also puzzled as this was never a problem in China where ‘foreign residents in Shanghai go up the river great distances on shooting excursions and are absent sometimes for weeks’.40 They were now having second thoughts about the desirability of mixed courts as well, for as Derby confessed, ‘I do not think we can trust the Japanese sufficiently as yet to alter our “judicial arrangements”.’41 At the same time, they could no longer be quite so complacent about foreign privileges supposedly enshrined in the treaties. As the Japanese pointed out, these said nothing about shooting at all, so the only way to amend the local ban on hunting then in force was to come to terms over licences. Derby had to admit, ‘the letter of the Japanese Minister is well written, and contains some arguments with which we have not dealt’.42 By this stage, however, he was more distracted by the publication of Gladstone’s pamphlet on Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East, condemning the heavy-handed suppression of a Christian rebellion by Ottoman troops.43 Parkes continued to champion the privileges of British subjects, but the Meiji authorities were incrementally extending their control in the treaty ports. In 1876, the British minister conceded their right to apply new press laws to ban the Bankoku Shinbun newspaper published in Japanese by John Reddie Black. Similarly, the Foreign Office sympathized but could do nothing to prevent the rigorous passport checks for Japanese passengers boarding P & O, but not domestic, steamers on the Yokohama-Nagasaki run.44 The abolition of torture in 1876 also suggested that Japanese law was beginning to move towards the ‘civilized’ standards suggested by Granville. In February 1877, Marshall was again in London, this time proposing a conference in Europe to discuss consular jurisdiction in addition to tariff reform. Derby was dismissive: Mr Marshal [sic] is always trying on these extra official communications. The idea of a conference at the Hague is absurd. We cannot pass over Sir Harry Parkes & I agree that a conference at the Hague w’ld be inefficient. But we will bear in mind what Mr Marshall says. He knows the feelings of the Japanese Govt.45

The outbreak of the Satsuma Rebellion just three days before did not help Japan’s cause, particularly when reports on the campaign brought renewed allegations of torture. Nevertheless, by 1879, Lord Salisbury, Derby’s successor, had agreed to hold a conference on treaty revision in London. In the event this convened in Tokyo in 204

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1882, commencing the negotiations that finally dismantled consular jurisdiction by 1899. This seemed a long way off at the start of 1878. Already, however, the Japanese had shown their capacity to run postal services in the treaty ports. Now all Derby wanted to know was if Parkes saw any objection to closing the British post offices there, a concession that duly followed later that year. He was also anxious for news on the movements of Russian ships in Japanese waters.46 As the RussoTurkish War (and his own tenure) drew to a close, he was doing all he could to prevent British intervention. In January he resigned briefly when the Cabinet decided to send ships through the Dardanelles, and again in April when it called up the reserve. Later he would defect to the Liberals and serve as colonial secretary under Gladstone, but Japan features only rarely in his diary.47 ENDNOTES 1

2

3 4

5 6

7

8

9

10

11

12 13 14

Lord Redesdale, Memories, vol. I (London: Hutchinson, 1915), 114– 115. John Vincent (ed.), Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative Party: The Political Journals of Lord Stanley, 1849–1869 (Hassocks: Harvester, 1978), xii-xiii. Ibid., xvii. The figure of £40 million was given by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Henry Lowry-Corry, in Parliament (Hansard, 11 May 1868, CXCII, col. 43). The taxation figure is taken from H.C.G. Matthew (ed.), The Gladstone Diaries, vol. VII, January 1869-June 1871 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), lxxviii. Hansard, 3 July 1868, CXCIII, col. 669–670. Stanley to Parkes, 10 March 1868, ed. Kenneth Bourne & D. Cameron Watt, Part 1, Series E, ed. Ian Nish, British Documents on Foreign Affairs, vol. 1 (University Publications of America, 1989), 120. Stanley to Parkes, 9 September 1868, ibid., vol. 1, 227; Stanley to Parkes, 10 March 1868, ibid., 120; Lord Stanley to Sir Harry Parkes, 23 October 1867, FO262/124. Harold Williams, Shades of the Past: Indiscreet tales of Japan (Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle, 1959), 220. Stanley to Parkes, 10 March 1868, British Documents on Foreign Affairs, vol. 1, 120. In his memoir, A Diplomat in Japan (Tokyo: Oxford University Press, 1968), Satow, as Daniels puts it in his introduction to the 1968 edition, ‘clearly sought to emphasize British support for the activists of the Revolution’ (p.xii). Gordon Daniels, Sir Harry Parkes: British Representative in Japan 1865–83 (Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 1996), 50. Stanley to Parkes, 28 November 1867, FO 262/124. Parkes to Stanley, 28 February 1867, FO46/78. Mark Ravina, The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori (Hoboken: Wiley, 2004), 230. 205

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15 16

17 18

19 20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28 29 30

31

32

Stanley to Parkes, 23 October 1867, FO262/124. Parkes to Stanley, 28 November 1867, British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Vol. 1, 101. Lord Stanley to Sir Harry Parkes, 23 October 1867, FO262/124. Stanley to Parkes, 30 July 1868, British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Vol. 1. Stanley to Parkes, 9 September 1868, ibid., Vol. 1, 27. Gladstone once told an audience, ‘Remember that the sanctity of… life in the hill villages of Afghanistan… is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God as can be your own.’ Bernard Magubane, The Making of a Racist State: British Imperialism and the Union of South Africa, 1875–1910 (Trenton: Africa World Press, 1996), 259. Ed. The ‘Eastern Question’ was a term designating the problem of European territory controlled by the decaying Ottoman Empire in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th cents. In particular the massacre of Bulgarians in Batak by Ottoman irregular troops in 1876. Austrian diplomat (1811–92), later Count. During his visit to Japan in 1871 he met Ernest Satow who made him the subject of his Rede lecture at Cambridge in 1908. 20 August 1873. John Vincent (ed.,), A Selection from the Diaries of Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby, 1869–1878 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1994), 143. It was only later in the nineteenth century that reduced costs allowed telecommunications to transform British diplomacy in the manner Lord Salisbury proclaimed in 1889 when he told the Institution of Electrical Engineers, ‘We positively exist by virtue of the telegraph.’ Jack Nicholls, ‘The Impact of the Telegraph on Anglo-Japanese Diplomacy during the Nineteenth Century’, New Voices, Vol. 3, December 2009, 12, 15. One British diplomat commented on the ‘foolish telegram from Sir H. Parkes’ and ‘the very proper answer returned by Lord Derby’. F.O. Adams to Odo Russell, Paris, 2 November 1875. FO 918/13. The phrase derives from lectures by William Elliot Griffis in 1881 and the book he published to coincide with the 1882 US treaty with Korea. W.E. Griffis, Corea: The Hermit Nation, (London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1882). Diary entry, 31 January 1875. Vincent, Edward Henry Stanley, 193. ‘Treaty Revision’, The Japan Gazette, 18 February 1876. See biographical portrait of Ueno Kagenori by Andrew Cobbing in Japanese Envoys in Britain, 1862–1964, ed. Ian Nish, Global Oriental, 2007. Ed. The Treaties with the USA, Netherlands, Russia, Britain and France, concluded in 1858, were termed the Ansei Treaties as this was the Japanese era name at the time, The Treaty with Britain was concluded by Lord Elgin. For an account of the negotiations see Britain and the ‘Re-opening’ of Japan and the Treaty of Yedo and the Elgin Mission, Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Society Publications, 2008. A biographical portrait of Lord Granville, by Andrew Cobbing is in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. 206

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33

34

35

36

37

38

39 40 41 42 43 44

45 46 47

A biographical portrait of Iwakura Tomomi is in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2013 ‘[I]n all such cases the policy of the British Government was to yield the local authorities jurisdiction over British subjects in precise proportion to their advancement in enlightenment and civilization.’ Memorandum of an Interview between Earl Granville and Iwakura, Chief Japanese Ambassador, at the Foreign Office, 27 November 1872. Granville Papes, PRO 881/2138. See also Gerrit Gong, The Standard of “Civilization” in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984). ‘Consular Courts in Turkey and Egypt – Observations’, Hansard, 10 July 1868, CXCIII, col. 1050. Marshall to William Cornwallis Cartwright, 3 May 1874. Cartwright of Aynhoe Collection, Northampton Record Office. C(A) Box 5/418. Memorandum by Frederic Marshall, 6 May 1874. Ian Nish (ed.), British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print. Part I, From the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the First World War. Series E, Asia, 1860–1914, vol. 1 (Frederick MD: University Publications of America, 1989), 330–331. Marshall’s report of his interview to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo contributed to the Japanese decision to abandon immediate talks on consular jurisdiction and focus on tariff reform instead. Inuzuka Takaaki, Meiji gaiko¯kan monogatari (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Ko¯bunkan, 2009), 84–85. ‘Treaty Revision’, The Japan Gazette, 18 February 1876. Tenterden to Derby, 22 August, 1876, FO 46/212. Derby to Tenterden, 3 August 1876, Ibid. Derby to Tenterden, 22 August 1876. Ibid. Gladstone’s pamphlet was published on 6 September 1876. Gordon Daniels, Sir Harry Parkes: British Representative in Japan 1865–83 (Folkestone: Japan Library, 1996), 164. Derby to W.A.R. Cockerell, 1 February 1877. FO 46/225. Telegram from Derby to Parkes, 27 February 1878. FO 46/228. The entry for 2 August 1874. (Vincent, Derby Letters, 177). shows Derby’s reaction when Disraeli asked him what he thought of proposals for a tunnel under the Channel: ‘Commercially, it may do some good, but the rates will probably be too high for ordinary traffic: politically, it brings more foreigners into England, which may not be altogether a gain, but it is too late to imitate Japan.’

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Earl of Kimberley (1826–1902) and Japan T.G. OTTE

v INTRODUCTION

History has treated the Earl of Kimberley with the condescension with which it has treated most Victorian politicians – it has forgotten him.1 In part, his posthumous obscurity reflects his public persona. Removed from the bustle of the House of Commons, he spent much of his career in the more sedate atmosphere of the upper chamber. The inaccessibility of his private correspondence, meanwhile, further prolonged his shadowy historiographical existence. It was only very recently that Kimberley’s historical persona has been retrieved from the abyss into which it had fallen.2 This is not to reclaim him as a ‘lost Foreign Secretary’. His one brief spell at the Foreign Office does not allow for that. Kimberley’s political career was nevertheless remarkable for its longevity and proximity to the ‘inner group of the Cabinet’.3 For nearly thirty years, from 1868 until 1896, he served in 208

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every Liberal administration, and his name was frequently touted in connection with various high offices whenever a new Cabinet was formed or a reshuffle was on the cards. His fifteen months as Foreign Secretary, from March 1894 until the collapse of the Earl of Rosebery’s government in June 1895, were the culmination of a long career, much of which involved imperial and foreign affairs. CAREER

John Wodehouse (1826–1902), since 1847 3rd Baron Wodehouse, and from 1866 1st Earl of Kimberley, was born into a long-established Norfolk Tory gentry family, but became a Whig while still at Eton. Having served as Earl Russell’s Parliamentary Under-secretary at the Foreign Office for four years after 1852 (and again, 1859–61), he was appointed minister plenipotentiary to Russia at the end of the Crimean War. In that role he was a doughty defender of Lord Clarendon’s firm policy of containment.4 Political rewards eventually came his way and after 1868, he occupied senior Cabinet posts whenever his party was in office. From the sinecure of the Privy Seal he was moved, in 1870, to the Colonial Office where he remained until 1874, returning to it in 1880, before assuming the seals of the India Office two years later. Kimberley held the India portfolio on three occasions (1882–5, 1886 and 1892–4). He was something of ‘an “Imperial handyman”’.5 The boundaries between imperial and foreign affairs were not always clearly drawn from the 1880s onwards, and Gladstone frequently conferred with Kimberley on matters, which fell more properly into the remit of the Foreign Office.6 His spells at the India Office coincided with two major crises in Anglo-Russia relations, the 1885 Pendjeh and the 1893–4 Pamirs crises, each triggered by Russian expansion in Central Asia and each bringing the two Asiatic rivals to the brink of war.7 Relations with St Petersburg, thus, formed the vital backdrop to Kimberley’s dealings with Asian affairs in general. Becoming Foreign Secretary had been Kimberley’s ‘object in life’. Indeed, after Clarendon’s death in 1870, senior diplomatists assumed that his former protégé would succeed him.8 It was not to be then, and when his turn eventually came, he had come to prefer his Indian brief, ‘which was more congenial to me, from long habit, than diplomacy. Unraveling knots which tie themselves again as fast as you disentangle them is not a very pleasant occupation, however important.’9 Undoubtedly, the knottiest problem confronting Kimberley was not diplomatic but internal, the frosty relations between Rosebery as Prime Minister and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir William Vernon Harcourt, who led for the government in the House of 209

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Commons. The fragile unity of the administration forced Kimberley closely to coordinate foreign policy with Rosebery, a circumstance which has frequently been treated by historians as subordination.10 The two men, in fact, shared the same Whigish outlook on foreign affairs, but Kimberley saw it as his role to neutralize Harcourt’s threat to the stability of the government. FOREIGN SECRETARY

In foreign policy, Kimberley proved to be a competent manager, but was largely content to continue the policy inherited from Rosebery and indirectly from Salisbury. His style was somewhat phlegmatic, but this should not be seen as an indication of indecisiveness, however much especially Russian officials amused themselves with the notion of ‘les perplexités et les hesitations de lord Kimberley’.11 In general, he acknowledged that foreign affairs ‘require[d] firm handling’, but entangling commitments were best avoided.12 It was East Asia that required most of Kimberley’s attention. Here the diplomatic knots really did tie themselves again as soon as they had been unraveled, and many proved impervious to all attempts to disentangle them. On Kimberley’s watch, China and Japan went to war, and the Asia-Pacific region became the focal point of Great Power politics. During that time, the ground was prepared for the later Anglo-Japanese Alliance. ‘THE UNIQUE EXAMPLE OF JAPAN’: KIMBERLEY’S VIEWS OF ASIA AND THE ADVENT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR.

Kimberley’s views of the nations of Asia were of their time, and reflected notions of racial hierarchies, defined by martial prowess, and civilizational attainment: ‘It is a curious and striking fact that in the extreme East, the Japanese should afford an unique example of an Oriental nation full of life & vigour.’ China, by contrast, was ‘rotten to the core, as regards the governing classes, but the Chinese are an industrious race, who may have a future’.13 The chief problem for Kimberley was that China was the pivot around which British policy in East Asia had come to revolve in the course of the previous four decades. As the two Asian nations inched towards a military showdown over their respective interests on the Korean peninsula, this orientation was gradually called into question.14 For his part, Kimberley was anxious not to force the issue, and ‘earnestly advised Japan not to provoke a collision’ since such an eventuality would bring about Russia’s intervention.15 But such moderating counsel was to no avail. Ito¯ Hirobumi, the Japanese prime minister, and his foreign minister, Mutsu Munimutsu, were not to be deflected from their quest to break China’s regional pre210

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dominance. Kimberley’s ability to influence Japanese policy was limited, and he was reluctant to use any but diplomatic means to avert war. The sudden death, in June, of Britain’s minister at Tokyo, Hugh Fraser, moreover, left Britain without representation at the appropriate senior level there, and this, too, hampered British diplomacy.16 If Kimberley’s warning of the Russian threat made no impression on the Japanese, it perhaps more accurately reflected his own concerns. Events in Korea had taken a ‘tournure grave’, and there were likely to be repercussions for Anglo-Russian relations.17 Indeed, the Foreign Secretary moved on two fronts simultaneously. He sought to avert a war, but also to ensure that the two rivals did not arrange matters between them at Britain’s expense: ‘in the event of any arrangement either between China and Russia together or between those two powers and Japan to the exclusion of England’ London would ‘take such steps as may be necessary to secure’ its interests.18 Kimberley pursued a parallel track by endeavouring to enlist the other Powers for a joint intervention to facilitate a peaceful solution to the Korean crisis.19 Such efforts, however, were in vain. The United States government immediately declined; those at Berlin and Paris were reluctant to move without Russia.20 The key to any successful move, then, lay in St Petersburg, and there it continued to lie throughout the Sino-Japanese War. Russian diplomacy, however was in no hurry to take a clear position in East Asia until after the conflict, the ill-health and subsequent death of Tsar Alexander III and his long-serving Foreign Minister, Nikolai Karlovich de Giers, further encumbering it. On the eve of war, Queen Victoria intervened by suggesting a ‘joint demonstration by ourselves and Russia’.21 Kimberley and Rosebery agreed that any intervention would have to involve Russia. A unilateral move by her, in fact, was the main reason for their caution so far. Japan, Kimberley ruminated, was ‘bent on war’; and after the failure of all earlier mediation efforts intervention would have to be ‘armed mediation, and will really be directed against Japan’. To succeed in this, Russian cooperation was indispensable. But if Japan were coerced in this manner, the interventionist Powers would be jointly responsible for Korea. Given Britain’s unfortunate experience with such an arrangement in Egypt, repeating it with Russia in East Asia was a ‘disagreeable prospect’. It was better, then, to let the two belligerents fight it out amongst themselves.22 He and Rosebery agreed that any move against Japan would ‘weaken and alienate a Power of great magnitude in those seas, and which is a bulwark against Russia’.23 Even so, neither anticipated the decisive victories Japanese forces 211

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were to achieve at sea and on land. Previous experience with Asian warfare seemed to suggest that the coming war would be a protracted business24 For now there seemed nothing but to remain passive until the fog of war had lifted from the Korean peninsula. Britain’s ‘present “hand to mouth” policy would have to continue’.25 In practice, it meant that Kimberley’s policy, whilst pledged to strict neutrality, was guided by the twin objects of not alienating Japan, despite her obvious aggression, and allaying Russian suspicions of Britain lest St Petersburg intervene on its own. Kimberley’s policy towards Japan was one of firmness tempered by flexibility. When the British-owned and British-flagged Chinese troop carrier Kowshing was sunk even before the outbreak of war,26 he sought to avoid legal entanglements and diplomatic rows. At the same time, he remained firm to keep open the approaches to Shanghai, the principal commercial entrepôt on the China coast. A firm line was not altogether without risk, as the port was not strongly fortified, and Japan ‘may attempt a coup de main by which we would be compelled to resort to hostile measures’.27 To deter any such move London reinforced Britain’s naval presence in the China seas, the Royal Navy acting once more as the armed wing of British diplomacy. Kimberley had made his point – and he prevailed.28 ‘FUSSINESS IMPEDES REAL PROGRESS’: THE QUESTION OF INTERVENTION.

The Kowshing and similar incidents were minor diversions. Russia’s likely reaction to the unfolding conflict remained Kimberley’s principal concern. If the Japanese were to push on towards the Chinese capital, or impose a punitive peace on the defeated enemy, he calculated, ‘Russia would certainly make her voice heard with effect.’29 An opening for some form of mediation came in October, when Chinese officials, through Sir Robert Hart, the Ulster-born Inspector-General of the Imperial Chinese Maritimes Customs, signaled their willingness to discuss a mediated peace. The Chinese approach caused ructions between Rosebery, eager for diplomatic intervention, and Kimberley, who had withdrawn to his Norfolk country seat and refused to return to take charge of the mediation effort. He ‘had rigidly barred his gates against all his colleagues’.30 To his mind, Rosebery was ‘in a prodigious fuss about China & Japan ... . I do not believe in the necessity of hurry ... . These matters are not dependent upon a few hours more or less, and fussiness always impedes the real progress of business.’31 Still, their differences were more about the speed of travel than its direction. At a special Cabinet meeting, indeed, Kimberley spoke at some considerable length in support of 212

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Rosebery’s scheme of inviting the Powers to join in the mediation: ‘We ourselves in the meanwhile are sending such naval reinforcements as may be necessary.’32 Nothing came of this latest initiative until the Chinese government, shaken by the rapid advance of Japanese forces across the Yalu river, once more sought international support, and Russia accepted its invitation, without, however, offering to lead any collective effort by the Powers.33 The Russian move was an invitation to the other governments to declare their hands, without committing St Petersburg to anything specific. Kimberley’s reply was guarded, but he was ready to issue a joint note to the Japanese government.34 The vagaries of Russian policy aside, there were good reasons for Kimberley to proceed with caution. For one thing, the contemporaneous Armenian atrocities had begun to lay bare the ideological fissures in postGladstonian Liberalism; and internal disagreements now constrained official foreign policy.35 And, for another, the rapid movement of events in the Korean theatre of war itself militated against international intervention. As the Japanese advance continued, and with the foreign Powers clearly not in accord, Tokyo’s stance on peace terms hardened as much as its opposition to foreign interference stiffened.36 No matter how ready China was for peace talks, the more Japanese troops advanced, the less amenable to foreign pressure the Tokyo authorities became: ‘the recent victories ... [had] shown [Japan to be] fully entitled to the spoils of war to which she could lay claim’.37 Under the circumstances, it seemed best to remain aloof: ‘We ... desire an early restoration of peace, & we have no wish to favour either Power. Our interest is to remain friends with both.’38 Following Mutsu’s rejection of Peking’s peace proposal of 22 November, Kimberley advised the Chinese to despatch a plenipotentiary to Japan to negotiate a peace settlement on whatever terms the Ito¯ government proposed. China’s position was now so embattled that negotiations should not be postponed ‘for a question of form’.39 Abrupt changes rarely occur in foreign policy, and, to a degree, the decision to leave China to Tokyo’s tender mercies did not come about suddenly. But its wider significance cannot be overstated, for with it began the process which led to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902. Kimberley had resigned himself to sit out the negotiations, scheduled to take place at Shimonoseki. There was the danger that Japan ‘will be so intoxicated with success that she will be tempted to push China to extremities, regardless of the consequences’.40 But the latter were better dealt with once the talks had run their course. For now, his exchanges more especially with St Petersburg, resembled, in Keith Neilson’s felicitous phrase, a ‘sparring’ match. In his interviews with the Russian ambassador, Kimberley stressed the importance of Britain’s commercial interests in China, but confirmed that his gov213

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ernment would not oppose Japan’s acquisition of Formosa. Their conversation left the envoy with the distinct impression that Kimberley feared an eventual alliance between the two combatants but under Japan’s tutelage. Tokyo, Kimberley had been told, ‘had no intention whatsoever of destroying the Celestial Empire’, and intended ‘to lift it up again. But it is precisely this role of a ... benevolent tutor which is not agreeable to England.’41 Kimberley’s natural caution was reinforced by a growing foreign policy rift within the Cabinet, exacerbated by the near-civil war between Rosebery and his chancellor. Partly rooted in Harcourt’s frustrated personal ambitions and partly reflecting ideological differences, the internecine Rosebery-Harcourt conflict had the potential of bringing down the government. Something of a ‘Little Englander’, Harcourt inundated Kimberley with notes, critical of the current course in foreign policy and demanding to be consulted. Privately, Kimberley dismissed Harcourt’s many missives as ‘ill-tempered ignorant rigmaroles’.42 He still had to placate him, however. In a sense, Kimberley was the vital ball-bearing of the Cabinet machinery, keeping in place the chancellor, eager to take offence, and the premier, curiously reluctant to deny him the opportunity. The Cabinet row had been triggered by an Anglo-French storm in an African teacup, but Harcourt widened his attack into an all-out assault on the government’s handling of foreign affairs, and ‘those bugbears constantly cooked up in the F[oreign] O[ffice]’. The Chancellor struck a tone perhaps more suited to the hustings than to discussions across the Cabinet table: ‘Is there no pie in the world out of which we can manage to keep our fingers?’ His conclusion, however, was not unreasonable: ‘It would be especially foolish on our part to take leading action hostile to Japan, the rising Power in the East – and allow Russia to pose as her friend.’43 Even Kimberley’s patience was wearing thin: ‘Harcourt practically insists upon playing the part of joint Prime Minister.’ Worse, the commotion caused by him had produced a deadlock in foreign policy, at a time when most of Britain’s external problems ‘require[d] firm handling’, and could only lead to ‘more drifting’.44 The Foreign Secretary was not prepared to compromise with Harcourt on issues of foreign policy; and yet given the latter’s ability to disrupt government business, Kimberley had to assure Harcourt that he had ‘not said a word that can commit us in any way’.45 Meanwhile, international diplomacy ground on, heedless of the near-paralysis in British policy. If possible, Kimberley wished to prevent Japan from acquiring Port Arthur on the Liaotung peninsula, which he feared would hasten China’s decline and eventual collapse. At the same time, he was careful not to oppose Japan openly.46 He 214

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was caught on the horns of a dilemma. Pressing Tokyo to moderate its territorial demands, let alone to refrain from making any such gains, could easily backfire. On the other hand, non-intervention would leave China in a much reduced position. Then again, if the Chinese rejected the peace terms offered, ‘we may have a break-up of the Chinese dynasty and disorganization of the Chinese Empire’. All in all, non-interference ‘present[ed] the least objections’. Rosebery concurred: ‘We cannot go to war with Japan unless she directly and immediately threatens British interests.’47 The Cabinet sanctioned this decision on 8 April. If this was the least objectionable course, it was nevertheless not without risk. French and, more especially, German support for the Russian plan for the Powers to intervene had ‘created a new situation’. Kimberley was not slow to appreciate the wider ramifications of the East Asian crisis for British interests in the region and beyond: ‘our separation from Russia would have an effect on our relations in Europe’,48 at a time when, nearer to home, the Eastern Question once more threatened to destabilize the Eastern Mediterranean. The fall-out from the Sino-Japanese conflict, then, underlined both, the global reach of British policy and the constraints placed on British power by the wide dispersal of her interests. At this point, Kimberley, distraught at his wife’s brain haemorrhage, had temporarily withdrawn from political life, and Rosebery took sole charge of matters.49 He acknowledged that relations with Germany and Russia had suffered in consequence of the war: ‘both ... are disgusted with us for not pulling their Chinese chestnuts out of the fire’. There was the danger now of the other Powers retaliating in kind by disrupting the financial administration of Egypt. The crises in the Near and Far East had the result: ‘[t]he world is in a very parlous condition’. Beyond the traditional Eastern Question, the Prime Minister concluded: There is an infinitely larger Eastern question upon us at this moment in the situation developed by the peace between China and Japan. That is a situation which it is difficult to judge ... . But one thing is clear: it is really anxious; it is pregnant with possibilities of a disastrous kind; and it might, indeed, result in an Armaggedon between the European Powers struggling for the ruins of the Chinese Empire. [...] We must not scatter ourselves; we must embark on nothing unnecessary; we must be ready at any moment to place our full force in one or both of the regions affected by the Eastern questions.50

Kimberley’s attitude towards Japanese was circumspect throughout. He readily accepted that the war had brought East Asian affairs to the cusp of major change. Yet he neither welcomed China’s antici215

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pated demise, nor did he embrace the prospect of Japanese predominance in Asia. He was subtle enough to comprehend that the standoff between Japan and the three interventionist Powers could be exploited to Britain’s advantage, without giving offence to the parties involved. Thus, he urged caution on the new Japanese minister at London, Count Kato¯ Takaaki. London had no intention of depriving Japan of ‘reasonable fruits of her victories’, but would have preferred ‘no disturbance of the status quo’.51 Kimberley’s subtle diplomacy facilitated Japan’s eventual yielding to the three Powers. It was not solely a matter of skill, however. On at least this occasion, Kimberley and Rosebery had fortune on their side. It was only Tokyo’s decision to give way that prevented a chasm from opening up between Britain and the other Powers. The potential for future tensions with Russia had by no means receded, as Kimberley understood only too well. But there were also clouds on the Anglo-Japanese horizon. The cession of Formosa, more especially, was ‘by no means agreeable to us’. Pending the final settlement of the war indemnity to be paid by Peking, Japan also retained the Chinese naval base of Wei-hai-Wei. If her forces were to be permanently established there, Kimberley reasoned, this would be more detrimental to China’s future stability than the now aborted cession of Port Arthur: ‘If the Japanese were at Wei-hai-Wei they would cut ... the Empire in half and they would be in inconvenient proximity of Shanghai & the great trade route of the Yangtze River.’52 Whatever the short-term challenges, Kimberley was in no doubt about the wider significance of recent events in East Asia. The traditional constellation of the Powers in the region had been reversed, and this affected the orientation of British policy there. Japan, he impressed upon the envoy-designate at Tokyo, Sir Ernest Satow, was now ‘our natural ally, as against Russia’. Russia was likely to contest Japan’s ambitions for mastery over the Korean peninsula, ‘so that strife may yet arise from that’.53 Japan, he reasoned, ‘will no doubt have a powerful fleet, but that will be a counterpoise to the Russians & so far a distinct advantage to us. Our policy must be to make her our ally. [...] What would happen if China were to follow the example of Japan and civilize herself, and Japan & China were to be allied is another affair, but this if is a contingency which need not trouble us now.’54 CONCLUSION

Brief though Kimberley’s spell at the Foreign Office was, it was crucial for Anglo-Japanese relations. But Kimberley’s achievement, in a sense, was a negative one. By not joining the triple intervention in 216

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the aftermath of Shimonoseki he helped to steer relations between London and Tokyo in a new direction. His – and Rosebery’s – decision to remain aloof set in train a gradual recalibration of British policy in East Asia, away from its traditional pivot of China and towards Japan. The student of the period would nevertheless be wise to resist the temptation of hindsight. Kimberley’s somewhat loose phrase of Japan as ‘our natural ally’ should not be invested with exaggerated significance. As Sir Edward Grey, Kimberley’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary and later Foreign Secretary himself, reflected in his memoirs, ‘British Ministers at the time did not look beyond the moment.’55 Neither Kimberley nor Rosebery foresaw the Anglo-Japanese combination of 1902. It would require a further two turns of the Far Eastern kaleidoscope for it to become a reality. Kimberley’s diplomatic manoeuvres in 1894–5, however, ensured that an alliance was now within the range of practicable politics for both Britain and Japan – and in this, perhaps, lies Kimberley’s significance as an imperial statesman. ENDNOTES 1

2

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6

Until recently, Kimberley had not been well served by historians: A. Cecil reduced Kimberley literally to a footnote, British Foreign Secretaries, 1807– 1916: Studies in Personality and Policy (London, 1927), 306, n. 2; P.J.V. Rolo’s joint assessment of Rosebery and Kimberley is altogether unsatisfactory, ‘Rosebery and Kimberley’, K.M. Wilson (ed.), British Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Policy: from Crimean War to First World War (London, 1987), 138–58, while G. Martel, Imperial Diplomacy: Rosebery and the Failure of Foreign Policy (Kingston, ON, 1987), 243, is more balanced but tends to privilege Rosebery. For excellent surveys of Kimberley’s career and the fate of his archive see the introductory essays in A. Hawkins and J. Powell (eds), The Journal of John Wodehouse, First Earl of Kimberley for 1862–1902 (Cambridge, 1997), 1–43 [hereafter KJ], and J. Powell (ed.), Liberal by Principle: The Politics of John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley, 1843–1902 (London, 1996). For an earlier assessment see also E. Drus, ‘A Journal of Events during the Gladstone Ministry 1868–1874 by John, First Earl of Kimberley’, Camden Miscellanies, 3rd ser. xxi (1958), 1–49. H.C.G. Matthew, ‘Introduction’, id. (ed.), The Gladstone Diaries: With Cabinet Minutes and Prime Ministerial Correspondence, vol. x, 1881–1883 (Oxford, 1990), lviii. Hammond to Wodehouse (private), Wodehouse MSS, British Library, Add. MSS. 46694. A.B. Cooke and J.R. Vincent, Governing Passion: Cabinet Government and Party Politics in Britain, 1885–86 (Brighton, 1974), 119. Gladstone to Hartington, 5 March 1885, H.C.G. Matthew (ed.), The Gladstone Diaries: With Cabinet Minutes and Prime Ministerial Correspondence, vol.

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19 20

21

xi, 1883–1886 (Oxford, 1990), 304; Powell, ‘Introduction’, Liberal by Principle, 52. Rosebery to Kimberley (confidential), 26 August 1892, Kimberley MSS, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, MS 10246. Paget to Hammond (private), 28 June 1870, Hammond MSS, The National Archives (Public Record Office), Kew, FO 391/23. Kimberley to Pauncefote (private), 31 March 1894, Kimberley MSS, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms.Eng.c.4408. Rolo, ‘Rosebery and Kimberley’, 149. Chichkin to Staal, 8 Feb. 1895, Baron A. Meyendorff (ed.), Correspondance Diplomatique de M. de Staal (1884–1900) (2 vols, Paris, 1929) ii, 262 [hereafter SC]. Kimberley to Rosebery (confidential), 6 April 1895, Rosebery MSS, NLS, MS 10070. Kimberley to Durand (private), 29 January 1895, Kimberley MSS, Ms.Eng.c.4388; for further thoughts on this see my ‘Japan and the “Lesser Races” of East Asia: Late Nineteenth-Century British Diplomats and Constructions of Race’, R. Kowner and W. Demel (eds), Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Western Constructions and Eastern Reactions (Leiden and Boston, 2012), 127–151. Its significance notwithstanding, this conflict has been largely ignored by international historians. Notable exceptions are I.H. Nish, The Anglo-Japanese Alliance: The Diplomacy of Two Island Empires, 1894–1907 (Westport, CT, repr. 1976), 23–35; K. Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar: British Policy and the Last Tsar, 1894–1917 (Oxford, 1995), 147–60. Historians of Japan have invariably paid more attention to this war, cf. W.G. Beasley, Japanese Imperialism, 1894–1945 (Oxford, 1991), 41–54; and H. Conroy, The Japanese Seizure of Korea, 1868–1910: A Study of Realism and Idealism (Philadelphia, PA, 1960). Tels. Kimberley to O’Conor (nos. 41 and 42), 21 and 26 June 1894, FO 17/1202, and to Paget (no.18), 3 July 1894, FO 46/439. See Kimberley to Lascelles (private), 7 August 1894, Lascelles MSS, TNA (PRO), FO 800/15. Kimberley’s observation to the French ambassador Albert Decrais, as reported in tel. Hanotaux to Montebello (no.78), 1 July 1894, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (ed.), Documents Diplomatiques Français, 1871–1914, 1st ser. (14 vols., Paris, 1930–46) xi, no. 180 [hereafter DDF]. Tels. Kimberley to O’Conor (nos.45 and 50), 2 and 7 July 1894, FO 17/1202; tel. Aoki to Mutsu, 3 July 1894, M. Kajima (ed.), The Diplomacy of Japan, 1894–1922 (3 vols, Tokyo, 1976) i, 78–9 [hereafter DJ]; T.G. Otte, The China Question: Great Power Rivalry and British Isolation, 1894–1905 (Oxford, 2007), 31–4. Kimberley to Malet (no.177), 9 July 1894, FO 64/1325. Sanderson to Kimberley (private), 8 July 1894, Kimberley MSS, Ms.Eng.c.4380. Tel. Victoria to Rosebery, 30 July 1894, G.E. Buckle (ed.), The Letters of Queen Victoria, 3rd ser. (3 vols., London, 1932) ii, 617.

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22

23

24

25

26

27 28

29

30

31

32

33

34 35

36

37 38

39 40

Kimberley to Rosebery (private), 30 July 1894, Rosebery MSS, MS 10068; circular tel. Kimberley to Lascelles (no. 36), Malet (no. 33), Edwardes (no. 57), 1 Aug. 1894, FO 83/1320; Martel, Imperial Diplomacy, 216. Memo. Rosebery, 30 July 1894, Rosebery MSS, MS 10134; see also K. Neilson, ‘Britain, Russia and the Sino-Japanese War’, The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5 in Its International Dimension: STICERD Discussion Paper, no.278 (1994), 2. See Mema. Bridge, ‘Comparative Statement of the Chinese and Japanese Navies’, 16 July 1894, and ‘Memorandum on the Relative Values of the Armies of China and Japan’, 16 July 1894, FO 405/60/89 and 91. Hamilton diary, 5 August 1894, D. Brooks (ed.), The Destruction of Lord Rosebery: from the Diary of Sir Edward Hamilton, 1894–1895 (London, 1986), 161; see also de Bunsen to Spring Rice, 28 July 1894, Spring Rice MSS, Churchill College Archive Centre, Cambridge, CASR 1/4. T.E. Holland, ‘International Law in the War between China and Japan’, Fortnightly Review lvi, 336 (Dec.1894), 917–8. Kimberley to Rosebery, 30 Sept. 1894, Rosebery MSS, MS 10069. Spencer to Kimberley, 29 September 1894, ibid.; see also the exchange of notes, reprinted in DJ i, 155–9. Kimberley to Rosebery (confidential), 3 October 1894, Rosebery MSS, MS 10069. He was also concerned about the safety of the foreign legations at Peking, echoing contemporary fears, see M.R. Davies, ‘A Threatened City: Some Impressions of Pekin’, Fortnightly Review lvi, 336 (December 1894), 793. Murray to Rosebery, 1 October 1894, Rosebery MSS, MS 10143; Otte, China Question, 40–1. Kimberley journal, 8 October 1894, KJ, 428. Kimberley returned to London on 23 October. Murray to Harcourt, 4 October 1894, Harcourt MSS, Bod., Ms.Harcourt dep.57; tel. Rosebery to Kimberley, 2 October 1894, Rosebery MSS, MS 10069. Kimberley to Rosebery (private), 4 November 1894, Rosebery MSS, MS 10069. Tel. Kimberley to Lascelles (no. 91), 9 November 1894, FO 65/1474. Kimberley to Ripon, 17 November 1894, Ripon MSS, BL, Add. MSS. 43526; Harcourt to Kimberley (private), 2 December 1894, Harcourt MSS, Ms. Harcourt dep. 51. Kimberley to Trench (no. 109, confidential), 21 October 1894, FO 46/434, and vice versa (nos. 151, 154 and 156), 23, 24 and 26 October 1894, FO 46/438. Trench to Kimberley (no. 189), 7 December 1894, FO 46/438. Kimberley to Goschen (private), 24 November 1894, Kimberley MSS, Ms.Eng.d.4408. Tel. Kimberley to O’Conor (no. 160), 9 December 1894, FO 17/1203. Kimberley to Trench (private), 25 January 1895, Kimberley MSS, Ms.Eng.c.4396.

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41

42

43

44

45 46 47

48

49

50

51

52

53 54 55

Staal to Chichkin (secrète), 22 February/6 March1895, SC ii, 263–4. For the ‘sparring’ between Britain and Russia, Neilson, Last Tsar, 152. Kimberley journal, 7 December 1894, KJ, 429; for some of the background see D.A. Hamer, Liberal Politics in the Age of Gladstone and Rosebery: A Study in Leadership and Policy (Oxford, 1972), 204–206. Harcourt to Kimberley, 5 April 1895, Kimberley MSS, Ms.Eng.c. 4378; A.G. Gardiner, The Life of Sir William Harcourt (2 vols., London, 1923) ii, 338. Kimberley to Rosebery (confidential), 6 April 1895, Rosebery MSS, MS 10070; P. Stansky, Ambition and Strategies: The Struggle for the Leadership of the Liberal Party in the 1890s (Oxford, 1964), 124–5. Kimberley to Harcourt, 6 April 1895, Harcourt MSS, Ms. Harcort dep.52. Kimberley to Malet (no. 103), 3 April 1895), FO 64/1349. Kimberley to Rosebery (private) and vice versa, both 6 April 1895, Rosebery MSS, MS 10070; Neilson, Last Tsar, 154. Kimberley to Rosebery, 9 April 1895, Rosebery MSS, MS 10070; also summarized in tel. Courcel to Hanotaux (no. 41), 10 April 1895, DDF (1) xi, no. 441. Kimberley journal, 18 April and 4 May 1895, KJ, 435; Martel, Imperial Diplomacy, 243. Rosebery to Cromer (secret), 22 April 1895, Cromer Mss, FO 633/7; Otte, China Question, 68. Kimberley to Trench (no. 35, confidential), 24 April 1895, FO 46/449; tel. Kato to Mutsu, 24 Apr. 1895, DJ i, 342–3. Kimberley to Lascelles (private), 1 May 1895, Kimberley MSS, Ms.Eng.c.4405. Satow diary, 31 May 1895, Satow MSS, TNA (PRO), PRO 30/33/16/1. Kimberley to Cavendish, 30 May 1895, Kimberley MSS, Ms.Eng.c.4396. Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Twenty-Five Years (2 vols., New York, 1925) i, 24.

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Lord Lansdowne (1845–1927) and Japan T.G. OTTE

INTRODUCTION

Lord Lansdowne occupies a special place in the history of AngloJapanese relations as the Foreign Secretary on whose watch the alliance between the two countries was concluded and then reaffirmed. Even so, as a historical figure he has been curiously neglected. This applies more especially to his five years at the Foreign Office, which tend to be seen as something of an interlude, an epilogue to Lord Salisbury or a prologue to Sir Edward Grey, overshadowed also by his later role during the constitutional crisis of 1909–11 and his advocacy of a compromise peace in 1917.1 Already in 1900, Lansdowne’s appointment to the Foreign Office was ridiculed in some sections of the press as a ‘first-rate joke’. ‘Saki’ lampooned him in his ‘Westminster Alice’ satire as the White Knight who fell from off one horse, the War Office, on to another, Foreign

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Office: ‘A knowledge of French and an amiable disposition will see one out of most things.’2 CAREER

There was more to Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne (1845–1927), than a genial personality and fluent French. A scion of the Whig cousinhood, he parted company with his ancestral party over Irish land legislation in 1880, and gradually moved across the party divide, without, however, ever becoming a Conservative. His landed wealth and social position gave him a standing in late Victorian politics. More than that, he was considered ‘a very “safe” man’.3 Having been apprenticed in politics as Undersecretary at the War Office in the early 1870s, he held a succession of pro-consular posts between 1883 and 1894, first as GovernorGeneral of Canada and then Viceroy of India. Without doubt, he was more knowledgeable about Asia and also more sympathetic to the East than many amongst the contemporary political class.4 Lansdowne’s imperial career also sharpened his appreciation of the vast future potential of the United States and of the more immediate Russian threat in Central Asia, while his superintendence of the unreformed War Office between 1895 and 1900 heightened his sense of the constraints on British power. Lansdowne’s American and Indian experiences provided the vital backdrop to his dealings with Japan. Equally important was his ‘ultra-cautious’, diffident style, which made him appear ‘undecided in character’.5 Until July 1902, moreover, Salisbury’s looming presence, both physical – he had rooms at the Foreign Office – and political as the still indispensable leader of the Unionist constrained Lansdowne,6 and so did the disturbed state of international politics in 1900–1. The affairs of East Asia had entered their most acute phase in the immediate aftermath of the Boxer crisis, and so threw into sharper relief the limits of British power. Britain’s armed forces, limited in number, were scattered across the globe and scarcely able to deal with the upsurge of the Chinese disturbances and the simultaneous South African War. External complications and financial pressures deepened existing divisions within the government as to the correct foreign policy course, ‘isolationists’ and those in favour of a new course beyond the old nostrums holding each other in check. For his part, Lansdowne was ready to tackle Britain’s foreign policy problems. He was a pragmatist, however, and not driven by any grand design, preferring instead the line of least resistance and what was convenient in the short-term. His two most notable achievements, indeed, the Japanese alliance and the Anglo-French entente of 1904, had consequences which Lansdowne never anticipated. 222

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‘ONE PRECONCEIVED IDEA’

Lansdowne’s name will always be associated with the Japanese alliance. That compact, however, was the accidental product of tentative and ultimately failed attempts by the new Foreign Secretary to extricate Britain from her Far Eastern problems. Lansdowne’s principal object in the region was to stabilize the Chinese Empire, now considerably weakened by the encroaching foreign Powers and by internal disturbances, but was privately resigned to seeing more especially its three Manchurian provinces drift into Russia’s orbit.7 To strengthen China, and as one of the sponsors of the Anglo-German China agreement of October 1900, he hoped to build on this understanding. It was his one ‘preconceived idea’: ‘that we should use every effort to maintain, and if we can to strengthen the good relations which at present exist between the Queen’s Government and that of the [German] Emperor’.8 Lansdowne’s idea was soon put to the test, especially so after The Times’s scoop of the Ts’êng-Alekse’ev agreement in early January 1901, which seemed to presage a Russian protectorate over Manchuria. He was determined not to let Russia have it all her own way, but declined Japan’s proposal of a joint enquiry as a first step towards a formal protest.9 For one thing, such a step would complicate concurrent efforts to force the Russian government to return British railway property seized by Russian troops at Tientsin and elsewhere in Northern China.10 For another, St Petersburg was likely to continue equivocating with ‘the usual explanations and assurances’, while the plundering carried on unabated:11 ‘for the present we must show as few signs as possible of being “fussy” about small matters in China; on the other hand we must not, for Parliamentary & other reasons acquiesce too much’.12 Chinese territorial integrity should have been no ‘small matter’ for British diplomacy, but Lansdowne was encouraged in his policy by the Prime Minister.13 At the root of his dilatory response was his determination to move in tandem with Germany.14 This consideration also explains Lansdowne’s support for Chamberlain’s last bid for an alliance with Germany in 1901, a clandestine manoeuvre undertaken without the Prime Minister’s knowledge, as a senior diplomat reflected in later years: ‘but A.J. B[alfour] & Lansdowne were privy to the deal’.15 By mid-February, Lansdowne resolved to use the disturbed state of East Asia to tighten relations with Germany and Japan. It was time to ‘make up our minds’ either to resist Russia or to acquiesce in her proceedings. He was ready to go some distance to meet Russian ambitions, effectively selling British commercial and railway rights in Manchuria – British bondholders were in favour – in return for guarantees of British interests in China proper and possibly as part of a general settlement of the Manchurian question. If the time for 223

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a grand bargain with Russia had not yet come, there was an alternative, or so it seemed to Lansdowne. Encouraged by the positive noises emanating from Berlin, he suggested a new China declaration by all the Powers, in essence a ‘self-denying Ordinance’, which would ‘destroy the validity of the huge concession lately obtained by the Russians at Tientsin’ and elsewhere.16 Throughout the Manchurian crisis Lansdowne sought to triangulate, keeping Berlin on board while ensuring that Tokyo did not press ahead too far, or, worse still, sought a direct arrangement with Russia, convinced, perhaps, that Britain and Germany were weak reeds to lean on. Tokyo’s attitude, indeed, hardened in February, so much so that it toyed with the idea of offering China ‘material support’ against further Russian expansion.17 This was a commitment too far for Lansdowne. Russia’s advances were ‘assuming serious proportions’, it was true, and further concerted efforts might be needed to avert the Manchurian ‘backstairs bargain’. The ‘much longer step’ now suggested by Tokyo, however, was premature. He was ready to warn the Chinese authorities against concluding separate agreements with Russia without prior reference to the nascent Anglo-German-Japanese triplice. To keep this combination intact was at the root of Lansdowne’s calculations. He wished, ‘if possible, [to] carry [Germany] with us’.18 Salisbury, for his part, was more receptive to the idea of an AngloJapanese compact for the joint defence of the Chinese littoral,19 but Lansdowne did not pursue the matter. He remained wedded to the idea of cooperating with Germany. Following Anglo-JapaneseGerman representations at Peking, he was confident ‘that the Chinese Gov[ernmen]t will not be so unwise as to make such private arrang[emen]ts under pressure without telling us what is happening’. Tokyo, meanwhile, was aware of Britain’s commitment to the maintenance of China’s integrity. There was, then, no need to give such a ‘dangerously vague’ pledge as that suggested by the Japanese government.20 Lansdowne slowly gravitated towards a harder line. While he plotted his next moves, the eventuality for which he sought to prepare arose when rumours of Russia’s Twelve Demands hardened into verifiable political facts, and, on 1 March, China’s representatives asked for mediation by the other Powers.21 The Russo-Chinese convention meant ‘the virtual establishment of a Russian protectorate over all Manchuria as well as Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan’.22 Russian mastery over large parts of China would be intolerable: ‘If we cannot resist it by force, we ought at least enter a protest and to make it clear that we reserve our Treaty rights in the regions concerned.’ Time was of the essence, however, as Chinese ministers were more likely to resist Russian pressure if they were told soon ‘that we shall not admit the validity of the contemplated transaction’.23 224

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To what extent Lansdowne was prepared to threaten the use of force, let alone actually to deploy force, cannot be determined with any degree of certainty. It was generally assumed in Whitehall that Russia’s strained finances acted as a powerful constraint on her policy. Deterring Russian adventurism, however, required some form of international coalition, without which it seemed impossible to harden Chinese resolve. Lansdowne moved at several fronts simultaneously. Peking was urged not to commit itself until the other Powers had decided upon their response, and he gave a strong hint at St Petersburg that Britain was alarmed at the agreement, which appeared to be ‘of an enduring character’.24 It was a clear signal that Britain was not disinterested in the Manchurian question, and in sending it Lansdowne risked escalating the crisis further. Japan’s support could be relied upon, it was true, but Lansdowne’s gamble placed Britain in an exposed position, all the more so since Germany’s likely response was far less certain. St Petersburg, meanwhile, would either have to comply with Lansdowne’s ‘reasonable’ request, thereby revealing its hand and perhaps escalating the crisis, or it would have to disengage. While Berlin dragged its feet over Lansdowne’s informal suggestion of a protocole de désintéressement,25 the Japanese government adopted an increasingly militant line. So far, Lansdowne had regarded Japan as a guaranteed, and therefore somewhat negligible, party to his projected Far Eastern neo-Dreibund. But now, the Japanese fleet was reportedly concentrated along the country’s western coast, and the Japanese minister in London enquired whether Tokyo could rely on British support ‘in case Japan finds it necessary to approach Russia’.26 This raised a series of delicate questions. If the ‘approach’ were amplified by any military posturing, there was the real risk of war.27 An added element of uncertainty was the response of France, given that the terms of the Franco-Russian alliance were unknown in London.28 Lansdowne’s Chinese conundrum was profound. To compel Russia to relinquish her gains in Manchuria, German support was needed, as the risk of escalation could only be contained through Germany’s assumed deterrent effect on Russia in Europe. Conversely, appeasing Russian ambitions risked alienating Japan. Tokyo could then be expected to offer Russia a Korea-Manchuria barter, with damaging consequences for British interests in China. Faced with such unpalatable outcomes, Lansdowne was ready to make a bold move and approach Germany with the offer of coordinated action. His draft joint Anglo-German declaration of 12 March revolved around two central ideas. The first was a commitment by both governments to localize any Russo-Japanese conflict, ‘reserving, however, to themselves absolute freedom of action should the course of events require them, in their own interests, to intervene on behalf of Japan’. This notion had evolved organically from ideas 225

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which Lansdowne had entertained for some while. The second point was more far-reaching: ‘In the event, however, of any Power joining Russia in hostilities against Japan, the British and German Governments will give naval assistance to Japan to defend herself against such attack.’29 Lansdowne’s projected Anglo-German declaration has generated a good deal of scholarly debate, much of which lies outside the confines of this collection of essays. It will suffice here to state that the Foreign Secretary’s planned initiative did not aim at a fully-fledged alliance with Germany, but rather at an Anglo-German defence pact, confined to East Asia and support for Japan. The stipulated ‘naval assistance’ was vague enough not to commit London to any definite course of action. Furthermore, given the embryonic size of Germany’s navy, her joining Britain, then, was of largely political value. Indeed, Lansdowne’s project was more akin to the 1887 Mediterranean Agreements, a strictly regional understanding primarily to preserve the status quo in north-eastern China. It incorporated Lansdowne’s own localization scheme, but also evolved from Salisbury’s tentative idea of an Anglo-Japanese defence pact as well as the argument advanced by Francis Bertie,3 one of the Assistant Undersecretaries at the Foreign Office, that supporting Japan would establish a new and viable, regional balance of power. All three elements were compatible. Rather than marking a clear break with previous policy, Lansdowne’s draft declaration underlined a strong strand of continuity in British diplomacy.31 Lansdowne’s project came to nought. While the Cabinet contemplated the next move,32 the German chancellor, Prince Bülow put paid to any hopes of cooperation against Russia by declaring that Manchuria lay outside the remit of the Anglo-German agreement of October 1900, ‘and [that] the fate of that province was a matter of absolute indifference to Germany’.33 Lansdowne sought to put a positive gloss on the episode. Reaching out to Germany had been justified since ‘our South African entanglements make it impossible for us to commit ourselves to any obligation which might involve us in war, unless we can assure ourselves that any obligation which we might incur would be shared by another Power’.34 It was an admission of Britain’s limited ability to project her power in different parts of the globe. And yet, the latest twist of events had brought clarity on three counts. In the first place, Berlin would not lift a finger to ease the burden under which Britain staggered in Asia. This was understandable enough, but the manner in which the Wilhelmstrasse had positioned itself left a bitter aftertaste. Commenting in later years on Britain and Germany drifting apart, Lansdowne reflected: ‘It was something to do with Manchuria. I found I couldn’t trust them [the Germans].’35

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As for Russia, her attempts to coerce the Chinese government had reached a dead-end, and St Petersburg now essayed to disengage from the Manchurian imbroglio at minimal cost to itself. Lansdowne reciprocated and sought to de-escalate the situation and not be ‘petulant about Manchuria’. Its ‘gravitation’ towards Russia had been recognized by Britain in 1899, and ‘[w]ith a little bonne volonté & mutual confidence the whole affair ought to be capable of settlement’.36 Lansdowne gained more than he had dared to hope, for Russian diplomacy was soon in full retreat. ‘[T]he obnoxious Manchurian agreement’ was off the table by early April 1901. Japan’s cooperation in this, however, had been crucial, and this was the third aspect of East Asian affairs on which recent events brought clarity.37 TOWARDS THE ALLIANCE

Tokyo’s decision to support Lansdowne’s scheme for the payment of the Boxer indemnity in Chinese bonds was a further auspicious sign.38 At the Foreign Office, Bertie, the chief advocate of some form of Anglo-Japanese alliance, once more pressed the case for an understanding with the Japanese, ‘and so keep them from gravitating towards our rivals’.39 Lansdowne took the matter up in two conversations with Viscount Hayashi, the Japanese envoy. Both governments were guided by similar interests. ‘[S]upposing the balance of power in the waters of the Far East to be threatened with serious disturbance’, a reciprocal undertaking to preserve the regional status quo would be desirable.40 The reference to ‘the waters of the Far East’ is significant, as it underscored, both, the limited scope of the projected compact and its naval essence. This was little more than an informal feeler. There was as yet no talk of an alliance. Lansdowne was ‘sincerely desirous to make something of the idea’ of a combination between the two naval Powers, but was adamant that Tokyo would have to show its hand first.41 At that point, he had not closed the door on a deal with Germany for good, nor did he rule out a general understanding with Russia;42 and it would be erroneous to conclude that an Anglo-Japanese Alliance had now become inevitable. However, as summer turned into autumn, the prospects of a settlement with the latter receded. All three of Lansdowne’s options had the same object in view: to blunt actual or potential challenges to British imperial interests. Now, a Japanese understanding was the only viable option left. In contrast to the approaches to Russia and Germany, which were an attempt to use diplomatic means to ameliorate the effects of isolation, financial and naval factors shaped British thinking about an agreement with Japan. Acute Treasury concerns about public expenditure, Admiralty anxieties about the spiralling 227

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costs of naval construction, and Lansdowne’s diplomatic designs thus fused together in a new dynamic in British strategic policy.43 Lansdowne concurred with the Admiralty’s view that a naval pact would add materially to Britain’s position in East Asia, and he was optimistic that the Japanese were ‘very keen to go on and are preparing a definite proposal’.44 With the interests of three departments of state converging, the Lansdowne-Hayashi talks gathered pace, and the essentials of the future arrangement were soon established. It was to be a defensive alliance, which would become effective only if either party were attacked by two Powers; that Japan’s special interests in the Korean peninsula were to be safeguarded; and neither party would enter into separate agreements with other Powers regarding China or Korea. In an attempt to give practical meaning to arguments about the naval advantages of a Japanese alliance, Lansdowne also stressed the need for some form of technical understanding concerning the mutual use of docks, harbour facilities and coaling stations.45 Mindful of Salisbury’s lingering presence in the government, Lansdowne limned the outline of an agreement for his consent. The principal provision of his ‘preliminary sketch’ was that Britain and Japan would observe ‘benevolent neutrality’ in the event of a war involving either with one other Power. This was little more than a revised version of ‘holding the ring’ during a Russo-Japanese conflict. Salisbury’s swift approval is suggestive.46 To his mind, Lansdowne’s projected agreement did not differ in substance from his own earlier idea of an entente with Japan for the defence of the Chinese littoral. The Cabinet approved Lansdowne’s draft on 5 November, though there were some rumblings of dissent, largely because ministers had a somewhat limited conception of the Japanese agreement.47 A first hurdle had been cleared, but there remained problems of detail to be resolved. The precise nature of ‘the preponderant influence exercised by Japan in many parts of Corea’ emerged as a potential sticking point.48 Lansdowne’s aim, after all, was to assist Japan to keep Russia out of Korea, not to extend her own influence there. Tokyo, however, was not minded to make such concessions, nor was there much appetite for extending the geographical scope of the alliance. There was certainly a nagging doubt in Lansdowne’s mind that Britain might be dragged into a global war with France and Russia ‘over matters of purely local interest’ to Japan.49 The potential risks inherent in a Japanese agreement were never far from the surface. Arthur Balfour, Salisbury’s nephew and heir apparent, deprecated ‘the perhaps rather hasty decision’ by the Cabinet to approve of Lansdowne’s negotiations: ‘We may find ourselves fighting for our existence in every part of the Globe against Russia and France ... over some obscure Russian-Japanese quarrel in Corea.’ Whatever 228

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advantages an alliance might yield in protecting regional interests, these were outweighed by its inherent risks and liabilities.50 Lansdowne’s reply was somewhat selective, and reflected his narrower conception of Britain’s strategic problems. The chief advantage of the alliance was its limited nature, the likelihood of the casus foederis arising being significantly lower than would be the case with a European alliance, and the ‘area of entanglement’ being more confined. A formal alliance made public Britain’s interest in preserving Japan as a regional Great Power, and London could ‘get what we can out of the bargain’.51 The breakthrough in the alliance negotiations came with the Christmas visit to London by Ito¯ Hirobumi, Japan’s senior elder statesman. On New Year’s Eve, Hayashi returned to the Foreign Office to hand Lansdowne a memorandum, detailing desirable amendments to the original draft treaty, and to urge him that ‘no time should be lost in concluding the Agreement’.52 On the following day, he had an exhaustive discussion with Ito¯ at his Bowood country house. Ito¯ told him that Japan did not seek ‘a “double-handed” arrangement’ about Korea, and, in a second conversation on 6 February, intimated that a Russo-Japanese agreement was unlikely, thus giving Lansdowne the reassurance he had sought.53 He encountered a last-minute, and somewhat unexpected, obstacle in Salisbury’s bulky shape. ‘There is no limit: and no escape. We are pledged to war, though the conduct of our ally may have been followed in spite of our strongest remonstrances’, the premier warned. Even so, Salisbury’s political presence was waning, and his observations on the draft alliance treaty were a reasoned and constructive critique of details rather than an expression of fundamental opposition to the idea of an alliance.54 Indeed, they reinforced Lansdowne’s own misgivings on certain points. The Japanese terms needed to be toned down. Tokyo’s desire ‘to keep for themselves an absolutely free hand as to the pretexts upon which a quarrel might be fastened on Russia as to Corean affairs’ was risky.55 Both sides were anxious to bring the negotiations to a speedy conclusion, however, and both were ready to compromise. Lansdowne accepted that the agreement should be limited to East Asia. Hayashi, meanwhile, yielded on the proposed fixed size of naval forces, which Lansdowne had rejected. A compromise was found also for the Korean problem: Japan gave assurances of non-aggressive intentions; Britain recognized Japan’s special commercial interests in Korea; and admitted that Tokyo had the right to take measures to safeguard these interests if threatened by aggressive action by a third Power.56 Lansdowne expected the alliance to safeguard British interests in China, without involving European commitments. Additional expenditure, which the Treasury sought to curb, could thus be avoided. At 229

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the same time, there was no need for a break with ‘isolationism’, as advocated by Joseph Chamberlain and others. In this sense, the AngloJapanese alliance underscored Britain’s continued aloofness from Europe. The combination of British and Japanese naval forces established a new Russo-Japanese balance of power in northern China and in Korea. Though delicately poised, it provided a strategic umbrella protecting Britain’s own interests in China. It was not entirely without risks, however. As Balfour and Salisbury had predicted, it did not reduce the likelihood of a Russo-Japanese conflagration. ‘KEEPING THE RING’: THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR

As the year 1903 declined to its close, the imminent prospect of war in Asia forced Lansdowne to contemplate the broader implications of the alliance. There were two risks involved in a conflict. If the alliance succeeded in containing Russia in East Asia, then this left British interests in Central Asia more vulnerable to Russian pressure. The second risk was altogether more real, the failure of the alliance to contain Russia, with the attendant danger of the war escalating beyond the region. Lansdowne was certain that in ‘a few months hence the balance of naval Power will incline the other way [i.e. towards Russia]’, and Japan would then be vulnerable to a Russian strike. If Britain were to support Japan in such an eventuality, ‘that will mean war with Russia all over the world, & we have no longer to consider merely the local conditions in the Far East’. It was better, then, to avert war than to embark on a neo-Bismarckian policy, advocated by some, of exploiting any conflict by squeezing concessions out of Russia elsewhere.57 He therefore suggested a joint initiative with France and possibly the United States to extract from St Petersburg the outline of a regional accommodation with Japan. Britain would then ‘tell the Japanese distinctly that they must be content with the bargain they can get as to Corea’.58 This was sensible enough, but Balfour, who had succeeded Salisbury as prime minister in July 1902, was not minded to support mediation. Russia could not cripple Japan’s war effort through a naval blockade, far less invade her. A war between the two Asian rivals would turn into a stalemate, and Japan should be left to ‘work out her own salvation in her own way’.59 As for the alliance, ‘[w]e are only required to “keep the ring”. A conflict, in fact, could be conceived of as being advantageous to us ... . Both “before, during and after” its outbreak it is likely to do wonders in making Russia amenable to sweet reason.’60 Lansdowne did not doubt the ‘incidental advantages’ that might result from Russia’s Asian entanglements, but he thought that these 230

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counted for little as compared with Japan’s likely eventual defeat. He predicted that by the autumn of 1904 Russia ‘might be mistress of the situation, and might impose terms on Japan which would wipe the latter out as a military Power, and obliterate her fleet’. Mediation to avert war and to facilitate a Russo-Japanese settlement, guaranteed by all the Powers with rights in China, was thus urgently required: War involves for us a three-fold risk: (i) the possibility that our ally may be crushed; (ii) the possibility that we ourselves become implicated, not on account of our treaty engagement to Japan, but because the British public will not sit still while the crushing is being done; (iii) the aggravation of our present financial difficulties, already grave enough.61

These were cogent reasons, and it seems that Lansdowne even mobilised the King to intercede with the prime minister.62 Balfour was not for turning. By giving ‘unpalatable advice ... we should lose Japan in trying to save her’. Even if victorious, Russia would be weakened by the war; and faced with ‘an implacable & unsleeping enemy ... she would be much easier to deal with, both in Asia and in Europe, than she is at present’.63 The parameters of British diplomacy in a war in Asia had thus been established, and although foreign diplomats in London observed pronounced pro-Japanese sympathies, Britain remained strictly neutral.64 It is true, the infamous Dogger Bank incident of 21 October 1904 tested British neutrality almost to destruction. At one point, ‘it looked ... as if the betting was about even as between peace and war’.65 St Petersburg could ill afford antagonising Britain, however, and had to give in to Lansdowne’s demands for compensation – belated confirmation of Balfour’s prognosis that war in Asia would force Russia to moderate her behaviour elsewhere. The outbreak of the war in February 1904 presented Lansdowne with two important tasks, the most immediate being the need to localise the conflict by ensuring that Russia’s ally France remained aloof from it. He pursued this aim simultaneously in Europe and in China. Indeed, the war between their two respective allies encouraged Lansdowne and Théophile Delcassé, his French counterpart, to pursue separate talks to resolve the many disputes that had bedevilled Anglo-French relations for the past two decades, although the Foreign Secretary in particular was determined to make the arrangement stand on its own merits.66 The result was the Anglo-French understanding of 8 April 1904, in reality a series of colonial agreements, with the Morocco-Egypt barter at their core. Ironically, in London, an understanding with France had always been seen in its utility as ‘a stepping stone with Russia’.67 Now, Russia’s involvement in a war 231

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in Asia hastened the conclusion of the French entente. Thus, the 1902 alliance with Japan, far from keeping Britain aloof from Europe, had set in motion the process of gradual involvement by Britain in continental affairs. In a further ironic twist, Lansdowne’s second task was to renew the alliance with Japan on much improved terms. The annihilation of the Russian fleet at Tsushima on 27–28 May 1905 dealt the fatal blow to Russia’s war efforts, and it also eliminated her as a naval factor. This consideration played a significant role in British policy planning. Already, before Tsushima, the question of a renewal of the alliance had moved into the foreground, when Tokyo took the initiative in December 1904.68 Lansdowne understood that any renewal had to be accomplished before peace talks got underway. Not renewing the compact, meanwhile, entailed the risk of losing influence in the Far East to a more assertive Japan. Whilst this was an incentive to pursue the talks, it could not remove lingering doubts as to the wider strategic utility of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. A mere renewal of the existing treaty had few attractions for Lansdowne and his advisers.69 Instead, they insisted that the alliance should be extended to cover India, and be tightened in its provisions so that it was triggered by an attack upon one of the two parties by a single Power.70 The Japanese readily accepted these demands, and, in return, obtained recognition of their new position in Korea. The revised alliance was signed on 12 August 1905, just after the commencement of the American-sponsored peace talks at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Lansdowne stressed the defensive nature of the new compact. By extending the scope of the alliance, Britain had merely ‘raise[d] the wall of [her] back garden to prevent an over-adventurous neighbour or that neighbour’s unruly or overzealous agents from attempting to climb it’.71 For now, Russia’s forward policy in Central Asia and her naval expansion in the Pacific had been blocked. Lansdowne’s reference to Russia is indicative of the true purpose of the revised alliance. The common need to contain Russian expansion in Asia had brought London and Tokyo together in 1902; and the treaty revision of 1905 completed Russia’s containment. But international politics, and alliances more especially so, cannot be preserved in aspic; they constantly evolve. In many ways, the years between 1902 and 1905 marked the zenith of Anglo-Japanese cooperation. Thereafter the alliance began to wane. Its purpose now was to control Japan. The reduced significance of the alliance was not, perhaps, immediately palpable. In October 1905, at Lansdowne’s suggestion, the two countries raised their diplomatic missions in each other’s capital from the rank of legations to that of embassies, a symbolic recognition of Japan’s newly-acquired status of a first-rate Power.

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CONCLUSION

Lord Lansdowne was instrumental in forging the alliance of 1902. If he was more open to Japan than was usual for a man of his time and class, in his decision to pursue the Japanese option he was nevertheless guided by calculations of imperial strategy, above all the containment of Russian influence on the Asian mainland. With the alliance Lansdowne added a new instrument to Britain’s diplomatic toolkit. In its shape it appeared novel; in its essence, it represented continuity with established foreign policy principles of eschewing peacetime commitments to (European) Great Powers. Lansdowne did not set out to secure an agreement with Japan to the exclusion of other options. But he worked with the grain of events and let his decisions be guided by the logic of developments, and, after the autumn of 1901, they pointed to an alliance with Japan. Even so, Lansdowne failed to appreciate the degree to which the alliance encouraged Japan to seek a military confrontation with Russia. When the war eventually came, it had political repercussions well beyond its actual theatre of war. It disturbed the European equilibrium, and thus began the fragmentation of the old world order, and with it Europe’s and Britain’s decline in the period of the two world wars. It is an ironic twist of history that the alliance which Lansdowne helped to conclude, had consequences with which he sought to deal in his advocacy of a negotiated peace in 1917, and which, in turn, cast a dark shadow over his own reputation. ENDNOTES 1

2

3 4

5

6

Lord Newton’s Lord Lansdowne (London, 1927) is still the only biography. A. Cecil, British Foreign Secretaries, 1807–1916: Studies in Personality and Policy (London, 1927), 311–3 and P.J.V. Rolo, ‘Lansdowne’, K.M. Wilson (ed.), British Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Policy: From Crimean War to First World War (London, 1987), 159–171, are somewhat superficial; useful H. Cecil, Lord Lansdowne, from the Entente Cordiale to the “Peace Letter” of 1917: A European Statesman Assessed (London, 2004). Quotes from anon., ‘Reshuffle’, National Review (December 1900), 462–5; and The Novels and Plays of Saki (H.H. Munro) (London, repr. 1939), 306– 309. I. Malcolm, Vacant Thrones (London, 1931), 82. I.H. Nish, ‘British Foreign Secretaries and Japan, 1892–1905’, B.J.C. McKercher and D.J. Moss (eds), Shadow and Substance in British Foreign Policy, 1895–1939 (Edmonton, Alberta, 1984), 61–2. Knollys to Bertie (private), 19 November 1902, Bertie MSS, The National Archive (Public Record Office), FO 800/163. Lansdowne to Akers-Douglas (private), 7 November 1900, Chilston MSS, Kent Archives Office, Maidstone, C.325/6.

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7

8

9

10 11

12

13 14

15

16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24

25 26

27 28

29

30

Lansdowne to Hamilton, 9 April 1901, Lansdowne MSS, British Library, Lans (5) 28. Lansdowne to Lascelles (private), 11 November 1900, Lascelles MSS, TNA (PRO), FO 800/17; Newton, Lansdowne, 196–7. Min. Lansdowne, n.d., on note Bertie to Lansdowne, 12 January 1901, FO 17/1499; T.G. Otte, The China Question: Great Power Rivalry and British Isolation, 1894–1905 (Oxford, 2007), 234–6. Min. Lansdowne, 3 January 1901, TNA (PRO), FO 17/1499. Lansdowne to Satow (private), 16 January 1901, Satow MSS, TNA (PRO), PRO 30/33/7/1. Lansdowne to Salisbury (private), 15 January 1901, FO 17/1499; J.A.S. Grenville, Lord Salisbury and Foreign Policy: The Close of the Nineteenth Century (London, repr. 1970), 330. Salisbury to Lansdowne (private), 17 January 1901, FO 17/1499. Lansdowne to MacDonald (nos. 6 and 8), 12 and 15 January 1901, FO 46/538; Lansdowne to Lascelles (secret), 17 January 1901, Lascelles MSS, FO 800/10; for some of the background see J.A.S. Grenville, ‘Lord Lansdowne’s Abortive Project of 12 March 1901 for a Secret Agreement with Germany’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research xxvii, 3 (1954), 204–5. Tyrrell to Asquith (private), 16 September 1922, Asquith MSS, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms Asquith 34; Otte, China Question, 237–41. Memo. Lansdowne, ‘Northern Railways’, 15 February 1901, FO 17/1500 (printed version in CAB 37/56/23). Tel. MacDonald to Lansdowne (no. 4), 15 February 1901, FO 46/542. Note Lansdowne to Salisbury, 16 February 1901, FO 17/1500. Note Salisbury to Lansdowne, 16 February 1901, ibid. Note Lansdowne to Bertie, 17 February 1901, ibid. Note Lofêng-lu to Lansdowne, 1 March 1901, FO 405/7549/2. Tel. Lansdowne to Satow (no. 49), 1 March 1901, FO 17/1482. Memo. Lansdowne, 1 March 1901, FO 65/1624 (circulated to the Cabinet, CAB 37/56/28). Tels Lansdowne to Satow (no. 55), 4 March 1901, FO 17/1482, and to Scott (no. 54), 4 March 1901, G.P. Gooch and H.W.V. Temperley (eds), British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914 (11 vols., London, 1926–38) ii, no. 45 [hereafter BD]. Tel. Lansdowne to Lascelles (no. 67), 8 March 1901, FO 64/1523. Note Hayashi to Lansdowne, 9 March 1901, BD ii, no. 51. For naval preparations see tel. MacDonald to Lansdowne (no. 9), 18 March 1901, FO 46/542; I.H. Nish, The Origins of the Russo-Japanese War (London, 2nd ed. 1987), 101–4. Mins. Bertie and Salisbury, n.d. [9 or 10 March 1901], FO 46/542. Tel. Lansdowne to Monson (no. 27), 8 March 1901, BD ii, no. 40; Lansdowne to MacDonald (no. 27), 16 March 1901, FO 46/538 (the interview with Hayashi took place on 10 March). Memo. Lansdowne, 12 March 1901, FO 46/547 (circulated to Cabinet, CAB 37/56/30). See biographical portrait of Francis Bertie in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015.

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31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40 41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

For the established view, see Grenville, ‘Lansdowne’s Abortive Project’, 210; for a reinterpretation of the evidence, see Otte, China Question, 250– 9. Salisbury to Edward VII, 13 March 1901, CAB 41/26/5; J.M. Goudswaard, Aspects of the End of Britain’s “Splendid Isolation”, 1898–1904 (Rotterdam, 1952), 72–3. Lascelles to Lansdowne (no.69), 16 March 1901, FO 64/1520 (original emphasis). Lansdowne to Lascelles (private), 18 March 1901, Lascelles MSS, FO 800/10; Newton, Lansdowne, 199–200. As quoted in A.L. Kennedy, Salisbury, 1830–1903: Portrait of a Statesman (London, 1953), 393. Lansdowne to Scott (private), 26 March 1901, Scott MSS, BL, Add. MSS. 52297. Lansdowne to Hicks Beach (private), 7 April 1901, Hicks Beach MSS, Gloucestershire Record Office, Gloucester, PCC/84. Lansdowne to Whitehead (nos. 66 and 70, secret), 21 and 26 June 1901, BD ii, nos.100–1. Memo Bertie, 2 July, FO 17/1506, 22 July 1901, FO 17/1507, and ‘Anglo-Japanese Agreement’, 22 July 1901, FO 46/547; I.H. Nish, The Anglo-Japanese Alliance: The Diplomacy of Two Island Empires, 1894–1907 (Westport, CT, repr. 1976), 156. Lansdowne to Whitehead (no. 89, secret), 31 July 1901, BD ii, no. 102. Lansdowne to MacDonald (private), 4 September 1901, Lansdowne MSS, TNA (PRO), FO 800/134. The Cabinet had approved further talks in August, Salisbury to Edward VII, 16 Aug. 1901, CAB 41/26/21. Lansdowne’s objectives are outlined in a draft to despatch to Arthur Hardinge, ? September 1901, Lansdowne MSS, FO 800/137; for the context see F. Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864–1914 (New Haven, CT, 1968), 352–8; D. Mclean, Britain and the Buffer State: The Collapse of the Persian Empire, 1890–1914 (London, 1979), 60–2. Memo. Selborne, ‘Balance of Naval Power in the Far East’, 4 September 1901, CAB 37/58/81; Z.S. Steiner, ‘Great Britain and the Creation of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance’, Journal of Modern History xxxi, 1 (1959), esp. 27–31. Lansdowne to Selborne, 10 September 1901, Selborne MSS, Bod., Selborne 26. Lansdowne to Whitehead (no. 108A), 16 October 1901, BD ii, no. 105. On the policy differences at Tokyo, I.H. Nish, ‘The First Anglo-Japanese Alliance Treaty’, STICERD Discussion Papers, no. IS/02/432 (April 2002), 2–3. Note Lansdowne to Salisbury, and memo. Lansdowne, both 23 October and min. Salisbury, 25 October 1901, FO 46/547; Nish, ‘Foreign Secretaries’, 62–3. Salisbury to Edward VII, 5 November 1901, CAB 41/26/24; Nish, AngloJapanese Alliance, 182–3. Lansdowne to MacDonald (no. 115, secret), 6 November 1901, BD ii, no. 110; British draft agreement, 6 November 1901, ibid., no. 125.

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49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59 60

61

62

63

64

65

66

Lansdowne to MacDonald (no. 128, secret), 12 December 1901, ibid. ii, no. 115; memo. Lansdowne, ‘Anglo-Japanese Agreement’, 16 December 1901, CAB 37/59/133. Balfour to Lansdowne (private), 12 December 1901, Balfour MSS, BL, Add. MSS. 4927; D. Judd, Balfour and the British Empire: A Study in Imperial Evolution, 1874–1932 (London, 1968), 67–8. Lansdowne to Balfour (private), 12 December 1901, Balfour MSS, Add. MSS. 49727; Rolo, ‘Lansdowne’, 162. Lansdowne to MacDonald (no. 133, secret), 31 December 1901, BD ii, no. 119; memo. Lansdowne, ‘Anglo-Japanese Agreement’, 1 January 1902, CAB 37/60/1; Nish, Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 207–8. Lansdowne to MacDonald (no.2,secret), 7 January 1902, BD ii, no. 120. On Ito¯’s visit to Bowood see the important new evidence in Nish, ‘First Anglo-Japanese Alliance’, 7–8. Memo. Salisbury, 7 January 1902, CAB 37/60/3. I am following Prof. Nish’s assessment of the memorandum, Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 210. Lansdowne to MacDonald (private), 9 January 1902, Lansdowne MSS, FO 800/134; Lansdowne to Salisbury, 8 January 1902, Lansdowne MSS, Lans (5) 34. For the text of the treaty, see BD ii, no. 125. The best treatment of the final phase of negotiations remains Nish, Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 211–8. Lansdowne to A. Chamberlain, 22 December 1903, Chamberlain MSS, Chamberlain MSS, Birmingham University Library, AC 17/1/17. Austen Chamberlain, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, advocated such a course. Lansdowne to Balfour, 22 December 1903, Balfour MSS, Add. MSS. 49728. Memo. Balfour, ‘Japan and Russia’, 22 December 1903, CAB 17/54. Balfour to Selborne (private), 23 December 1903, Selborne MSS, Selborne 34. Lansdowne to Balfour, 24 December 1903, Balfour MSS, Add. MSS. 49728. Edward VII to Balfour (private), 25 December 1903, ibid., Add.Mss. 49683. Draft Balfour to Edward VII, 26 or 27 December 1903, ibid. Lansdowne was instructed to outline a possible agreement with Russia, see memo. Lansdowne, ‘Proposed Agreement with Russia’, 1 January 1904, CAB 37/68/1. See the report by the Netherlands envoy Gericke van Herwijnen to Lynden de Melvil (no. 74), 9 February 1904, C. Smit (ed.), Bescheiden Betreffende de Buitenlandse Politiek van Nederland, 3rd ser., 1899–1919 (5 vols., The Hague, 1957–1962) ii, no. 144. Lansdowne to C. Hardinge (private), 29 October 1904, Hardinge MSS, CUL, vol. 17; K. Neilson, ‘“A Dangerous Game of American Poker”: Britain and the Russo-Japanese War’, Journal of Strategic Studies xii, 1 (1989), 73–87. Lansdowne to Monson (private), 28 December 1902, Monson MSS, Bod., Ms.Eng.hist.c.595; Lansdowne to Bertie (private), 30 March 1904, Bertie

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67 68

69

70

71

MSS, BL, Add. MSS. 63016; E.W. Edwards, ‘The Japanese Alliance and the Anglo-French Agreement of 1904’, History xlii, 1 (1957), 19–27. Cromer to Balfour (private), 15 October 1903, Cromer MSS, FO 633/6. MacDonald to Hardinge, 23 December 1904, Hardinge MSS, vol. 7; Nish, Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 299–300. Memo. Clarke, ‘The Afghanistan Problem’, 20 March 1905, CAB 38/8/26. On this point see the pertinent observations by P. Towle, ‘The Russo-Japanese War and the Defence of India’, Military Affairs xliv, 3 (1980), 114–5. Memo. Clarke, 10 April 1905, CAB 17/54; Committee of Imperial Defence, minutes of 70th meeting, 12 April 1905, CAB 2/1; also K.M. Wilson ‘The Anglo-Japanese Alliance of August 1905 and the Defending of India: A Case of the Worst Case Scenario’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History xxi, 4 (1993), 324–56. Lansdowne to Hardinge, 4 September 1905, Hardinge MSS, vol. 7.

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Lord Lytton (1876–1947) and Anglo-Japanese Relations in the 1930s ANTONY BEST

Spy cartoon of Lord Lytton in Vanity Fair

INTRODUCTION

One British historical figure whose name will always be associated with Japan is Victor Bulwer-Lytton, the second Earl of Lytton. This is not because of any long association with the country – his first visit to Japan came, after all, in his fifty-fifth year – but because of his involvement in one momentous episode, the League of Nations Commission of Inquiry into the Manchurian crisis and its subsequent report in October 1932.1 Having been elected by its other members to the chairmanship of the commission, Lytton became its public face and lightning rod. Consequently, its report would forever be associated with his name, and, depending where one stands in regard to the crisis, he is seen either as a symbol of naivety or a wise man who 238

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proffered the only feasible solution to an otherwise intractable problem. Lytton’s connection with the crisis in East Asia did not, though, end with the commission’s conclusion. In its aftermath, he emerged in the Anglo-American world as a reluctant expert on the region’s problems and, exasperated by Japan’s rejection of his recommendations, as one of China’s more vocal supporters. BEFORE MANCHURIA

The irony in this story is that in December 1931 Lytton was not the first choice to be Britain’s representative on the League inquiry. He was only nominated because the initial candidate, the noted jurist Lord Macmillan, turned the job down.2 When offered the post himself, Lytton originally refused it on the grounds of the inadequate financial compensation offered.3 It was only when the Conservative politicians, Leo Amery and Lord Zetland, also refused and the League agreed to increase the honorarium that Lytton finally agreed to what had always seen as an attractive opportunity.4 What would have transpired if perhaps Amery had accepted is impossible to say, but as a more conservative and less abstract character than Lytton and certainly no fan of the League, it would surely have been a very different outcome. But why was Lytton one of the candidates? Lytton was born in 1876 in India where his father was then viceroy. This Indian link continued to be important in his working life. In 1920 he was, as a Tory peer, appointed as under-secretary of state at the India Office and then between 1922 and 1927 took on the role of governor of Bengal. Briefly, during 1925, in the interregnum between the viceroyalties of Lord Reading and Lord Irwin, he also became acting viceroy. Lytton was therefore an Establishment figure who had a rich understanding of Asian affairs. In addition, Lytton emerged as a promising candidate for the commission because of his interest in the League of Nations. Lytton was deeply if idiosyncratically Christian and this led him, like Lord Robert Cecil, to be a keen advocate of internationalism as the best guarantee of peace. In 1927 and 1928 he was a member of the Indian delegation to the annual meeting of the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva, and then in September 1931, went as one of the British representatives.5 From this perspective, Lytton was clearly a suitable choice to represent Britain on the commission. It is also evident from the letters that Lytton wrote from Geneva to his wife Pamela in mid-September 1931, as the first news arrived of the fighting in Manchuria and China’s wish for the League to deliberate, that he felt that this crisis was going to be important for the organization. Hearing of the actions of the Kwantung Army, he observed on 22 September that, ‘This open act of war is of course 239

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unjustifiable & China has brought it before the Council. It is a fresh illustration of the value of the League machinery.’6 However, he also, ironically, noted that the League’s work was not made easy by its distance from ‘the scene of the trouble’, as it was difficult to know which of the protagonists was telling the truth; little knowing, of course, that it would soon be his mission to assess precisely that point.7 Over the next three months the problem of distance, among many others, inhibited the League from ever getting ahead of events and led to a wave of criticism from those who had always doubted the organization’s practicability. For Lytton, these expressions of doubts were disturbing and in address on 23 November at York Minster, where prayers were being held for peace, he called for the League’s defenders to speak out in its defence. However, at the same time he observed that it was important to keep an open mind about the nature of the dispute in Manchuria and not jump to conclusions and indulge in ‘unrestrained condemnation of Japan’.8 This attitude might also have recommended Lytton to the government. MANCHURIA

The League of Nations Council decided on 10 December to send a commission of inquiry to East Asia to determine the facts of the case and to offer proposals for its solution. On 7 January it was announced that Lytton would be the British representative. Shortly after, he was voted chairman at the commission’s first meeting and sailed with his colleagues for East Asia.9 The commission’s first port of call was Japan, which made an initially positive impact on him. Indeed, he observed to Pamela in mid-March that, ‘I am now head over heels in love with the country and shall never rest till I have brought you there.’10 What impressed him most, having lived before in India, was the modernity of Japan and its cleanliness. However, once he arrived in Shanghai later in the month he quickly came to the conclusion that the Japanese were less attractive as a people than the Chinese. The latter, he thought, were friendly and open, while with the former ‘it was a surgical operation to extract each word’.11 Moreover, the fact that he was in Shanghai further contributed to his disillusionment in that he was now exposed to the working methods of the Japanese military, which was attempting to settle the fighting that had ravaged the Chinese parts of the city since late January. In particular, Lytton was shocked by Japan’s resorting to aerial bombing and offended by its claim that it had tried to avoid civilian casualties, which did not tally with the information he received about air sorties taking place at night. He noted grimly to his wife, ‘The Japanese are very like the Prussians in their methods. They must think we are very simple-minded.’12 240

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If the situation that Lytton found on the ground in Shanghai affected his view of the Japanese adversely, this was as nothing to the conclusions he reached once he visited Manchuria in April and May. As a number of writers have noted, his stay in Manchuria was chiefly marked by the effort of the local Japanese authorities and their Chinese minions to prevent him from getting any accurate gauge of local feeling.13 On the grounds that he needed ‘protection’, Lytton was guarded throughout each day and was only allowed to meet with handpicked representatives of public opinion, leading him to note, ‘we are treated virtually like prisoners’.14 Nor did it help that the new Japanese-backed puppet state of Manchukuo had introduced a swingeing censorship regime, which included a complete ban on all newspapers from China.15 Accordingly, he and his colleagues had to resort to subterfuge to meet those who were opposed to the creation of Manchukuo. Shortly after leaving Mukden for Peking in early June, Lytton wrote to his son, Antony, that: I am heartily glad to be out of Manchuria. Our position there was foul. The present government of that country consists of a number of very inferior minor Japanese officials who like to advertise their importance by being as offensive as they can.16

His positive first impressions of Japan were, thus, receding fast. Despite having undergone this disturbing journey into the heart of a police state, Lytton’s experience did not cause him to lurch towards hostility towards Japan. He was now aware, as he had always suspected, that there was no genuine majority support for Manchukuo and he was certain that the Japanese account of the Mukden incident was a sham, but he kept to the front of his mind the thought that mere condemnation of the Japanese, while perhaps morally satisfying, would not solve the crisis.17 In this vein, he wrote in late May to his sister Betty Balfour (the husband of the former Cabinet minister Gerald Balfour) that he believed that the Japanese people would back the military if the nation were forced into a corner, but that ‘unchallenged, with no fruits to show for their violence, the liberal opinion … will begin to assert herself, and the military party will be criticised for the mess they have got the country into.’18 This, in turn, raised the issue of what Lytton could do in his report to help tilt the balance in Japan. The obvious answer to this question was, in the words of a journalist who interviewed Lytton in late May, to ‘concentrate on a solution which … will be acceptable to the Japs, who, having got themselves into a mess, may be thankful to find a way out, provided they are not arraigned and can compromise with credit’.19 This was, of course, easier said than done, and the situation was made considerably more difficult by the steady drift within Japan 241

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towards unilateralism. Lytton was personally exposed to this trend in July 1932 when he made his second trip to Japan and held a talk with the new foreign minister, Uchida Yasuya. In this interview, Uchida made it abundantly clear that his government had little concern for the future of the League and that it favoured diplomatic recognition of Manchukuo, which would, in turn, make any kind of Japanese retreat more difficult and unlikely.20 In writing their report, Lytton and his colleagues therefore faced a difficult task; to condemn or exonerate was easy but facile, to solve was something infinitely more complex. THE LYTTON REPORT

The commission’s report was completed in early September 1932. In the light of its desire to provide a way out of the morass, it was scrupulously fair in its assessment of the causes of the crisis. It noted that the Chinese had broken their treaty commitments in Manchuria, but that Japan’s response had been out of proportion to the provocation and that it had infringed the Nine-Power treaty of 1922 and the Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928. Moreover, it affirmed that Manchukuo had no legitimacy in terms of self-determination of its inhabitants. For Lytton, however, the most important element in the report was its recommendations for the future. These included the idea that, while Chinese sovereignty over Manchuria should be affirmed, substantial autonomy should be given to a new regional government which would employ advisors chosen by the League and acknowledge Japan’s economic interests. In addition, it urged the League to commit funds to the economic development of China. In essence, what this meant was that China would be forced to accept that Japan had legitimate rights in Manchuria. Lytton’s hope was that this compromise, added to the promise of the League’s contributing to the region’s future prosperity and stability, would allow the Japanese government a justification for retreat.21 Once the report was published on 2 October 1932, its future lay in the hands of the politicians. Lytton did, however, attempt to influence the diplomatic and political environment by making a number of speeches in London, including one at Chatham House, which underlined its most important observations and proposals.22 His efforts, though, brought him little satisfaction. In early February 1933 he visited Geneva just as the League’s Committee of Nineteen prepared to announce its recommendations, but was not impressed by what he saw. In a despondent mood, he wrote to Pamela from Switzerland noting that, ‘There is a deplorable lack of leadership there [Geneva] and without a leader the League is pretty helpless.’23 His criticism rested, in particular, on his sense that too much atten242

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tion was being paid to the first eight chapters of the report on the origins and course of the crisis and not enough to its proposals for the future.24 As he put it two years later, the essential problem was that at this crucial juncture the League lost sight of the need for a solution and concentrated merely on reaching a judgement about who was to blame. As such, the vote taken by the League of Nations Assembly on 24 February 1933 to adopt his report was but a hollow victory, for with no willingness in Geneva to act on his plans for changing the governance of Manchuria, this action could only ever succeed in alienating Japan. The latter, after all, was hardly being offered any incentive to engage with the international community. As he noted in retrospect, ‘The League has done nothing but condemn … It has offered no help. It has made no representations.’25 Disappointed by the outcome in Geneva, Lytton’s return to public life in Britain saw him become a leading light in the League of Nations Union; he acted as its vice-chairman of its executive committee between 1935 and 1938 and thereafter as chairman until its demise in 1945. In addition, he became an active member of Chatham House and served on its council between 1935 and 1938. In regard to events in East Asia, Lytton continued to preach his gospel. During a visit to Washington in February 1935 he reiterated that there was no point in merely condemning the Japanese and contended that if the West desired the former to change direction then it had to offer a solution to Japan’s economic and population woes.26 Moreover, in a meeting with the American secretary of state, Cordell Hull, he stressed that Japanese advisors would have to be involved in any kind of international supervision of Manchuria.27 While Lytton no doubt saw his stance as entirely logical, it struck many diplomatic practitioners and right-wingers as simply not grounded in reality.28 Nor did his search for compromise win him any praise in Japan, instead he was perceived there as the architect of its humiliation at Geneva. For example, the revelation in the summer of 1935 that he was to be involved in an international exhibition of Chinese art in London apparently almost led the government in Tokyo to bar Japanese collectors from contributing their treasures to the event.29 However, within the increasingly vocal pro-Chinese faction in London, there was much respect for his work. Accordingly, it is not surprising that after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in July 1937 he emerged as one of the Establishment figures who associated himself with the Chinese cause. For example, in early October he was one of the speakers at the famous Royal Albert Hall meeting that was controversially chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in November agreed to be associated with the China Campaign Committee’s plans for a Chinese art exhibition to raise funds for widows, orphans and refugees.30 Later in August 1940 he was the 243

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leader of a League of Nations Union delegation that met the foreign secretary, Lord Halifax, to protest against the government’s decision to close the Burma Road.31 CONCLUSION

Lord Lytton’s place within the history of Anglo-Japanese relations was sealed by the publication of the report that took his name in October 1932, but there is little clarity in much of the historiography about what he actually said. Most historians, as with Lytton’s contemporaries, have looked little beyond his very balanced judgement of what had led to and transpired during the Manchurian crisis and the way in which his words were then manipulated by the protagonists. For Lytton this was never the point of his report. For him, its significance always lay in its proposals for a solution to East Asia’s problems. In these, he sought not to isolate Japan but to provide it with an incentive to return to the international community without suffering humiliation. This was the response of a profoundly moral man to a crisis where the heat of the debate had, in his view, come to obscure the issues at stake. Unfortunately, however, Lytton’s appeal to reason did not find a receptive audience in Japan, China or the West, for tempers were too frayed in the former two powers and the latter by 1933 simply wanted the whole episode to end as quickly and expediently as possible. Whether Lytton’s proposals constituted a practical way forward can only be a matter of debate, but, as it is, they stand as yet another road not taken. ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4

5

For the history of the League’s involvement in the Manchurian crisis, see Christopher Thorne, The Limits of Foreign Policy: The West, the League and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1931–1933 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1972), Ian Nish, Japan’s Struggle with Internationalism: Japan, China and the League of Nations, 1931–33 (London: Kegan Paul, 1993) and Thomas W. Burkman, Japan and the League of Nations: Empire and World Order, 1914–1938 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008). The National Archives, Kew (TNA) FO371/15505 F7560/1391/10 Macmillan to Simon 16 December 1931. TNA FO371/15506 F7731/1391/10 Lytton to Simon 22 December 1931. Diary entry 23 December 1931, in John Barnes and David Nicholson (eds), The Empire at Bay: The Leo Amery Diaries, 1929–1945 (London: Hutchinson, 1988) p. 225, and FO371/15505 F7688/1391/10 Simon to Zetland 23 December 1931. Jason Tomes, ‘Lytton, Victor Alexander George Robert Bulwer‘, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 16 April 2015.

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6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13 14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

Lytton papers, Knebworth House, K401105, Lytton to Lady Lytton 22 September 1931. The archives can be accessed through www.knebworthhouse.com. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, K401105, Lytton to Lady Lytton 24 September 1931. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, LH27, ‘Address at York Minster’, 23 November 1931. See also ‘The Manchurian Crisis’, The Times, 24 November 1931, p. 11. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, ‘A Biography of Victor Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton’ by C.M. Woodhouse. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, LH27, Lytton diary letter to Lady Lytton 12 March 1932. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, LH27, Lytton diary letter to Lady Lytton 20 March 1932. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, LH27, Lytton diary letter to Lady Lytton 21 March 1932. Nish, op. cit., pp. 125–36. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, LH27, Lytton diary letter to Lady Lytton 28 April 1932. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, LH27, Lytton diary letter to Lady Lytton 9 May 1932. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, LH27, Lytton to Knebworth 7 June 1932. Cecil papers, British Library, Add.Mss.51139, Lytton to Countess Balfour 23 May 1932 f.91. Cecil papers, British Library, Add.Mss.51139, Lytton to Countess Balfour 23 May 1932 f.91. Dawson papers, Times Newspapers Limited Archive, News UK and Ireland Limited, London, TT/ED/GD/1/David Fraser, Fraser to Dawson 29 May 1932. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, LH27, Lytton diary letter to Lady Lytton 14 July 1932. Thorne, op. cit., pp. 283–4, Nish, op. cit., pp. 173–9, and Burkman, op. cit., p. 170. For the Chatham House lecture of 20 October, see Lord Lytton, ‘The Problem of Manchuria’ International Affairs, November 1932, vol.11, no.6, pp. 737–56. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, LH27, Lytton to Lady Lytton 7 February 1933. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, LH27, Lytton memorandum undated [1933]. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, LH27, ‘The Far Eastern Problem and World Peace’, Lytton speech 10 February 1935. Lytton papers, Knebworth House, LH27, ‘The Far Eastern Problem and World Peace’, Lytton speech 10 February 1935. Phillips papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Ms.Am.2232, Box 3, Diary 16 November 1934–29 March 1935, folder 7, diary entry 11 February 1935.

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28

29 30

31

See, for example, Simon papers, the National Archives, Kew (TNA), FO800/288 Vansittart minute 2 March 1933, and London Chamber of Commerce papers, London Metropolitan Archive, City of London, CLC/B/150/MS.16528/001 Smallwood lecture 3 May 1933. ‘Priceless Chinese Art for London’, The Observer, 21 July 1935. ‘The Archbishop’s Speech’, The Times, 6 October 1937, and Lang papers, Lambeth Palace library, Ms.Lang 6, Listowel to Don 23 November 1937. Lang papers, Lambeth Palace library, Ms.Lang 17, Dixon to Lang 12 August 1940.

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sOFFICIALS AND DIPLOMATS s

21

Early British Judges in Japan, 1865–1881: Sir Edmund Grimani Hornby, Charles Wycliffe Goodwin, and Sir Richard Temple Rennie CHIRISTOPHER ROBERTS

INTRODUCTION

When Japan ‘opened up’ to the West following the Ansei treaties in 1858, the British, along with the other Western powers, demanded extra-territorial rights. British extra-territoriality in Japan was run by government employees and consisted of consular courts operating along lines similar to courts in Britain. In 1865, the British government established a new court structure that, with a modification in 1878, operated until 1899 when extra-territoriality was abolished. Legally trained judges were introduced and the consular courts were placed under judicial control. In The British Courts and Extra-territoriality in Japan, 1859–1899,1 I examined the operation of British extra-territoriality in Japan; here I consider three of the early judges who played a key part in the operation of this system: Sir Edmund Hornby, Charles Goodwin and Sir Richard Rennie.2

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SIR EDMUND GRIMANI HORNBY (1825–1896)

When he was forty years old Hornby was plucked from the Supreme Consular Court at Istanbul to become ‘midwife’ to the new regime in China and Japan. Alone of the Chief Justices based in Shanghai, he had substantial immediate oversight of the consular court system in Japan and visited Japan several times on circuit. He was born in York in 1825, the second son of Thomas Hornby, a solicitor, and Francesca Grimani, but spent most of his early life in London in St Swithin’s Lane, close to the Bank of England. Proud of his aristocratic lineage, he could trace his patrilineal descent from one of Henry I’s knights and his matrilineal descent from Venetian Doges.3 He was brought up by tutors at home before going to the London University School and then, aged fifteen, he went with his brother to study near Göttingen for two years. From there, he went to Paris where he studied for nine months so that he was fluent in both German and French. On returning to London, his father sent him to Lisbon where he entered the diplomatic service as a junior clerk to his uncle, Henry Southern, then minister to Portugal. Southern was a protégé of Sir George Villiers, later Earl of Clarendon. In Lisbon, Hornby acquired knowledge of both Portuguese and Spanish. From Lisbon, he moved for a period to the embassy in Madrid.4 Back in London, the young Hornby moved in the literary and cultural circle of his parents and began to read for the Bar. He was called, in 1848, by Middle Temple. Like all aspiring barristers, he struggled to build a practice and, along with his friend James Hannen, wrote regular reviews for newspapers. Despite his uncertain financial future, in 1850, he married Emilia Maceroni (sometimes spelt Emelia

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Macerone), whom he had rescued from the Thames when she had fallen out of a punt. They settled in Weybridge and were to have four children. Hornby had a stroke of luck when one of his cases brought him to the attention of Clarendon, then foreign secretary, who arranged for the Foreign Office to instruct him on future cases.5 Clarendon also appointed him as commissioner to settle various accumulated Anglo-American claims and disputes. Hornby’s practice now began to thrive. He also went to Canada at the instance of Barings to conduct various commercial negotiations with the local provincial governments. In 1855, he was appointed by Clarendon to go to Istanbul to manage a £5 million Anglo-French loan to Turkey for the purposes of the Crimean War. Once there, the British ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, asked Hornby, in addition to his work on the Turkish loan, to act as assessor to hear and determine the various cases which came up from the consular courts within the Ottoman Empire and to draw up a comprehensive scheme for the future administration of British justice within the Ottoman territories. When the Crimean War ended, Hornby sat as an arbitrator to hear contractors’ claims against the British government arising from supply contracts in that war. After returning to London and resuming his legal practice, Hornby, aged thirty-two, was appointed on 27 August 1857 to take charge of a newly-established Supreme Consular Court in Istanbul with a view to implementing his reform proposals. He was knighted in 1862. After the cession of Britain’s Protectorate over the Ionian Islands to Greece in 1864 and the concomitant fall-off in commercial cases coming before the Istanbul consular court from those islands, the Foreign Office looked to save costs by amalgamating the positions of judge and consul-general at Istanbul. At the same time, it was seeking to consolidate the judicial activities of the consuls in Japan and China. Russell, therefore, offered Hornby the choice of retirement — with an enhanced annuity due to the abolition of his post in Istanbul — or going to Shanghai to establish a new British judicial regime in China and Japan.6 Hornby had no wish to retire7 and agreed to re-locate to Shanghai and become the first legally-trained judge to assume responsibility for the operation of British extra-territoriality in China and Japan. He was the only person in British government service who had immediate experience of the task in hand. In Shanghai, ‘for special reasons, among others …’ because he was involved in organizing the new system of justice in China and Japan, his salary was £3,500 (plus a £1,000 housing allowance) — £1,000 more than was intended to be paid to any successor.8 249

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In early 1865, he left Istanbul for London to finalise the arrangements for the new court system.9 Hornby appointed Charles Goodwin as his Deputy and Assistant Judge and John Fraser, the law clerk at Izmir, as the Law Secretary. The three, together with Sir Francis Savage Reilly,10 settled the China and Japan Order in Council, 1865 (OC1865) and the Rules of Her British Majesty’s Supreme Court and other Courts in China and Japan (Rules) to regulate the conduct of proceedings within the courts. The Times described OC1865 as very comprehensive and well drawn up. In An Autobiography,11 Hornby is frank about his nepotism: appointing friends and servants to responsible positions throughout his career. He also disliked the idea of competitive examinations and argued that the Foreign Office gave too much credit to linguistic ability rather than an individual’s effectiveness. Hornby had appointed two of his friends as assistants in Istanbul. He was to follow this precedent in Shanghai as well: not only in his selection of Fraser (and, presumably, Goodwin) but his nephew, Edmund Hornby Grimani, joined him in the Supreme Court for a couple of years before joining the Imperial Customs Service. We may also suspect that it was Hornby who, through his close friendship with James Hannen, encouraged the young Nicholas Hannen to come out to Shanghai — and Hornby was clearly ‘looking out for’ him when he floated his name as a possible judge for Yokohama. In June 1865, Hornby left London for Shanghai where he arrived in July and immediately set about the practical arrangements for accommodating the court — in the consulate buildings — and recruiting local staff. Hornby did not take his wife out to Shanghai — considering the climate unsuitable. She died in 1866 at Dieppe and he married Mary Hudson in 1868 in Shanghai. She died in 1873 and, two years later in Shanghai, he married Emily Roberts, then aged twenty, from Connecticut, by whom he had two further children. As a leading British functionary in Shanghai, he was elected colonel commandant of the Shanghai Volunteers and served for six years in that post. Russell, the foreign secretary at the time of Hornby’s appointment to Shanghai, instructed Hornby to visit the Treaty Ports within his jurisdiction to assess whether he needed to visit them regularly on circuit or only on a more occasional basis and, at one time or another, Hornby visited all the Treaty Ports in Japan to inspect them. The local admiral was requested to make naval vessels available to transport Hornby on these circuits.12 For obvious reasons of comfort, Hornby tended to travel on circuit to southern China during the winter months and to northern China and Japan during the summer months. In the lull between arriving in Shanghai and the Supreme Court’s opening for business on 4 September 1865, Hornby visited Yoko250

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hama in August. There, he found ‘the amount greater and the nature of the business … much more important than …’13 he had expected and immediately questioned whether it would be necessary to appoint an assistant judge of the Supreme Court to sit permanently in Yokohama.14 An interesting case which he handled on that visit involved an explosion and fire on board the ss Cadiz, a P&O steamer, as it was leaving the port — caused by the shipment of several cases of detonating tubes which exploded. Hornby directed the shipper to be fined £100.15 He visited Nagasaki and Yokohama in September and October 1866 after a circuit to the northern China Treaty Ports.16 The next clear record of his visiting Japan was from August to November 1869, when Parkes requested his urgent assistance at Yokohama following the death of the consul, Fletcher, which, in the absence of the absence of Russell Robertson, the acting consul, caused a severe backlog of judicial work. Hornby returned to Yokohama in August and September 1870 after he had left Shanghai for home leave. His final recorded visit to Japan was in 1872. Part of this final visit is recounted in An Autobiography where Hornby includes a very interesting account of travelling, by Royal Naval vessel, on circuit to Hakodate and Niigata before then making his way overland to the Tokaido and Tokyo. It includes a good description of the then British consulate in Niigata — which existed for only a couple of years before being closed due to lack of business. He also visited Kobe, Nagasaki and Osaka17 on this occasion and has provided good descriptions of the Japanese gaols in Nagasaki and Osaka used to house British prisoners in those ports. On circuit, Hornby would hear the more important cases — whichwould have been held over until he visited — and also appeals from the consuls’ decisions. The most important cases tended to be shipping disputes; but he also heard a matrimonial dispute in Nagasaki in 1866.18 Hornby used his stay in Japan in 1869 to plan with Sir Harry Parkes, the British minister, the establishment of a British court for Japan. Nine-tenths of the Yokohama consulate’s work was judicial business but they recognized that any re-organisation would need to be cost neutral if it was to obtain Treasury approval. Their key proposal19 was ‘the appointment of a permanent judicial officer for Japan’ by detaching the assistant judge and a court clerk from Shanghai to Yokohama but the judge in Japan would remain subordinate to the chief justice. In addition, they suggested that the judge at Yokohama should act as legal adviser to the legation and sift merchants’ claims against the Japanese authorities before being considered by the minister.20 A vice-consul could handle the shipping business and the Board of Trade returns. 251

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Whilst he was away on leave from October 1870 to May 1872,21 the Foreign Office partially implemented the proposals. Goodwin was simply informed that he should re-locate from Shanghai to Yokohama together with a clerk from the Supreme Court; but he was not, in that capacity, to have oversight of the judicial work of the outlying consulates: they remained under the Supreme Court’s direct supervision. As Goodwin was then running the Supreme Court in Hornby’s absence and then himself went on leave, Hannen was appointed to Yokohama temporarily in his place. These arrangements had no legislative backing and OC1865 and the Rules did not contemplate the Assistant Judge’s being resident permanently in Japan. Hannen quickly identified a number of issues affecting both criminal and civil matters; but Hornby’s absence and the domination which he exercised over British judicial affairs in East Asia meant that no major decision could be taken without him. The principal question was that of appeals from Hannen’s decisions in Yokohama. When Hannen refused a defendant leave to appeal to Shanghai saying that, as the Yokohama court was a branch of the Supreme Court, appeals lay to the Privy Council — with the inconvenience and expense involved — there was uproar in the local British commercial community. Hornby upheld Hannen’s judgment but, like everyone else, recognised that this was an unsatisfactory mode of reviewing the Yokohama Court’s decisions. Therefore, he re-designated Hannen as hearing cases within the Kanagawa provincial court (as opposed to a branch of the Supreme Court) so that appeals would lie, as from the other consular courts in Japan, to the Supreme Court in Shanghai. Hornby recognized that this was an unsatisfactory stopgap structure and prepared and circulated a draft new Order in Council for consideration by the Foreign Office and the Law Officers. However, he had retired before the Foreign Office took any steps to regularise the situation. Outside the judicial sphere, Hornby played a large role in the formation and constitution of the Shanghai municipal council and, when the governance of the foreign settlement of Yokohama was creaking, his advice was sought on what steps could be taken. During his stay in Yokohama in 1869, he suggested that, if the Japanese government granted a charter, then a municipal council could impose taxes and enforce municipal by-laws upon foreigners.22 In 1870, he assisted with drafting the Kobe municipal council’s constitution and The Hiogo News hoped that he would provide one as satisfactory to the foreign residents of Kobe as he had to their brethren in Shanghai.23 Hornby was always conscious of the shortcomings of many of his fellow Europeans for ‘so often foreigners who have been long 252

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resident in China and Japan refuse to look upon Chinese and Japanese as human beings entitled to the same protection they claim for themselves. They appear incapable of understanding why a coolie is not to be treated worse than a dog.’ He, himself, was by no means antipathetic towards the Japanese authorities and appears to have had a good relationship with them. This shows up in a number of areas: he agreed to waive court fees payable by Japanese plaintiffs and prosecutors before the consular courts. When the Japanese government appealed a case to Shanghai,24 Hornby said he had no objection to remitting the appeal fees if they were to come from the Japanese government — something not done in other cases. When Hornby heard The Japanese Government v. George Anderson at Nagasaki in the presence of Japanese officials, he, perhaps irregularly but certainly showing consideration for the Japanese authorities, deferred his judgment for a few days whilst he sent a copy of the evidence to the local governor for his remarks. Then, when Troup (of the Japan consular service) conducted an inquest into the death of a Japanese in the custody of Blakiston,25 a British subject in Hakodate, Hornby admonished Troup for doing so as Britain had no right to hold such an inquest — it being a matter entirely for the Japanese authorities. Hornby then instructed Troup as to the penalties he should levy on Blakiston who, he said, should not have taken the law into his own hands and punished his Japanese servant but left it to the Japanese authorities.26 Such sensitivity to the rights of the Japanese authorities and the limitations of extra-territoriality was not an isolated instance for, unlike many others, he stuck to — and did not try to expand by interpretation — the Treaty provisions. He doubted whether counter-claims could lie against Japanese plaintiffs and, in 1874, when Wilkinson and Hannen gave different decisions about the enforcement of the Trade Regulations attached to the Treaty, Hornby supported the Japanese authorities’ interpretation and advised that Wilkinson (who had interpreted them in a way favourable to British mariners) was wrong. He rejected the vociferous complaints of the local British community in Japan about Britons being imprisoned in Japanese gaols — saying that if Britons could not abstain from drunkenness and trouble, they could not expect HMG to provide prison cells for them. Perhaps Hornby’s most important intervention with the Japanese authorities was in the Maria Luz affair.27 In 1872, Hornby was at Yokohama when the Peruvian vessel, the Maria Luz, put in for repairs with several hundred Chinese coolies on board. Shipped from Macao, Hornby suspected that their condition was akin to slavery and determined to do something about it. With the chargé d’affaires’ blessing, Hornby instigated the Japanese government (and Soejima, the foreign minister, in particular) to take action and assert 253

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Japan’s rights over the Peruvian vessel (which had no extra-territoriality).Hornby guided Soejima through the international legal thicket surrounding the issues. The result was a major step in the emergence of Japan into the international legal arena as an equal with Western countries. Hornby’s account in his autobiography of his handling of this important case makes interesting reading and is included as an appendix to this portrait. Dr Willis28 described Hornby as a ‘card’ and the style of An Autobography certainly suggests a jolly, bluff individual with a zest for life — and a sense of his own importance. He was a somewhat distant figure with the consuls: his letters to junior consuls suggest an individual who brooked no nonsense or questions: on the one hand being leery of their trying to pass on to him decisions which were properly theirs; and, on the other, not being above telling them how to decide cases and the sentences to impose. His robust approach to administering the law may be seen during his stay in Japan in 1869, when he declared that it was never intended that appeals should be sent up on frivolous grounds and used costs to discourage unmeritorious appeals. His message was heeded and, subsequently, there were fewer unmeritorious appeals. Before visiting Japan in 1870, he wrote: ‘I can dispose of all pending cases — and the mere fact of my being there will precipitate all those that are hatching. There is always a lull in litigation after I have been in a place, because I talk people out of their absurd grounds and settle those amicably which really have any points in them without fighting — and, in criminal matters, I generally manage to inspire a wholesome respect for the law, that the Rowdy chaps keep in order for at least three months after I leave.’He also questioned whether the consular gaols were suitable for short sentences as he saw their great fault being that ‘they are not places of punishment and that consequently they are by no means unpopular places of retreat’. One downside to his bluff nature was his tendency to use exaggeration to make a point — which means that his correspondence sometimes needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. When he told the Office of Works that the volume of judicial work at Yokohama justified his spending three months a year there on a travelling assize, this may have been part of an attempt to obtain decent accommodation for himself locally (besides avoiding the punishing summers of Shanghai) and to obtain improved court facilities. Hornby’s comments, when proposing the establishment of the Yokohama court — when he said that the consular officers ‘have no legal education … are besides very young and inexperienced … [and their] position is very like what mine would be if … [appointed] to the post of chief surgeon to a London hospital’29 — have often beencited as evidence for the deficiencies of legally untrained consuls. 254

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Whilst there had been problems until around 1870, with the presence of a judge at Yokohama the issue largely disappeared. There was a human side to Hornby. When Bate, the court clerk in Yokohama, needed to go home on leave for health reasons in 1872, it was only at Hornby’s intercession that the government paid his passage money and allowed him his full salary whilst on leave.30 As Judge, he introduced two features of great assistance to the legal community in Japan and China. First, he wrote and, in 1867, published his ‘Instructions to Consuls’. Based upon his similar work in Istanbul, these were a set of practical instructions, guidance notes and the necessary forms for untrained consuls. As with OC1865, they stood the test of time. Secondly, he established the Supreme Court and Consular Gazette as the official organ of the Supreme Court and the British authorities in China and Japan.31 It included accurate case reports — described as having been “officially vetted” by the presiding judge — in the nature of Law Reports which could be cited in argument and enabled practitioners throughout Japan and China to follow local legal developments. He was keen to encourage junior consular officers to read for the Bar during home leaves so as to improve their legal knowledge and to play a part in a proper judicial hierarchy in East Asia with a career progression. In 1875, Hornby applied to retire on grounds of ill health. His health had been suffering and, for much of the latter part of 1875, he had been entirely prevented from active work in court due to the summer heat in Shanghai and abscesses in both ears, which were causing deafness. Derby granted the application and Hornby was granted a superannuation annuity of £2,382.32 Hornby had originally intended to stay in Shanghai until the autumn of 1876, as it would take Goodwin at least until June to relocate back from Yokohama to Shanghai.33 But in May 1876 Hornby telegraphed Derby34 to say that he was leaving immediately on the French mail. He left Shanghai on 11 May 1876.35 He was fifty-one, and had just married for the third time. In retirement he settled first in Sussex, where he tried his hand at farming and, when this proved unprofitable, moved to Devon. He continued his interest in, and wrote articles and pamphlets on international law. In 1893, he went with James Hannen to Paris for the final arbitration on the Behring Sea dispute. He died unexpectedly in his sleep after a day’s mountain walking, and was buried, in 1896 at Rappallo, where he was on holiday. His third wife survived him and died in 1909. Although not based in Japan and having spent no more than a year in aggregate on circuit in Japan, he was a leading British official in 255

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Japan in terms of stature and influence — second only to the minister, whose legal adviser he was. On his retirement, The Japan Mail said that the new regime that had evolved out of the previous muddle was due to Hornby’s ‘tact and energy’, and, although often criticized, he was ‘felt by all to be straightforward and strong’ and a ‘sagacious’ adviser.36 APPENDIX

The Maria Luz affair as recorded by Sir Edward Hornby in his Autobiography. Editorial note:

As the following summary and extracts show Sir Edmund Hornby greatly relished his involvement in the Maria Luz affair. He was clearly rather pleased with himself over his venture into international diplomacy and he may not have got all the details right but there is no reason to doubt the thrust of his account. The Maria Luz case1 was a significant step in the emergence of Japan as the equal of the ‘Western’ nations both in the field of international law and more generally. As such, it was a milestone on Japan’s road to the revision of the Treaties. Sir Edmund Hornby resided at Shanghai and being responsible as Judge for judicial matters in both the Treaty Ports in China as well as Japan used to go on circuit to visit the various ports in both countries. On his ‘southern circuit’ in China he would visit Canton and from there he ‘used to take an occasional holiday to Macao’ which he described as ‘essentially Portuguese’. On his second visit to Macao his purpose was ‘to learn something about the coolie traffic’. Herbert Magniac of Jardine’s accompanied him ‘and thanks to a judicious expenditure of dollars we managed to corrupt a Portuguese clerk of one of the principal slave contractors. We inspected a long list of barracoons lying near the shore which had the appearance of low warehouses. Inside them were some 300 or 400 Chinese, evidently men from the interior. Those who were not drunk or under the influence of bhang or opium, were drinking and gambling; a few were in irons, having shown a mutinous disposition, in other words a simple desire to get back to their country. Ostensibly they were all ‘free men’ who for good pay were willing to go to Peru to work in the mines or on the Guano Islands. In reality they one and all had been entrapped and were being kept prisoners until, after an examination before a 1

‘Rescuing the Prisoners of the Maria Luz: The Meiji Government and the ‘Coolie Trade’, 1868–1875’ by Igor R. Saveliev in Bert Edstrom, Turning Points in Japanese History (Japan Library, 2002) contains a short article which places the incident in the context of the contemporary Japanese political scene. 256

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Portuguese judicial functionary, some brigs in the roads were ready to take them off. As far as looks went they were evidently well fed, but they had all the bloated heavy-eyed look of men who had been on a week’s spree. Many of them, the clerk told us, were fugitives from justice, many were debtors, and the remainder, comprising more than three-fourths of the number, were young labourers who had, unfortunately for themselves, listened and yielded to the couleur de rose representation of the crimps. Very few, if any, he told us, ever return, at least he knew of none, they were, in fact, slaves. This traffic is the mainstay of Macao, and as I was subsequently the principal cause of ruining the trade I take some interest in describing it. Under our treaties with the Portuguese they are bound to assist us in putting down the slave trade and not to engage in it in any shape or form. Yet here they were, in this out-of-the-way place, carrying it on with great activity, the only difference being that the slaves were Chinese instead of Negroes. Representations, however, had been made from Hong Kong, and the Portuguese Government had excused themselves upon the plea that the Chinese were ‘Free Emigrants’, and that every one of them was examined by a specially appointed officer as to their willingness to proceed to Peru under ‘Service Contracts’, and that everything was done to secure that none should be shipped except by their own free will and after a full explanation of the nature of the contract they had entered into. Magniac and I determined that we would attend at the court when one of these examinations take place. The Court is supposed to be a Public Court but no one ever knows, except those interested, when it sits. The almighty dollar, however, can do wonders, and we found our way one morning at 5 a.m. into a Court where a Judge was presiding, attended by a lot of subordinate officials. A lane formed by barriers and crowded with so-called ‘Free Emigrants’ two deep led to a dock in front of the Bench. As they filed or were pushed through this dock, names were called out, answers given, not by the ‘Free labourers’, but by some Chinamen who stood in a kind of witness-box, documents were handed in and stamped, and the file of men moved on. We were stationed behind a pillar which prevented the Judge from seeing us, but we were close to the barrier, and both Magniac and myself observed that every one of the emigrants was under the influence of some drug, they rolled their eyes and staggered forward, some being actually supported to the place in front of the Judge. Not one of them opened his lips. No question was addressed to any one of them in particular, and certainly no articulate answer was given. Hornby and Magniac were eventually spotted and invited on to the Bench, Hornby having assured the Judge ‘in most diplomatic language, that we had come to witness the effective manner in which 257

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any possible abuse of the misunderstood coolie traffic was prevented by the excellent arrangements of the Portuguese Government’. Their presence led to a change in the way the proceedings had been conducted, ending with the Judge declaring that the remaining coolies ‘were in an unfit state to be examined, ordered the contractor into custody, and adjourned the Court’. Through Jardine’s compradore in Macao they ‘got a sight of one of the contracts, which purported to ensure a free passage out and $20 a month with a free passage back at the end of five years. He had only known two men who had returned, and these had escaped from Peru on board an American ship and were penniless. Their account of their treatment, even after making due allowances was terrible. They were worked to death, badly fed, and severely flogged on the least remonstrance. As to money they had never seen any. They had no idea how many Chinamen were employed, but knew that several shipment came every year to take the place of those who died. The Chinese Government, it appeared, had often remonstrated, but the lower officials were well fee’d and nothing had been done to put an effectual stop to the traffic.’ Hornby came, more than a year later, through the Maria Luz affair in Japan ‘to be the means of exposing the system and of enabling the British Government to interfere with the Portuguese Government’. When Hornby was on circuit in Japan ‘One morning, on going to the Consulate at Kanagawa, the Vice-Consul in charge told me that two Chinese had come dripping wet to the Consulate stating that they had swum from a Portuguese ship, called the ‘Maria Luz’. They had arrived the day before from China, and the ship was anchored just outside the harbour, and he had sent them back on board. I told him that he ought to have waited and reported the occurrence to me before sending the men back, as a Peruvian vessel in Japanese waters with Chinamen on board was a novelty, and the fact that the Chinese had risked their lives to get ashore required a little investigation. I immediately sent to the Japanese Harbour Master for particulars of the ship and learnt that she was a Peruvian merchantman, commanded by a Peruvian naval officer, and that part of the crew were naval men-of-war’s men, that she had three or four hundred Chinese coolies on board, and having met with bad weather had put in to repair damages. These facts, coupled with the recollection of my visit to Macao, roused my suspicions, but I had no evidence, which justified me in interfering, or even in calling the attention of the Japanese Government to the case. Next day the commander of one of our gun-ships in the harbour sent to the Consulate to say that two men had swum off to his ship, and that the tale they told made him think that the Peruvian barque was a slaver. 258

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I sent for the men, and on interrogating them learnt that they were coolies from Macao, that three or four of their mates had jumped overboard, and that two had committed suicide, and that the two men who had been sent back by the British Consul a day or two before had been cruelly flogged. The next thing I heard was that halfa-dozen of the coolies had escaped from the ship, had swum ashore during the night, and that an armed boat’s crew from the ship had landed, gone up the country and captured them. I began then to see my way, and knowing that the relations between the Japanese and Chinese governments were ‘strained’ – indeed diplomatic relations were suspended on account of the ‘Formosa’ difficulty – it occurred to me that there was an opportunity of striking an effective blow at the Macao trade in coolies, and at the same time enabling Japan to do a friendly act towards China. So I went to see the English Chargé d’Affaires – the Minister being absent – who agreed with me that something might be done, stipulating, however, that, as intricate questions of international law might arise, I should undertake the coaching of the Japs [sic] We then went to make a friendly call on old Soegima [sic Soejima]. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, feeling pretty certain he would mention the affair, if only to fish out a little advice. We found His Excellency in a high state of irritation at the violation by the Peruvian captain of Japanese territory in landing an armed crew, and also at the answer, which that individual had sent to his polite remonstrance. He showed us the letter of the captain of the ‘Maria Luz’, which stated the writer to be a Commander in the Naval Service of Peru, and that he considered himself justified in sending an armed force on shore to apprehend deserters. Soegima then asked what international law might have to say on the matter. I briefly explained the law to him, and suggested that Japan had now an opportunity of asserting herself as a new member of the Comity of Nations. The old gentleman warmed up at this and asked the Chargé if, in the event of the Government taking action, the British Minister would support it, which he was assured he would do. He then asked me if I would assist him as regards the law, which I was perfectly ready to do. I suggested that he should immediately answer the Captain’s insolent note, and as he was evidently at a loss what to say I sat down and drafted a polite request to know whether it was as a man-of-war or as a merchant ship he had sought the hospitality of Japanese waters, observing that if it was in the former character he had neglected the usual courtesies, if in the latter he had failed to report his ship. This brought another defiant and impertinent letter. I advised then that a gunboat should be sent to ascertain the real character of the vessel. This responsibility Soegima did not like to take until he had 259

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consulted colleagues, and he asked me if I would attend a Council. This I agreed to, and met the Cabinet in the evening. At first there was a very general inclination not to interfere further with the Peruvian captain, but old Soegima’s blood was up, he considered he had been insulted, and if he was not to be supported he would no longer hold the Portfolio of Foreign Affairs. The Prime Minister then asked me to define the exact position of the Government in the point of view of international law, which they all frankly admitted they were ignorant of. This I did. Then I was asked if I would assist, and finally they agreed to stand by their Foreign Secretary, who, on his part, undertook to follow my advice. Next morning a gunboat was despatched with orders to find out the character of the ‘Maria Luz’, to bring her closer in and to anchor her near the Japanese ironclads. The Captain raged about his deck when this order was read to him, but finally agreed to come of his own accord, which he did under escort, and then after many abusive words produced his papers, which showed that the vessel was an ordinary merchant vessel although commanded pro tem by a naval officer. By this time the Chinese community had become interested on behalf of their countrymen, and applied for an order of the Japanese High court to bring the men ashore. The Peruvian, however, had gone to claim the protection of the Portuguese Consul who went to all the Foreign Ministers [foreign diplomatic representatives] and induced them to sign a protest against the ‘unheard-of conduct’ of the Japanese Government. To this protest I drafted the answer, and I flatter myself it was rather a neat State paper, reserving a separate reply for the Portuguese Consul-General, in which I begged to know why he took the Peruvian vessel and Captain under his special protection. I confess the action of the ‘Corps Diplomatique’ took me by surprise, for the protest was signed by all with the exception of the English Chargé d’Affaires and the American Consul-general, who declined to have anything to do with it until he knew more of the facts, and this although his Minister had requested him to sign it. In the protest allusion was made to the principles of international law and to the courtesy due to the traders of foreign nationalities. This enabled the Japanese to request in the most honeyed language I could express myself to be favoured with something more precise than an allusion to general principles, and to express a hope that the acts of discourtesy which had been hinted at would be pointed out, winding up with a clear statement of the facts and begging for a further expression of opinion, which it is needless to say was not forthcoming. The Portuguese Consul was at the same time politely asked if he would – as he seemed inclined to protect the Peruvian vessel and 260

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her captain – assume on the part of his Government the responsibility of her conduct and justify whatever might be the result of an enquiry into her cargo and the conduct of her Commander. This he declined, but foolishly threatened the Japanese with the displeasure of his Government in respect of the interference of the trade between Portugal and Peru. This was exactly what I wanted him to do, and therefore invited him as an interested party, to vigilantly watch the proceedings. Sufficient evidence had now been obtained. According to the Peruvian version the Chinese on board were ‘Free Emigrants’, and it was also proved that some five or six had thrown themselves overboard and had been drowned rather than proceed on the voyage, and that those who had escaped to the land had been recaptured and brutally flogged. No mention of these facts appeared in the ship’s log. All of the Chinese claimed the protection of the Japanese Government and begged to be brought before the authorities and released. A request was made to the Captain that they should be allowed to land, and state their grievances to the authorities. The Peruvian refused. On which, at my suggestion the Government ordered him to bring them on shore, and he still refusing, sent a gunboat towing sampans to bring them off. This offended the representative of the Peruvian Navy and he mustered his crew armed to the teeth, himself appeared in a gorgeous uniform, and dared the captain of the gunboat to come on board, which that officer promptly did, having first informed him that if a shot was fired by any of his crew he must take the consequences. The Chinese then went aboard the sampans, which brought them on shore, and they were comfortably lodged in barracks. Old Soegima and the Prime Minister showed pluck, but their colleagues began to get frightened, especially when the Portuguese Consul-General produced a telegram purporting to come from the Peruvian Government stating that it was about to send a fleet to Japan. Whether this document was forged or not I don’t know, as only a copy of it was produced. I happened, however, to have read in the newspapers that there was a little revolution going on in Peru, and that the Chilean Government had taken umbrage at something that had been done by the former State. I thought, therefore, it was very unlikely the former country would at such a juncture deprive itself of the services of its navy, besides which the Japanese were well able to hold their own. On a preliminary investigation the Captain of the ‘Maria Luz’ was asked if he had any of the so-called ‘Service Contracts’ and whether he had agreed with the Chinese passengers for their passage to Peru. He declined to give any information, but boastingly asserted that he had been freighted by the Macao authorities at the request of the Peruvian Government. This was unpleasant news for the Portuguese 261

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Consul, and I did not believe it was true. Ample evidence was given of the treatment of the Chinese, of the suicides and floggings. Not one of the so-called free emigrants had a contract in his possession or had ever seen one, and they all declared they had been kidnapped. As I was unwilling that the Japanese should act too high-handedly, I suggested that they should waive a judicial investigation and refer the whole matter to a mixed tribunal to be constituted by the Mikado ad hoc, consisting of the Japanese Judge, the English Judge, Mr Nicholas Hannen, and the American Consul-General, to which the Government agreed, and a circular despatch was written informing the Corps Diplomatique of this concession. The investigation lasted three days and resulted in a decision that the Chinese passengers were free to continue their voyage or to accept the offer of the Japanese Government to send them back to China. This they all elected to do, and the Japanese Government wrote to Pekin [sic] informing the authorities of the course pursued, volunteering at the same time – at my suggestion – at their own cost to send the kidnapped coolies to any port the Chinese Government would name. This brought about a complementary reply, in which the Mikado was informed that the Emperor proposed sending a special envoy to Yeddo [sic, Edo now Tokyo] to express his thanks for the energetic action of His Majesty and to reestablish friendly relations. The Peruvian Government continued to bluster and threaten, and I suggested that the Japanese should offer to refer their conduct to the arbitrament of any Sovereign the Peruvians might name. The offer could not well be refused, and the Emperor of Russia was asked and accepted the office. A case and counter case were prepared and submitted, and in a few months an award was given completely in favour of the Japanese. During the investigation I took good care to collect all the evidence showing the direct complicity of the authorities at Macao and the indirect connivance of the Portuguese Government, this I sent to the Foreign Office with an explanatory dispatch and a report of my visit to Macao in the previous year. The British Government was thus enabled to ‘go for’ the Portuguese Government, with the result that all Chinese emigrants are now shipped from Hong Kong under strict surveillance and very few go to Peru, where, I believe, the British Consul has a word to say as to their treatment. At any rate, some have returned lately, I hear, with a few dollars, but their accounts of their hardships are not likely to attract others. I confess to having enjoyed this hurricane in a tea-cup immensely. No one except the Japanese Ministers seemed to know the part I played in it, and they gave me a perfectly free hand. I wrote all the despatches, gave all the orders, superintended the investigation 262

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before the tribunals, and overlooked the arbitration. The Japanese Government were profuse in their acknowledgements, old Soegima acquired immense kudos, and the English Government approved of all my proceedings. Even the Portuguese Consul-General, who alone ‘smelt a rat behind the arras’, was grateful, as I managed to get him out of a scrape with his Government for his too energetic interference on behalf of the Peruvians. Some years later Sir John Smale, on his retirement from the Chief Justiceship of Hong Kong, was congratulated by a deputation headed by Lord Shaftesbury, on the ‘energetic assistance’ he had given the Japanese in the Maria Luz case enabling the British ‘to destroy the kidnapping trade’ between Macao and Peru. In fact, although Smale had been active in regulating the coolie emigration trade, he had not been involved at all with the Maria Luz affair. CHARLES WYCLIFFE GOODWIN (1817–1878)

As Assistant Judge, Hornby selected Charles Wycliffe Goodwin.37 Goodwin was born in 1817 at King’s Lynn, the eldest son of Charles Goodwin, a local solicitor with a large practice, and Frances Catherine, née Sawyer. His mother died when he was eight years old. Then, he and his brother, Harvey,38 were was sent away to school at High Wycombe before Goodwin went up to read classics and mathematics at St Catherine’s, Cambridge. He graduated in 1838 whereupon he became a fellow of the college with a view to taking holy orders. From early childhood, his over-riding passion was Egyptology and it is upon that subject that his entry in the Dictionary of National Biography concentrates.39 Nonetheless, he was something of a polymath: besides studying hieroglyphics and translating several papyri, he was well regarded in his day as a Hebraist, a botanist and a scholar of Anglo-Saxon and German. Throughout his life — including as assistant judge — he was a contributor to learned journals on all these subjects: in English, French and German. His wife was Augustine Anne. Newspapers40 refer to five children. His eldest daughter, Agnes, married John Carey Hall in 187641 whilst Goodwin was based in Yokohama.42 Goodwin was admitted as a student of Lincoln’s Inn on 14 April 1840 but took a leisurely approach to reading for the Bar and was not called by Lincoln’s Inn until 13 June 184843 — after he had resigned his fellowship in 1847 upon deciding not to proceed to holy orders.44 He practised from King’s Bench Walk in the Temple and, over the next ten years, he wrote books on the Copyhold Enfranchisement Act, the Succession Act and the Probate Act.45 The study and practise of Law were probably not his first interests and he may well not have been a successful practitioner at the Bar. 263

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So he may have taken the position in Shanghai as a means of securing a steady income — which would allow him to continue his first loves. He was appointed Assistant Judge on 31 March 1865 and assisted Hornby in finalizing OC1865 and the Rules. En route to Shanghai, he availed himself of a stopover at Alexandria: ostensibly to study the workings of the British court there but also to pursue, in situ, his interest in Egyptology.46 His wife accompanied him to Shanghai47 whereas Hornby’s wife stayed in Europe. Goodwin was very ill on the voyage out across the Indian Ocean and caused Hornby to fear for his life.48 He arrived in Shanghai with Hornby in July 1865 and assumed his position in the newly established Supreme Court when it opened on 4 September. Goodwin took charge of all the routine civil cases (while Fraser handled the criminal ones and Hornby dealt with all heavy cases and appeals).49 As Hornby’s deputy, Goodwin was obliged to travel on circuit within China and also to run the Supreme Court whilst Hornby was on circuit or on home leave. He worked with Hornby in writing editorials in the Supreme Court and Consular Gazette by way of advice to consuls and explanations of the more important cases.50 When Parkes and Hornby, in 1869, proposed the establishment of the Yokohama Court, Hornby recognised that ‘the chief difficulty’ would be ‘in the working of it’; a difficulty exacerbated by his own impending return on leave to Europe on health grounds. For Japan, Hornby first considered Goodwin (then aged forty-two), but questioned whether he would want the post or be as fitted for it as a younger man. Hornby wanted someone about thirty-five who was a thorough practical and able commercial lawyer, capable of acting as advisor to the minister; ‘To send out a nisi prius lawyer would do immense mischief at this juncture.’ Notwithstanding Hornby’s views and without further discussion, the Foreign Office gave Goodwin no choice and simply notified him that the growing importance of British commercial interests in Japan rendered it necessary that a branch of the Supreme Court be established there and he, as assistant judge, should henceforth reside at Yokohama.51 One of the Supreme Courts’ clerks would be attached to the Yokohama court and he should use some of the Yokohama consulate’s office servants as ushers and messengers. For the moment, Goodwin remained in Shanghai as Deputy Jjudge52 as Hornby went home on leave and when Hornby returned, Goodwin took his own home leave (which he extended to the end of 187353) so did not take up his post in Yokohama until April 1874. In the meantime, on Foreign Office instructions, Goodwin appointed Hannen ‘as acting Assistant Judge of the Japan Branch of the Supreme Court empowered ... to hear ... cases arising at Yoko264

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hama’. During 1871 and early 1872, Goodwin was called upon to advise Hannen on a number of occasions on the practice and procedure to be followed. When they both decided that — contrary to Hornby’s practice — to levy court fees upon Japanese litigants before the Yokohama Court, Hornby wrote an excoriating letter from Neuadd Trefaw at Llandysil, Carmarthenshire, where he was staying to Granville complaining that they had overturned his practice on the matter without even consulting him.54 In the face of Japanese official complaints, the chargé d’affaires persuaded Hannen to desist. Goodwin’s salary at Yokohama was £1,200 the same as he received in Shanghai as Assistant Judge but he lost the £450 that he had saved annually out of his housing allowance in Shanghai as no housing allowance was paid in Yokohama because official accommodation was available there.55 He also lost the £2 per diem allowance he had received in Shanghai for acting as Judge when Hornby was away on circuit (worth, in practice, about £120). Hornby tried (without success) to obtain better terms for Goodwin by pointing out that even county court judges in England were paid £1,500 whereas, in Japan, ‘the cost of living is so much greater than in England’. The Foreign Office conceded that no one had asked Goodwin if he would move, that he did not wish to move to Yokohama and he was the poorer because of it but still refused to recommend to the Treasury an increase in Goodwin’s salary unless Hornby could find savings elsewhere.56 Before assuming charge of the Yokohama court in 1874, Goodwin had had little experience of Japan save visiting once on circuit in 1867/68 and having supervised the consular courts in Japan when acting as Deputy Judge. He took his seat on the bench of the Yokohama court for the first time on 8 April 1874.57 After barely two-and-half years in Yokohama, Goodwin returned to Shanghai at the end of 1876 where, following Hornby’s somewhat precipitate retirement in the middle of that year, he assumed charge of the Supreme Court. However, this was an acting appointment only. Goodwin might have expected to succeed Hornby as Judge — and, indeed, applied for the position.58 In December 1877, however, Derby telegraphed Goodwin to inform him that George French was to be the new Judge at Shanghai, that a separate court would be established in Japan and, if Goodwin wished to take the Japan judge-ship, Derby would be pleased to offer it to him at an increased salary of £1,50059 — which would be payable as from 1 April 1878.60 Goodwin responded that he had ‘no alternative but to’ accept Derby’s offer of the Japan judge-ship. However, rather than return from Shanghai to Japan upon French’s arrival, he sought permission to have twelve months’ home leave due to the state of his health.61 265

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He had suffered from a chronic and painful bladder disease since March 1877 and had been confined to his room (with increasing amounts of opiates being administered for pain relief) and not sat in court.62 Before he could leave for Britain, Goodwin died, aged sixty, in Shanghai on 17 January 1878. He was buried in the Shanghai Cemetery (Pahsienjao Cemetery) in the presence of many officials and almost the entire Shanghai Bar.63 During his time in Yokohama, he continued the system established by Hannen in running the Yokohama court and made no innovations in practice or procedure. Unlike the other judges before and after him, Goodwin appears to have had few dealings or relations with the Japanese authorities. He was, nevertheless, sensitive to their concerns. In 1871, when he had charge of the Supreme Court during Hornby’s absence, he recorded that it was ‘with much unwillingness’ that he received appeals in Anglo-Japanese disputes as such cases were rarely presented satisfactorily; he urged that matters be resolved locally as he could well understand that the Japanese authorities would prefer to deal with local British officials rather than a remote court in Shanghai. Goodwin was probably neither as dynamic nor as forceful as Hornby or Hannen — indeed, Hornby described Goodwin as being ‘my little fat friend’64 and was dismissive of his ability to supervise the Supreme Court’s accounts: ‘Dear old Goodwin had even less knowledge than I had.’65 In 1868, Hornby said that Goodwin declined to opine on questions raised by Parkes on the subject of British neutrality during the Japanese Civil War ‘because of their importance’ but waited until Hornby returned from circuit and was able to do so.66 Hornby, who was seven years younger than Goodwin, clearly had his doubts about Goodwin’s suitability for the role of judge in Yokohama. The British community and the Bar in Japan nonetheless held Goodwin in high regard and obituaries in Japan remembered him as a warm-hearted and kindly individual.67 His correspondence was always practical, patient and emollient, with none of Hornby’s exaggeration or emotion. He also adopted a benign — and forgiving — attitude towards counsel and showed flexibility when John H. Wilkins, an unqualified clerk who was currently employed by a barrister in Yokohama, sought permission to practise as a solicitor in the Yokohama court despite the period of his Articles not complying strictly with the applicable statute. Goodwin was always much more than just a lawyer: he had wide interests and was a valued and convivial member of the British community. Upon Hornby’s retirement and Goodwin’s forthcoming return to Shanghai, The Japan Mail bemoaned that ‘it will be a sad misfortune to lose almost the only scholar of a European reputa266

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tion’ from Japan.68 His obituaries in The Japan Gazette and The Japan Weekly Mail both spoke of a warm-hearted and kindly individual who was very much at home in intellectual and musical pursuits and was a keen member of the Royal Asiatic Society. SIR RICHARD TEMPLE RENNIE (1839–1905)

As seen by Charles Wirgman, Japan Punch, 1879

The Yokohama Court staggered on until the China and Japan Order in Council of 14 August 1878 (OC1878) placed the administration of justice in Japan on a new footing. With effect from 1 January 1879 it created Her Britannic Majesty’s Court for Japan (HMCJ) at Yokohama with a Judge and an Assistant Judge whilst the Judge of the Supreme Court was re-styled the Chief Justice. HMCJ replaced both the Yokohama court (which had no legislative foundation) and the Kanagawa consular court. The Judge of HMCJ was to be a barrister of at least seven years’ call and, unless otherwise appointed, the Yokohama Consul was, ex officio, the Assistant Judge but ceased to hold a separate consular court. In this way, HMCJ was similar to the Supreme Court, which had also supplanted the Shanghai consulate’s court. HMCJ and the judge became responsible for supervising, and hearing appeals from, the consular courts in the outports. From HMCJ, appeals lay to the Supreme Court and thence to the Privy Council. So, from 1879, Japan was a separate jurisdiction from China. With OC1878’s re-arrangement of the judicial establishment, Wilkinson — who had been running the Yokohama Court for the last two years — was ineligible to be appointed Judge because he was under seven years’ call. The Foreign Office’s first choice for the new judge-ship was Richard Temple Rennie, by then a leading Shanghai

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barrister and the Crown’s legal adviser in Shanghai. However, the Foreign Office recognised that Rennie might prefer to remain in Shanghai and take the Crown Advocate-ship and instructed French to offer him first the choice of the post of Judge of HMCJ or, if he did not wish to lose his remunerative private practice in China, the office of Crown Advocate for China and Japan. The judge-ship was to carry a salary of £1,500 (plus £250 housing allowance in lieu of accommodation).69 Rennie was born in 1839 the son of George Rennie, the sculptor and Liberal politician,70 and Jane Rennie. He was admitted to the Inner Temple on 30 October 1857 and called to the Bar on 6 June 186071 and practised in England on the Western Circuit for several years before relocating to Hong Kong where his older brother, William Hepburn Rennie, who had followed their father into the Colonial Service was auditor-general from 1858 until 1870.72 Rennie was admitted to practise before the Supreme Court of Hong Kong on 13 November 1865.73 From Hong Kong, he moved swiftly to Shanghai (then developing rapidly as a commercial centre), where he developed an important, and lucrative practice.74 In 1867, he married Marie, the widow of Sir Thomas de la Ruez, Bt.75 It seems that Rennie returned to England on leave76 in 1872/73 as he is listed in the Directory for 1873 as absent. From 1872, Rennie was listed in the Directory as ‘counsel to her Britannic Majesty’s Government, Shanghai’. The formal status of this position is unclear for he was not listed as such under the Supreme Court section of the Directory or in the Foreign Office List — whereas Hannen, as Crown Advocate from 1879, was so listed. We do not know why, when the Yokohama Court had been established in 1870, Rennie was not appointed to that court as he had practised in Shanghai since shortly after the Supreme Court’s establishment and was senior to Hannen. Presumably, Rennie did not wish to interrupt the development of his practice for what would, inevitably, have been a temporary (and, by comparison with many a Shanghai barrister’s earnings, a lowly paid) appointment — whereas Hannen was only newly arrived in Shanghai. Before 1878, Rennie’s only experience of Japan appears to have been in 1869 in Yokohama when he appeared in number of cases over which Hornby presided on circuit and before the American consular court. After that, he had, however, acted as counsel before the Supreme Court in several appeals from Japan. The news of Rennie’s appointment was generally well received.77 On 2 January 1879, Rennie published an ‘Official Notice’ in Yokohama that HMCJ had been established with himself as Judge and Wilkinson as acting assistant judge. On 3 January 1879, immediately after Wilkinson had delivered reserved judgements in four held-over cases, Rennie took his seat on the Bench of HMCJ in the presence 268

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of the Yokohama Bar and was welcomed, on the Bar’s behalf, by Litchfield, the senior member of the Yokohama Bar.78 Rennie spent just two and a half years in situ as Judge before taking home leave in May 1881.79 While absent on furlough, Chief Justice French died and Rennie was promoted Chief Justice in December, 188180 and knighted at Windsor on 30 November 1882. He did not return to Shanghai from England until 21 January 1883 when he assumed his new position81 and Hannen, who had acted as Chief Justice in his absence, replaced him at HMCJ. As Chief Justice, his salary was the same as French’s: namely £2,500 (plus a housing allowance of £500) in addition to which he received a one-off up-front outfit allowance of £560.82 Although Rennie was the first Judge of HMCJ under the OC1878 regime, he does not seem to have had a noticeable impact upon Anglo-Japanese relations or British judicial administration in Japan during his short tenure at HMCJ. In 1880, when Britain was preparing for Treaty revision negotiations, he repeated earlier British concerns about secrecy surrounding Japanese criminal proceedings, the absence of trained judges in the Japanese courts and said that such Japanese criminal codes as existed (which had been taken from Chinese precedents) were ‘totally unsuited to Western ideas’, both as regards the definition of crimes and punishments meted out. In relation to cases and procedure, Rennie demonstrated a practical and pragmatic approach. Before the Married Women’s Property Act, 1882, married British women were not regarded as having independent property. This meant that claimants against a wife often looked to the husband to pay her debts but the Married Women’s Property Act 1870 meant that, when the couple were living apart, the husband was not liable. When a Japanese plaintiff sued Thomas Bell for $26 for goods supplied to his separated wife, Bell relied successfully upon the 1870 Act for his defence. However, when the Temperance Hall sued him for $56 in respect of Mrs Bell’s lodging, Rennie suggested that Bell reach a settlement and not seek to rely upon this legislation. One change to previous court practice in Yokohama was his decision to adopt a ruling of French’s to the effect that unless a defendant appeared personally, he would need to be represented by a professional lawyer: if the defendant were represented only by a litigation friend, then that friend would not be allowed to cross-examine any witness or to address the Court. Rennie used the same reasoning as French; namely, inconvenience. But, as the Japan Gazette editorialized, the effect was clearly to debar unqualified agents from appearing at all — although it conceded that this merely followed the practice back in England.83 269

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Rennie heard the only reported appeal to HMCJ from an outport in relation to a criminal offence. This was the Nimrod’s master’s appeal from Nagasaki against his conviction, and $5 fine, for shipping crew without doing so before the Yokohama shipping officer. Rennie and Wilkinson rejected the appeal as the papers were irregular and the master was seeking to adduce new evidence whereas HMCJ could not look beyond the case as stated by the Nagasaki court. When it came to civil appeals, he rejected the defendant’s application for a re-hearing in Polder v. Lewis because Dohmen had sat as acting judge (not as acting assistant judge) and the defendant had no new evidence; but, in similar circumstances a year later, told the defendant in Capt. Thomas v. A.J. Clarke that, as a favour, he would grant a re-hearing — but that he had read the papers and it would be a waste of time and urged the defendant to drop the matter. There is no evidence that Rennie heard cases outside Yokohama — although there is a reference to his visiting Hakodate on an inspection of the consular court there84 so it is reasonable to assume that he did visit the other courts on occasion, even if not to hear cases. While on leave in 1881, he wrote, from the Reform Club, to say that the Office of Works’ plans for a police court in Yokohama were far less urgent than the need for proper facilities for HMCJ itself: he lamented the lack of proper facilities. There was no robing room for counsel, no retiring room for a jury, no waiting room for witnesses; the crown prosecutor (then, Enslie) and the clerks had no private office and the judge’s own office was too small to accommodate counsel easily for in camera hearings.85 He also pointed out a lacuna in the judicial pension arrangements in that there was no provision for the judge in Japan’s pension — unlike judges in other extra-territorial courts: a position the Foreign Office acknowledged as arising simply because HMCJ was not in existence when the relevant rules were made and agreed to rectify the position.86 As Chief Justice, he continued to have an indirect relationship with Japan. In 1885, with assistance from Mowat and Wilkinson, he revised and re-issued Hornby’s 1867 Instructions to Consuls. In the mid-1880s, he was again consulted by the Foreign Office during the second conference discussions regarding the abolition of extraterritoriality. He said that Japan had previously put forward such unduly large demands that Britain could not agree to the abolition of extra-territoriality; but now that Japan appeared ready to accept more moderate concessions, he saw no objection to the opening of Japan’s interior where foreigners would be subject to a limited Japanese jurisdiction. Rennie was also called upon to advise in relation to the vexed area of jurisdiction over foreign sailors who committed offences ashore in 270

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Japan. Other (non-British) consuls were often unprepared, unable or unwilling to deal with criminal offences committed by their fellow citizens who were also exempt from Japanese territorial jurisdiction and often wished the British courts to do so; but Rennie advised that this was not possible. During his time as Chief Justice, there were just ten appeals from Japan to Shanghai and he dismissed all but one of them — including the first case from Japan to be further appealed to the Privy Council. The Privy Council in turn dismissed the appeal to it and upheld both Hannen’s and Rennie’s rulings. When he visited Incheon and Seoul in September 1888,87 he became the only Chief Justice to visit Korea on circuit. He had a year’s home leave from January 1888 which was extended by a further three months due to ill health and was away from Shanghai until April 1889.88 By early 1890, Rennie’s health was beginning to be affected by the hot summers in Shanghai.89 Towards the end of 1890, when the Foreign Office and the Treasury were looking to cut the overall cost of the British establishment in Shanghai by amalgamating the positions of Chief Justice and consul-general, he indicated that he was prepared to retire as from 1 April 1891 when the amalgamation took effect.90 Salisbury accepted his offer and Rennie retired back to England on 31 March 189191 (thereby avoiding yet another Shanghai Summer) on a pension of £1,361. Back in England, he lived in Piccadilly and, like his father — a founding member, was a member of the Reform Club to which he had been elected, aged eighteen, in 1857. In England he was engaged in local politics and stood, as a Progressive, for the Kennington constituency in the London County Council 1895 elections.92 He did not, entirely, break his links with officialdom for, in 1896, he was appointed ad hoc Judge of the Supreme Consular Court at Istanbul to hear two cases involving local consular and court officials. He died on 14 April 1905 whilst staying at the Victoria Hotel in Sidmouth in Devon,93 leaving an estate valued at under £8,000. ENDNOTES 1

2

Published Leiden: Brill, 2013. Where an item is referenced in British Courts, I have not re-cited the reference in this article. In Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Vol IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi (Folkestone: Renaissance Books, 2015) pp.531–554, I looked at Sir Nicholas John Hannen and Robert Anderson Mowat (judges in Japan from 1871 to 1874 and 1881 to 1891, and 1891 to 1897 respectively); and in Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Vol VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi (Leiden, Boston: Global Oriental, 2013), I looked at Sir Hiram Shaw Wilkinson (judge in Japan 1876–1879 and 1897–1899). 271

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3

4

5

6 7

8

9

10

11 12 13 14

15 16

For much of the information on Hornby’s early life, see: Sir Edmund Hornby, An Autobiography (London: Constable & Co. Ltd., 1929). Towards the end of his life Hornby wrote this (incomplete) autobiography which was published by his daughter, Constance Drummond, in 1929. Hornby, in An Autobiography, says he went to Lisbon in 1841 and stayed there two years before nine months in Madrid. These dates and timings do not correlate with the time periods given for his education. Thus, one must treat all these dates and periods with a degree of caution. This cannot have been before 1853 as Clarendon only became Foreign Secretary in February 1853. Russell to Hornby, 11 August and 18 October 1864; FO 78/1835. Hornby to Russell, 2 November 1864; FO 78/1836. Hornby said he felt ‘no inclination and [was] indeed peculiarly unsuited for an idle life’. See Hammond to Hornby (private), 11 March 1870; FO 17/557; and Hornby to Derby, 4 November 1875; FO 17/709. His successor as judge in Istanbul was paid only £1,500 (and the judge at Alexandria only £2,000); FO 17/593 p. 67. When indicating his inclination to take the post, Hornby had stipulated only that the salary ‘should be sufficient to prevent me incurring debt … [and hoped that] … the Treasury will take into account the distance, the climate and the responsible nature of the duties of the office being increased as the risk will be by going on circuit to the other consulates of China and Japan’; Hornby to Russell, 2 November 1864; FO 78/1836. While still in Istanbul, he had advised the Foreign Office that the Ottoman Order in Council and the Rules of the Supreme Consular Court at Istanbul would ‘do very well’ as precedents for the new arrangements in East Asia. He strongly advised that the Judge’s duties be restricted to those of a purely ‘judicial and magisterial character’ and to leave all questions with the local authorities to be managed by the consul who should also act as the courts’ sheriff and execution officer; Hornby to Foreign Office, 7 September 1864; FO 78/1836. The dates of this letter and the subsequent correspondence between Russell and him show that the move had been in contemplation well before Russell raised the prospect of a move to Shanghai with Hornby in October of that year. Savage (1825–1883) was a Barrister who was frequently consulted by the Foreign Office in relation to international law questions and the exercise of British jurisdiction abroad. See Footnote 3. Russell to Hornby, 6 May 1865; FO 17/433. Hornby to Russell, 11 September 1865; FO 17/433. Very simplistically, from looking at the civil and criminal case returns for the Supreme Court for 1865–1868 (FO 17/454, 17/479, 17/502, 17/530) and the cases-loads for Yokohama (see British Courts, Appendix 5), it would appear that the Yokohama case-load varied from a quarter to a half of that in Shanghai. Hornby to Russell, 11 September 1865; FO 17/433. Hornby to Russell from Nagasaki, 1 September 1866; FO 17/453.

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17

18

19

20

21

22 23 24 25

26 27

28

29 30

31

32 33 34 35

36

37

38

39

Kobe, Niigata, Osaka and Tokyo were only opened to foreign residence and trade in 1869. Mrs Green prosecuted her husband for assault and prayed for Judicial Separation. Hornby persuaded Mrs Green to withdraw her application if Mr Green sent his sister away. In addition, Hornby ordered Mr Green to find security for his good behaviour for the next five years in the sum of £1,000. For a full description of their proposal, see Hornby to Clarendon, 23 October 1869; FO 881/1749. Lobbying in relation to claims by British merchants against the Japanese authorities or the former feudal lords formed a substantial part of the Legation’s business at that time and these claims were a thorn in AngloJapanese relations. Hornby returned to Shanghai and resumed control of the Supreme Court on 30 May 1872: Hornby to Granville, 31 May 1872; FO 17/637. 14 August 1869; The Hiogo & Osaka Herald. 10 September 1870; The Hiogo News. Imperial Japanese Government v. Beato. A biographical portrait of Thomas Wright Blakiston by Hugh Cortazzi is contained in Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume III, ed. J.E. Hoare, Japan Library, 1999. Hornby to Hannen (private) FO 656/235, pp. 386–387. For a fuller discussion of the affair, see Bert Edström, ed, Turning Points in Japanese History, ‘Rescuing the Prisoners of the Maria Luz,’ Igor R. Saveliev (Japan Library, 2002), p. 71. Willis was a doctor attached to the British legation. An account of his life in Japan is contained in Dr Willis in Japan, Britsish Medical Pioneer, 1862–77, by Hugh Cortazzi, Athlone Press, 1985 Hornby to Clarendon, 23 October 1869; FO 881/1749. Junior staff were not covered by the general Regulations and had no rights to home leave or passage money. The publication was not a commercial success and, in 1870, was folded into the North China Herald. Hornby to Derby, 4 November 1875; FO 17/709. Hornby to Derby, 21 March 1876; FO 17/735. Hornby to Derby, 11 May 1876; FO 17/735. 19 May 1876; The Hiogo Shipping List; and Mowat to Derby, 29 May 1876; FO 17/735. The Japan Mail article reported by the North China Herald on 17 June 1876. Hornby described Goodwin as ‘a man of the highest possible qualifications for the post of Assistant Judge … he will be a credit to the Service and of the highest assistance to myself personally.’ Hornby to Russell, 9 February 1865; FO 17/433. Harvey Goodwin (1818–1891) also went to Cambridge and went on to become Bishop of Carlisle in 1869. Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, Volume 22. Insert contributed by Francis Espinasse.

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40

41

42

43 44

45 46 47

48 49 50 51

52

53 54 55

8 April 1874, The Japan Daily Herald reported the arrival, on the French steamer Volga from Hong Kong, of ‘Mr & Mrs Goodwin, Miss Goodwin and four children.’ Then a junior consular officer in Japan. In time he became an acting Assistant Judge of HMCJ, acting Assistant Judge of the Supreme Court and was the last judge consul at Kobe before finishing his career as Consul-General at Yokohama. He retired in 1914, a year after Agnes had died there. She is buried in the Foreign General Cemetery there. See also J. E. Hoare’s article on John Carey Hall in this edition of Biographical Portraits. In his Will, he left bequests of £400 to each of Henry and Agnes. The Codicil removed Agnes’s bequest because she had received a Marriage Settlement so we may assume that her Marriage Settlement would have been for a similar amount. Goodwin’s Will dated 16 August 1873 and the Codicil thereto dated 22 May 1876; FO 917/208. Advice from Librarians at Lincoln’s Inn. Cambridge Fellowships being then restricted to those in, or proceeding to, Holy Orders. 28 January 1878; The Japan Gazette, pp. 2–3. An Autobiography, p. 195. Ibid, p. 198. Although Hornby refers to Goodwin as being ‘newly married,’ this does not gel with Agnes, his eldest daughter, having been born in 1850 — which suggests a much earlier marriage (unless it was a reference to a second marriage, but I have seen no reference to such). Ibid. Ibid, p. 213. Ibid, p. 252. Granville to Goodwin, 8 April 1870; FO17/557.The Foreign Office Lists for 1875 and 1876 list Goodwin under the Supreme Court at Shanghai but as ‘temporarily employed at Yokohama, Japan’. (It should be noted that these Lists are not always accurate and up to date.) Ibid. Granville was simply following Hornby’s suggestion (Hornby to Hammond (private), 21 March 1870; FO 17/557) that, as Hornby would be taking home leave shortly, it would be pointless to move Goodwin from Shanghai to Yokohama immediately and then back again when Hornby went on leave. Therefore, Granville said that Goodwin should stay in Shanghai as Deputy Judge until Hornby returned. Granville and Goodwin correspondence; FO 17/660. Hornby to Granville, 31 March 1871; FO 46/146. His housing allowance was £750 but he spent only £300 on rent in Shanghai. A fact which, when he relocated to Yokohama, caused the Treasury, the Office of Works and the Foreign Office to revisit the 1865 award of the £750 housing allowance (awarded then only due to the then high cost of housing in Shanghai) and insist that, at Yokohama, he either live in a Legation property or, if to suit his own convenience, he wished to live elsewhere, the Office of Works would pay the actual rent; internal Foreign Office note by Tenterden and initialled by Derby, 10 August 1875; FO 17/709, and re-confirming Derby to Hornby, 10 March 1875; FO 17/709. To put Goodwin’s 274

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56

57

58

59 60 61

62 63

64 65 66 67

68

discussions over his pay and allowances in some context, we should note that passage fees for himself and his family from London to Yokohama in 1874 totalled £412/12/7 of which only £154/11/8 was reimbursable by the Treasury; (Invoice to Goodwin from Messageries Maritimes de France, 17 January 1874 and Goodwin to Granville, 28 January 1874; FO 46/186). Thus, the costs to Goodwin of a return furlough every five years (for which he would then be on half pay) were over £500 — to be met out of a salary of £1,200. Tenterden pointed out that the Shanghai staff bill was already £8,126 (a significant amount for those days — over half of which, of course, was taken up by Hornby’s own salary and accommodation allowance). Tenterden’s internal Foreign Office Note, 10 August 1875; FO 17/709. The Foreign Office had earlier rebuffed a request from Goodwin for an increased allowance for acting as Deputy Judge during Hornby’s furlough. It said that the Treasury had sanctioned a £2 per diem allowance back in 1865 and it would not ask the Treasury for the usual quarter (£875) of Hornby’s (unusually high) salary because £2 a day already came to £730; internal Foreign Office Note initialled by Granville, 1871; FO 17/593, p. 67. (Subsequently, the Foreign Office reduced even this acting allowance to just £1 a day for Mowat when he was acting Judge.) Sir Harry Parkes and Russell Robertson, the Kanagawa consul, joined him on the bench. The members of Yokohama Bar, which were joined by Hannen, were all in court to welcome him. Derby initialled a Foreign Office draft response to Goodwin acknowledging his application for the Judge-ship rendered vacant by Hornby’s retirement but explaining that the whole court position was under consideration and no decisions had been arrived at; 11 October 1877; FO17/766. Derby to Goodwin, December 1877; FO 17/766. Internal Foreign Office Memorandum, 10 December 1878; FO 17/766. Goodwin to Derby, letter of 13 December (and enclosed Medical Certificate) and telegraph of 19 December 1877; FO 17/766. Mowat to Derby, 21 January 1878; FO 17/791. Ibid:His pallbearers were the Acting Consul, the USA Vice ConsulGeneral, a Naval Captain, Mowat — now acting Judge, and Rennie as respresentative of the Bar. His wife returned to England a few weeks later and his will was proved both in England and in Shanghai. In Shanghai, very much keeping his personal affairs within the leading members of the local legal community, Rennie, Mowat and Charles Dowdall acted as attorneys for his wife who was his executrix. His estate was sworn at under £5,000.Goodwin’s Probate; FO 917/208. An Autobiography, p. 198. Ibid, pp. 311–312. Hornby to Parkes, 21 March 1868; FO 17/502. 28 January 1878, The Japan Gazette and 2 February, 1878, The Japan Weekly Mail. The Japan Mail article reported by the North China Herald on 17 June 1876. 275

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Salisbury to Rennie, 7 November 1878; FO 46/234. After some internal quibbling and discussions in the Foreign Office, they agreed, on 17 March 1879, to add an Outfit Allowance of £500 — Pauncefote had initially questioned whether this was necessary for someone based locally; FO 46/251. George Rennie was the son of the famous Scots mechanical engineer, John Rennie, and was MP for Ipswich from 1841 until December 1847 when he was appointed Governor of the Falkland Islands, a position he held until 1855. Joseph Foster, Men-at-the-bar (London: Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Limited, 1885). He was then appointed Lieutenant Governor of St. Vincent where he died in 1874. James William Norton-Kyshe, History of the Laws and Courts of Hong Kong (London and Hong Kong: T. Fisher Unwin and Noronha and Company respectively, 1898), Appendix III. We can obtain a sense of Rennie’s practice in Shanghai from the Directories. He practised from chambers variously at 1 Balfour Buildings, 3 Yuen-ming-Yuen Road (1869–1871); 2 Hong Kong Road (1872) and 2 Yuen-ming-Yuen Buildings (1874–1878). From 1875, W.V. Drummond joined him in chambers until Rennie was elevated to the Bench of HMCJ. In 1875, they were joined by L.J.V. Amos, who was replaced by C. Dowdall in 1876. Rennie’s clerk throughout was J.J. Aroozoo and a second clerk, J.W. Ottoson, joined in 1877. When Rennie became Judge of HMCJ, it would appear that Dowdall took over and continued his practice whilst Drummond set up elsewhere with other lawyers. Aroozoo then appears to have left East Asia for there is no further reference to him in the Directories. Dowdall and Drummond continued to practice in Shanghai for much of the nineteenth century. Men-at-the-bar. I can find no further information about Marie Rennie —save a joint carte de visite for her and Rennie currently for sale on ebay! Judging from the Directories, this was the first return trip since he had come out to East Asia in 1865; and his next home visit was not until 1881. The Hiogo Shipping List and General Advertiser on 31 October 1878 described him as ‘exceedingly popular’ and opined that his selection ‘will doubtless give satisfaction.’ The Hiogo Shipping List on 3 January 1879 — carrying a report from The Japan Gazette. Rennie is listed as a passenger on the Nagoya maru for Shanghai; 21 May 1881,Japan Weekly Mail. When applying for home leave, Rennie conceded that he had been 13 January 1879; but a short time in post but said he had not been back home for five years and had been Standing Counsel to HM Legation in China: Rennie to Granville, 5 May 1880; FO 46/260. Within days of hearing of French’s death, the Foreign Office offered Rennie the position. Tenterden to Rennie, 17 November 1881; FO 17/867. Rennie to Granville, 24 January 1883; FO 17/937. 276

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82 83 84 85 86

87

88 89

90 91 92 93

Pauncefote to Rennie, 12 January 1882; FO 17/908. The Hiogo News 31 January 1879. Rennie to Granville, 13 August 1880; FO 46/260. Rennie to Pauncefote, 7 October 1881; FO 46/277. Correspondence between Rennie and Pauncefote, November 1881; FO 46/277. Sir Phillip Currie to Rennie approving his expenses, 2 February 1888; FO 17/1072. Currie to Rennie, 19 November 1888; FO 17/1072. Rennie applied for an additional month’s leave in order to visit Australia over the Supreme Court’s long vacation that summer as his health had suffered by being compelled to remain in Shanghai throughout the summer of 1889 whilst George Jamieson (then acting Assistant Judge, later Assistant Judge and consul general in Shanghai) had been detached to run HMCJ during Hannen’s home leave. Rennie to Salisbury, 20 February 1890; FO 17/1103. Rennie to Salisbury, 20 January 1891; FO17/1119. Mowat to Salisbury, 1 April 1891; FO 17/1119. 23 February 1895, The Times. Probate of Rennie’s Will; FO 917/1170.His Will appointed Jamieson as one of his executors. Rennie left a son, John Rennie, who was then still at the Oratory School in Birmingham. John had been born in Shanghai in July 1887 and, before leaving Shanghai in 1891, Rennie had put $5,000 into trust for ‘a male infant known as Johnny George’. His Will confirmed the trust and that Johnny George and John Rennie were the same person. After a few specific bequests, he left his estate on trust to pay a £100 annuity to a Mrs Grey (aka Sarah Cookson) and the balance of the income for the education, maintenance and advancement of his son with the capital to his son after Mrs Grey’s death. During the First World War, John Rennie served in the Royal Artillery from December 1915 to January 1918 when he was discharged on medical grounds: WO339/70293.

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John Carey Hall (1864–1926): A Career in Japan and the Japan Consular Service J.E. HOARE

INTRODUCTION

John Carey Hall never acquired the fame of some of his contemporaries in the Japan consular service.1 Yet he was one of the early student interpreters and was among the longest serving members of the service, holding senior positions at all the main posts. He was particularly attached to Kobe, but ended his career as consul-general in Yokohama. He qualified in Japanese, was called to the Bar and did important legal work at various stages in his career.2 EARLY CAREER

Like many of the China and Japan consular services, Hall was from Ireland. He was born in Coleraine on 22 January 1844, and was one of five brothers. In family memory, he was Presbyterian and a ‘moderate Irish nationalist’.3 He attended Coleraine Academical 278

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Institute and then studied at Queen’s College Belfast.4 Applying to the Foreign Office (FO) in August 1867 for a student interpreter post, he wrote that he ‘held a scholarship in each year of [his] undergraduate course, [was] a senior scholar in Ancient Classics and at the last annual examination, had graduated with first class honours in the same subject…’ Hall passed and asked to go to Japan, about which he claimed to know as much as the study of books in English would allow. All the Japan slots were filled, but one of those selected withdrew and Hall took the place.5 Japan would be his home for forty-six years He arrived early in 1868. He later recalled that the ship had briefly anchored off the port of Hyogo, where the new foreign settlement at Kobe was in the process of being established.6 On arrival in Tokyo, he settled down under the guidance of Ernest Satow, the Japanese Secretary, on a salary of £200 a year. Hall was somewhat handicapped by physical problems. A fall while a student left him partially deaf and he grew deafer as the years went by. His eyesight was poor and also deteriorated over the years.7 Yet he seems to have made a good start. He applied himself to language study.8 Then as a junior assistant, he served as acting vice-consul at Tokyo, and become involved in legal work. As early as 1870, he was seconded to the Japanese commission established to devise a new scheme for prisons. He accompanied the assistant chief of the Prison Office, Ohara Shigeya, and two other Japanese officials on a fact-finding tour of prisons in Hong Kong, Singapore and India in 1871.9 He also gave lectures on the English legal system, which were published as a Japanese pamphlet.10 He then took up a substantive post at Kobe (the consular district was then still known as Hyogo, or more usually at the time, Hiogo), under A.J. Gower, the consul, and J.J. Enslie, acting vice-consul. Reminiscing about Kobe in 1918, Hall wrote that Enslie was often away in Osaka, and that Gower, while a ‘genial man’, was ‘no glutton for work’. Hall therefore found himself handling matters that he would not have done at other ports. His first task was to sort out the filing, already well behind, and then to tackle British merchants’ claims against the former feudal domains, the han, as the former tried to force the new government to meet their claims. Although Kobe had only been open for a short time before the han were abolished, Hall found that thirty claims were on file. Hall said that meant much work and left him no time for leisure so that he did not mix with the foreign community. It may also have been that his deafness was beginning to cut him off from the world. He did, however, become friendly with the Dutch scholar, Kanda Takahira (1830–1898), who was governor of Hyogo and who later became Baron Kanda. Despite the difference in their 279

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ranks, they discussed world affairs such as the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871).11 By 1874, Hall was back in Tokyo, moving up the consular order and occasionally acting at a higher rank. He appears to have been studying the historical background to the Japanese penal code but failed to produce any analysis of it. Satow, who had praised Hall’s Japanese ability in 1868, was becoming less impressed.12 Not only had his work on the penal code not appeared but he had shown no interest in other scholarly projects that Satow would have liked him to take up. The work on the penal code did not appear for another thirty years, and he never produced the scholarly studies on Japanese literature that Satow had planned for him.13 He was not adverse to scholarly debate, however, and took Aston, his senior by four years, to task over a paper on the Japanese language at the Asiatic Society of Japan. A couple of years later, he criticized a paper by another noted scholar, Basil Hall Chamberlain.14 Such actions indicated a strong, if not a very tactful, personality. In March 1876, Hall married Agnes, daughter of Charles W. Goodwin, Assistant Judge of the Supreme Court for China and Japan. She was six years his junior. Goodwin had been selected as a judge for the Shanghai-based Supreme Court for China and Japan in 1865 and only came to Japan with his family in 1874.15 The marriage was a happy one. Her son-in-law described her as ‘witty and accomplished’, adding that the Halls were ‘a remarkably devoted couple’, while ‘the family as a whole [were] the most loyal and united’ he had ever met.16 There were six children, four girls and two boys. In April 1877, Hall was promoted to First Class Assistant. The Halls were still in Japan in July 1877, but must have soon left on leave, for between 1878 and the end of 1881, Hall was in London, and read for the Bar at the Middle Temple.17 It may have been while reading for the Bar that he became acquainted with Positivism and the group known as the ‘English Positivists’. Positivists believed that the theological age was giving way to a time when a priori or metaphysical thought would be replaced by science and scientific principles. Positivism would be an important feature of his life from the 1880s onwards.18 Hall delayed his departure, making it clear that he would not return until he had been called to the Bar, despite being selected to be acting Japanese secretary – a clear indication that his ability in Japanese was highly regarded – to allow Satow to spend time in Beijing. But much to Satow’s irritation, he delayed his return even when called to the Bar in June 1881.19 1882–1895

Hall finally returned to Japan, possibly at the very end of 1881 or early in 1882. He was appointed assistant Japanese secretary on 1 280

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April 1882, but spent much of 1882 as acting consul at Nagasaki. Satow remained Japanese secretary and did not get away until early 1883. J.H. Gubbins, from the batch of students next after Hall, took over from him.20 Hall and Gubbins would Box and Cox in the Japanese secretariat for rest of the decade. Gubbins was seen as the better Japanese scholar and eventually took the substantive post. He also apparently got on better with Sir Francis Plunkett, who succeeded Parkes as Minister in 1883. That, and Hall’s failing eyesight, seems to have clinched the matter.21 Hall had several periods as acting consul at Nagasaki and Yokohama. At the latter post, he was regularly called upon to work in the British courts, not just in Yokohama but also in Shanghai, where he was acting assistant judge of the Supreme Court for a year from May 1888. Later, one of his roles as acting consul general at Yokohama was as coroner at the inquest in 1896 on Walter Carew, secretary of the Yokohama United Club. Because of this, he was called as a witness at Mrs Carew’s trial for murder, which he found harrowing.22 Yet he enjoyed being a judge.23 A KOREAN INTERLUDE

While Hall was in charge at Nagasaki in October 1882, Parkes gave him leave ‘for his health’, to accompany HMS Flying Fish on a survey visit to the west coast of Korea. The Koreans had signed their first modern treaty with the Japanese in 1876, and by 1882 were negotiating treaties with Western countries. Parkes, a keen advocate of the opening of Korea, was always anxious to learn more about the country, and the Flying Fish visit was an opportunity to do so. Hall was in Korea from 9–24 October. Chinese and Japanese naval fleets were present on the west coast and the British found both helpful. As well as visiting along the coast, Hall went to Seoul. The country that Hall described hardly seemed inviting. He noted the many islands and huge tides of the west coast and the dismal prospect of the mudflats when the tide was out. Summer heat led to fogs, and the coast was icebound in the winter. Bright clear days in spring and autumn caused mirages. There were few trees, apart from scrubby pines from which all the lower branches were taken for fuel. Religion seemed non-existent and the people avoided foreigners. Travelling from the coast to Seoul via Suwon intensified the dismal impression. Nowhere, even the capital, had a house fit for Europeans. Seoul was ‘uninteresting, shabby and squalid’. He concluded that on the whole ‘There is no abundance of anything in the country except magpies.’ Despite the gloom, Parkes found the report interesting and sent it back to London. In his covering despatch, Parkes said that the capital had been seen previously ‘by one Englishman, Captain James of the Japanese [Naval] Service’, whose account Parkes had sent back 281

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to London in October 1881. Hall’s report was given wide coverage, appearing in the Royal Geographical Society and the Asiatic Society of Japan Transactions.24 Hall never returned to Korea. Hall, who moved from Yokohama to Tokyo, from Tokyo to Nagasaki and from Nagasaki to Kobe, and then to Shanghai, may have had little time for serious Japanese studies, although both Satow and Oswald White noted that work demands rarely took up much time. However in 1887, he produced his first known Positivist work, a translation of a French text.25 He could still pick quarrels. In his introduction to A simplified grammar of the Japanese language (1886), Basil Hall Chamberlain thanked Hall and Satow for ‘valuable suggestions’ Despite this Hall seems to have written a hostile review for the Japan Herald and criticised Satow’s scholarship. Satow visiting from Bangkok, took exception to this and they parted on bad terms.26 1895–1902, KOBE

How long this estrangement lasted is not clear but there was no sign of it when Satow returned to Japan as minister in 1895.27 They remained on reasonable terms for the period of Satow’s term as minister, which lasted until 1900. Satow argued on Hall’s behalf on more than one occasion. When Hall was appointed to Kobe, the consulate was in a very poor condition, with the living accommodation unused and the building unpainted. When Hall ordered an unauthorized survey, which irritated the Office of Works, Satow backed him. He also took up Hall’s need for a big house because of his large family, all of whom seem to have been in Japan. Hall was not rich and the large house indicates that all the children were in Japan. The size of the family also meant that Hall could not afford to take leave, another issue that Satow raised.28 While willing to help Hall, Satow was not above the occasional rebuke, especially perhaps when he thought Hall was being somewhat pompous or dilatory.29 Hall, for his part, presented himself as a conscientious worker, staying beyond normal office hours to work. He often claimed that his ill–health caused his failing to meet deadlines.30 His deafness did not improve. His sight was made worse if exposed to glare. Other bouts of illness also regularly laid him low and he often took to his bed, sometimes for two or three weeks at a stretch. While at the Kobe consulate between 1896 and 1902, he took a summer house on Rokkosan, the temple-studded mountain behind the treaty port that was very popular as a recreational area. But it was also a cause of health problems.31 Despite his ill health, Hall’s time at Kobe between 1896 and 1902 seems to have been one of the best periods of his career and he clearly 282

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made an impact. Hall was not uncritical of the attitudes of his fellow countrymen, who expressed ‘unprincipled demands’ over issues such as the house tax, in the period leading up to the end of the old treaties in 1899 and its immediate aftermath.32 But it was his job to protect their interests as far as he could and this he did. Now his legal training and experience came to the fore and he was particularly assiduous when issues involved legal interpretations, such as the status of the International Hospital. He counselled moderation in criticism. Using his role as chair of the settlement’s municipal council, he persuaded the Kobe foreign community to invite the Meiji Emperor to the settlement when he came in November 1898 to review his fleet. This was the first such invitation and it evidently pleased the emperor. In 1918, looking back over the fifty years since the establishment of the foreign settlement, the Japan Chronicle singled out Hall for his long connection with the port and his achievements there and also asked him to contribute his personal reminiscences.33 While at Kobe, Hall became an active advocate of Positivism, rather than just an occasional contributor to publications, According to the Japan Chronicle, he established a ‘little society for the study of Positivism’ which numbered Robert Young, editor and proprietor of the Chronicle, among its members.34 He left Kobe in 1902. Before his next consular appointment, he was given a task that suited him very well. After the new treaties came into force in 1899, a difference in interpretation developed between the British, French and German governments on the one hand, and the Japanese government on the other, over the perpetual leases at the former treaty ports. Agreement proved impossible, and the issue went to the Hague Tribunal for Arbitration in 1902. Hall was appointed a ‘Senior Member’ of the commission to prepare the British case, the sort of work that he liked best of all.35 1903–1913, YOKOHAMA

In May 1903, Hall’s work was over and he took up his appointment as consul general at Yokohama, the most senior post in the Japan service. Now nearly sixty, his approach to work did not change. His deafness meant that he mixed little with the local foreign community. He now spent little time in the office, preferring to be with his family. Oswald White noted that he was not exceptional among senior consular offices in spending little time in the office, and that his presence or absence made little difference.36 In April 1906,he took his first home leave in sixteen years. While in London, he asked the FO for an extension of three months, on full pay, pointing out that while in Japan, he had taken very little local leave and had not used any of his home leave entitlement. The Foreign 283

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Office put the case to the Treasury, which was not sympathetic but in the end grudgingly gave him five eighths pay for the three months. The FO was not impressed.37 On leave, Hall became involved in the establishment of the China Society. He tried to involve Satow in this but the he was not interested.38 He was a regular attendee at the Positivist Church in London and a contributor to the Positivist Review on China and Japan. He also translated another important work by Pierre Laffitte, which appeared in 1908. Satow, now retired and returned to the Christianity of his youth, was not impressed, writing to Aston that it was ‘pathetic to see how ardent [Hall] still is in the pursuit of his hobby’.39 Hall returned to Japan in 1907. With the ending of extraterritoriality in 1899, consular work had changed. Legal work, once regarded as the most important task, had gone. At least in theory trade was now what mattered. Hall’s forte was legal or quasi-political work. He showed little interest in trade matters. Before 1914, consular staff were not expected to promote British exports or support individual companies. Their task was to provide information about commercial opportunities, mainly through an annual trade report for their district.40 At Yokohama, Ernest Hobart-Hampden, the vice-consul, did all the routine work and most of the rest; Hall was supposed to write the trade report. He always procrastinated and Hobart Hampden eventually had to do it. Hall was sixty-three when he returned from leave but showed no signs of wanting to retire; he probably could not afford to do so. But doubts were beginning to develop about his capabilities, hardly surprising, in Satow’s view.41 More doubts were raised about his abilities in 1909, when against the clear wishes of the embassy, Hall took the side of a small section of the membership of the Yokohama Cricket and Athletic Club (YCYC) against the Japanese authorities over the issue of the Yokohama Cricket Ground.42 The ambassador blamed Hall for encouraging ‘his small but noisy following’, and his behaviour earned him a severe rebuke from the Foreign Office. Yet Hall survived and was even appointed a CMG. His last years at Yokohama were mixed. His family was growing up and moving away, while his wife was increasingly poor health.43 But Hall the scholar began to emerge. Not only did he work on Positivist material, but he finally produced the Japanese studies that Satow had wanted. Between 1904 and 1913, his work on the feudal penal codes and a study of Dazai on Buddhism appeared in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan (TASJ). Even these works were, it seems, partly inspired by his Positivist interests. As in earlier periods in Yokohama, he also served on the Asiatic Society’s coun284

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cil, was vice–president from time to time between 1904 and 1911, and president in 1912–1913.44 He may have hung on because he could expect only a poor pension, with no provision for his wife should he die first.45 But the pressure was on. His reputation for awkwardness was well-established and he was blocking promotion.46 In July 1913, Agnes died in the Yokohama General Hospital. There was no religious service at her funeral but a ‘short and simple but very impressive’ ceremony was held in the Foreigners’ Cemetery.47 Hall remained in Yokohama for another six months but finally retired on his seventieth birthday in January 1914. CONCLUSION

He did not go back to Ireland, but went to live alone in Hampstead in London. He remained active in the China Society and in Positivist circles. His contributions to the Positivist Review became more frequent, especially on China and he featured in a dictionary of rationalists published in 1920.48 Satow remained in contact and put his name as a possible author of a book on consular practices. Hall accepted the commission, but writing to Satow a year later, confessed that he had not started but that, fortunately, Oppenheimer, the series editor, had told him that the project was postponed indefinitely because of the war. Hall hoped that it would be postponed forever.49 In May 1919, the Japan Chronicle reported that Hall had recently had a paralytic stroke but he recovered. He died in London on 21 October 1921. His ashes were taken to Japan, where they were placed in Agnes’s grave.50 ENDNOTES 1

2

3

For background, see J.E. Hoare ‘Britain’s Japan Consular Service, 1859– 1941’, in Hugh Cortazzi, comp. and ed., British Envoys in Japan 1859– 1972 (Folkestone, Japan Library, 2004), pp. 260–270. He left no papers but did leave photograph albums, now held by the family. Official correspondence and other papers about him survive in the National Archives. He features frequently in Sir Ernest Satow’s diaries and letters, accessible thanks to the painstaking work of Ian Ruxton, and is described in an as yet unpublished memoir by his junior colleague and later son-in-law, Oswald White, which the family have kindly made available to me. He was an active Positivist and features in The Positive Review and other publications. Hugo Read, ‘John Carey Hall’, unpublished note. Mr Read, a greatgreat-grandson of Hall, kindly shared his notes with me, and also agreed to the use of the photograph of Hall, taken in 1916 during his retirement. Who was Who also notes that the family had County Antrim connections. 285

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4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Now a major Northern Ireland school but then new. See www.coleraineai.com/school-history.aspx (accessed 11 March 2015). Queen’s College Belfast began as part of the Queen’s (later Royal) University of Ireland in 1845 and took its first students in 1849. It became an independent university in 1908. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Queen%27s_University_Belfast (accessed 12 March 2015). Foreign Office Records, China (FO 17)/619, Hall to Lord Stanley, 20 August 1867 and subsequent papers from October-December 1867. The principal of Queen’s College wrote that Hall was just the man he would have recommended and that he had ‘excellent antecedents and high character’: Letter to T.H. Sanderson, FO, 24 August 1867. J.C. Hall, ‘My early Kobe Reminiscences’, Japan Chronicle Jubilee Edition (Kobe 1918), pp. 40–43. Again, thanks to Hugo Read for alerting me to this, and to Peter O’Connor of Musashino University in Tokyo for supplying a PDF. Unpublished mss: Oswald White, ‘All Ambition Spent: 38 Years in the Consular Service in Japan’, pp. 35 and 36. White was Hall’s son-in-law, and the great-grandfather of Hugo Read, who kindly allowed me to use a PDF of this memoir. White says that the accident happened while Hall was a student in Dublin, but this may be a slip of the pen. In August 1872 Satow wrote to his friend and colleague, William Aston, that ‘Hall has turned out [a] very good Japanese scholar, and his translations generally read very well’. Satow to Aston 19 August 1872, Ian Ruxton, ed., Sir Ernest Satow’s Private Letters to W. G. Aston and F. V. Dickins: The Correspondence of a Pioneer Japanologist from 1870 to 1918 (Lulu Publications, 2007), p. 3. Okuma, Shigenobu, comp., Fifty Years of New Japan (2 vols. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1910), I, 309–310; Maeda Ai, ed. James A Fujii, Text and the City: Essays on Japanese Modernity, (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2004), pp. 31–33. The Foreign Office List (London 1921) notes the Japanese government’s thanks for Hall’s services. White’s memoir (page 34) misdates the commission to 1881, when Hall was in London. Jon Ho¯ru [John Hall], Eikoku saibanjo ryakusetsu [The outline of English judicial system] (Tokyo 1872), referred to in Mutsunaga Masaaki, ‘The English Positivists and Japan’, Zinbun: Annals of the Institute Research in Humanities – Kyoto University Vol. 26 (1992), 67, at http:/hdl.handle. net/2433/48699, accessed 21 April 2015. Hall, ‘Kobe reminiscences’, pp. 40–43. On deafness cutting him off, see White’s memoir, p. 36. Satow wrote to Aston that Hall ‘…does not seem capable of continuous application, otherwise his penal code would have appeared before this’. Satow to Aston 20 June 1875, in Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters, p. 10. White thought that the problem was that, to Hall, Japanese literature was lightweight compared to China: White, ‘All Ambition Spent’, p. 36. This was not very different from Satow’s private view of Japanese literature – see his letter of 18 June 1900 to F.V. Dickins, in Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters, p. 220.

13

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14

15

16 17

18

19

20

21

22

23

Douglas Moore Kenrick, ‘A centenary of Western studies of Japan: The First Hundred Years of the Asiatic Society of Japan 1872–1972’, TASJ, 3rd series Vol. 14 (Dec. 1978), p. 95; Ota Yuzo, Basil Hall Chamberlain: Portrait of a Japanologist, (Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 1998), pp 48–49. Christopher Roberts, The British Courts and Extra-territoriality in Japan, 1859–1899, (Leiden and Boston: Global Oriental, 2014), p. 53. White, ‘All Ambition Spent’, p. 36. The rules on leave changed in 1874 so that some leave could be accumulated, travelling time was allowed, an officer received half his fare and his family one third. Staff received one month’s fully-paid leave, and then went on to half-pay. This was not generous, but it was an improvement. Hall would have been one of the early beneficiaries of the new arrangements. D.C.M. Platt, The Cinderella Service: British Consuls since 1825, (London: Longman, 1971), pp. 29–30. One of the leading lights of this group, Frederic Harrison, was Professor of Jurisprudence, International and Constitutional Law under the Council of Legal Education and lectured at the Middle Temple when Hall was there. Mutsunaga, ‘The English Positivists and Japan’, 59–60 Satow poured out his frustration in a series of letters to Aston. By June, Satow was ‘getting over my disappointment at Hall’s announcing his intention of not getting here before late December.’ He wondered if Hall would return at all, writing on 22 June that ‘Hall’s eyes are as you know bad. I am afraid he is a lame duck after all, and his infirmities may induce the FO to offer him a pension.’ By August, Satow had given up any plans for Beijing. But he was not without sympathy for Hall: ‘One cannot help pitying poor Hall for his misfortunes, which I am afraid are irremediable’. See a series of letters in Ruxton, ed. Satow’s Private Letters, pp. 23–57. For Gubbins, see Foreign Office List 1929, and Ian Nish, ‘John Harrington Gubbins, 1852–1929’ in Ian Nish, ed. Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits vol. II (Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 1997), pp. 107–119. Oswald White wrote that while Gubbins’ Sino-Japanese dictionary was probably the best available, native Japanese found his spoken language confusing ‘because he used learned words that were rarely used in the colloquial’. White, ‘All Ambition Spent’, p. 16. For Hall’s poor relations with Plunkett and renewed eye problems, see Satow to Aston, 22 April 1886, in Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters, p. 86. On Plunkett, see Hugh Cortazzi, ‘Sir Francis Plunkett, 1835–1907: British Minister at Tokyo, 1884–87’, in Hugh Cortazzi, ed. Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits vol. IV (London: Japan Library, 2002), pp. 28–40. The text of the inquest and the trial, published as a pamphlet by the Japan Gazette, is available at http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/5799 858?n=1&s=4&printThumbnails=no, accessed 9 April 2015. See also Molly Whittington–Egan, Murder on the Bluff: The Carew Poisoning Case (Castle Douglas, Scotland: Neil Williams Publishing, 2012). Oswald White thought that he would have liked to follow that path. To White, however, his determination and sympathy for the underdog

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24

25

26

27

28

29

30

meant that he would have made a better advocate than a judge. White, ‘All Ambition Spent’, pp. 34–35 Parkes to Lord Granville, no. 7, 12 January 1883, enclosing Hall to Parkes, 11 December 1882, in Foreign Office Confidential Print, The Affairs of Corea I, in Park Il-keun, ed., Anglo-American Diplomatic Materials relating to Korea 1866–1886, (Seoul: Shinmundang, 1982), pp. 146–56. TASJ, 1st series, vol. XI (1882/83). Another colleague, Henry Bonar, visited in March 1883; Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, new monthly series vol. 5, no. 5 (May 1883), which also carried Hall’s paper. They again appeared as a double act in the 1882–1883 volume of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. Nothing substantial was removed from either text before the FO passed it on.I am grateful to Brother Anthony of Taizé, the current president of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, for this reference. See his webpage http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/1882Hall. pdf (accessed 21 March 2015). Pierre Laffitte, trans. J. C. Hall, A General View of Chinese Civilisation and the Relation of the West to China (London: Watts and Co., 1887). When challenged, Hall said that one of Satow’s ‘recent letters to him had “warn[ed] him off the field of Japanese scholarship”’. They parted on bad terms; Satow wrote that he ‘left without giving my hand’ and that Hall was ‘an ass to purposefully make enemies of those who would have been his friends’. Satow to Aston, 13 July 1886, in Ruxton, ed., Diaries and Letters of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, p. 167. Hall added a warm note on Satow’s arrival to an official letter in July 1895: ‘Satow received a hearty & spontaneous welcome on his landing yesterday from the merchant community, and came thro’ the ordeal of making an impromptu speech very well. He is more affable than before and looks much the same; a little mellowed by age and with a more marked stoop’. Hall to H.S. Wilkinson, private, 29 July 1895, FO 656/70. On the Office of Works, see Mark Bertram, Room for Diplomacy: Britain’s Diplomatic Buildings Overseas, 1800–2000 (Reading, England: Spire Books Ltd., 2011), especially pp. 51–54.On housing and leave, see various letters in Ian Ruxton, ed., The, British Minister in Japan, 1895–1900, Vol. I, (Lulu Publications, 2005), and Ruxton, ed., Diaries and Letters of Sir Ernest Mason Satow. Hall was cross because his German colleague wrote to him in German. He was firmly told that a fellow consul could write in his own language, in French or English, or, if he so chose, in the language of the country in which he was resident. Satow also drew attention to Hall’s somewhat dilatory approach to his work, remarking of one despatch that ‘I suppose the question is not a pressing one or you would not have left it slumber for two whole months’.Minor faults in his trade reports were noted, as was the failure to keep abreast of Japanese rules and regulations see various letters in Ruxton ed., Correspondence of Sir Ernest Satow, Japan vol. 1. Hall to Satow 7 March 1898, in Ruxton, ed., Correspondence of Sir Ernest Satow, Japan, Vol. I, pp. 350–351. Hall praised his staff for being equally conscientious. 288

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31

32 33

34

35

36

37 38

39

40

F.W. Playfair, pro-consul at Kobe, wrote in autumn 1898 that Hall had developed a bad chill on the mountain, then rheumatism, and had spent most of September and early October in bed. Satow sent notes hoping he would get better.See Ruxton, ed., Correspondence of Sir Ernest Satow, Japan, Vol. I, p. 373–376. He was ill again in September 1899. Before antibiotics, the effects of relatively minor ailments could be very debilitating and Hall was not the only one to suffer in Japan. He was, however, rather regularly affected than some of his colleagues. Hall to Sir C. Macdonald, 6 July 1902, in FO 345/43. Japan Chronicle Jubilee Edition pp. 29 et seq. On Hall’s ‘long hard fight’ over the hospital, see Peter Ennals, Opening a Window to the West: The Foreign Concession at Ko¯be, Japan, 1868–1899 (Toronto, Canada: Toronto University Press, 2013, p. 200, n. 80. The newspaper later maintained that Young never became a Positivist, yet he had been involved with the movement since his youth and firmly rejected all religious beliefs. Obituary of Frederic Harrison, Japan Chronicle 25 January 1923. For Young’s beliefs, see Peter O’Connor, The English-language Press Networks of Asia, 1918–1945 (Folkestone, England: Global Oriental, 2012), p. 99 ‘In such work, he had no equal. He was a traditional bookworm; he lived in the society of his books … Dusty records that appal the average reader had no terrors for him and he would browse happily among them, digesting and assimilating what was useful and rejecting the remainder.’ White, ‘All Ambition Spent’, p. 35. Although the Hague Tribunal accepted the Western governments’ case, the Japanese did not agree and the issue dragged on until 1937, when Japan unilaterally cancelled all the remaining leases: J.E. Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements: The Uninvited Guests 1858–1899 (Folkestone, England: Japan Library, 1994), pp. 168–169. White noted that when Hall went on leave in 1906, it ‘made very little difference to the work. Many Consul-Generals (sic) at that time, of whom Mr Hall was one, took their office work very easily. I should say that on average he spent slightly more than two hours a day in the office. No inconvenience resulted…’ Papers in FO 369/87, at folios 10676, 12994, 15116, 19381, all of 1907 This was modelled on the Japan Society of London, which dated from 1892. See Satow to Dickins, 21 July 1906, in Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters, p. 244. The Positive Science of Morals : its Opportuneness, its Outlines, and its Chief Applications, by the Late Pierre Lafitte; Translated by J. Carey Hall (London: Watts and Co., 1908); Satow to Aston 1 December 1908, in Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters, p. 103. There was no standard system for these reports. Some were excellent, others not, and all were subject to the vagaries of publication. Businessmen and consuls were at one in complaining about their lack of usefulness. Platt, Cinderella Service, pp. 104–105. See also D.C.M. Platt, Finance, Trade and Politics in British Foreign Policy 1815–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), which deals with the issue more deeply. 289

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Satow thought that the ambassador, Macdonald, intended to propose Hall to replace Henry Campbell in Seoul. This might have made sense, Seoul was even less busy than Yokohama, and there were still some legal duties there, but Satow did not think it was a good idea ‘for Hall is as deaf as a post and his knowledge of Japanese is poor’. In the event, Bonar replaced Campbell: Satow to Aston, 1 Dec. 1908, in Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters, pp. 103104. Macdonald referred the matter to London, and Hall received a severe reprimand for his conduct. Sir C. Macdonald, Tokyo, Annual Review for 1909, in Japan and Dependencies: Political and Economic Reports 1906– 60, (No place: Archive Editions, 1994), vol. 1, 134–136; Minute by W. Langley, no date, on telegram from Tokyo, 20 June 1912, FO 369/485, folio 36209.For the story as seen from the YC&AC side see chapter on ‘Cricket in Late Edo and Meiji Japan’ by Mike Galbraith in Hugh Cortazzi, ed, .Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, (Folkestone: Renaissance Books, 2015). In 1908, his second daughter, Kathleen Elizabeth, married Oscar White, who had received ‘fudging consent’ to the marriage. The other daughters remained at home, but his sons left, one to Australia and one to South Africa. White, ‘All ambition spent’, pp. 36, 137; Satow noted in 1913 that Mrs Hall had suffered a stroke: Satow to Dickins, 26 July 1913, in Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters, p. 299. Kenrick, ‘A centenary of Western studies of Japan: The First Hundred Years of the Asiatic Society of Japan 1872–1972’, TASJ, 3rd series Vol. 14, passim. This was reprinted as late as 1979 – see J.C. Hall, Japanese Feudal Laws, (Washington D.C.: University Publications of America, 1979). For his Positivist influences and contributions, see Mitsunaga, ‘The English Positivists and Japan’, 67–74. Mitsunaga says that a partial list of his publications appeared in the Positivist Review January 1922. See Platt, Cinderella Service, pp. 44–48 on pension arrangements. The FO’s Chief Clerk felt that it would be best if he retired: ‘He is a very able man but is now long past his work & is liable to be a cause of embarrassment to the Embassy, cf. his vagaries with regard to the Yokohama cricket ground in (?) 1909. He is now 68 years old & quite deaf – besides being somewhat pigheaded & obstinate. He was severely admonished in (?) 1909, but to everyone’s surprise, held on to his post and was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG)’: Minute by W. Langley, no date, on telegram from Tokyo, 20 June 1912, FO 369/485, folio 36209. In his speech, Hall said that as an adherent of a ‘new scientific faith – the Religion of Humanity’ – it would have been inconsistent to hold a religious ceremony. London and China Telegraph 28 July 1913, quoted in Read, ‘John Carey Hall’, unpublished note. ‘Hall, John Carey, C.M.G, ISO, Positivist’, in Joseph McCabe, comp., A biographical dictionary of modern Rationalists, (London: Watts and Co., 1920). Satow diary notes for 10 March 1914 and 17 Feb. 1915, in Ruxton, ed., Correspondence of Sir Ernest Satow, British Minister in Japan, 1895–1900, Vol. I, p. 429, n. 373. 290

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The grave is still there, no. 734 in the Yokohama Foreign Cemetery, with dedications to both of them. Patricia McCabe, Gaijin Bochi: Foreigners Cemetery, Yokohama, Japan (London: BACSA, 1994), p. 116; somebody misread the name as John Garey Hall. His younger son, Vernon, who had gone to Australia, joined the Australian Expeditionary Force, was killed in France in October 1917.His remaining children all died abroad, Kathleen White in Kobe, where her husband was Consul General, two other daughters in Australia, and one in the United States. His eldest son died in South Africa, after making a fortune in gold share dealing. Details in Read, ‘John Carey Hall’.

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Sir Colin John Davidson (1878–1930): Japan Specialist in the British Consular Service AYAKO HOTTA-LISTER

Davidson, behind the Pirace of Wales, in Nara deer park

INTRODUCTION

Colin Davidson was born on 28 October 1878. His father was John Davidson of Holkham, Norfolk. He was educated at Dulwich College, and later in Dresden. He started his career as a student interpreter in Bangkok, Siam. After a year and a half there his health deteriorated and in August 1903 he was transferred to Japan. He studied Japanese assiduously and passed the language examination in 1906. His exceptional fluency in Japanese and his social skills contributed to his successful career and varied life in Japan over the next quarter of a century. He was praised and admired by many Japanese and British. CAREER

Sir Claude MacDonald,1 British ambassador to Japan from 1900 to 1912, reported2 in 1911 to Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary, that Davidson: 292

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… has shown great zeal and intelligence, and a quite remarkable aptitude for getting on with the Japanese. He has established relations with them, which have been of great use to me personally and this Embassy in general. I am informed by the Japanese Secretary that Davidson’s knowledge of the Japanese language, especially the colloquial, is much above the average of Consular officials of his standing.

Conyngham Greene, MacDonald’s successor as British ambassador, similarly appreciated his skills:3 ‘Davidson has certainly established a reputation here as an excellent Japanese scholar and a most useful member of the Japanese Consular Service. His diligence, indeed, requires no commendation from me…’ Davidson’s exceptional language and social skills seem to have been mainly achieved during his early period as a language student, when he mingled with many Japanese of diverse classes and backgrounds. His colleague, Ashton-Gwatkin commented4 on him in his memoir: ‘More than any of us (Edward Crowe, George Sansom, and himself) he [Davidson] had acquired a degree of friendly intimacy with the Japanese, who included ex-daimyo¯s and their wives and children…’ and speaking about the funeral of Tokugawa Keiki [the last Sho¯gun] in 1914 which he attended, ‘My friend, Davidson, who had visited him [Keiki] from time to time, had received from him a souvenir autograph.’ Davidson acquired a wide range of contacts in both Japanese court and military circles. One of Davidson’s contacts was Commander Kato¯ Kanji (Hiraharu), Naval attaché in London.5 Among his colleagues he was particularly friendly with John Gubbins, Captain Hart-Synnot and Major Roundell Toke, the acting military attaché. He often went with them to cherry-blossom parties6 and sumo tournaments as well as dining and hiking with them. Davidson was promoted to be second assistant secretary at the British Embassy in 1908 and to first secretary in 1910. He worked between 1909 and 1911 as private secretary to the ambassador Sir Claude MacDonald. He was in Seoul as vice-consul between 1912 and 1913. In February 1913 he was promoted to vice-consul in Yokohama, where he became acting consul-general between 1914 and 1917. In September 1919, he was transferred to Tokyo to be consul, with the local rank of first secretary from 1923 to 1927, and Japanese counsellor at the embassy from 1927 until his death in June 1930.7 When the First World War broke out in August 1914 Davidson like other colleagues took on war work. George Sansom worked for naval intelligence in London; Ashton-Gwatkin assisted RobertsonScott8 in editing in Japan the bi-monthly and bi-lingual journal, the New East, which was run by the British government to put over British views; and J.H. Gubbins helped in London with censorship inspection of Japanese post coming into Britain. 293

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When Japan declared war on Germany, Davidson conducted operations against the Germans in Tsingtao from September to November 1914, when he was attached to the British troops under Major-General Barnadiston as interpreter. For his contribution to the Tsingtao expedition, he received the 1914–15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Star. This was an important post as liaison between officers of the large Japanese expeditionary army and a token British force required tact and understanding. In April 1915, as the vice-consul at Yokohama, he was instructed by the ambassador Sir William Conyngham Greene to keep a watch on the Indian revolutionaries in Japan and their Japanese sympathisers. For this purpose he was provided with secret service funds from the government of India in Calcutta.9 Davidson became convinced that Rash Behari Bose,10 alias, P.N. Thakur, had been living in Japan and was in touch with To¯yama Mitsuru.11 He believed that the Japanese police authorities were aware of the whereabouts of Thakur.12 He also reported that Dharmapala Buddhinour, who had been the head of the movement directed against British rule in Ceylon, was expected to arrive soon in Japan to arrange for arms and ammunitions to be supplied from Japan. He suggested that Dharmapala Buddhinour should be arrested urgently.13 Davidson sent Conynghame Greene an abbreviated translation of ¯ kawa Shu¯mei’s book, The Nationalist Movement in India: its present O condition and Origin.14 Greene praised Davidson’s zeal and energy to Austin Chamberlain the foreign secretary.15 In spring 1916 Miles Lampson,16 who was at the time working in Whitehall, asked Davidson privately to give him an assessment of the current situation in Japan, as the Foreign Office were considering the launch of a British propaganda journal in Japan. In a long letter written in June 1916,17 Davidson’s true feelings about the situation in Japan were expressed when he confirmed what Lampson had suspected for some time that ‘the dry-rot was becoming universal in Japan.’ He thought it might be described more adequately as ‘a malignant fungus, which was gradually spreading its tentacles over a large section of the Japanese people’. He continued: You know how great an admirer I was formerly of the Japanese, but to my regret I must confess that my faith in them has been rudely shaken by recent events. In the early part of the war when things were not going well for the Allies, there was a general feeling amongst the Japanese that they had put their money on the wrong horse, and many of them did not hesitate to say so openly. In fact, had things gone a little bit worse for us, there was, I think, a grave danger of their throwing us over altogether. The army was against us and pro-German almost to a man. They were genuinely frightened

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of what the Germans would do to them when they had finished with the Allies. There is little doubt that the Germans have been secretly at work here and find any willing ears for their slander and lies and many willing hands to receive their money. Knowing how universally popular the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was in Japan a year or two ago, one cannot help feeling that more powerful influences are at work beneath the surface to undermine its popularity than the utterances of newspapers such as the Yamato and the vapouring of irresponsible professors and other writers.

Lampson commented on Davidson’s reply that: In order to appreciate his personal letter it should be borne in mind that he is – or rather was – a foremost pro-Japanese member of H.M. Service. He knows the Japanese language, literature – even their music – as very few Europeans do, and was …recently one of their most devoted admirers.

Lampson replied that: ‘I have put your letter forward here as of general interest, to all authorities, including Langley, Eric Drummond, Lord Newton and even the Secretary of State himself have seen it.’18 Davidson’s views probably had a significant influence on the Foreign Office decision to embark on propaganda in Japan. In January 1919, Davidson was made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (C.I.E.). He was selected to look after British and Japanese dignitaries’ visits in the 1920s. He was attached in 1922 to Prince Edward VIII’s suite when the latter was in Japan. In 1926 he accompanied Prince and Princess Chichibu on a visit to study in England; and in 1929 he was specially attached to the staff of the Duke of Gloucester on the occasion of the Garter Mission to Japan. For this he was knighted at the New Year’s Honour, early in 1930. He was also awarded the Japanese Orders of the Rising Sun and of the Sacred Treasure (3rd Class). Davidson seems to have been more self-assertive than many other members of the consular service. For example, he submitted to his superiors a number of special pleas, which were often rejected. On 19 August 1913 he argued that his time in Siam should be counted to give him greater seniority over two other colleagues.19 On 16 November 1920 he sought an allowance for running a motor car.20 On 23 December 1927, Sansom and Davidson jointly asked for alternative accommodation to rent after the 1923 earthquake had destroyed the premises in the Embassy compound.21 On 14 August 1928 he argued successfully for a local allowance as Japanese counsellor, as he was doing exactly what his predecessor, H.G. Parlett, had done.22 295

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Unfortunately, prior to the Eden reforms of 1943 during the Second World War, the members of the diplomatic service who had to have private income often treated members of the consular services as second-class officials despite the fact that they generally relied on the consuls for their linguistic and local knowledge.23 CONCLUSION

Davidson died when only fifty-one on 12 June 1930 at his home at Fujimi-cho¯, Azabu, after suffering for some months from septic anaemia. The Tokyo Asahi Shimbun on 14 June published a short article entitled ‘Mr Davidson, a Japanologist Counsellor at the British Embassy, … was one of the foreign residents who understand Japan well. His Japanese language was fluent and he even had an ability to learn Chinese classics’. The Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun’s article on 14 June was headlined ‘The famous Counsellor at the British Embassy passed away who has mastered fluency in Japanese language’, noting that ‘He had always left many Japanese mystified [kemuri ni maku] by his fluent Japanese.’24 The Japan Advertiser on 18 June printed a long list of those who had attended the funeral, which took place at St Andrews Church on 16 June in Shiba Park. In addition to British Embassy staff and their relatives as well as diplomats of other nations, Count Maeda represented Prince Chichibu. Baron Shidehara, the minister for foreign affairs, attended in person. The Japan Chronicle in Kobe described Davidson as ‘a distinguished Japanese scholar, Sir Colin had a host of Japanese friends, and socially was extremely popular in Tokyo. He took little interest in sport, but was a keen shot and enthusiastic tennis player. He was unmarried.’ The obituary in The Japan Times on 14 June recorded that ‘Unlike most foreigners, he was fond of such Japanese games as “sho¯gi” and “go” and an enthusiastic student of “utai” a form of libretto play and was a member of the Nikko¯ Club and the Tokyo Club.’ The Times of 30 June, written by a former colleague in Tokyo from Madrid, noted: By the premature death of Davidson, Britain has lost one of those servants who make her interests in the Far East the chief preoccupation of their lives. It is only a few months since his friends were rejoicing with him in the signal honour, which had crowned… But the companionship of princes did nothing to diminish the charm, which Davidson’s friendship held for ordinary men. In his character the Scot predominated: occasional moods of low spirits, amounting even to depression, were but as clouds fast drifting over the blue sky of a capacity for warm hearted friendship which was based on an instinctive sympathy with, and understanding of, his fellow men. In 296

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his dealings, both private and official, with Orientals of all classes he had discovered the great secret that a ready sympathy need not, and should not, mean inevitable compliance. None knew better than he how to laugh out of a discussion unnecessary complications, mystery making, bazaar bargaining. He would often be grumbled at, but always respected and never disliked. Far from it – he will, I think, be mourned as deeply by his Japanese as by his British friends.

Sir John Tilley, the British ambassador to Japan, wrote25 on 25 June 1930 to Arthur Anderson, MP, officially informing him of Davidson’s death: You will not be unaware of the various services rendered by Sir Colin Davidson to this Embassy and to His Majesty’s Government during a long career in Japan, or of the great ability, which he showed in the discharge of his duties. I wish to dwell more particularly on the distinguished position, which Sir Colin held in Japanese society in Tokyo, where he had made a larger number of friends, probably a much larger number, than any other foreigner for many years. In that respect his position was comparable only to that of the late Sir Ernest Satow. The regard in which he was held by the Imperial Family is shown by the quite unusual action of His Majesty The Emperor in expressing His personal condolences with me on the occasion of Sir Colin’s death, and of the sympathy shown by Their Imperial Highnesses, Prince and Princess Chichibu and other members of the House. The popularity, respect and even authority, which Sir Colin Davidson enjoyed was invaluable to the Embassy and the loss of so rare a personality is a heavy one to His Majesty’s Government. Sir Colin’s influence was founded mainly of course on his character, but it could not have been acquired but for his admirable command of the spoken language which was equal, if not superior to that of any other living foreigner. It is chiefly owing to the command of the language by its servants that the British Government has hitherto maintained its influence in this country, and I trust that nothing will be done to relax the present insistence on its acquisition.

Acknowledgement: In addition to original Foreign Office documents in the National Archives at Kew, I am indebted to Prof. Ian Nish, Dr J.E. Hoare and Ms Momoko Williams, for much valuable information and advice. Colin Davidson unfortunately did not leave his own memoir or personal writings. ENDNOTES 1

For biographical portraits of British ambassadors to Japan and senior members of the Japan consular service such as Sir George Sansom. Gubbins, Parlett and others see British Envoys in Japan 1859–1972, ed. Hugh Cortazzi et al., Global Oriental, 2004. 297

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2

3 4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

FO369/391 [18466] Consular No.24, 25 April 1911, MacDonald to Grey. FO 369/595 [42565] Greene to F.O. 19 August 1913. Norbury, Paul (ed), ‘The promise of greater things to come’ in Introducing Japan (Paul Norbury Publication Ltd. 1977), pp.43 & 47. A biographical portrait of Ashton-Gwatkin by Ian Nish is contained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume I, ed. Ian Nish, Japan Library 1994. Toke, Roundell, The Diary of Roundell Toke, entries on 28 December 1905; Rumbold, Horace, Rumbold Diary, entry on 15 January 1912.. A biographical portrait of Kato Hiraharu (Kanji) by Ian Nish is in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. Pagnamenta, Peter & Williams, Momoko, Falling Blossom, (Century, London 2006), p.52. Foreign Office Files for Japan and the Far East; Who Was Who, A & C Black, Bloomsbury Publication 1920–2014, online edition; and others. A biographical portrait of J.W. Robertson-Scott by Mari Nakami is contained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume II, ed. Ian Nish, Japan Library, 1997. Best, Antony, British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia, 1914– 1941, (Palgrave Macmillan 2002), pp.24–31. Rash Behari Bose (1886–1945). According to Wikepedia, Bose, an Indian nationalist, was accused of being involved in the attempt in 1912 to assassinate the viceroy Lord Hardinge. He escaped and in 1915 found shelter with various Pan-Asian groups in Japan. From 1915 to 1918, he changed residences and identities numerous times, as the British kept pressing the Japanese government for his extradition. He married the daughter of Aizo¯ So¯ma and Kokko¯ So¯ma, the owners of Nakamuraya bakery in Tokyo and noted Pan-Asian supporters in 1918, and became a Japanese citizen in 1923, living as a journalist and writer. Bose along with A.M. Nair was instrumental in persuading the Japanese authorities to stand by the Indian nationalists and ultimately to support the Indian independence struggle. Bose convened a conference in Tokyo on 28–30 March 1942, which decided to establish the Indian Independence League. At the conference he moved a motion to raise an army for Indian independence. He convened the second conference of the League at Bangkok on 22 June 1942. It was at this conference that a resolution was adopted to invite Subhas Chandra Bose to join the League and take its command as its president. The Indian prisoners of war captured by the Japanese in the Malaya and Burma fronts were encouraged to join the Indian Independence League and become the soldiers of the Indian National Army (INA), formed on 1 September 1942 as the military wing of Bose’s Indian National League…it was on the organisational spadework of Rash Behari Bose that Subhas Chandra Bose later built the Indian National Army Toyama Mitsuru (1855–1944) was a right-wing extremist who was one of the founders of the Genyosha, a secret society and terrorist organiza298

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12 13 14

15 16

17

18 19 20 21 22 23

24

tion whose agenda was to agitate for Japanese military expansion and conquest of the Asian continent. Its successor organization was the Kokuryukai (black dragon association) FO371/3065 [64463/1220/511–514] 24/1/1917. Davidson to Petrie. FO371/3065 [64471/1220/517–520] 31/1/1917. Davidson to Petrie. ¯ kawa (኱ᕝ࿘᫂ O ¯ kawa Shu¯mei?, 6 December 1886–24 Shu¯mei O December 1957) was, according to Wikepedia, a Japanese nationalist, Pan-Asian writer, indicted war criminal, and Islamic scholar. In the pre-war period, he was known for his publications on Indian philosophy, philosophy of religion, Japanese history, and colonialism. He is frequently called a ‘right-wing’ writer, although he described himself as anti-capitalist and rejected the label ‘right-wing’. FO371/3065 [62437/1220/445–450] 23/3/1917. Davidson to Petrie. A biographical portrait of Sir Miles Lampson by David Steeds is contained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2010. FO 392/172 [164323/41960] 29/6/1916. A private letter from Davidson to Miles Lampson (FO). FO392/172 [164323/41960] 30/8/1916. Lampson to Davidson. FO369/595, [42565]. FO368/1685 X4738/887/503. FO369/1978 [K17020/17020/223. FO369/2040, [K1099/1637/223]. Platt, D.C., The Cinderella Service: British Consuls since 1825 (Longman, 1971) pp.3, 231.Platt wrote: ’Members of the consular service suffered more than most from the snobberies of government service, particularly in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ….Treated as secondclass citizens within their own Department, British consuls, without a friend in Parliament or in the Press, fell victim to the Victorian obsession with economy in government expenditure. ……there was no escape.’ and ‘…the inadequacies of the prospects and rewards open to them in the service.’ The Tokyo Consulate was inspected in October-November 1927, after Davidson had left, but his role was still being praised. One official wrote in March 1928: ‘Mr Davidson was extremely well-known in Tokio official circles. He is a bachelor & has therefore been able to belong to nearly all the important clubs and as he has lived with successive Ambassadors as a kind of Private Secretary, he has been at nearly all Embassy entertainments. His visit to England in the suite of Prince Chichibu also added to his importance in Japanese eyes. Mr Davidson therefore was located more as a member of the Embassy than as British Consul.’ FO 369/2040 K.2143/2143/ 223

25

FO369/2152 [K9097/6874/223] Tilley dispatch to Arthur Henderson, no. 322, 25 June 1930.

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John Frederick Lowder (1843–1902): Consul, Counsel and o-yatoi J E. HOARE Now largely forgotten, J.F. Lowder was a prominent member of the foreign community in Japan from its earliest days until his death. He was born in Shanghai, where his father, the Rev. John Lowder, was the Anglican chaplain to the newly opened consulate. Rutherford Alcock (later Sir Rutherford), first British consul at Shanghai, married John Lowder’s widow in July 1862, when he was minister in Japan. It was the Alcock connection that led to J.F. Lowder becoming one of the first language students in June 1860. He performed well in the attack on the British legation in Tozenji in July 1861 but escaped being wounded. Soon after, he completed his language training and began his consular career. He was soon married, not perhaps a planned move. Ernest Satow noted in his diary for 9 September 1862, the day after he had arrived in Japan, that he had met Lowder at the house of the American missionary Rev. S.R. Brown. He described him as ‘a pale mealy-faced fellow, who it appears seduced Miss Brown last December, and has now come down from Hakodadi (sic), to be married …’ Brown was devastated by this development, while the new Lady Alcock apparently disapproved of the marriage not because of the seduction but because Miss Brown was an American and not aristocratic. Like his colleagues, Lowder moved from one acting appointment to another as required, until he was gazetted as consul at Nagasaki in January 1869. The following year, Parkes allowed him to take home leave, noting that he wished to read for the Bar. Permission was granted. He qualified in 1872 and returned to Japan. Soon after his return, the Japanese authorities at Yokohama approached the British chargé d’affaires R.G. Watson (Parkes was on leave) asking that Lowder be seconded to help arrange a new system of customs’ duties, to replace those operated under the bakufu. It seems likely that

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Lowder himself had put the idea to the Japanese. Watson referred the case to London, noting that while this might have advantages for British merchants, similar cases in China had led to protests. The request was refused. Lowder said he could not meet his liabilities on his consular salary, since what seemed a large salary in Britain ‘leads to a life of penury and debt in Japan’. The Japanese salary (Mexican $ 60,000, or about double his consular salary) would allow him to clear his debts in three years. He therefore resigned. His claim that all other senior members of the Japan consular service were in a similar financial position was rejected. Lowder worked for the Ministry of Finance as ‘Standing Counsel to the Imperial Japanese Customs’. From 1884 until 1888, his salary was shared between the Finance and the Justice Ministries. Apart from legal advice, he is credited with being the architect of the tax reforms of the mid-Meiji period. He appeared for the Japanese customs in court cases, including the Hartley opium cases of the late 1870s but his main work was behind the scenes. Little is known of his life beyond his work. His only known outside activity was a translation, The Legacy of Ieyasu published in 1874. In autumn 1888, he resigned his Japanese post, becoming one of only three foreigners with a Japanese government pension. His resignation took place against a background of ferment over treaty revision. Proposals under Inoue Kaoru had included appointing foreign judges to Japanese courts. Lowder, seen as pro–Japanese, in favour of treaty revision, and one of the longest–serving foreign lawyers in Japanese employment, expected to be appointed. But after the proposals brought down Inoue in July 1887 and led to a bomb attack on his successor, Okuma Shigenobu, they were dropped. Lowder, on leave in Britain, wrote to the London Times warning that Japan was no longer offering the protection of foreign judges, which caused much concern among foreigners in Japan. He was back in Japan by the autumn 1890, a when a rumour spread that new treaties had been signed with Britain and Germany with no provision for foreign judges or other safeguards. Together with J.H. Brooke, owner of the Japan Herald, and J.A. Fraser, a British businessman, he organized the first foreign mass meeting in Yokohama since the 1860s to protest the supposed new treaties. The leaders came under attack in the pro-Japanese Japan Mail and in Japanese papers and received death threats. Brooke and Lowder fell out over the former’s virulent anti–Japanese sentiments, while the news that the rumour was false ended the protests. Brooke did not forget and the Herald launched a savage attack on Lowder after his death. Lowder took no part in the opposition to the new 1894 treaties.

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During the 1890s, Lowder practised as a barrister in the Yokohama courts, being known for a sharp tongue. In 1893, he tried, unsuccessfully, to become the British Crown Advocate. He appeared for the P&O Company against the Japanese government in the ChishimaRavenna collision case. He was prominent in the Carew murder case and initiated the prosecution against Miss Jacobs, the family nanny. At his funeral, his Order of the Rising Sun – 4th Class was carried before his coffin escorted by a Japanese NCO. Lowder and his wife, who lived until 1919, are buried in the Yokohama Foreign Cemetery. We know that he was photographed in 1862, but there is no known image of him. Like several other family members, the Lowders’ son E. Gordon Lowder, was in the Chinese Customs Service. Information about Lowder is very scattered. The following have proved useful but it is not an exclusive list of items consulted: Diaries of Sir E.M. Satow, National Archives PRO 30/33. Foreign Office Embassy and Consular Archives, Japan, National Archives FO 262. Alcock, Sir Rutherford, The Capital of the Tycoon (London: Longmans, 1868, 2 vols.) II, 152–168. Bennett, Terry, Photography in Japan 1853–1912 (Tokyo: Tuttle, 2006), esp. pp. 56–57. Hoare, J.E., Japan’s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements: The Uninvited Guests 1858–1899 (Folkestone: Japan Library, 1994). Jones, H.J. Live Machines: Hired Foreigners in Meiji Japan (Tenterden, Kent: Paul Norbury Publications, 1980.) Fox, Grace, Britain and Japan 1858–1883 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). Lebra, Joyce, Okuma Shigenobu: Statesman of Meiji Japan (Canberra: ANU Press, 1973.) Michie, Alexander, The Englishman in China (London: Blackwood & Sons: 1900, 2 vols.) Christopher Roberts, The British Courts and Extraterritoriality in Japan (Leiden: Global Oriental, 2014). Christopher Roberts – personal communication.

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Sir Edward Crowe (1877–1960): Forgotten Star of the Japan Consular Service J.E. HOARE

Edward Crowe was born in the Ionian Islands, where his father, Arthur Louis Crowe was vice–consul. Educated at Bedford School, he was appointed a student interpreter in Japan on 1 April 1897. From then until 1906, he moved up through the consular ranks, serving at Yokohama, Kobe and, from 1904 to 1906, as acting consul at Tamsui in the newly-acquired Japanese colonial empire. Along the way, he married Eleanor Lay, in 1901, the daughter of William Hyde Lay, a China consul. Her brother, Arthur Hyde Lay, was acting Japanese secretary when Crowe was a language student. Crowe’s interests did not lie in Japanese scholarship. Instead, he seems to have had an eye for detail and an interest in trade – something not at all common among his colleagues – which led to his appointment as commercial attaché in Tokyo in 1906. Commercial attachés were then a relatively new development as the Foreign Office woke up to the challenge posed to Britain by international 303

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trade competition. The first, Sir Joseph Crowe (father of another British diplomat, Sir Eyre Crowe, but no relation to Edward), was appointed in 1880 to cover the whole of Europe from Paris. By 1906, posts were to be found in Berlin, Madrid, Constantinople, Vienna and Beijing. Crowe’s appointment indicated the growing importance of Japanese trade. The post carried prestige, but the financial rewards were not generous. He noted in 1913 that his salary was £900 a year. Crowe’s only other recognition was the award of a CMG in 1911. Apart from leave, he remained commercial attaché, assisted by a commercial secretary, until 1918. Much of his work appeared in an annual trade report, published jointly by the Foreign Office and the Board of Trade. These complex documents show Crowe’s detailed grasp of his subject and still make interesting reading. Several ambassadors testified to his knowledge and diligence. Sir Conyngham Greene wrote in 1913 that ‘… I do not know any member of the staff of His Majesty’s Embassy or of His Majesty’s Consular Service here who deserves more highly of His Majesty’s Government, and, I may add, of myself.’ Greene’s praise came in a covering letter forwarding a major memorandum prepared by Crowe on a non-commercial subject. Basic consular salaries in Japan had not increased since the late 1860s. To alleviate financial needs, local allowances had been adjusted. But British consular officers were poorly paid compared to their colleagues. Greene’s predecessors had received complaints, but had failed to move London. Greene asked Crowe to look into the matter. The result was a comprehensive memorandum that made the case for increases in so through and restrained a way ‘… that it is difficult to view it otherwise than as an honest attempt to put the situation before you in the light in which it really stands today’. The Foreign Office shared the ambassador’s view. The Chief Clerk, John Tilley, who became ambassador to Japan from 1926 to 1931, wrote that ‘Mr Crowe’s report is admirable and might well be taken as a model of what such reports should be’, although he then went on to criticize some sleight of hand over previous increases. Nevertheless, the memorandum, with some modifications was sent to the Treasury. The Treasury, while noting Mr Crowe’s ‘valuable and exhaustive’ report, regretted the sleight of hand, but accepted the need for improvement. Crowe had won a major victory for himself and his colleagues. By 1918, a further reorganization of government trade services was in hand. A Commercial Diplomatic Service, staffed by commercial counsellors supported by commercial secretaries, took the place of the attachés, and came under the auspices of the Department of Overseas Trade. Crowe became the first commercial counsellor in

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Japan, effectively an independent post. Crowe would nominally hold the post until 1925, receiving a knighthood in 1922. His career was beginning to move into new channels away from Japan. In 1924, he became acting director of the foreign division of the Department of Overseas Trade, and a year later, was formally appointed director, leaving the consular service and becoming a Home Civil Servant. From 1928 until retirement in 1937, he was comptroller-general (permanent secretary) of the department. The department was then at its most successful period, helped by Crowe’s knowledge and his understanding approach. He did not sit in London but made frequent provincial visits. He served as vice-president of the International Exhibitions Bureau in Paris, was vice-president of the board of governors of the Imperial Institute, and was a member of several government committees of enquiry. In 1930, he became KCMG. In retirement, he took up a number of directorships and became a supporter of the Royal Society of Arts, serving as vice-president, president and chairman of the council between 1937 and 1943. Although he never revisited Japan after the 1920s, he maintained an interest. For several years, he was vice–president of the Japan Society of London – the Japanese ambassador was then the president. Post-war, he continued to be involved with things Japanese, and in 1951–1952 was president of the Japan Association, set up to encourage trade between the two countries. In 1955, he received the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasure, First Class. He died getting up from the bridge table in Cairo in 1960, while visiting his son Colin, then chargé d’affaires in Egypt (later Sir Colin Crowe, who became chief clerk in the FCO and was appointed a GCMG). Crowe was a kindly man, popular with his colleagues. In career terms, he was as successful as members of the Japanese Consular Service such as Satow or Sansom, his successor as commercial counsellor. But his lack of interest in Japanese scholarship may have led to his being overlooked. Yet to Frank Ashton-Gwatkin, another colleague, he was as much a star as any of those who concentrated on Japanese. It does not seem appropriate to burden this short note with references. The following have proved useful in preparing it: Foreign Office: Records of the Chief Clerk’s Department, FO 369/595, National Archives. Akita, Shigeru and N. J. White, eds., The International Order of Asia in the 1930s and 1950s (Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2010.) Ashton–Gwatkin, Frank, ‘The meeting of John Paris and Japan’, tsuru, vol. 3 no. 1 (September 1973), pp. 1–7.

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Sir Hugh Cortazzi, ‘The Japan Society: A Hundred-Year History’, in Cortazzi and Gordon Daniels, eds., Britain and Japan 1859–199: Themes and Personalities (London: Routledge, 1991). Foreign Office List 1921, 1938. ‘Japan Economic Reports 1906–1912 and 1913–1926’, Japan & Dependencies: Political & Economic Reports 1906–1960 (No place: Archive Editions, 1994), vols. 5–6. Nosworthy, R. L., revised Alex May, ‘Crowe, Sir Edward Thomas Frederick (1977–1960)’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004 – online edition May 2008), accessed 2 July 2015. Platt, D. C. M., Finance, Trade and Politics in British foreign Policy 1815–1914, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968). Sansom, Katherine, Sir George Sansom and Japan: A Memoir, (Tallahassee, Florida: Diplomatic Press 1972). ‘Sir Edward Crowe, Obituary’, The Times 9 March 1960, from The Times archive, retrieved 2 July 2015. Who was Who ‘Crowe, Sir Edward Thomas Frederick’. Wikipedia ‘Edward Crowe’ – accessed 15 February 2015.

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Oswald ‘Shiro’ White (1884–1970): Thirty-eight Years in the Japan Consular Service HUGO READ

INTRODUCTION

Oswald White was a very modest man, both professionally and privately. As a result he is less well known than many of his predecessors in the Japan service, but his achievements were significant. He spent his whole career in the Japan consular service, serving the last third as a consul-general. He left his last official post in February 1941, before Pearl Harbor, and thus shortly before Japan entered the Second World War. Towards the end of his career in the 1930s and up to 1942 he wrote his memoirs, All Ambition Spent, the main source for this portrait.1 EARLY YEARS

Oswald White was born on 23 September 1884 in Gosforth, Northumberland, one of two sons of James White, a commercial clerk 307

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from Newcastle and Annie White, née Fish. After initial schooling in the North East of England, he obtained a scholarship to Mercers’ School in the City of London, living there as a boarder. He excelled at the grammar school, finishing top boy in his year every year, leaving with a glowing reference from the Dean of the College.2 Immediately after school he tried for the consular service. In 1903, he was one of fifty-two candidates for four positions as student interpreter in the Japan and China service. White finished top. George Sansom who became a leading Japanese scholar and diplomat took one of the other three places.3 White joined the Japan service in October 1903 and was appointed junior interpreter in Tokyo. Sansom and Phipps who also qualified at the same time arrived with White in Tokyo on 4 January 1904.4 LEARNING JAPANESE

A student interpreter was expected to achieve a very high level of competence in the Japanese language. White, Sansom and Phipps were all taught under John Harington Gubbins,5 who wrote a wellrespected Japanese dictionary that was a standard source at the time.6 Gubbins was a no-nonsense taskmaster in teaching Japanese. This helped them get a flying start in learning the language.7 The three new Japanese students were keen and agreed to take their exams together, all successfully passing their Japanese finals early in their fourth year of service.8 White later commented that scholars do not generally make the best speakers of Japanese and that Japanese often had difficulty in understanding Gubbins as he used scholarly language rather than the vernacular of the day.9 By contrast White immersed himself in the people and the language, learning to speak more colloquial and natural Japanese. POSTINGS IN JAPAN, MANCHURIA AND KOREA, 1905–1931

White’s first post in 1905 was as assistant consul in Yokohama where he learnt the ropes from his first two chiefs, Ernest HobartHampden vice-consul who became the Japanese secretary in Tokyo and consul-general John Carey Hall.10 Hobart-Hampden’s efficiency rubbed off on White, who was similarly diligent and hardworking, whereas the influence of John Carey Hall was altogether different; he was an enigmatic and eccentric character that gave White an alternative perspective on life. Whilst in Yokohama White married John Carey Hall’s daughter Kathleen in 1908, who he called his ‘helpmeet, companion and counsellor for nearly thirty years’.11 308

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White’s entry to the Japan service coincided with the Russo-Japanese War of 1904/5 as a result of which Japan came to control Manchuria and Korea. This led to consular posts in these areas becoming the responsibility of the Japan service. Newly married in 1908, Oswald and Kathleen White went first to Korea, where he was appointed assistant consul at Seoul, serving under Henry Cockburn. White developed sympathy for the Koreans who were subjected to Japanese dominion. However, his heart was really in Japan and he was pleased to return as vice-consul in Yokohama in 1911 (serving once more under his father-in-law John Carey Hall) and then in 1913 in Osaka. At the time Osaka was a vice-consulate under the control of the consul-general in Kobe; so White found himself for the first time in charge of a consular post. Consular work in Osaka was almost entirely commercial. White was there throughout the First World War until 1919.12 During this period he saw it grow from a manufacturing centre of secondary importance to one of the leading commercial and industrial centres of the world. He wrote a ‘Report on Japanese labour’ at the end of his posting in 1920, which marked him as an expert on Japanese trade and manufacturing, especially in Osaka.13 During these early postings his three daughters, Kathleen ‘Kitty’ White (1908), Annie ‘Betty’ White (1910) and Patricia ‘Pat’ White (1914) were born. All three spent their formative years with their parents in Japan, Manchuria and Korea. Following his posting in Osaka White was promoted to consul, heading the British consulates firstly at Nagasaki in 1920 and then at Dairen (in Manchuria) in 1925. He was promoted to consul general in 1928 and spent three years in Seoul before returning to Osaka in 1931. He was appointed CMG in 1931.14 During these postings he was nicknamed Shiro (meaning ‘white’ in Japanese) by his Japanese friends and colleagues. CONSUL-GENERAL AT OSAKA, 1931–1938

Osaka had continued to grow in importance and on White’s recommendation the post was raised to the status of a consulate-general. On his arrival he was appointed doyen of the consular corps, a role which he thought somewhat ridiculous and pompous, as the role of the ‘corps’ seemed to consist solely of turning out in its splendour for ceremonial occasions.15 White continued to build on the textile manufacturing knowledge he had gained during his previous posting in Osaka, making several tours in the Far East and in Britain to learn and teach about the industry.16 On visiting a leading producer of cotton textiles in Manchester at this time he was expecting the owner to take the opportunity of 309

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learning about the methods used in Osaka which were currently at the cutting edge of manufacturing, but instead White had to listen ‘for an hour to his explanation of the superiority of Lancashire’s methods’.17 White felt that the British were living in the past and not paying enough attention or respect to the dramatic changes that were happening in the Far East. Most of the leading Japanese businessmen of Osaka were members of the Osaka club, of which White had been a member since his previous posting in the city. Foreigners were rarely seen in the Osaka club but White wanted to be close to the local community, culture and language and learn what was going on in the Japanese trades.18 He had developed a deep knowledge of the Japanese language, culture and mentality and thought it as much his duty to understand the Japanese point of view as to explain the British.19 This desire for mutual understanding led White to be instrumental in founding the Japan British Society of the Kansai in 1935. In 1932 anti-British feeling in Japan grew as a result of British criticism of Japanese actions in Manchuria. White thought that Britain should have either taken a harder line or piped down. Instead he believed Britain’s attitude ‘did China little good and simply showed Japan that the time when Britain could intervene successfully in the Far East had passed… by ranging themselves on the side of opposition, Britain pushed Japan a step further on her way towards Germany’.20 At this difficult political juncture White’s wife Kathleen developed an unknown illness that led to paralysis. After a brief remission she then declined and died in 1937. White said that: Back in 1906 when he gave his somewhat grudging consent to our engagement, my father-in-law [John Carey Hall] had intimated clearly enough that I was scarcely good enough for Kathleen. After the lapse of thirty years I was not prepared to contest this verdict. Kathleen had set me a standard of unselfishness in her care of me and our three children which I tried in vain to live up to.21

Whilst still in Osaka and less than a year later he married again. His second wife was Peggy Anderson of the Osaka ex-pat community, who was originally from Western Australia. White said of this second marriage that ‘The greatest blessing of my life is to have enjoyed the companionship of two perfect women.’22 CONSUL–GENERAL AT MUKDEN, 1938–1939

In 1938 White was appointed consul-general at Mukden immediately following the ‘Marco Polo bridge incident’, which is generally credited as being the event that triggered the start of the second JapaneseChinese war, which lasted until the end of the Second World War. 310

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The authorities in Whitehall recognized that this was a very difficult posting and told White that he was under no obligation to accept the move. However, White accepted the transfer, hoping that he could salvage some of the vestiges of British interests in Manchuria.23 The consular position in the region was ill defined, as the British didn’t recognise Manchukuo. In theory, consular positions in Manchuria should have been registered with the Chinese government, not the Japanese. For their part the Japanese did not officially recognise British consular positions in the region. In practice, neither side pushed the argument too far and the British consuls continued to operate in Manchuria, although tensions were high.24 Due to what was seen in Whitehall as his well-judged and diplomatic handling of the difficult consular affairs in Mukden,25 in September 1939 White was offered and accepted his final official post in an even more difficult position, that of consul-general in Tientsin. CONSUL-GENERAL AT TIENTSIN, 1940–1941

Tientsin and Peking (now Tianjin and Beijing) had already been seized by the Japanese, who had installed a puppet Chinese regime that in reality answered to the Japanese army.26 In 1939 when White took charge of the consulate and the British concession at Tientsin the city was effectively under martial law. The Americans, who were worried that the British were not taking an aggressive enough stance against the Japanese, saw his posting as a diplomatic move towards the Japanese to appease the heightening tensions between the nations. On 28 October 1939 The Chicago Tribune published an article headed ‘Britain Soothes Japan – London Giving in to Check Russia’: Coming at time when the United States is stiffening its attitude, Britain again seems to have decided to leave America out on a limb, making friendly gestures toward Japan. The British ambassador, Sir Robert Leslie Craigie, called on Vice Foreign Minister Masayuki Tani last night and asked for a resumption of Anglo-Japanese conversations dealing with the settlement of Chinese problems. Tokio believes that London altered its stand due to the urgent necessity of keeping Russia in check and also because Japanese friendship would be of incalculable advantage in carrying on the war with Germany. London recently made friendly gestures toward Japan. It replaced the anti-Japanese consul-general at Tientsin with the pro-Japanese Oswald White.27

The Japanese were no longer happy with the foreign concessions in the city – enclaves that were largely self-administered. There were still four running at the time; the British, French and Italian and the Japanese. White noted that the concessions had not originally 311

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been intended for extensive use by the Chinese people, but by 1939 there were huge numbers of Chinese in the British concession, so much so that they outnumbered the British by about twenty to one.28 The Japanese were unhappy about this, believing that the Chinese could plot against them in the relative safety of the concession. White declared that the Japanese were quite wrong in thinking that the British authorities deliberately connived at the presence of terrorists and agitators and asserted that the British were just as anxious as the Japanese to keep them out of the concession.29 General Homma of the Japanese Imperial Army finally lost patience and in June 1939 isolated the British concession by surrounding it with electrified barbed wire. This was known as the ‘blockade of Tientsin’; White arrived to manage for the British just after this was put in place. White commented that: ... entry and exit could only be made through barriers at which stood Japanese sentries with bayonets who, at their sweet will, allowed those who wished to go through to go into the examining shed or made them wait. Foreigners had to produce passports or identity cards. If these disclosed that the holders belonged to ‘friendly’ nations e.g. German, they passed through without delay. But woe betides the unhappy holder of a British passport or identity card.30

1939 was also the year of the great flood of Tientsin. The city is a meeting place of many rivers coming down from the mountains. Dykes were built around the City, successfully keeping out the floods since 1916. By 1939 they were badly in need of repair and White noted that by the end of July: Water poured in and the whole area was flooded up to a depth of 9 feet. Residents went about in sampans (flat bottomed boats) until the water had been pumped out. The smell was indescribable.31

White had to look after both the people and the political interests of the concession, but he also had to monitor criminal activity, handing over suspected Chinese terrorists to the Japanese army, which he didn’t enjoy and resisted if there was no evidence of a crime having been committed. The extreme severity with which the blockade was enforced was in his view ‘absolutely indefensible’. He said that ‘this was not a war between two opposing armies but ruthless power used against inoffensive civilians’.32 The daily dealings of the blockade included deliberately prolonged waiting at the barriers for anyone to enter and leave and tooth-comb examination of British shipping, with ships or boats attempting to 312

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come in or out of the concession being searched for hours or even days. One of the major problems shortly after White’s arrival was the stopping of the coal supply. White took part in long diplomatic discussions, explaining the fuel needs of the concession for the coming winter and finally agreeing a quota of coal with the Japanese. He said the quota was barely enough and the concession still struggled badly. He would sit in his office ‘in coat, muffler and hat and had great pleasure in receiving Japanese officials in that garb’.33 There was also a shortage of flour and often there would be a stoppage in the delivery of fresh foodstuffs. White said that the difficulties he faced in Tientsin would have been far greater if it weren’t for his counterpart, the Japanese consul-general Mr Muto. He could not have wished for a better colleague; Muto was courteous, reasonable and helpful.34 The blockade was finally raised in June 1940. Two of the main diplomatic concessions made by the British that helped end the stalemate were the handing over of four Chinese who were suspected of blowing up a cinema in the Japanese concession and the rights over a large cache of silver that was held in the basement of an old bank in the British concession.35 It fell to White and Muto to seal up the silver, minus an agreed £100,000 worth for flood relief, and hand it over to the Japanese. On the appointed day they went to two inner vaults in the basement of the bank where the silver was kept. Due to flood damage the door had to be battered open. Finally, there was enough space for White to squeeze inside: There an amazing sight met my eyes. Flood damage here was far more serious and practically all the bags had rotted. Such of the gunny as remained had sprouted fungus and interspersed with the silver dollars, which had cascaded over the floor, were growths of what looked like wool. As the others joined me we climbed over a crumbling hill of dollars worth the best part of a million pounds.36

In retrospect White saw the whole incident as a tragic blunder. He believed there was little doubt that the Japanese would never have instituted the blockade if the concessions later made by the British government had been made earlier.37 White continued as consul-general until February 1941. On leaving Tientsin he received a letter from the Foreign Office commending his handling of the situation there: My Dear White, I want to tell you how much all your work has been appreciated. There are not many officials in the Far East today who can go away

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and feel their job has been worthwhile: but you certainly can. Tientsin today is a very different place from what it was eighteen months ago. Now I hope you will get a well-earned rest although in these days nothing can really be restful.38 WHITE’S THOUGHTS ON JAPAN’S RISE TO POWER IN THE FAR EAST

White was always known as a Japanese sympathiser. He considered the treatment of Japan in the British press as condescending and noted that over the period of his career in the first half of the twentieth century ‘Japan, by the exercise of courage, determination and pertinacity, won for herself the rank of a first-class power.’39 He always had fond feelings towards the Japanese people and the Americans at least saw his appointment at Tienstin to be a ‘proJapanese’ move. However, the blockade destroyed any sympathy that White felt towards the Japanese regime. He commented after he retired that: I can look back to nothing but kindness during my long career in Japan. I still like individual Japanese and I regret more than I can say that Japan should, as I think, have taken the wrong path in the last decade but Tientsin cured me of any lingering sentiment as regards Japan as a nation.40

White followed this by questioning whether the Japanese people gained anything by the rapid rise of their country: Life for the average Japanese has always been one of hard toil with scanty returns but he has, at the same time, enjoyed one of the greatest of natural blessings – the ability to be content with little. Now his life is not his own; people are impoverished, finances are in queer street, taxes are rising, the cost of living has soared, commodities are becoming even scarcer, the whole life of the people is subjected to the juggernaut of success. For one who likes the Japanese people for themselves though detesting the course on which Japan has set herself, it seems a tragedy that the Japanese, who in many ways had achieved true philosophy – the art of happiness, not that of mere pleasure-seeking but of working hard and yet extracting a maximum of joy from simple pleasures, should have flung this priceless gift away for battleships, armies, industrialism, totalitarianism, glory, a divine mission to dominate and control Asia.41

Although he was ultimately deeply saddened by Japanese behaviour in the 1930s and 1940s, he nevertheless retained a great love for the people, language and culture of Japan. 314

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RETURN TO LONDON

Oswald White on his return to London used his extensive experience of the Japanese language and culture to help the war effort against Japan. He officially retired in 1944 when he turned sixty, although in reality he continued to work for the government until the war ended. He received a warm letter from Anthony Eden, then foreign secretary, which alluded to ‘special services’ he was undertaking for the government during the war: ….. The period of your service, which began just before the Russo-Japanese War, has coincided with the rapid growth of Japan and the resultant situation in the Far East which has ended in the present war there. The remarkable knowledge of the Japanese people, language and mental outlook which you acquired and developed through your service has proved of very great value to your country. This knowledge, supported by your gifts of character and ability, has enabled you to render outstanding service at various posts, culminating in your appointments as His Majesty’s Consul General at Seoul and Osaka where, thanks to your energy, tenacity and skill in negotiation, you succeeded to a remarkable degree in protecting British commercial interests in circumstances of great difficulty. …. You will I am sure, be glad that your exceptional knowledge of Japan has enabled you to continue to take a very important part in the struggle against the country. I am fully aware of the outstanding nature of the special services which you are at present rendering to His Majesty’s Government. ….

It is not clear what these services were, but with his unparalleled knowledge of the region from a Western perspective, his insight must have been invaluable. LECTURING AND TRANSLATING

White continued to work in London after the war, regularly writing articles and presenting lectures on subjects such as on ‘Japanese Administration of Korea and Manchuria’.42 In 1952, Shigemitsu Mamoru, the Japanese Foreign Minister who signed the surrender at the end of the Second World War, published his memoirs in Tokyo. As these were written in Japanese, White’s assistance was sought by the security services about a translation.43 The Pentagon and US intelligence services were particularly keen to see a translation of Shigemitsu’s work, White’s translation of the work was published in 1958 under the title Japan and Her Destiny: My Struggle for Peace.44 315

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FINAL YEARS

Following the publication of his translation of Shigemitsu, White, finally retired for good to his home in Hampstead. He received the ‘Freedom of the City of London’ in 1959. After his second wife Peggy died he sold his Hampstead home and passed his final years at the Leicester Court Hotel, South Kensington. He died on 29 December 1970 aged eighty-six. Although he was considered ‘pro-Japanese’ by some British and American officials and was always quite scathing about the British position in the Far East, White by the end of his career was deeply saddened by Japanese aggression. However, he never lost his love for the Japanese people and maintained strong contacts with his Japanese friends after the war was over. Ultimately, Oswald ‘Shiro’ White was a dedicated family man who was more interested in individual people than in regimes. END NOTES AND REFERENCES 1

2 3 4 5

6

7 8 9 10

11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

I have also been able to draw on letters and other artefacts held by his family and from personal accounts from his grandfather. Letters from Mercers’ School. Family letters held by Hugo Read Exam result papers held by the family White, All Ambition Spent, p. 9 A biographical portrait of Gubbins by Ian Nish is contained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume II, ed. Ian Nish, Japan Library, 1997 John Harington Gubbins - A dictionary of Chinese-Japanese words in the Japanese language (1889) Family letters held by Hugo Read White, All Ambition Spent, p. 15 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 16 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 17. See also biographical portrait of CareyHall in this volume by J.E. Hoare. White, All Ambition Spent, p. 50 Embassy and Consular Archives – Japan, 1905–1958 White, Report on Japanese Labour, HMSO 1920. The report is used a source for many other works on Japanese labour and manufacturing, especially in Osaka. Family artefacts, held by Hugo Read White, All Ambition Spent, p. 130 Family letters, held by Hugo Read White, All Ambition Spent, p. 81 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 127 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 128 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 131 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 137 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 137

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23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42

43 44

White, All Ambition Spent, p. 139 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 141 Personal letters from the Foreign Office to White White, All Ambition Spent, p. 150 Chicago Herald Archives, 28 October 1939 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 151 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 151 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 152 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 155 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 156 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 163 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 159 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 173 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 173 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 169 Letter from the Foreign Office dated February 1941. Family letters held by Hugo Read White, All Ambition Spent, p. 27 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 156 White, All Ambition Spent, p. 27 White, ‘Japanese Administration of Korea and Manchuria’, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, Volume 30, Issue 1, 1943 Personal account from David Read, Oswald White’s grandson Mamoru Shigemitsu, Japan and Her Destiny: My Struggle for Peace. Edited by F.S.G. Piggott, Translated by Oswald White

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Three British Consuls in Manchuria 1931–1932: Esler Dening, Robert Scott and George Moss IAN NISH

INTRODUCTION

Manchuria in 1931 was alive with rumours of Soviet and Japanese ambitions which might result in a Soviet-Japanese war. But even more serious there were rumours of a Japanese takeover of Manchuria in order to safeguard their rights, interests and investments which had been put at risk since Manchuria’s warlord, Chang Hsueh-liang, had thrown in his lot – and his army – with the nationalist government in Nanking in 1928. Since Manchuria was vast and remote. British diplomats in the area found it hard to make a judgment on events without the advice of China consuls scattered north of the Great Wall. These were British officials of the Far Eastern consular service who had been originally recruited as student interpreters and had pursued a career as consuls at the treaty ports, subordinate to the diplomatic service. For political reasons the languages required from them in Manchuria in 1931 were Chinese, Russian and Japanese. The majority of these consul/ linguists were drawn from the ‘China service’ whose reports were sent to the legation at Peking. But after Japan built up her interests in ‘Manchuria’ Whitehall found it necessary to have some consulates, notably Dairen (Dalian), served by Japanese specialists. They directed their reports to the Tokyo embassy. In either case the more important local reports could be transmitted to the Foreign Office in London. One complication was the fact that the Peking and Tokyo envoys of the day often disagreed with one another. There were, of course, other ways of finding out what was going on through military attachés and customs officials of British nationalities. But it was

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the Far Eastern consular service which was resident in the area and was most reliable in its reportage. Sir Miles Lampson,1 in his concluding despatch on leaving China after serving for six years as minister, wrote in appreciation of the China consuls: As regards His Majesty’s Consular Officers in China, I can pay them no higher compliment than to say that they have in circumstances of unprecedented stress worthily upheld the fine tradition of the Service to which they have the honour to belong and of which I am proud to have had the direction for so many years…Their unfailing response to the constant calls upon their energy and resource have been a marked feature of these trying and difficult years in China.2

This article discusses the activities of three such consuls of widely differing kinds: Esler Dening3 in the Dairen consulate; Robert Scott4 of the Peking legation and George Moss of the Weihaiwei consulate. The Manchurian emergency, which arose in 1931 gave these three young men the chance to shine and bring their views to the attention of Whitehall. ESLER DENING (1897–1977)

In summer 1931, the acting British consul in Dairen (Dalian) was Maberly Esler or M.E. Dening (as he was then known, later to become ‘Sir Esler’). He had been recruited into the Japan consular service in 1920 after war service with the Australian Expeditionary force. He was a Japanese speaker and son of the Japanese missionary and scholar Walter Dening.5 On 9 July 1931, two months before the outbreak of Manchurian crisis, Dening drew the attention of the government to the accumulation of anti-Japanese and anti-Korean incidents which were exciting the Japanese residents in Manchuria and the complaints that the half-hearted diplomacy of the Tokyo government had been a failure. This was being exploited by the Japanese-controlled press. It alleged that Tokyo had totally failed to safeguard Japanese interests and investments in Manchuria which were regarded as vital for Japan’s economy. Dening conceded that the Chinese government in Nanking was being provocative and making no effort to curtail their output of anti-Japanese agitation and its ferocity. But he still felt that the situation was becoming daily more dangerous. His boss, Sir Francis Lindley,6 put this to the Japanese Foreign Minister Shidehara who merely hoped that such agitation would all die out. But Lindley passed these warnings to London.7 This analysis supported by the other consuls in Mukden and Harbin alerted the British government to the explosive situation which culminated in the incident of 319

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18 September when the track of the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway (SMR) around Mukden was allegedly destroyed by Chinese guerrilla fighters. The presence of the consular community on the spot was invaluable in these circumstances. The Japanese and Chinese governments were observing a high degree of secrecy and ambivalence, the Japanese ministry in particular being outplayed by its military in Manchuria.8 Dening’s responsibility was for the Kwantung Leased territory where there was a Japanese administration and a large section of the Japanese army. He prepared a bumper number of his annual report for December 1931 as he saw the Japanese army preparing the ground for the creation of a Central Government which would be completely detached from Nanking. ‘While the Japanese Army is exercising its right of self-defence, it has been committing acts of war and engaging in military occupation with a blandness and self-righteousness which leave one breathless.’ He urges Britain not to ‘encourage a nation possessed of an army which can take independent action in the way that Japan has done in the last 3 months’. ‘Manchuria, if it continues to do well,’ Dening thought, ‘can only be regarded as a feather in the cap of the military party.’9 His charge was to uphold the Open Door for foreign trade. But he found that the Japanese were anxious to take over the Maritime Customs and were tending to exceed their legitimate treaty rights in the area. His analysis of Japanese actions over trade at the port on 12 April 1932 was ‘I find myself unable to visualize a Manchuria under Japanese control which will offer equal opportunities to all nations of the world.’ Moreover, a large number of undesirable Japanese immigrants ‘of the vagabond type’ were coming through Dairen.10(6) ROBERT SCOTT (1905–1982)

Robert Scott became a student interpreter in Chinese in 1927. He was installed in the Peking legation as vice-consul from 1930. When the Manchurian crisis broke out, Britain found it difficult to discover how it was progressing in northern Manchuria especially in the under-populated area north of Harbin. An air of secrecy prevailed. Britain wanted to know the size of the Japanese and Chinese forces. Would the Chinese generals support Nanking or would they collaborate with Japan? The legation sent Scott among others to find out. His first ten-week journey to Manchuria from 9 October took him anywhere that the railways would travel: Mukden, Changchun, Harbin, Tsitsihar, Manchuli – all points of the railway compass in Manchuria. He interviewed all manner of people, Chinese, Japanese and British missionaries. But there was a curiously indifferent attitude on the part of the residents as a whole. His conclusion was that the

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areas occupied by the Japanese army ‘are now surrounded by a belt of territory wherein the plight of the inhabitants and the demands of the Chinese soldiers dispersed by the Japanese have led to a serious bandit situation’. He came close to General Ma Chan-shan and his entourage as they wobbled over their loyalty to Japan or Nanking. He had the firm feeling that Japan intended to create a new State independent of China. His report, which differed from many then circulating, earned high praise from the foreign secretary, Sir John Simon.11 After his successful trip Scott on 4 January 1932 became private secretary to Sir Miles Lampson who shortly afterwards proceeded on leave via the Manchurian railway network. At the last minute the new Japanese Foreign Minister, Yoshizawa Kenichi, who had been minister in Peking and was a friend of Lampson approached him. He had just taken office on 14 January; and one of his first acts was to invite Lampson to travel via Japan on his way to the UK. But the invitation came too late and would in any case have been politically inexpedient. So Lampson declined without consulting London. Lampson and his entourage, including Scott, set off by the Manchuria-Siberia route but only reached the northern city of Changchun when they were informed that all communication with Harbin had been cut owing to the destruction of some bridges and to Japanese troop operations against Harbin which they eventually occupied on 5 February. Lampson gave up the attempt and decided to return to Dairen by the afternoon train. But as he proceeded southward over the Manchurian plain, the consuls also told him of a fracas which was brewing between China and Japan at Shanghai. This seemed so serious that he decided to return to Peking since dillydallying in Dairen would be pointless. ‘The energetic Mr Dening’ managed to fix the berths. Back in Peking, he found the news most alarming: an international crisis was brewing. Lampson and the other diplomats set off for the Yangtse valley. He confided to his diary, ‘so on the whole it’s as well I couldn’t get through and have had to turn back. As I said to Scott, fate has a way of taking charge on these occasions.’12 Lampson spent two months acting as mediator in Shanghai and achieved a fair outcome. He returned to Peking and began to revert to plans for his overdue leave. He left again with Scott on 25 May by the Manchurian route with his large entourage. Since the first part of the journey involved so much changing, Scott’s help was essential. He remarks in his diary, ‘R.H. Scott who is with me is a first-class PS. He thinks of everything and looks after everything.’13

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LEAGUE OF NATIONS MISSION

In Shanghai Lampson had met Lord Lytton (see separate article in this volume by Antony Best) who was heading the international mission of inspection which had been sent out to China by the League of Nations. As the result of his preliminary study Lytton asked Lampson for background help and linguistic expertise. Lampson was reluctant to grant League authorities unrestricted access to the files of the legation but over language advice he was prepared to help. On his return to Peking, Lampson ‘agreed to the loan of a member of HM Consular Service in China to the League Commission for the purpose of interpreting and assisting the Commission. The secondment would be for a period of two months or longer.’ That person was ‘Mr G.S. Moss, CBE, HM’s Consul at Weihaiwei’ who had seen previous service in Manchuria. He would act as confidential interpreter to the Commission during the Manchurian part of their inspection. Moss left Weihai on 24 April and reported to Lytton at Mukden a week later, such being the delays in the oriental transport network. He accompanied the commission throughout their Manchurian inspections in Changchun and attended interviews there and later in Harbin. The Lytton Commission wanted to interview not just those Chinese favourable to ‘Japanese Manchuria’ whom the Manchukuo authorities were anxious to present. They also wanted to see the extent of the opposition. They were anxious to seek out General Ma Chan-shan who had become the symbol for Chinese resistance. Manchukuo officials tried hard to prevent the main group from travelling to Ma’s hideouts. It was in any case unsuitable for Lytton personally to go on such a wild goose chase. But a more adventurous junior group was sent on 22 May in search of the folk-hero who had been sending out messages to the League of Nations in Geneva denouncing Japanese aggression in his country. They failed to reach him in his lair; but their endeavour was an indication that Lytton wanted to get the full picture rather than being deluded by Manchukuo handouts.14 Lytton with his group had more or less completed their inspection of Manchuria when they met up unexpectedly with Lampson and his party in Dairen. Lampson had arrived there on 26 May on his way to home leave by the Siberian route. He consulted Dening and Moss in the consulate at Dairen for their insights into events. Lytton meanwhile motored to Hoshigaura, a leisure resort near the Yamato Hotel at Dairen (Dalian), and had a discussion with Lampson about the report, which was formulating in his head. It was fairly normal for the League delegates to meet and consult their own local diplomatic representatives. After his parleys, Lampson travelled to Harbin accompanied by Scott and waited for his train connection to Europe. In spite of 322

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rumours to the contrary, he had no trouble in travelling through the ‘bandit-infested area’ about which the Japanese warned him. He later confided to his diary: Despite Japanese prognostications, no problem whatever in getting through west of Harbin. Saw Japanese troops at Ando: then into No man’s land: but no trouble of any sort. Possibly my request to the Young Marshal before I left [Peking] to pass along the word to the so-called ‘bandits’ may not have been without effect!?15 GEORGE MOSS (1882 -1959)

Moss moved around Manchuria with the delegation, visiting Changchun, Kirin and Harbin. His official role was to attend interviews with the Regent Pu-yi. But he also had a subsidiary role, which was a partially subversive one, in the sense that he was to meet people who the Japanese did not want to meet the Commission. He gives this account of his sensitive duties: Finding that only persons introduced by the Japanese authorities were allowed access to the Commission, he had to keep his distance from the Commission. He stayed at the consulate-general in Mukden and declined to use the cars placed at the disposal of the commissioners. Without being unduly spied on, he took the opinions of the foreign community and missionaries, Chinese and Manchu of all sorts. He had to receive deputations of Chinese who invariably left behind written statements the gist of which had to be translated with some urgency.16 Moss was assumed to have responsibility for the Chinese-language correspondence received by the Commission. In addition to oral evidence, the Commission had through devious channels received an abundance of letters, including sixty in favour of Manchukuo and over 1700 letters in Chinese, which confirmed the unpopularity of the new government. This abundance proved a formidable task for Moss and the League secretariat generally. Moss’s general conclusion from them was that ‘the Japanese by their actions forfeited any goodwill they had earlier enjoyed when they had driven out the Young Marshal’. Ultimately he was able to transfer this translator/ interpreter’s task to Dr Woo and a team recruited in Peking. So, when Lytton’s group set out again for Japan, Moss was allowed to return to his duties as consul at Weihaiwei on 26 June by HMS Suffolk. He had been away for almost two months. He is acknowledged in the preamble of the League Report. He was to serve at Weihaiwei until 1934 and later as consul-general, Hankow, until 1938. SCOTT’S SECOND MISSION

After he had seen Lampson off on his home leave on 29 May, Scott continued his tour of the north, visiting Harbin, Manchuli and Hei323

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lungkiang. In a lengthy report to London on 12 June he reckoned that Japan had been unable to stamp out the large semi-organized bodies of irregular Chinese soldiers and bandits operating north of Harbin. This destroyed the picture that Japan was presenting to the world that Manchukuo forces were perfectly able to preserve law and order: By disrupting communications (and that in important areas near the railways) and by reducing the area under cultivation living conditions for the peasantry are becoming still worse and from the political point of view the results are equally marked. I was astonished at the change which has taken place in popular feeling. The comparative indifference with which, 6 months ago, the average peasant and worker regarded the overthrow of the old regime has been replaced by a feeling of definite hostility towards the Japanese and all their works – of which the Manchoukuo Government is regarded as the outstanding example. The student classes are almost fanatical in their hatred of the Japanese.17

In Scott’s view, if policy had been implemented as Tokyo had wanted, Japan might have got away with it. But Japan’s Kwantung army had over-reacted by measures such as aerial bombardment of whole villages. The result was that internal conditions in Manchuria were deteriorating with brigands and insurgent Chinese troops rampaging widespread. The report was widely read in Whitehall and commended by the Foreign Office ministers, Antony Eden and Sir John Simon. What became of the three consuls? In the case of Moss, he was promoted to consul-general at Hankow 1934–1938, one of the top posts, which gained importance with the approach of the Sino-Japanese War. Although born in Yokohama the son of a British Court official, he had spent his career in China. He retired at the age of fiftysix and was knighted after retirement in recognition of this rather irregular service in Manchuria. Scott and Dening were of a younger generation. Dening after sampling a wide range of treaty ports was accepted into the diplomatic service. During the Asia-Pacific War he saw service as the Foreign Office’s Liaison Officer with Lord Louis Mountbatten at South East Asia Command in Colombo. After involvement in the negotiations for the peace treaty with Japan, he became ambassador to Japan in 1952. Robert Scott who had formed such a cordial relationship with Sir Miles Lampson during the period covered in this essay stayed on in China, moving to Japan in 1938 and Singapore in 1941. Incarcerated by the Japanese during the war, he became head of FO South East Asia department after the war and took over from Malcolm MacDonald as Commissioner General in 1955. His final post was as permanent secretary in the Ministry of

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Defence. As Peter Lowe wrote, Scott ‘was an outstanding diplomat’ and throughout his long career thought that Britain should always ‘have a constructive relationship with Japan’.18 It would be ludicrous to suggest that the experiences of the three in these months contributed to the successes of their later years. But they did have exciting experiences and were recognized from on high for them. Britain’s ‘China Consuls’ were part of a flexible body, able to adapt to unexpected situations and take advantage of the chaotic circumstances created by the ‘undeclared war of September 1931’. It was important that someone with linguistic abilities should be able to penetrate the smokescreen of propaganda which was obscuring the truth. The existence of a remarkably good transport network in Manchuria enabled the participants to move around and test the statements which the Japanese and Chinese governments were putting out. What were Manchurian residents of all communities really thinking? How effective was the military resistance of the Chinese armies likely to be? How effective would the smaller force of the Kwantung army be in operating in an inclement environment? Such was the sort of questions to which Peking, Tokyo and London wanted answers. The efforts of the three threw light on some of these riddles. The authorities had called on ‘their energy and resource’ in trying and difficult times as Lampson had recorded. ENDNOTES

1

2 3

4

5

6

7 8 9 10

References are to Documents on British Foreign Policy, second series, HMSO, 1965. Hereafter cite as DBFP See biographical portrait of Sir Miles Lampson by David Steeds in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental 2010. Lampson to Simon, 24 August 1933 in DBFP, vol. xi, appendix, p. 595. See biographical portrait of Sir Esler Dening by Roger Buckley in British Envoys in Japan, ed. Hugh Cortazzi Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2004, p. 173ff. See biographical portrait of Sir Robert Heatlie Scott by Peter Lowe in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2010. See biographical portrait by Hamish Ion in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2010. See biographical portrait by Ian Nish in Britain and Japan Biographical Portraits, volume IV, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Library, 2002. DBFP, vol. viii, doc. 493,enclosing Dening to Lindley, 9 July 1931. P.D. Coates, The China Consuls, Oxford, 1988, p. 486. DBFP, vol. ix, doc. 463, 31 Dec. 1931. Dening to Lindley, 11 April 1932 in DBFP, vol. x, doc. 65; and doc. 217, fn.6. 325

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11

12

13 14 15 16

17

18

R.H. Scott to Lampson, 12 January 1932 in DBFP, vol. ix, doc. 77, enclosure. P.C. Lowe, ‘Sir Robert Scott’ in H. Cortazzi (ed.), Biographical Portraits, vol. VII, Global Oriental, 2010, ch. 12, Lampson diary, 29 January 1932. On Lampson, D. Steeds, ‘Lampson’ in Hugh Cortazzi (ed.), Biographical Portraits, vol. VII, Global Oriental, 2010, ch. 10. Coates, op. cit., p. 446. Ref must be on p/16 of diary. Date say 29 January 1932. London Times, Mukden, 22 May 1932. Lampson diary, Sunday, 29 May 1932. G.S. Moss, ‘Account of my doings in Manchuria for my family’, 14 July 1932. Scott to Ingram, 12 June 1932 in DBFP, vol. x, doc. 508, p. 574, FN 18??. Lowe, in Biographical Portraits, vol. VII, p. 159.

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Sir Fred Warner (1918–1995): Ambassador to Japan, 1972–1976 ROBERT COOPER

INTRODUCTION

Sir Fred Warner was someone of style and originality, with the virtues of the old world and an insatiable interest in the new. His talents would have brought success in many fields, but it was probably not an accident that he chose diplomacy. Those who worked for him, and those with an interest in British Japanese relations should be grateful. EARLY LIFE AND DIPLOMATIC CAREER

Frederick Archibald Warner was born on 2 May 1918. His father, also Fred Warner, was an officer in the Royal Navy, who died in action in the First World War before Fred, his only son, was born. His mother, who had come from New York against her parents’ wishes, 327

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to help the allied war effort before the United States entered the war, brought her son up in the Dorset countryside that Fred loved for the rest of his life. He went first to Wixenford School and then, following in his father’s footsteps, to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. At the age of eighteen however, instead of entering the Navy, Fred insisted, against all the rules and traditions, that he wanted to go to Oxford. He succeeded in getting a place at Magdalen College in spite of having only three weeks before the exams to learn the Latin then required; either he learned enough to impress the examiners, or his other papers showed what he was capable of, and he was accepted. In 1940, before Fred could take his Final Examination (in PPE), he was called up – although like others in the same position he was awarded a degree. He served in the Navy, ending the War in command of a squadron of fast patrol boats. Fred Warner joined the Foreign Office in February 1946. One of his early jobs was as the junior member of the British team negotiating the peace treaty with Italy. With an ambassador who took long lunches, a number two who fell ill, and a Foreign Office under great pressure he often found himself taking more responsibility than is usual in a first job. Later he was private secretary to the respected Hector McNeil, Bevin’s deputy, who was working on many sensitive post-war issues including Greece and relations with the Soviet Union. Here Fred was alongside Guy Burgess, who had found a way into McNeil’s orbit and had access to all the minister’s papers. In 1950 Fred went to Moscow as first secretary. The sparkling reports he wrote home of journeys to the remoter parts of the Soviet Union – sleeping on a park bench when accommodation arrangements had broken down, with the KGB minders sleeping on the bench next door – spread his reputation as an interesting and original personality. His posting in Moscow was cut short by the flight of Burgess and Maclean to the Soviet Union, and the suspicion that he might be involved. Being out of the ordinary can also be a disadvantage. Suspicions were strong enough that his career might have come to an end there and then, but for his own adamant refusal to let this happen. From time to time thereafter, when the stories of a third or fourth man resurfaced, someone would look again at his file. This was ridiculous. No one who knew Fred at all could have believed such a thing. Nobody was less likely to believe in communism or less likely to behave dishonourably. In 1956 Fred went as chargé d’affaires to Rangoon. Perhaps this was to keep him out of sight; but it was a posting he thoroughly enjoyed, and he retained a life-long affection for Burma. Then in 1958 to Athens, and in 1960 back to London as head of South-East Asia department. This was an important job at the time of the confrontation with Indonesia, and the growing problems in Vietnam. When an American colleague told him that the US government 328

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was going to draw a line on the map of Vietnam, and defend it, come what may, Fred asked whether they had been to the place indicated. The jungle was so thick that it would be difficult to find the line, let alone defend it. After an interlude at the then Imperial Defence College, Fred went to Laos as ambassador in 1965: complicated, unstable and already used by Hanoi for infiltrating the South. An account by John Colvin of a visit there gives a glimpse of the Warner style: Staying with the Ambassador were Joe Alsop, the American columnist, Pamela Egremont and Kirsty Hesketh. So absorbing was the conversation after dinner that it was only slowly remarked that in order to avoid the teeth of Fred Warner’s pet otter, the company were all standing on top of tables and chairs. Other animals collected by the Ambassador included a silver pheasant, two sloths hanging through the daylight hours upside-down, deer and some civet cats; the otter was surely the only one of its species to express a violent detestation of water, running for its life at sight of the Embassy swimming pool.1

Fred then served as minister to NATO during 1968, bored, and depressed to find the serious issues of the Cold War reduced to bureaucratic squabbling. Then to New York as deputy permanent representative to the UN: chosen for this because the Foreign Office wanted someone to match the intellectual brilliance of the permanent representative, Lord Caradon (Hugh Foot) who was a political appointee. In fact the two of them got on famously. It was in New York that Warner married Simone de Ferranti, thus at fifty-two he acquired a family, first a stepdaughter, and later two sons. Before going to Japan Fred wrote a much-admired study for the new conservative government on the UN aspects of the Rhodesia question. He also spent six months at Sheffield University studying Japanese. Dr Gordon Daniels described him as a ‘brilliant and extraordinary student’ who brought ‘much intellectual stimulus to those who taught him’.2 Those like myself who later interpreted for him found themselves challenged not only because it was impossible to predict what he might say next, but also because his Japanese was good enough to know when you had made a mess of it. AMBASSADOR TO JAPAN

As ambassador, Fred Warner was one of those who put Japan on the map in Britain. Diplomacy is a continuous, cumulative process; and one can never say that this or that ambassador changed things forever. And yet it is clear that with Fred Warner something did change. The first ever visit by a Prime Minister – Ted Heath in 1972 – established a pattern that has continued. By the time Fred left, more than half the 329

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Cabinet had been to Japan, almost all of them for the first time. And Tanaka Kakuei then Japanese prime minister had made a successful visit to Britain. In the years that followed the post-war political relationship has had ups and downs; but this is the period in which it can be said to have begun. These were also the years of the ‘Nixon Shock’, America’s opening to China and of the ‘Dollar shock’, Nixon’s termination of the Bretton Woods order. Both unsettled Japan, giving it an interest in diversifying its relationships in the West. The UK finally joined the European Community and for Japan it was a convenient entry point for Europe. From the UK perspective the stronger political connections helped offset the growing difficulties in commercial relations. Eventually the trust created was a factor in paving the way for the Japanese investment in the UK that has helped in the transformation of many British industries. Commercial relations were the second area in which the Warner years helped put Japan on the map. The efforts of Fred Warner’s predecessors, and the Embassy’s strong commercial staff brought the creation of a British Export Marketing Centre3 in Aoyama, and with it an endless stream of exhibitions and commercial missions to Japan. For many of those who came it was their first time in Japan; and they discovered that they were not dealing with cheap imitators of Western technology, but with a new industrial powerhouse. The ambassador like all his predecessors and all his successors gave a high priority to British businessmen and was as interested to learn from them – since each knew a different corner of Japanese life – as to explain the picture that he saw. This was perhaps the period when the trickle of visitors began to resemble a flood. There was a negative side to commercial relations too. 1973 saw the first ‘voluntary restraint arrangement’ between Britain and Japan, on colour televisions. In the following years the number of these arrangements would grow until the Thatcher government abolished them. They were against all Fred Warner’s free trading instincts, but ambassadors have to live in the world as they find it. On the other side, the personal regard in which the ambassador was held by senior Japanese had practical commercial results. It played a part for example in the decision of one of the great trading houses to import British cars. In both the political and commercial worlds Japan was no longer a curiosity for specialists but an essential part of the modern world – although one that remained unfamiliar, where professional help in opening doors and opening minds could add value. The third and most spectacular way in which British Japanese relations were changed in this period was through the visit of Her Majesty The Queen in 1975.4 This put Japan on the map for a wider public in Britain. The converse was also true: it would be difficult to think of another event that did more to reach ordinary Japanese 330

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with a positive image of Britain. The coverage of the visit brought television ratings in Japan to a new national high of 70%. In Britain too, though not on the scale of the Japanese deluge, a large television watching public saw, with The Queen, all the diversity of Japan: ancient and modern, beautiful and ugly, serious and funny. The Queen herself met politicians and kabuki actors, businessmen and tea masters; she saw gardens and factories, shrines and sumo wrestling. Perhaps the best evaluation of the visit came from Her Highness Princess Chichibu who as reported by Fred’s successor, Michael Wilford, ‘commented wistfully that she realised that two State visits could hardly be mounted in succession, but she did hope that Her Majesty would come again soon, if only for a private visit’. Michael Wilford thought that when she said this ‘she spoke for millions’. The Queen also saw her visit as something special and marking this she not only made Fred Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (as scheduled), but also made the personal decision to add a chain. Perhaps the memory of the few days in Japan played a part in the Duke of Edinburgh’s decision, fourteen years later, to attend the funeral of the Showa Emperor. Finally, Fred put Japan on his own personal map. It was one of the discoveries of his life. It fed his endless curiosity, for there was always something new: and if individual Japanese were not always sparkling, the products of Japan were unique, sometimes appallingly kitsch, sometimes of breath-taking beauty. And he loved them both: the frenetic industry and the possibility of stillness, the clever and the fashionable but also the serious, decent, ordinary people. He observed the formalities of the hierarchies but knew also that if you found the right individual you could get the flexibility you needed. Fred liked surprises and Japan provided a constant stream: to mention just one, speaking at the Thomas Hardy association – he had met Hardy as a small boy in Dorset – Fred was astonished to find a roomful of people who knew every novel and every Dorset location. He brought to his work not only a fine mind but also a thirst for knowledge and openness to new ideas and experience. He was unfailingly courteous, and for a man who always had something interesting to say, he was an astonishingly good listener. He was as happy talking to the cooks and especially the gardeners as to the mayors and the governors. A deep love of nature was one of the things he shared with the Japanese. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of English plants and flowers, to which he added a Japanese chapter. At the Chuzenji summer residence he cleared the paths for walking and then took visitors on longer walks than some had ever experienced. As for his staff, they were kept on their toes, but it is easy to work for someone who knows what they want, and they enjoyed the touch of glamour that he and Simone brought to the embassy. The Japanese 331

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staff appreciated him as well. It was a result of his personal efforts in Whitehall that the residence staffs were at last put on pensionable terms. LATER CAREER

It is well known that he was nearly – but not quite – posted to Paris. The reasons for this are not well known. But it is enough to say that if there is discredit, it does not reflect on him. He was offered instead the job of Permanent Representative to the European Union, but decided against because of the difficulty of reconciling the government’s ambivalent attitude to Europe with his own personal commitment. This he was able to express in more robust fashion five years later when he was elected member of the European Parliament for Somerset. His politics were Conservative, with a disruptive streak, and he played a substantial role in the European Democratic Group, and in drafting the European part of the Conservative manifesto in 1983. As a farmer himself he understood the Common Agricultural Policy and was able to explain to his constituents how to benefit from it. Meanwhile he worked as a banker in the City, sat on boards of directors in telecommunications and insurance and published an authoritative book, Anglo-Japanese Financial Relations.5 Not all of these many careers suited him as well as diplomacy and farming; he had the imagination and the persuasive powers to make a successful banker but did not care enough about making money. He had interesting things to say on any subject, but he wanted to get things done, and found it easier to write short policy briefs than learned works. If the time had been right his talents would have been well used in politics. His love of the new never diminished; in addition to serving – as one might have expected – as chairman of the National Trust in Wessex, he was patron of the electronic music society. Just before his death he was planning a trip to Antarctica. ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4

5

Twice Around the World: Some memoirs of diplomatic life in North Vietnam and ... By John Colvin p. 77 Collected Writings of Gordon Daniels By Gordon Daniels The establishment of the centre is described in Paul Dimond’s ‘The British Export Marketing Centre and the Promotion of British Exports from1972’ in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. Fred’s widow Simone described her experiences in Japan and the Queen’s visit in her contribution to Japan Experiences, Fifty Years, One Hundred Views, Post-War Japan Through British Eyes, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Library, 2001, pp. 582–588. Blackwell, 1991 332

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Sir Michael Wilford (1922–2006): Ambassador to Japan, 1975–80 DAVID WARREN

INTRODUCTION

Michael Wilford was British Ambassador to Japan from 1975 to 1980. He was, at least to date, the last diplomatic generalist to serve in this post. Some of his predecessors as ambassador, most notably Sir John Pilcher from 1968 to 1972, had served in the Japanese consular service and had acquired deep knowledge of the Japanese language and culture. But there was no consistent policy of appointing Japanese or Asian specialists as ambassadors at Tokyo until the late 1970s, by which time the post-war Foreign Office had trained a sizeable cadre of Japanese linguists from whom suitable candidates could be found. Since 1980, with one exception (Sir John Boyd, a distinguished Sinologist with extensive service in Beijing and Hong Kong, who was ambassador from 1992 to 1996), all British ambassadors 333

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have been Japanese speakers and have been appointed after at least one, and in most cases two or more, previous postings in Tokyo. CAREER

Michael Wilford was born in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1922. As a child, he lived with his parents in Shanghai, and then after their separation with his maternal grandmother in Dublin. His paternal grandfather served as New Zealand high commissioner in London from 1929 to 1933. He was educated at the Wrekin College, and then at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read mechanical sciences, and played golf and cricket for the university. During the war, he served with the Royal Engineers. As a captain in the 82nd Assault Squadron, part of the Guards’ 79th Armoured Division, he took part in the D-Day landings on Gold Beach, and was wounded in the early hours of 6 June, when the bridge of his landing craft took a direct hit from a mortar bomb. Having recovered from his wounds, he returned to active service two months later, but was wounded for a second time, more seriously and again at the outset of the action, during the Allied landings on the heavily mined beach of the Dutch island of Walcheren on 1 November. This time, his recovery took longer. He was mentioned in dispatches for his actions in this engagement. Regarded as unfit for further military service after the war, he considered an industrial career with Cadbury’s or ICI, but eventually joined the Foreign Office in 1947. His diplomatic career took him initially to Berlin, Paris and Singapore, with spells in London, where between 1949 and 1952 he served as an assistant private secretary to successive foreign secretaries, Ernest Bevin, Herbert Morrison and Anthony Eden, and at the end of the 1950s serving in a similar capacity under Selwyn Lloyd before becoming private secretary to the Lord Privy Seal, Edward Heath. His reputation as a brisk and efficient overseer of ministerial business was very high1. In June 1961, he accompanied Lord Lansdowne, parliamentary under-secretary, to the Congo, and escaped death when they had to withdraw from the UN flight on which Dag Hammarskjöld, the secretary-general, was travelling, and which crashed near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia, with the loss of life of all those on board. ‘Didn’t have my number on it’, he would say dismissively in later life when asked about the incident. In the 1960s, he served in Rabat, and then as counsellor in Peking (now Beijing), at the start of the Cultural Revolution, before being sent to Washington as counsellor with responsibility for Asian affairs. These roles marked the start of a focus on Asia that was to last for the rest of his career: he returned to what was now the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1969 as assistant under-secretary for Asia, 334

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and was promoted to deputy under-secretary in 1972. He had not expected to be sent to Japan – it had been intimated to him that he would be appointed as ambassador to Thailand, before becoming governor of Hong Kong. But in the event he was assigned to Tokyo when his predecessor there Sir Fred Warner took early retirement in 1975. AMBASSADOR TO JAPAN

Wilford became ambassador to Japan at a time of great uncertainty in the global economy. The good times of the post-war period had come to an end with the 1973 energy crisis, which saw the oil embargo by the Arab exporting countries against the West, followed by the quadrupling of the oil price. This coincided with and contributed to a recession in the developed world, following the collapse of the post-war Bretton Woods, fixed exchange rates, system in the wake of the ‘Nixon shocks’ of 1971. In Britain, economic growth slumped, inflation soared, unemployment rose above the one million mark, and industrial strikes had a paralysing effect on many areas of business and the public sector. In Japan, the impact of the first ‘oil shock’ had also led to inflation and a decline in industrial production, leading to falling rates of economic growth and a high level of nervousness among industries dependent on expensive imported energy. The period of Wilford’s ambassadorship spanned the Labour government under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan (1975–1979), in which Callaghan, Anthony Crosland until his death in 1977, and David Owen served as Foreign Secretaries) and the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher elected in May 1979, in which the foreign secretary was Lord Carrington. Wilford’s background in engineering, and his interest in industry, meant that, unlike some British diplomats of the period, he needed no persuading of the importance of the commercial portfolio as part of his responsibilities. British business had begun to recognise the potential importance of Japan as a market for goods and services in the 1960s, and the British government had opened the British export marketing centre to assist them in 1973. In the other direction, there were a small number of Japanese companies setting up factories in the UK, to take advantage of Britain’s new membership of the European Economic Community. But with the Japanese market still heavily constrained by trade barriers, however, and Japanese investment in the UK seen as a threat, rather than a benefit, by some elements in British industry and the trade unions, the two countries were a long way from the policy of mutual partnership established from the 1980s. And the Japanese 335

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were ambivalent about Britain – residual affection for the country that had been their ally before the disastrous resurgence of militarism and the barbarity of the Pacific War was tempered by dismay at the breakdown of industrial relations and economic stagnation of the 1970s – this was the era of ‘Eikoku-byo’ (the ‘British disease) in Japanese eyes. An important theme of Wilford’s ambassadorship was the management of the friction that arose from the trade imbalance and the perception among UK industrialists and politicians that Japan had benefited from unfair practices. Much of his reporting emphasises the need to reach accommodations with the Japanese Government and industry, rather than seeking to lead the EEC pack in pushing for the removal of trade barriers. ‘We need [Japan] a great deal more than they need us’, he wrote in his 1976 annual review, noting Japan’s fourfold increase in contribution to the IMF’s General Agreement to Borrow, and the likelihood of their being crucial to any safety net for sterling in the wake of the Fund’s rescuing of the British economy that summer2. This was coupled with equally constant frustration at the torpor of British industry in failing to exploit such opportunities as actually existed in a market which, as he reminded Whitehall readers, was both significant and growing. His concerns intensified over the first quarter of 1977, with the preparations for the visit to Tokyo in April of Edmund Dell, the Secretary of State for Trade. Ministers and senior officials in both the FCO and the department of trade wanted a tough line with the Japanese on the trade imbalance. Wilford counselled caution at what he described as a ‘crossroads in the relationship’. He argued that Britain had bigger fish to fry on potential big-ticket industrial exports than in areas of trade like Scotch whisky and confectionery, where the benefits of Japan’s accommodating foreign exporters were likely to be modest. Whitehall, however, were more concerned by the danger of leaving the Japanese government with the impression that they had done enough to satisfy their critics, especially in the run-up to the first UK G7 Summit in May 1977. The political atmosphere in Britain was volatile. A cautious submission seeking to dissuade Ministers from taking too muscular a line with the Japanese circulated inconclusively for some weeks, was held back following the government’s defeat in the Birmingham Stechford by-election following Roy Jenkins’s appointment as president of the European Commission; and eventually did not go forward, with the permanent under-secretary, Sir Michael Palliser, minuting: ‘It is arguable that the right way to make an impression on the Japanese is to talk tougher’. When Edmund Dell visited, he talked firmly in both public and private about the difficulty of Britain’s being able to support free trade as an 336

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OPEC deficit country, while Japan accumulated large surpluses as a result of denying other industrialised countries export opportunities. The FCO and embassy monitored Japanese reactions nervously, but the sky did not fall in3. Michael Wilford’s caution in this area is intriguing, given his temperament, which was assertive, and his personal style, which could be very forceful. But he was acutely conscious, throughout his years in Tokyo, of his lack of experience of Japan in comparison with his senior embassy officials and others in the FCO; and he respected their knowledge and (particularly in the case of Sydney Giffard, his minister and deputy head of mission and Ben Thorne, his commercial counsellor) their judgement. His first despatch from Tokyo in March 1976 was entitled ‘Genuinely First Impressions’4. In it he reflected themes which coloured much of his reporting over the next five years – the underlying warmth and friendliness of the bilateral relationship, the tension between tradition and modernity in 1970s Japan, distaste for the petty squalor of Japanese politics, and an emphasis on the practicalities of exporting and investing rather than political rhetoric about trade barriers. He warmed to Japan and the Japanese, to the point perhaps of becoming a little uncritical – although it is not surprising that, faced with the indifference and disengagement of some elements of business and officialdom in the UK, he wanted to accentuate the positive. He kept up a steady stream of reports designed to keep ministers and officials abreast with economic developments, and to advertise Japanese innovation and competitiveness to Whitehall and more widely. In March 1978, a despatch entitled ‘Japan is entering the electronic age’ distilled the work of the embassy’s scientific department in analysing Japan’s transition from the electromechanical era to one in which ‘with the development of the LSI circuit chip….. we shall have instant news, instant information and instant medical diagnosis of our bodies, monitored by computers.’ Wilford encouraged social and economic analysis by his team – of Japanese education policy (November 1978), of the priorities of the younger generation (‘Japan’s Rising Sons and Daughters’, June 1979), and the realities of Japanese society (‘Behind the Rabbit-Hutch’, an allusion to the remark by Roy Denman, European Commission director-general for external affairs, that the Japanese were ‘workaholics who lived in rabbit-hutches’, December 1979). In 1980, a long and detailed despatch distilling the reporting of John Prentice, his science counsellor, lists ‘Japan’s Next Generation of Industries’ - video recorders, for example (pooh-poohing the Financial Times scorn at the idea that substantial numbers of people might want to buy these expensive toys), biotechnology, batterydriven transportation systems, satellite technology, and so on5. At a 337

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time when the Foreign Office’s intellectual style still tended towards the analytical, his relentless emphasis on the practical was refreshing. He was proud of his engineering credentials. ‘I am the only man in the Service who knows that water doesn’t flow uphill’ he used to say. As he learned more of how Japan was managing its way through the economic downturn of the 1970s with innovation and visionary business leadership, Wilford became more impatient with the limited time horizons of British industry, with the emphasis on maintaining voluntary restraint arrangements in sensitive industry sectors rather than considering what we – as a resource-rich nation, albeit with poor industrial relations - might learn from a resource-poor but cohesive country with high productivity, He pointed out in his valedictory despatch that Japan was already emerging from the other end of the ‘chip revolution’ tunnel, with no more than 5% unemployment. ‘Why do we have to be so pessimistic about the future?’ he complained6. Michael Wilford pushed hard throughout his five years as ambassador for a stronger British/Japanese industrial partnership. In a despatch of April 1978, he argued that the British Government and companies should be adopting a more micro-economic approach, We should be focusing, he wrote, on sector-by-sector co-operation in research and development, seeking out and filling the gaps in Japan’s own productive capacity (for example, on electronic components).7 Better CBI relations with its opposite number the Keidanren (then a much more influential and internationallyminded body than now) were needed. His last letter was a blast at the then secretary of state for trade, John Nott, an unenthusiastic sceptic about the merits of the Japanese market, complaining that British businesses were still not taking Japan seriously enough – a seminar on space technology had attracted a tiny tally of three company representatives. To diplomats of a later generation, these exhortations seem statements of the obvious. But the late 1970s were a time when the advantages of a partnership approach were not universally recognised. When Sony, which had set up its investment in Bridgend in 1973, applied to join the CBI, some members threatened to resign. A proposed Hitachi investment to build colour televisions in Washington, County Durham, was abandoned in the face of trade union opposition. Wilford reflected pressures for protectionism conscientiously in urging the Japanese to take more action in areas where trade restraints applied. But the embassy’s irritation with what they considered an overly defensive strategy comes through increasingly during this period. And a fair amount of the groundwork for the eventual expansion both of trade and investment links and of a better 338

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understanding of the importance of joint activity was laid during the Wilford years. Politically, Japan during this period was traumatised by the aftereffects of the resignation as prime minister of Tanaka Kakuei in November 1974, for shady land deals, and of the subsequent Lockheed scandal, in which Tanaka was implicated. Tanaka’s successor as Prime Minister, Miki Takeo, exemplified ‘clean government’, but the aftermath of Lockheed undermined him and Fukuda Takeo succeeded him in 1976, in turn giving way to Ohira Masayoshi in 1978. Wilford found the carousel of factionalism tiresome and unimpressive, and the pettiness of these ‘bitter old men’,8 as he called them, alienating. His political instincts and judgement of character were for the most part shrewd (although he failed to spot Nakasone as a leader of the future) but he warmed more to the occasional down-to-earth pragmatist, like Sonoda Sunao, Foreign Minister between 1978 and 1979, than the opaque career politicians he mostly encountered. Just as he pushed hard for British business to take Japan more seriously, Wilford kept up pressure for political and official dialogue. His perception of Japan may have been a touch too accepting of the Japanese view of their country’s vulnerability and sensitivity. His April 1977 despatch, ‘Nippon Maru’,9 accentuated this theme in relation to Japan’s high dependency on imported resources (this was the time when almost all official conversations in Tokyo began ‘Nippon wa shigen ga nai kuni’ – ‘Japan is a country with no natural resources’), as well as Japan’s questioning of the US’s long-term commitment to Asia, following its withdrawal from Vietnam, and President Carter’s review of nuclear policy. But he read Japan’s pragmatism correctly and recognised, without exaggerating, the residual danger of nationalism and isolationism. His aim was to ensure that as Japan sought out a more active diplomatic role beyond the Pacific region, Britain was well placed to participate in the opportunities that this presented for enhanced cooperation. Michael Wilford was a very professional diplomat – crisp and incisive in his execution of business, careful to consult and listen to others’ views, firm in the expectation of high standards. He was liked and respected by his staff, but could also be feared – he had a short fuse and a sharp temper. This trait extended beyond the Embassy: his explosion at a hapless Asian ambassador teeing up his golf ball with excessive caution (‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, hit the bloody thing’) was legendary among the Corps. He had charm and style – he was ambassador in an era when the expatriate British community expected a head of mission to be active socially as well as professionally, and he brought flair and authority to this role. His prowess at golf was an enormous professional asset. His war injuries had meant that he had had to give up what had at one time 339

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been serious thoughts of an amateur sporting career. But he remained a formidable golfer, playing off a handicap of six in Tokyo, and frequently called upon to participate in pro-am tournaments with stars of the international golfing circuit. Those were the days when it was acceptable for ambassadors with such skills to spend a full day during the working week on the links, with senior Japanese politicians and captains of industry, and Michael Wilford exploited this to the limit, to considerable advantage for the embassy. His tastes and attitudes were conservative, although he was not a narrow-minded man. He accepted argument, challenge and dissent from those he respected, who had in return to be prepared to receive a firm and robust response delivered without rancour. He was sceptical about changes in the ethos of the Foreign Office, and dismayed by some of the more radical ideas circulating during his period as a head of mission. Tokyo was one of the posts visited by the 1976 central policy review staff team looking into Britain’s overseas representation, and their iconoclastic questioning of the conventions of diplomatic life at that time received short shrift.10 He attached very high importance to links between the British royal and Japanese imperial families, and was intolerant of anything less than the highest standards of protocol and formality by all members of his staff and visitors to the Embassy. He was respectful of Japanese mores, not least in what then was an even more patriarchal and male-dominated society than now: his reports on the Japanese social mood note the beginnings of pressure for greater female emancipation, but without enthusiasm. Nor did he make conspicuous efforts, as ambassadors might today, to curry favour with the press. On one occasion, he effectively threw the distinguished Australian foreign correspondent Murray Sayle out of the residence for an unwisely sarcastic remark about ‘colonials’ – a slight which Wilford took personally, given his New Zealand antecedents. Sayle, who had covered the Vietnam war, taken part in an expedition on Mount Everest, and searched for Che Guevara in the Bolivian jungle, claimed (in a private conversation11) to have found this an unexpectedly traumatic confrontation. Perhaps as a result of this, reactions against a rather formal style of official entertaining, and an attitude on the part of some embassy staff towards journalists that was typical of the period but now appears very condescending, some UK press coverage of the Embassy’s work during this period was disobliging. An unusually detailed and sympathetic profile of the embassy by Des Wilson in The Illustrated London News of March 1978 redressed the balance.12 But as the official record shows, and as was also recognised by the British commercial community in Tokyo at the time, Michael Wilford was a professional and effective envoy, fully attuned to the way 340

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that Japan and Britain could expand their relationship into new areas, and energetically committed to building closer links across a modern as well as traditional agenda. And he forged a highly effective team in his embassy, who respected him and for the most part enjoyed working with him. He could appear imperious, but was never stuffy: he had a sense of fun which on occasion extended to an engagingly black sense of humour; he liked people, took as he found, had clear values and led from the front. His distinguished service in Japan was recognized by his appointment as GCMG in 1980. CONCLUSION

In his valedictory despatch, he paid specific tribute to the families of diplomats who had served in his Embassy, particularly, in the convention of that time, the wives, for their support for the Embassy’s work. His own family life was a very happy one – he was devoted to his wife Joan, the daughter of a naval officer, whom he had married on a 48-hour leave during the war and whose good humour, energy and salty wit helped to make the Embassy a happy community, and their three daughters. In retirement, Michael and Joan settled in Hampshire, where he maintained involvement with Japan through advisory work with a variety of companies, the honorary presidency of the Japan Association, the treasurership of the UK-Japan 2000 (now 21st Century) Group, chairmanship of the Royal Society of Asian Affairs, and as patron of the Japan Animal Welfare Society.13 Michael Wilford died on 28 June 2006: Joan survived him by a few days. In a lecture to the Japan Society a year after he had left Tokyo,14 Michael Wilford addressed the ways in which people in Britain still lacked a proper understanding of Japan, in part because of ingrained prejudices about Japanese society, but also because of an unwillingness to learn from Japanese traits and priorities – social cohesiveness, technological innovation, the importance of education – ways in which British life might be enriched. He brought considerable energy and enthusiasm to getting these messages across as ambassador, and although the full impact of this work did not begin to be felt until later in the 1980s, with the surge of Japanese investment in the UK, and the growth of bilateral trade following the Plaza Accord of 1985 and the consequent revaluation of the yen, his contribution to the strengthening of the bilateral relationship should neither be overlooked nor forgotten. ENDNOTES 1

He can be seen, chatting and laughing, in the background of the BBC News July 1960 interview with Selwyn Lloyd on the steps of the Foreign Office, as Lloyd was succeeded by Lord Home as Foreign Secretary 341

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2

3

4 5

6

7 8

9 10

11

12 13

14

(used in Michael Cockerell’s 2010 documentary ‘The Great Offices of State: Palace of Dreams’) Annual Review for 1976, 5 January 1977, FCO 21/1566, National Archives The papers relating to the visit by Edmund Dell are to be found in files FCO 21/1581–1583, National Archives March 1976, FCO 21/1514,National Archives ‘Japan is entering the electronic age’, FCO 21/1648; Education policy, FCO 21/1649; Next generation and ‘rabbit-hutch’ despatches, FCO 21/1740–1; ‘Japan’s next generation of industries’, FCO 21/1862, National Archives FCO 21/1860, National Archives, also containing his valedictory letter to the Secretary of State for Trade FCO 21/1648, National Archives Telegram 319 from Tokyo to the FCO, 20 May 1980, FCO 21/1837, National Archives Despatch of 22 April 1977, FCO 21/1574, National Archives And perhaps not without reason, since one of their recommendations was to scale down specialist language training With the author of this essay, in El Vino’s wine bar, Fleet Street, c. September 1979 ‘Our Men in Tokyo’, Illustrated London News, 25 March 1978 The Wilfords were animal lovers and no account of Michael’s time as Ambassador should omit reference to the Lhasa Apsos whose noisy and boisterous antics enlivened Residence events to the frustration of successive Private Secretaries. Lecture given on 8 December 1981, and printed in the Japan Society’s Proceedings for 1982.

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Sir John Whitehead (1932–2013): Ambassador to Japan, 1987–1992 HUGH CORTAZZI

INTRODUCTION

John Whitehead, who died on 8 November 2013, aged eighty-one, was British ambassador to Japan from 1987 to 1992, He had served in Tokyo three times before his appointment as ambassador and was an accomplished linguist speaking good Japanese as well as German. He made an outstanding contribution to Anglo-Japanese relations not only through his service as a diplomat in Tokyo, but also after his retirement through his work for Japan related organizations in London. In Tokyo, as ambassador, he worked hard to promote Japanese investment in Britain and British exports, visible and invisible to Japan. EASRLY LIFE AND DIPLOMATIC CAREER

John Stainton Whitehead was born 20 September 1932. The only child of teaching parents, whose schools moved to Hertfordshire for 343

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the war years, he was evacuated as a small boy to his grandmother’s cottage in the Vale of Evesham where he had a strict but happy childhood. On his return home to North London at the end of the war it was decided that he should go to Christ’s Hospital in Horsham at the age of eleven. His father died when John was thirteen. The loss of his father at such an early age resulted in a rather unhappy few years at school. It was only through the persistence of his mother that he was granted an interview at Hertford College, Oxford; he attended this in his blue coat and yellow stockings. He was, many years later and with much pleasure and satisfaction, made an almoner (a governor) of the school. After national service in the army from 1950 to 1952 he went to Hertford College, Oxford, where he studied modern languages graduating with honours in 1955. He then joined the Foreign Service. After a brief introductory period in the Foreign Office he was posted to Tokyo as a language student. After his initial training he worked in the chancery and acted as private secretary to Sir Oscar Morland then ambassador to Japan. In a chapter (33) entitled ‘The Beginning of a Long Association: John Whitehead Remembers’ in Japan Experiences, Fifty Years, One Hundred Views; Post-War Japan Through British Eyes1 he gave a vivid picture of his first years in Japan as a language student and junior officer in the embassy. After a stint at the Foreign Office from 1961 to 1964 he married Carolyn Hilton and was posted to the British embassy in Washington where they stayed until 1967. They went on to have two sons and two daughters to whom John was devoted and bought their house in Surrey, which they were to call home for the rest of their lives. Here John enjoyed the woodland, trees and making bonfires. Later he was to work for Surrey County Council on the Countryside Rights of Way and for the preservation of his local area. In 1968 John was made first secretary in Tokyo dealing with trade and commercial policy. His ambassador in those years was Sir John Pilcher and I was commercial and economic counsellor until 1970. These years as seen from the embassy are described in despatches, to which John Whitehead contributed, reproduced in The Growing Power of Japan 1967–72. Analysis and Assessments from John Pilcher and the British Embassy in Tokyo.2 After a further spell in London from 1971 to 1976 where he worked in the administration, he was transferred to Bonn as counsellor and head of chancery. He was responsible for supervising the arrangements for the Queen’s state visit to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1978 and for these services he was appointed CVO. In 1980 he again returned to Tokyo, this time as minister and number two in the embassy while I was ambassador.3 344

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In 1984 John Whitehead was appointed Chief Clerk in the FCO (the traditional title of the head of administration). There he had to deal not only with routine administration and personnel matters but also with crises such as that following the murder of police constable Yvonne Fletcher in St James’s Square. He did his best to protect, modernize and improve conditions in the diplomatic service in the face of relentless pressure for economies. He would have quite liked to return to Germany as ambassador to the Federal Republic, having studied German at University and served his diplomatic ‘apprenticeship’, in the department responsible for Germany, but with his knowledge of the language and his wide experience of Japan he was the obvious and right choice for Japan in 1987. AMBASSADOR TO JAPAN

John Whitehead arrived in Tokyo as ambassador in succession to Sir Sydney Giffard and served there until his retirement from the diplomatic service at age sixty in 1992. These years proved to be a very busy and productive time. John threw himself with enthusiasm into the pressing tasks of galvanizing British exporters to seize the increasing opportunities in the Japanese market and was the driving force in setting up the ‘Opportunity Japan Campaign’. But the Japanese market was still hedged by trade impediments and a major task was to persuade the Japanese authorities to take further measures to lower barriers e.g. against Scotch whisky4 and fully open their markets for British manufactures. There were also significant problems facing British services where a ‘closed shop’ for instance on the Tokyo Stock Exchange prevented British financial institutions from taking competitive positions at a time when Japanese growth was rising towards its bubble. British lawyers wishing to practise in Japan also faced serious impediments. John worked hard to overcome these obstacles. However hard British firms tried it was clear to John Whitehead and his colleagues in Tokyo and London that the imbalance in trade between Britain and Japan could not be bridged. Japanese investment in Britain was seen as vital to dampen smouldering trade friction. Mrs Thatcher5 who paid official visits to Japan in 1982 and 1989 recognized the importance of Japanese manufacturing investment to the British economy and gave her personal backing to efforts to persuade Japanese companies of the value to them of investing in Britain as an important part of the European single market. The decision taken by Nissan to invest in a car making plant in Sunderland was a catalyst and was key to the revival of the British motorcar industry. John Whitehead played a significant part in this work. He also recognized 345

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that considerable benefits to both economies would result if British firms could invest more in Japan, but British firms faced barriers especially in the field of telecommunications. He worked hard to find ways of mitigating or removing the restrictions, which hampered the efforts of British firms in Japan. John summarised many of the issues with which he had to deal in an account of his experiences as ambassador in Japan Experiences.6 Japan’s growing power in the world meant that political relations could not be overlooked. John was equally active in leading the political work of the embassy. Ministers could always look to him for a considered and penetrating analysis of the Japanese scene. He and his wife Carolyn had to look after an almost constant flow of official ministerial visitors. These included Mrs Thatcher in 1989 as well as Geoffrey Howe as Foreign Secretary and Ministers from almost every British government department. They had to be briefed and entertained. John became adept at ensuring that his guests were well informed and made all the right points to their Japanese opposite numbers. Ministers were usually accompanied by officials from their departments, but senior officials often also came on separate visits. They too needed to be looked after and briefed to ensure that Whitehall was made properly aware of the issues in Britain’s relations with Japan. John and Carolyn also had to look after members of the Royal Family who came to Japan for cultural, commercial or other events. These included Princess Anne, Prince Edward and the Duke of Kent. Their most important visitors were Prince Philip who came for the funeral of the Showa Emperor in 1989 and the Prince and Princess of Wales who attended the enthronement ceremonies for Emperor Akihito in 1990. Coping with all these visits and ceremonies required a great deal of stamina as well as efficient organization in the Embassy. John realized the value of cultural relations. He backed the work of the British Council in Japan and welcomed the many British artists and musicians who came to Japan during his time. He was himself an accomplished pianist. In another piece in Japan Experiences7 he described some of the cultural work in Japan to which he gave so much support. In particular UK90 in Japan which was one of Britain’s cultural festivals overseas and included over one hundred and forty events, such as exhibitions, concerts and theatrical performances, over three months in various parts of Japan His distinguished service in Japan was recognized by his appointment as a GCMG in 1992. LATER CAREER

At age sixty John Whitehead retained his vigour and his interest in trade and industry. He became a senior adviser to Morgan Grenfell, 346

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the merchant bank and a non-executive director of various companies including Cadbury Schweppes, Serco and BPB. He also acted as senior adviser to a number of other British and Japanese companies. He was adviser to the President of the Board of Trade from 1992 to 1995 and continued to work on the promotion of exports to Japan. John, as he explained in an address,8 which he gave on 17 February 1993 to a joint meeting of the Japan Association and the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in London, was well aware of the importance of the European dimension in relation to Japanese investment. He urged his audience to think internationally, think Europe and think Britain. In a talk on ‘Aspects of Modern Japan’ that he gave to the Japan Society on 21 February 19959 he highlighted the changes in the relationship between Britain and Japan since his first arrival in Japan in 1956. He noted that over 200 Japanese companies had made investments in Britain worth £17 billion creating 70,000 jobs and that Britain’s exports to Japan had tripled between the early/mid-1980s and 1990. ‘There had been a transformation of political awareness of each country in the other’ and ‘a multitude of exchanges and cooperative ventures’ had taken place, But Britain was ‘stuck with an enormous visible trade imbalance’. He regretted that Japan ‘with such a huge trade surplus and which has benefitted so clearly from open world markets should not be prepared to move much more quickly and decisively to encourage imports into Japan, particularly when this is so clearly in the interests of a large number of Japanese consumers’. In the same speech he also regretted ‘rather critical attitudes towards Japan and the Japanese’ among people in Britain. To combat these feelings he urged the Japanese to adopt ‘much less opaqueness, greater responsiveness, more speed in decision-making, a greater willingness to see the benefits of foreign competition, [and] a preparedness to liberalise in a thorough-going manner’. The Japanese should ‘not under-estimate the negative impact of accumulated years of frustration over trade matters’. John kept up his commitment to improving relations with Japan and devoted much time and effort to Anglo-Japanese organizations with which he was associated. These included the UK-Japan 21st Century Group and the GB-Sasakawa Foundation. He served as chairman of the Japan Society from 2000 to 2006 and of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation from 2004 to 2012. For his services to Anglo-Japanese relations he was awarded in 2006 the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun by the Emperor of Japan. On 20 August 1995 John responding to an invitation from Canterbury Cathedral gave an address10 in the cathedral marking the 50th anniversary of VJ day. In his address he remembered the sufferings 347

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and sacrifices of the war years and spoke of the importance of reconciliation between the British and Japanese peoples. Notwithstanding all these commitments, which he carried out conscientiously, he maintained his devotion to music. He became a trustee of the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra and a member of the Royal Opera House Trust. In addition he made the time to complete in 2004 a degree in music at the Open University and learned to play the organ. Through all these activities John ensured that time was kept for his family to whom he was devoted. ENDNOTES 1 2 3

4

5

6 7 8 9 10

Compiled and edited by Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Library, 2001 Compiled and edited by Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2014. I gave some account of these years in my memoir Japan and Back and Places Elsewhere, Global Oriental, 1998 For an account of the Scotch Whisky problems with Japan see article by Stuart Jack in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2014 See ‘Margaret Thatcher and Japan’ by Hugh Cortazzi in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume IX ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2014. Pp. 594–597 Pp. 592–593 Japan Society Proceedings number 121, Spring 1993, pp. 84–91. Japan Society Proceedings number 125, pp. 7–18 Japan Society Proceedings number 126, winter 1995 pp. 73–75.

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Basil Hall Chamberlain’s Things Japanese and ‘The Invention of a New Religion’: A Critique of Bushido

JOSEPH CRONIN I Do Not mean to say anything striking if I say that ‘Bushido’ was an English discovery, or more true to say, an English creation, in the same sense that we say the Japanese colour print was discovered in London and Paris; with that discovery we Japanese have almost nothing to do. When Dr Nitobe brought out ‘Bushido’, long before the Russia-Japan War, it was looked upon here as a sort of fiction; the Westerners, not finding a satisfactory answer for the reason of our victory over Russia, made the fiction turn to a fact. Noguchi Yone,1 The Academy,2 1910 BUSHIDO

In 1911, the English Japanologist Basil Hall Chamberlain3 (1850– 1935) left Japan never to return. He made his new home in Geneva, Switzerland. That same year he wrote an essay entitled ‘The Inven349

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tion of a New Religion’. In this essay Chamberlain criticized what he thought was a fiction created by the Japanese authorities in recent years. Part of this fiction was that ‘...the Japanese nation, sharing to some extent in the supernatural virtues of its rulers, has been distinguished by a high-minded chivalry called bushido, unknown in inferior lands’. This essay was probably inspired in part by the fact that Chamberlain’s book Things Japanese, an encyclopaedic introduction to Japan the first edition of which was published in 1890, did not contain an article on bushido, which had become famous throughout the world with Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5. Prior to 1890, the term bushido was hardly used, but began to appear more frequently in the 1890s. Oleg Benesch discusses uses from about 1890 by Ozaki Yukio, Fukuzawa Yukichi and the Christian Uemura Masahisa among others.4 Ozaki used the term while in England in 1888 in a short piece on the English gentleman. In 1896 two articles by Takenobu Yoshitaro¯ The bushido or ‘Ways of Samurai’ appeared in both English and Japanese in Taiyo¯ (Sun).5 Other similar terms, shido¯ and budo¯, were sometimes used. However by the late 1890s budo¯ was only used in the context of the martial arts. Nitobe Inazo¯’s Bushido: The Soul of Japan was first published in English in the United States in 1900. The basic impulse for Nitobe’s book was his thought that the Japanese were among the ‘superior races’ and had a civilization already developed, not in need of rescue from ‘barbarism’ by Christian missionaries.6 Surprisingly for a Quaker, Nitobe praised the spirit of mediaeval military men. The conclusion of Nitobe’s book, however, was that bushido was not appropriate for the modern world, ‘Callings nobler and broader than a warrior’s claim our attention to-day.’ Nitobe’s book was favourably reviewed. An English version was also published in Japan in 1900. It sold well. By the fifth edition (i.e. printing) of April 1901, 11,000 copies had been printed. Many copies were probably sold to students of English, but not many students would have been able to follow Nitobe’s difficult prose. Sakurai Hikoichiro¯, a friend of Nitobe’s, published a commentary on Bushido in The English Student (Eigaku shimpo¯). This ran from the inaugural 15 November 1901 edition to that of 1 May 1903, methodically going through the text. Nitobe’s book was criticized by Japanese writers on bushido and was not as influential in Japan as the views of Inoue Tetsujiro¯. However, Nitobe’s Bushido was important for Japan’s image in Europe and North America. With the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5 there was a boom in publishing on Japan in Britain and the United States. A revised edition of Nitobe’s book was published in 1905 at the suggestion of William Elliot Griffis (1843–1928), who also wrote an introduction. 350

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F. Victor Dickins (1838–1915),7 writing anonymously,8 reviewed the 1905 edition of Bushido in the London magazine the Athenaeum of 19 August 1905. Dickins, who had lived in Japan for much of the period 1863–1879, thought that Japan had greatly improved during the Meiji period because it had adopted Western ideas. He considered that Nitobe was wrong to identify the spirit of the bushi as the key factor in Japan’s transformation. He also argued that the word bushido itself was a recent coinage. It was not in Frank Brinkley’s Japanese-English dictionary, nor in Ochiai Naobumi’s Kotoba no Izumi (Source of the Language) (1898). The bushi were not models to be followed. They were, he wrote, ‘executors of the will of irresponsible petty princes or their councils, they were the instruments of oppression and themselves the victims of a pedantic and absolutely merciless ceremonialism’. Dickins’ comments were reflected in Chamberlain’s ‘The Invention of a New Religion’ where he wrote, ‘Bushido was unknown until a decade or two ago! The very word appears in no dictionary, native or foreign, before the year 1900.’ Baron Suematsu Kencho¯,9 who had been sent to Europe for the duration of the Russo-Japanese War in order to present Japan’s case, wrote from Paris a response to Dickins’ article. This appeared in the Athenaeum of 2 September 1905. Suematsu10 asserted that bushino-michi, which was essentially the same thing as bushido, had been mentioned in the Ho¯gen Monogatari, dating from about 1320. It is clear that there were philosophies of the bushi and that Dickins and Chamberlain overstated their case. Bushido was a term that was immediately comprehensible to most Japanese. However, the impression that most Westerners had of a term that had been commonly used for hundreds of years was further from the truth. CHAMBERLAIN RETURNS TO JAPAN 1910

Together with his French secretary Charles Bolard-Talbère, Chamberlain returned to Japan at the end of June 1910, after more than two years absence in the United States, Europe and Algeria. As his ship neared Yokohama on 27 June Chamberlain wrote, ‘I will own to you that, instead of feeling, as I always used to do, delighted at returning to Japan, I am already a bit homesick for Europe. I fancy that, when new editions of my various books have been seen through the press, and I have had a good year or two’s rest at Miyanoshita, you will find me turning my face westwards once more.’ On his arrival Chamberlain was interviewed by the Japanese press.11 He said that he was often asked by scholars and journalists about Japan but had difficulty in responding. In particular he was 351

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asked about Japan’s unbroken line of Emperors, the meaning of bushido, and the source of the Japanese people’s sense of loyalty. He intended to spend about two years in Japan gathering material for a major work, unlike anything he’d ever written before, which he would write after getting back to England. Oddly there is no mention of such a plan anywhere in his letters at this time. Chamberlain soon started work on his book Japanese Poetry, which would appear in November 1910. This combined his first book in English The Classical Poetry of the Japanese (1880) together with his study of Basho¯ and haiku, Basho¯ and the Japanese Poetical Epigram (1902). After finishing this book he focussed on the next edition of A Handbook for Travellers in Japan. In September he even wrote to N. Gordon Munro asking him to write the article ‘Archaeology’ for Things Japanese, to replace the old one by William George Aston. So a sixth edition of Things Japanese was also planned. Chamberlain kept a close eye on political events. In a letter of 25 August 1910 he wrote:12 Today or tomorrow, they say, the annexation of Korea by Japan will be officially announced. I am sorry for both countries. Japan, in my opinion, is preparing for herself an Ireland in the future. For centuries past – ever since the devastation wrought under Hideyoshi – the Koreans have hated the Japanese as the Devil hates holy water. Next it will be the turn of Manchuria; & the Chinese, who also already detest Japan and who are dangerous enemies, will be further exasperated. Meanwhile all these foreign adventures cost money & men, internal improvements have to be postponed or abandoned, and the spirit of the nation, instead of pursuing intellectual and social aims as it did during the first half of the present reign, is turned into the channel of vulgar political ambition & military aggression, with all the lowering results that inevitably accompany such a mental habit.

Chamberlain was in poor health and found the weather trying. In a letter to his brother Houston of 9 September he wrote:13 This journey to Japan has been anything but pleasant so far. It has been one almost continuous downpour ever since I landed, with the usual results of inundations, landslips, death to many, & discomfort to all. My voice is worse than ever. My nerves have been bad too, and, in fact, I am sorry I came. However, it is perhaps as well to have this final disillusionment.

From 8 August there had been rain in Tokyo. Then on the eleventh a typhoon hit Japan and 1,379 people had died or gone missing. The newspapers report about one third of Tokyo being flooded on 11 352

BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN’S THINGS JAPANESE

August. Chamberlain in his letter to Houston of 9 September continued:14 A fixed abode, in dry air, with books around one, and readers of various nationalities accessible, is what I now long for – if possible in a French-speaking land, in order that Bolard may relieve me from all talking and trouble; – that is now my ideal. Probably Geneva is the place that would unite all advantages.

Apart from the annexation of Korea, the other major political event while Chamberlain was in Japan was the ‘High Treason Incident’. The anarchist Ko¯toku Shu¯sui and twenty-five others went on trial for plotting to murder the Emperor. Chamberlain wrote on 1 December: ...the government sent round to all the newspapers (foreign as well as Japanese) forbidding any discussion of the matter. The accused have been in gaol for months. Probably they are guilty of a murderous plot against the Emperor. At the same time they are not being given fair play, as we English understand that term. However, neither you nor I have much interest in such matters.

Three or four mornings a week through the winter Chamberlain and Mason worked on the next edition of the Handbook for Travellers in Japan. Unfortunately, preparing this edition for the press proved difficult, mainly because Mason had a breakdown and was sick from the middle of 1912. Ultimately Chamberlain and Mason’s friend James Orange supervised the book’s printing at Yokohama. Chamberlain decided to cut short his stay in Japan. On 10 November 1910 he wrote, ‘... We shall almost certainly leave Japan for good next spring. I am tired of all this going to & fro, & long to be at rest for the remainder of my life.’ He left Japan for Switzerland on 4 March 1911, never to return. THE INVENTION OF A NEW RELIGION

Instead of the book Chamberlain may have been planning, he wrote a long article called ‘The Invention of a New Religion’, sending drafts to his friends W.B. Mason and Walter Dening in Japan. Nagahara Eiichi, who had been an assistant to Chamberlain for a few years from 1902, wrote15 that this essay ‘...was perhaps as much an expression of personal disappointment as of his critical judgement, for his love for Japan has always been intense and profound’. Chamberlain was disappointed by officials claiming Japan’s superiority to all other countries in the world. Chamberlain quoted in his article the 15 February 1911 special edition of the magazine Taiyo¯, 353

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¯ ura Kanetake, who which contained an interview with Baron O asserted: That the majesty of our Imperial House towers high above everything to be found in the world, and that it is as durable as heaven and earth, is too well known to need dwelling on here... If it is considered that our country needs a religious faith, then, I say, let it be converted to a belief in the religion of patriotism and loyalty, the religion of Imperialism – in other words, to Emperor-worship.

Chamberlain was probably also disappointed that many of his former students at the Imperial University were aligning themselves with such opinions. One such, Haga Yaichi (1867–1927), had written an article entitled ‘Japanese Loyalty and Patriotism’ which appeared in the Oriental Review of 10 August 1910, published in New York. Haga wrote about the shock Japanese schoolchildren had on discovering the sad fates of some royal figures in other countries: Not to speak of cases in which such unfortunate personages were exiled abroad, there have been many instances of their execution on the scaffold. Such an outrage is almost beyond the imagination of a Japanese, and our youth experience a moral shudder, when in passing from the elementary to the secondary schools, he finds many a horror of this kind in the history of foreign nations…Even the worst of rebels and traitors never lost sight of the unassailable position of the Imperial House, contrary to the usage of other countries.

Chamberlain almost seemed to be responding directly to Haga when he wrote of Japan: ‘Emperors have been deposed, emperors have been assassinated; for centuries every succession to the throne was the signal for intrigues and sanguinary broils. Emperors have been exiled; some have been murdered in exile.’ The Kokumin shimbun of 5 March 1911 reported some comments by Haga about Chamberlain. Haga said that while Chamberlain was a Japanophile, he did not worship Japan. He added that some of the cynically critical things Chamberlain wrote in Things Japanese made his old students angry. Indeed Haga was presumably hurt by what Chamberlain said of him in Things Japanese, ‘Thus we find Mr Haga, in his otherwise excellent little Lectures on Japanese Literature (ᅜᩥᏛྐ༑ㅮ), gravely informing his hearers that some of the odes preserved in the Kojiki and Nihongi were composed by the gods, some by Jimmu Tenno¯ and other ancient Mikados, one by a monkey! The ridicule due to these absurdities must recoil on the government which imposes on highly educated men such humiliating restrictions.’ The monkey story comes from the Nihongi. 354

BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN’S THINGS JAPANESE

Chamberlain’s article appeared in the January 1912 issue of the Literary Guide and Rationalist Review. However the Japan Weekly Mail of 23 December 1911 had already carried the full article from ‘advance sheets’. A leader by Frank Brinkley in the Japan Daily Mail of 30 December took issue with Chamberlain. Brinkley pointed out that the 1905 edition of Things Japanese said of Shinto: The whole thing is now a mere shadow, though Shinto is still in so far the official cult that certain temples are maintained out of public moneys, and that the attendance of certain officials is required from time to time at ceremonies of a semi-religious, semi-courtly nature.

Brinkley wondered how in six years Chamberlain’s ideas could have changed so much. The text quoted in fact went back to the first edition of 1890 and needed updating. Jason A¯ nanda Josephson has argued16 that over the period 1880–1905 Shinto, while usually argued as being in crisis, had in fact become successful in a number of important ways: It embedded an abbreviated Shinto pantheon in the official textbooks read by all Japanese schoolchildren; established a national memorial for the war dead [Yasukuni shrine]; instituted Shinto as the form of Japanese public ceremonies and official holidays; and reformulated a reading of the emperor in completely Shinto terms. ...what most scholars see as failure is rather the universalization of Shinto and the embedding of higher-order ideographs into the very fabric of the state.

The first Japanese-language publication to take up Chamberlain’s article was the 1 January 1912 issue of the Chu¯gai eiji shimbun, targeted at English learners. Isobe Yaichiro¯ was the owner and editor of this publication. Twenty years before, Chamberlain had written an introduction to a translation of part of The Merchant of Venice by Isobe. Isobe summarized Chamberlain’s article but said that no Japanese publication would be permitted to translate all of it. He said that people who don’t know English are handicapped. Those who do know English but don’t read an English newspaper are also in a way handicapped. They won’t be able to know what Westerners think about Japan. Isobe also said that in the time Chamberlain was in Japan he had given no hint of holding these opinions. The Kirisutokyo¯ sekai published a translation of part of ‘The Invention of a New Religion’ in its issue of 1 February, ‘carefully omitting, however, all references to the Imperial House and to the comparison of the Jewish and the Japanese religions of patriotism’. In November 1912 a full translation and commentary by Saito¯ Rei was in fact published in the scholarly Shigaku zasshi (Journal of Historical Science). 355

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Kusuya Shigetoshi points out that Chamberlain did no real research on bushido which meant that critics would focus their attention on this part of the essay.17 In fact he contradicts his argument that everything was cooked up by the authorities in the introduction to the 1905 edition of Things Japanese where he says, ‘The devotion of the Samurai to his Daimyo¯ and his clan was unsurpassed; for them, at any time, he would offer up his life, his all. This same loyal flame still glows at a white heat; only, the horizon having being widened by the removal of provincial barriers and the fall of petty thrones, the one Emperor, the united nation have focussed all its rays into a single burning-point.’ In March 1912, Matsumura Kaiseki’s magazine Michi took up the topic of Chamberlain’s article. The Japan Weekly Mail reviewer Walter Dening18 reported Matsumura’s summary, ‘Mr Chamberlain in an article of great length has endeavoured to prove that we have given divine authority to our Emperor and have thus set up a religion which aims at conquering the whole world.’ Matsumura argued that these ideas were not factual, even if held by some of the army. Chamberlain seems to have enjoyed the upset his article caused. In a letter of 28 January 1912 he wrote: My article on The Invention of a New Religion seems to have created rather a stir in Japan. It has been reprinted in the local English papers, Captain Brinkley has written two articles against it in the Mail, while Mr Young has written in my favour in the Chronicle. Also I have received several letters of congratulation. Of Japanese readers, some are sympathetic, others shocked. Meanwhile a 3d. [three pence] reprint in pamphlet form is, it seems, to be issued in London. I wash my hands of this. I have expressed my opinion on a matter, which interests me on its scientific & sociological side, & that is all. Other people can think & talk as they like. I have nothing to do with politics.

Chamberlain was friendly with the scholar and poet Sasaki Nobutsuna, who would not have been sympathetic to the ideas espoused in Chamberlain’s essay. Later that year in the August edition of Sasaki’s magazine Kokoro no hana a letter from Chamberlain was translated in which he apologized for his article, explaining that his piece had been written for a specialist magazine, and should not have appeared in newspapers that would be read by the general public! On 13 December 1911, Chamberlain sent a copy of The Invention of a New Religion, most likely from final proof sheets, to his old student Okakura Yoshisaburo¯, ‘I should be curious to have your candid opinion.’ We don’t know how Okakura replied. In 1913, Okakura told his publisher to send a copy of his new book The Life and Thought of Japan to Chamberlain. On 20 October

356

BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN’S THINGS JAPANESE

Okakura wrote to Chamberlain, ‘I had a great mind to dedicate the book to you, and might have done so if I had not feared that the act might be disagreeable to you as the author of the “New Religion”. Will you allow me to do so if a second edition should be called for?’ Chamberlain wrote back: Perhaps the dedication had better be let alone, even in the second edition, – not, indeed, that I should not be proud of it. … as you justly hint, I, in the “New Religion”, have published certain utterances which would not have been appropriate in the mouth of a man placed as you are; & the collocation of names might possibly do you no good, in the opinion of some extremists. Unfortunately, at almost all times & in almost all places, it is the extremists who carry the day. … Freedom of expression, like impartiality of judgment, can never be but a rare exception.

The years of the First World War were a particularly difficult time for Chamberlain. He even thought of returning to Japan but was dissuaded from this by his friend Mason and others. Without books to work on he wouldn’t have enjoyed life in Japan. In Chamberlain’s letter of 6 November 191719 to Sugiura, who was returning to Japan, he wrote: ‘I feel an endless home-sickness for Japan. Twenty times a day I ask myself why I left there in 1911.’ DEATH

Chamberlain died on 15 February 1935 at Geneva. On 9 March a meeting and exhibition were held in his memory at the headquarters of the Society of International Cultural Relations (Kokusai Bunka Shinko¯kai) in Tokyo. The English Osaka Mainichi & the Tokyo Nichi Nichi of the next day reported that about 2,000 people attended. There were speeches from the British Ambassador Sir Robert Clive20 and George Sansom,21 then commercial counsellor to the British Embassy. A galaxy of Japanese also spoke, including Nagayo Matao, President of the Tokyo Imperial University, Rear Admiral Kimura Ko¯kichi, scholars Mikami Sanji, Ichikawa Sanki,22 Shinmura Izuru, Kindaichi Kyo¯suke and Sasaki Nobutsuna. In September a book was published including all the lectures delivered that day. Chamberlain’s revered position in Japan was seemingly affirmed. SIXTH EDITION OF THINGS JAPANESE 1940

With the fifth edition of Things Japanese in 1905 the book stopped being updated. The last copies of this edition, together with corrections and additions for a new edition, were destroyed at Yokohama in the earthquake of 1 September 1923. Chamberlain later wrote that 357

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

he felt ‘neither the strength nor the courage to begin over again’. In September 1927 Harry Griffiths of J.L. Thompson in Kobe issued a reprint of the 1905 fifth edition with two appendices added, one being ‘The Invention of a New Religion’, the other a number of notes on different topics, the latter not being written by Chamberlain. A sixth edition was, however, finally published on 8 January 1940 (a delay meant that the 1939 date printed on the book is inaccurate). In Chamberlain’s introduction to this edition he noted that there were three new articles, the one titled Bushido or the Invention of a ¯ motoNew Religion, and ones on Lafcadio Hearn and the religion O kyo¯. However, a short article on Japan’s National Anthem Kimigayo23 was also included for the first time with this new edition. This edition, containing an introduction24 by the publisher H.J. Griffiths (1882–1944), was published at Kobe. Nine days later on 17 January Griffiths was arrested on suspicion of being a spy and of committing lèse-majesté. This was related to the arrest on the same day of a customer of his store Vincent Peters25 who was later sentenced to eight years in prison as a spy. Griffiths was investigated but released on 20 March when no evidence could be found of his having engaged in spying. He wrote a letter on 16 April to a purchaser of Things Japanese,26 ‘Have had a lot of trouble over this book and spent 64 days in prison for examination with regard to it, the officials have now censored the book and deleted pages as per the enclosed slip so that there are only a hundred or two of the complete copies about so that complete copies are scarce, we can now only supply the censored copy and the price is the same and I still think that the book is worth it.’ In April Griffiths went on trial for his ‘Sins Japanese’ as he called them. On 17 April the Kobe Local Court sentenced him to six months imprisonment, with a stay of execution of one year, and a fine of 100 yen for violation of the publications law.27 The index for this edition of Things Japanese lists an article titled Bushido for pages 80–94. However pages 79 to 94 were physically cut from most copies of the book. One stray sentence remained at the top of page 95, ‘Mr. Nitobe Inazo’s Bushido, the Soul of Japan is the chief work championing the view criticised in the foregoing pages.’ Viscount Mori Arinori,28 when he was Minister of Education, had once told Chamberlain, ‘You may publish whatever you like in English, because English is a learned language which comparatively few people understand. Japanese is another matter.’ While that may have been true in the 1880s, by January 1940, at the time of the posthumous publication of the sixth edition of Things Japanese, four offending sections of the book were physically cut out of the book before it could be sold in Japan. These were the entire sections entitled Abdication and 358

BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN’S THINGS JAPANESE

Bushido; and parts of the History and Mythology and Mikado sections. The Abdication section had since the first edition started with, ‘The abdication of monarchs…has for many ages been the rule in Japan.’ This was an unpleasant truth for the Imperial Household Ministry in 1940. From the time of Emperor Meiji emperors could not retire in the way they regularly had before. The Bushido section is the longest excision. In his article Chamberlain had dismissed purported ‘historical facts’, ‘... such as the alleged foundation of the Monarchy in 660 B.C. and similar statements paralleled only for absurdity by what passed for history in mediaeval Europe, when King Lear, Brute [Canute], King of Britain, etc., etc., were accepted as authentic personages.’ The year 1940 was not one conducive to such views. On 11 February 1940 500,000 people would visit Kashihara Shrine to celebrate 2,600 years since the accession to the throne of Emperor Jimmu. The publication of an essay questioning this false history could not be permitted. Sources: The Chamberlain-Sugiura Collection at the Library of Aichi Kyo¯iku Daigaku [Aichi University of Education] keeps letters to Sugiura To¯shiro¯, who was a student in England sponsored by Chamberlain. There are two biographies of Chamberlain that were useful, Kusuya Shigetoshi’s ¯ ta Nezumi was mada ikite iru: Chenbaren no denki, Yu¯sho¯do, 1986, and O Yu¯zo¯’s Basil Hall Chamberlain: Portrait of a Japanologist, Japan Library, 1998. ¯ ta’s book is largely a translation of his B.H. Chenbaren: Nichi-O ¯ -kan no O ¯ fuku undo¯ ni ikita sekaijin, Libro-Port Publishing, 1990, supplemented with O a long essay on the relationship between Lafcadio Hearn and Chamberlain. ENDNOTES 1

2 3

4

5 6

7

8

See biographical portrait of Yone Noguchi by Norimasa Morita in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2013. Vol. 79, 24 December 1910 p. 630. Professor Richard Bowring’s essay ‘An Amused Guest in All: Basil Hall Chamberlain’ was published in Britain and Japan 1859–1991, Themes and personalities’ ed. Sir Hugh Cortazzi and Gordon Daniels, Routledge, 1991. For a comprehensive treatment of the idea of bushido see Oleg Benesch’s Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushido¯ in Modern Japan, Oxford University Press, 2014. Editions for 5 and 20 August. ‘Nitobe’s Bushido was in a sense an attempt to rehabilitate Japan’s past ¯ ta Yu¯zo¯ ‘Mediation Between Culwhich had been rejected in toto.’ O ture’ p. 249 in John F. Howes ed. Nitobe Inazo: Japan’s Bridge across the Pacific, Westview Press, 1995. See portrait of F.V. Dickins by Peter Kornicki in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume III, ed. J.E. Hoare, Japan Library, 1999. Up to now there hasn’t been a definite identification of the anonymous Athenaeum reviewer. However, a signed review by Dickins of James 359

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

9

10

11 12

13 14 15 16

17 18

19 20

21

22

23

Murdoch’s A History of Japan during the Century of Early Foreign Intercourse (1542–1651) in the English Historical Review of July 1905 contains language so close to that in the Athenaeum review as to make the identification unproblematic. In a note in the review of Murdoch’s book Dickins says of Bushido, ‘This word is a modern journalistic coinage; it is not found in any dictionary foreign or native, in my possession, not even in the Kotoba no Izumi (Fount of Language).’ p. 569. See portrait of Suematsu Kencho¯ by Ian Ruxton in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume V, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2004. In Suematsu’s book A Fantasy of Far Japan he included a more detailed response to Dickins. Yorozu cho¯ho 30 June 1910, Chu¯gai eiji shimbun 15 July 1910. ¯ ta Yu¯zo¯. Basil Hall Chamberlain: Portrait of a Japanologist, p. 59, Japan O Library, 1998. Ibid., p. 110. Ibid., p. 113. The Japan Weekly Chronicle 28 February 1935. ¯ nanda. The Invention of Religion in Japan, p. 155, UniJosephson, Jason A versity of Chicago Press, 2012. Kusuya Shigetoshi. Nezumi wa mada ikite iru p. 576, Yu¯sho¯do, 1986. See portrait of Walter Dening by Hamish Ion in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2010. ¯ ta p. 3. O See portrait of Sir Robert Clive by Antony Best in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IV, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Library, 2002. See portrait of Sir George Sansom by Gordon Daniels in Britain and Japan 1859–1991, Themes and Personalities ed. Sir Hugh Cortazzi and Gordon Daniels, Routledge, 1991 and in British Envoys in Japan, 1859– 1972, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2004. See portrait of Ichikawa Sanki by Saito Yoshifumi in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. It’s interesting to compare Chamberlain’s first translation of this poem from his 1880 book Japanese Classical Poetry and his later translation. In the intervening years Chamberlain had come to feel embarrassed by his early translations of Japanese poetry and now felt literal translations were the way to go. In a letter of 3 May 1929 he wrote, ‘Translation is a more difficult thing than most people imagine, as words hardly ever correspond exactly to one another in two languages. The result is that most translations are very imperfect, often actual frauds quite different from the original. The fact that translating work is mostly entrusted to inferior scholars of course tends in the same unfortunate direction.’ Here are the two versions of Kimigayo: A thousand years of happy life be thine! Live on, my Lord, till what are pebbles now, By age united, to great rocks shall grow, 360

BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN’S THINGS JAPANESE

Whose venerable sides the moss doth line. Japanese Classical Poetry p. 123 May thy life (or reign) last a thousand ages; eight thousand ages, till the pebbles shall have become rocks whereon the moss grows. Things Japanese 24

25

26 27 28

In the introduction to the sixth edition Griffiths tells a story about his writing in a letter to Chamberlain about a visit to the temple of Shigesan. To this Chamberlain objected, saying that the word should be Shigesen. On a later visit to the temple Griffiths questioned an old priest who said, ‘Your friend must be a very learned man. Shige-sen is the correct pronunciation, but few people care about such things nowadays.’ Unfortunately the whole story is undercut by the fact that Griffiths has mistaken the name of the temple which should be Shigisan (also known as Cho¯gosonshiji). For a brief account of the Peters case see ‘The Death of James Melville Cox (1885–1940) in Tokyo on 29 July 1940: Arrests of British Citizens in Japan in 1940 and 1941’ by Hugh Cortazzi in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VIII, pp. 500–502, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2013. Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan: Third Series vol. 15, p. 7, 1980. Gaiji keisatsu gaikyou: gokuhi vol. 6, p. 93, Ryu¯kei shosha, 1980. See portrait of Mori Arinori by Andrew Cobbing in Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IV, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Library, 2002.

361

32

William J.S. Shand (1850–1909) and Henry John Weintz (1864–1931): ‘Japanese Self-Taught’ 1

NOBORU KOYAMA

INTRODUCTION

In 1907, the London Publishers, E. Marlborough & Co. printed a one-volume book entitled Japanese Self-Taught & Grammar2 as part of its Self-Taught Series. The volume contained two books: Japanese SelfTaught by William James Simmie Shand and Japanese Grammar SelfTaught (second edition) by Henry John Weintz; both books were also published as separate volumes by the same publishing company. 362

WILLIAM J.S. SHAND AND HENRY JOHN WEINTZ

W.J.S. Shand was the director of the School of Japanese Language and Literature at Birkbeck Bank Chambers3 in London, while H.J. Weintz was the author of a number of other Japanese learning books: Hossfeld’s Japanese Grammar (1904),4 Appendix to Hossfeld’s Japanese Grammar (1905),5 Hossfeld’s Japanese Reader (1906)6 from Hirschfeld Brothers (London) as well as Japanese Grammar Self-Taught (first edition)7 (1904) all published by E. Marlborough & Co. The two authors had markedly different relationships with Japan, Japanese people and the Japanese language. W.J.S. Shand had worked as a businessman for twenty-seven years in Yokohama. H.J. Weintz, on the other hand, never visited Japan and there is little evidence of his having had contacts with Japanese people in Britain. W.J.S. Shand ran a Japanese language school in London for more than four-and-a-half years. H.J. Weintz published self-learning books not only for Japanese but also for Spanish, French and German. He appears to have been a polyglot, with Japanese just one of the many languages he ‘mastered’. W.J.S. SHAND

William James Simmie Shand was born in Turiff, Aberdeenshire, Scotland on 9 April 1850. He was the sixth son of James Shand (1806–1853) and Margaret Shand (neé Allan) (1812–1894). The most distinguished of his six brothers was Alexander Allan Shand (1844–1930), who went on to become a well-known banker and introduced bookkeeping (‘boki’ in Japanese) into Japan.8 In 1864, at the age of twenty, Allan Shand was appointed acting manager of the office of the Chartered Mercantile Bank in Yokohama.9 A number of years later, W.J.S. Shand followed his brother to Japan, arriving probably in 1871 at around the age of twentyone, to take up the post of clerk at Wilkin & Robison, merchants and insurance agents in Yokohama. (When W.J.S. Shand was thirteen years old, he had been nominated to a Navy cadetship,10 and had first tried to develop a career in the Navy.) He continued to work for Wilkin & Robison in Yokohama as a clerk probably until about 1880. He then became an independent agent for an insurance business in Yokohama. As a foreign resident in Yokohama, W.J.S. Shand was involved with various organizations, including the Yokohama United Club, the Asiatic Society of Japan, and the Victoria Volunteer Steam Fire Engine Company. In 1889 W.J. Shand acted as agent for the despatch of a group of a hundred Japanese agricultural labourers to the Mourilyan Sugar Company in Queensland, Australia.11 It is not clear when W.J.S. Shand decided to return to England. He claimed that he had stayed in Japan for twenty-seven years – so if he arrived in Japan in 1871, his return must have been in either 1898 or 363

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1899. According to the 1901 Census (31 March 1901), he was registered as a visitor in Croydon, England. However, in the 1902 edition (January 1902) of the directory of Japan,12 he was still registered as the proprietor of Union Dray and Lighter Co., in Yokohama. It may be that he returned to England, but left some part of his business running in Japan into the beginning of the twentieth century. He would never again return to live in Japan. In August 1903 Shand started a new venture, the School of Japanese Language and Literature at Birkbeck Bank Chambers in London. Before he began his Japanese language school, he had considered applying for the Japanese professorship at King’s College, London. Ernest Satow who was then in London recorded in his diary for 28 April 1903: W.J.S. Shand came about his candidature for the professorship of Japanese at King’s College London. I tested him with a piece of Chinese and found he knew most of the characters; so wrote for him to Lord Cranbourne and also a testimonial addressed to himself.13

The Japanese professorship at King’s College London was, however, filled by Joseph Henry Longford (1849–1925).14 Having failed to secure the King’s College post Shand started his Japanese language school from August 1903. Shand recorded later that he had learnt Japanese as a hobby. It is remarkable that he had gained sufficient knowledge of Japanese to be a candidate for the professorship of Japanese at King’s College. The School of Oriental Studies (now the School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS) was established as part of the University of London in June 1916, based on the Reay Report of 1909 [Report of the Treasury Committee on the organisation of Oriental studies in London under the Chairmanship of Lord Reay].15 W.J.S. Shand who was invited as a witness by the Treasury Committee on the Organisation of Oriental Studies in London on 13 February 1908 stated: I started it [the School of Japanese Language and Literature] in August 1903, and during these 4 ½ years I have had very nearly 80 students – 76, to be exact, of whom 28 have been military officers, 5 have been Royal Marines, and I have passed for the Admiralty also 2 officers of the Royal Navy, who are now out there studying in Japan. Also a good many of these military students have been there, and some are still there who have passed through my hands. Then, of religious societies, I have had 6 students, ladies principally, from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, of commercial students 19, private students 9, and the Japanese students of English 7, making altogether 76.

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His testimony provides an interesting insight into the different types of people who were interested in learning Japanese in London at the turn of the century. As he goes on to mention, not all of his students were particularly privileged: I have had many more applications but the fees were prohibitive for the persons by whom they were made, for this reason, that my school not being subsidised in any way, I had to charge 4s. an hour or 5s., as the case may be… At the language schools, like the Berlitz and the Gouin and others, they charge 7s. 6d. and 10s. 6d an hour.”16

Shand’s Japanese language school probably led the editors of E. Marlborough & Co., the publishing company, to ask him to produce a selftaught Japanese book. The preface of Shand’s Japanese Self-Taught17 stated that ‘The Publishers have had the valuable assistance, Editor, of Mr. W.J.S. Shand, who was for twenty-seven years resident in Japan, and has had four years’ experience as Director of the School of Japanese Language and Literature in London.’ The same preface recommended H.J. Weintz’s Japanese Grammar Self-Taught, which had been available from the same publishers since 1904, as both books for selflearning of Japanese complemented each other. W.J.S. Shand not only published a language book, he also translated Japanese stories into English. In 1908, W. J. S. Shand published Case of Ten-ichi-bo¯: a Cause of Celébre in Japanese History, a Decision of ¯ oka in Japan. This is a translation of the Japanese book, O ¯ oka Meiyo O Seidan (1885), which tells the story of a fraudster who claims to be the son of a Shogun. This English translation had been published in Japan by the Methodist Publishing House (Tokyo), but it was later also published by E. Marlborough & Co. in 1915. W.J.S. Shand died in London at the age of fifty-nine, on 4 December 1909. His brother, Allan Shand was listed on his death certificate as being present. Both brothers had lived in Yokohama at the beginning of the Meiji period and subsequently lived in the same Upper Norwood area of London after W.J.S. Shand’s return to England. H.J. WEINTZ

Henry John Weintz was born in Birmingham, on 23 October 1864. He was the only son of Henry Weintz (1843–1918) and his wife Elizabeth Weintz (1846–1900). His father was a solicitor’s clerk. When Henry John Weintz was in his mid-teens, his family moved to Huddersfield in Yorkshire.On 28 August 1880, several newspapers reported that while he and his father were fishing in a reservoir near Huddersfield, they tried to rescue a man, who had attempted to drown himself, and his nephew, who had tried to stop the man from

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drowning himself. As a result of their efforts the nephew survived.18 For this act of heroism in November 1880 the Mayor of Huddersfield presented them with medals of the Royal Humane Society.19 According to the 1881 census, he lived with his father Henry, his mother Elizabeth and his adopted sister Nellie in Huddersfield; his occupation was described as a banker’s clerk. In April 1882, the post of secretary of Huddersfield Technical School and Mechanics’ Institute was advertised. He was one of the seven candidates selected, but he did not get the job; his occupation on this occasion was described as solicitor’s clerk.20 In October 1884, when Huddersfield and District Pupil Teachers’ Examination Association distributed certificates and prizes Henry John Weintz received a certificate and a prize.21 He was described as having been a pupil teacher at All Saint’s National School, Paddock, Huddersfield, for the past two years.22 In August 1891, he was appointed for six months as certified assistant-teacher at the James Meadows Boys’ School in Grimsby23. On 7 April 1892, Weintz married Mary Alice Bentley (1859– 1925) in Huddersfield.24 On their marriage certificate, his occupation was described a schoolmaster and his address was Mendlesham, Suffolk. Sometime before his marriage, he took the post of master of the National Endowed School in Mendelsham.25 Alice and Henry John Weintz had three sons, all born in Mendlesham.26 While living there he published in 1894 a booklet Selection of Original Single and Double Chants; he was described as organist and choirmaster of the Church of St Mary, Mendelsham, Suffolk.27 He also published in 1896 a booklet of games.28 Before the census was held in 1901, members of Weintz’s family returned to the North of England.29 We do not know whether he worked as a schoolmaster again after he had left the school in Mendelsham. According to the 1911 census, his occupation was recorded as ‘Certified Schoolmaster’, but he was described as unemployed. Perhaps because he had no fixed employment, from 1903 Weintz started to publish books or booklets about learning foreign languages. He published Key to The Spanish Principia30 in 1903. In 1904, he produced Japanese Grammar Self-Taught (first edition) (1904), published by E. Marlborough & Co., and Hossfeld’s Japanese Grammar (1904). The content of both these books was very similar. In 1905, he published Appendix to Hossfeld’s Japanese Grammar (1905). In 1906, he published The Motorist’s Interpreter: Being a Vocabulary of Terms and Expressions Relating to Motors and Motoring in the Three Languages: English-French-German.31 In 1907, he revised and enlarged two French composition and idioms books32 and published the second edition of Japanese Grammar Self-Taught. Since Weintz published booklets and books on Spanish, French and German, we must assume that he was a polyglot. However, Japanese is 366

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so different from European languages that we must wonder how and where Weintz could have learnt Japanese. In the preface to Hossfeld’s Japanese Grammar, Weintz described how important Japan and Japanese had become for Britain: The rapidly increasing amount of commerce and social intercourse between this country [Britain] and Japan has created a pressing demand for a really practical grammar for the acquisition of the Japanese language by English-speaking people.33

Interestingly, in his 1904 publication Weintz pointed to the influence of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902: A great and growing interest, fostered by our recent alliance with its [Japanese] government, is being manifested towards ‘THE BRITAIN OF THE PACIFIC’, and there is a growing necessity for a simple and inexpensive hand-book of the Japanese Language.34

In the preface to Japanese Grammar Self-Taught (1904) Weintz indicated how he learnt Japanese grammar: The Grammar has been compiled from the Author’s notes, accumulated during many years’ experiences in preparing candidates for examinations, etc. and much of the matter introduced has been suggested by the questions and difficulties of pupils.35

We can only assume that, as was perhaps appropriate for the author of self-taught language books, he had taught himself Japanese. This hypothesis is borne out by an examination of Weintz’s Japanese Grammar Self-Taught. As one of the reviews of Japanese Grammar Self-Taught indicates,36 Weintz used W.G. Aston’s A Grammar of the Japanese Spoken Language (4th edition, 1888), B.H. Chamberlain’s A handbook of colloquial Japanese (2nd edition, 1889) and Rudolf Lange’s Lehrbuch der Japanischen Umgangssprache (1890), etc. For example, ‘Japanese Extracts’ (Encho¯’s Botan Do¯ro¯ and Sho¯yo¯’s To¯sei Sho¯sei Katagi) in Weintz’s book were taken from Aston’s book and the tables of ‘The Syllabaries’ from Lange’s book. From the beginning of the twentieth century, Weintz lived at 19 Britannia Street, Shipley, Yorkshire, West Riding, together with his wife Mary. Mary died in 1925 and Henry died in 1935, leaving one surviving son Carl (their first two sons having died in early adulthood). We do not know whether Weintz ever met Shand or if they did whether they became associates. Their knowledge of Japan and Japanese culture were quite different. Because of his school Shand was 367

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clearly more important in the promotion of the Japanese language in the UK. We do not know how or why Weintz became interested in Japan and Japanese, but his books did contribute to the development of interest in Japan in the early twentieth century. Their books based on very different experiences were both published in a single volume in 1904. ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10 11 12

Teach Yourself Japanese by C.J. Dunn and S. Yanada, published in 1958 by Hodder and Stoughton as part of a series of Self Taught language books, was produced by two scholars who taught at SOAS. It was, of course, quite different from the book produced by Shand and Weintz over half a century earlier. A biographical portrait of Charles Dunn by Hugh Cortazzi was included in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits volume VII, ed Hugh Cortazzi, Folkestone, Kent, Global Oriental, 2013, a biographical portrait of Senji Yanada by Sadao Oba and Anne Kaneko appeared in volume IX, Renaissance Books, 2015, in the same series, W.J.S. Shand and H.J. Weintz, Japanese Self-Taught and Grammar in One Volume, London, E. Marlborough & Co., 1907. Birkbeck Bank Chambers were in High Holborn not far from Breams Building, on Fetter Lane where Birkbeck College had its premises at that time. Did Shand have some connection with Birkbeck College? H.J. Weintz, Hossfeld’s Japanese Grammar: Comprising a Manual of the Spoken Language in the Roman Character Together with Dialogues on Several Subjects and Two Vocabularies of Useful Words, London, Hirschfeld Brothers, Ltd., 1904. H.J. Weintz, Appendix to Hossfeld’s Japanese Grammar: Comprising a Graduated Series of Exercises on the Whole Work, Extracts from Leading Authors, Exercises in the Native Characters and Two Vocabularies, London, Hirschfeld Brothers, Ltd., 1905. H.J. Weintz, Hossfeld’s Japanese Reader: Containing a Graduated Series of Extracts from Leading Authors, with Copious Footnotes and a Vocabulary, London, Hirschfeld Brothers, Ltd., 1906. H.J. Weintz, Japanese Grammar Self-Taught: (in Roman Character) with Phrases and Idioms, London, E. Marlborough & Co., 1904. ‘Alexander Allan Shand, 1844–1930: a Banker the Japanese Could Trust’, Britain & Japan Biographical Portraits Volume 2, Richmond, Surrey, Japan Library, 1997. pp.65–78. ‘Alexander Allan Shand, 1844–1930: a Banker the Japanese Could Trust’, Britain & Japan Biographical Portraits Volume 2, Richmond, Surrey, Japan Library, 1997. pp.65–78. Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle etc, 30 November 1863. p.4. The Brisbane Courier, 28 February 1889. p.6. The Directory and Chronicle for China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, Straits Settlements, Malay States, Siam, Netherlands India, Borneo, the Philippines, and etc., Hongkong, The Hongkong Daily Press, 1902. p.60.

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13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20 21

22

23 24

25 26

27

28

29

30

Ian C. Ruxton, edited and annotated by, The Diaries of Sir Ernest Satow, British Envoy in Peking (1900–06), Vol. 1 (1900–03), [Morrisville, N.C. : Lulu Press], 2006. p.331. Ian Ruxton, ‘Joseph Henry Longford (1949–1925), Consul and Scholar’, Britain & Japan Biographical Portraits Volume 6, Folkstone, Kent, Global Oriental, 2007. pp.307–314, 408. Treasury Committee on the Organisation of Oriental Studies in London, Report of the Committee Appointed by the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury to Consider the Organisation of Oriental Studies in London, with Copy of Minute and Letter Appointing the Committee Appendices, London, H.M.S.O., 1909 [Cd.4560]. Treasury Committee on the Organisation of Oriental Studies in London, Report of the Committee Appointed by the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury to Consider the Organisation of Oriental Studies in London, with Copy of Minute and Letter Appointing the Committee Appendices, London, H.M.S.O., 1909 [Cd.4560]. pp.22–26. W.J.S. Shand, Japanese Self-Taught: (Thimm’s System, in Roman Character) with English Phonetic Pronunciation, London, E. Marlborough & Co., 1907. The Huddersfield Chronicles and West Yorkshire Advertiser, 31 August 1880. p.4.; The Manchester Guardian, 31 August 1880. p.5. The Huddersfield Chronicles and West Yorkshire Advertiser, 16 November 1880. p.4. The Leeds Mercury, 15 April 1882. p.7. The Huddersfield Chronicles and West Yorkshire Advertiser, 18 October 1884. p.2. The Huddersfield Chronicles and West Yorkshire Advertiser, 18 October 1884. p.2. Hull Daily Mail, 13 August 1891. The Huddersfield Chronicles and West Yorkshire Advertiser, 9 April 1892. p.8. Kelly’s Directory of Suffolk 1896, London, Kelly, 1896. Carl Haydn Weintz (1893–1957) was born in 1893, Leopold Herman Weintz (1894–1908) in 1894 and Eric Rudolf Weintz (1895–1916) in 1895. Leopold, the second son died prematurely at the age of fourteen and Eric, the third son died fighting France in 1916 at the age of twentyone ‘Advertisement’, Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol.35 Issue 616 (June 1894). Weintz, Henry J., “Homo”: an Explanation of the Game with Rules and Hints for Playing, London, Thos, De La Ruf. & Co., 1896. According to the 1901 census his wife Mary Alice, his sons, Leopold and Eric resided in 19 Britannia Street, Shipley, Yorkshire, and Carl lived in Blackpool. Henry John Weintz himself lived on 19 Britannia Street, Shipley, Yorkshire, at the latest from 1902 onward. H.J. Weintz, The Spanish Principia Part I: on the Plan of Sir William Smith’s “Principia Latina”, London, John Murray, 1903.

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31

32

33

34

35

36

H.J. Weintz, The Motorist’s Interpreter: Being a Vocabulary of Terms and Expressions Relating to Motors and Motoring in the Three Languages: EnglishFrench-German, London, Hirschfeld Brothers, Ltd., 1906. H. Lallemand and A. Antoine, revised and enlarged by H.J. Weintz, French Compositions and Idioms, Part I and II, Hirschfeld Brothers, Ltd., 1907. H.J. Weintz, Hossfeld’s Japanese Grammar: Comprising a Manual of the Spoken Language in the Roman Character together with Dialogues on Several Subjects and Two Vocabularies of useful Words, London, Hirschfeld Brothers, Ltd., 1904. p.v. H.J. Weintz, Japanese Grammar Self-Taught: (in Roman Character) with Phrases and Idioms, London, E. Marlborough & Co., 1904. p.3. H.J. Weintz, Japanese Grammar Self-Taught: (in Roman Character) with Phrases and Idioms, London, E. Marlborough & Co., 1904. p.4. Bulletion de I’École française d’Extrême-Orient, Vol. 5 No.1 (01/01/1905). pp.230–232.

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Douglas Mills (1923–2005): Scholar of Japanese at Cambridge RICHARD BOWRING

Douglas (or Doug, as he was known to his friends) Mills was another of the bright young linguists who were recruited to learn and then teach Japanese at the onset of war with Japan. Douglas Edgar Mills was born in Walthamstow on 10 June 1923. He died 11 August 2005. He went up to Cambridge in January 1941 to read for the modern languages tripos in French and German. In June 1942 when he was due to be called up it was suggested that because of his flair for languages he should apply for the course in Japanese being organized at SOAS. He joined the Queen’s Regiment in Norwich and after basic military training he joined the SOAS Course Translators IV in January 1943. Mills showed remarkable ability and his progress was so rapid that after three months he was promoted to Translators III. He completed the course in December 1943 and was selected to stay on as an instructor to teach elementary grammar. He built up a reputation as an expert in the classical literary style used in military documents.1

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While teaching others, he enrolled to continue his own studies and by 1945 had achieved first class honours in classical Japanese at SOAS. Demobilized in 1947 in the rank of Lieutenant, he briefly taught French and German at a grammar school before returning to SOAS as a Lecturer. He was to remain there until 1963, the year in which he submitted his PhD, a study and translation of the medieval tale collection Tales from Uji. He then moved to the United States, headhunted by the University of California at Berkeley, where he stayed for five years. His administrative abilities became clear and he was soon made Head of Department. In 1968 Eric Ceadel,2 then one of the three university lecturers in Japanese studies at Cambridge, resigned his post to become University Librarian. Douglas was persuaded to return to Cambridge and take his place. He was pleased and honoured to be elected a fellow of Corpus Christi College and played an active part in College life as well as at Leckhampton Hall, its centre for postgraduate students. The companionship that the College gave helped him greatly after the loss of both his first wife and second wife, her sister. His acceptance of the Cambridge post seemed to some a rather strange decision, given that Japanese studies were flourishing in California and were under budgetary pressure in Britain at that time. But he wanted to provide an English education for his two adopted children and he may well have hoped that he could help to develop Japanese studies at such an ancient and prestigious foundation as Cambridge University where he had begun his university studies many years earlier. The number of students of Japanese at Cambridge during the 1970s may have been in single figures (in some years there were none), but when students were present Douglas took on a significant share of the language teaching at all levels. Add to that his willingness to undertake the kind of administrative duties that most academics shy away from, and the result was a heavy load. This, more than anything, explains why Douglas found little time or space to create a major research profile. Nevertheless the contribution that he did make to medieval Japanese studies is secure. He was a careful, meticulous scholar; it is highly unlikely, for example, that the Tales from Uji will ever need to be translated again, for it is not only accurate but perfectly captures the light, whimsical taste of the original. His study of the work was a valuable contribution to the history of Japanese literature. His interests also included a study of the Tale of the Soga Brothers and the complex rules that governed sanctioned revenge during the Tokugawa period. As a teacher, Douglas was gentle to a fault, guiding his students with compassion and never once losing his temper with even the dullest. His reviews of the work of others were also ‘gentlemanly’. The introduction to his Tales from Uji, which touches on a previous 372

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attempt to translate some of the stories, finishes with a characteristic phrase: ‘despite its charm of style, it contains a number of grave inaccuracies’. In 1973 Douglas was a moving force in creating the British Association of Japanese Studies (BAJS) and took the chair at the inaugural meeting held at SOAS. He was elected the first president of the association at its first conference was held at Emmanuel College, Cambridge in April 1975. Ian Nish was the first secretary of the association and as the association was at first quite small they were able together to manage its affairs. Douglas remained at Cambridge until his retirement in 1982 and thereafter continued administrative duties at Corpus Christi until 1988. In 1985 the Japanese government recognised his achievements and his selfless dedication to the profession with the award of the Order of Rising Sun (third class). ENDNOTES 1

2

For an amusing example of the problems which Mills faced see p. 38 ¯ ba, translated by Anne Kaneko, Japan of The Japanese War by Sadao O Library 1995. See biographical portrait of Eric Ceadel by Peter Kornicki in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume V, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2004.

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John McEwan (1924–1969): Scholar of Japanese at Cambridge University PETER KORNICKI

INTRODUCTION

Like so many Japanologists of his generation, John Robertson McEwan first came into contact with Japan as a result of the Second World War. He learnt Japanese in London and then played an active part in the war in East Asia as an interpreter and interrogator, but later he was a pioneer in Western scholarship on the history of ideas in the Tokugawa period. He was the first to write extensively on Ogyu¯ Sorai (1666–1728), one of the towering intellects of the period, and his work on Sorai continues to be cited. John McEwan was born in Dundee to Alan and Evelyn McEwan on 13 August 1924. His father was a draper; he had one sister who was thirteen years younger than him. He was educated at Harris Academy in Dundee and he is not known to have had any connections with Japan before he began his study of Japanese in May 1942 at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).1 This was six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor and three months after the fall of Singapore: the need for Japanese linguists at that time was acute and thus the Second World War changed his life.2 Unfortunately, he left no diaries, letters or accounts of his life during the war or afterwards. Official records, the reminiscences of former colleagues and some of his writings give us glimpses of his life, but most of the details are wanting. LEARNING JAPANESE

McEwan learnt his Japanese during the war on the first of the special courses run at SOAS. Shortly after the outbreak of war in Europe,

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SOAS was temporarily transferred to Christ’s College, Cambridge, but the special war-time courses were taught in London, so it was in London that he spent most of 1942 and 1943 learning Japanese. An account of these courses is contained in The Japanese War, London University’s WWII secret teaching programme and the experts sent to help beat Japan, by Sadao Oba, translated by Anne Kaneko, Japan Library, 1995.3 At the end of the first year the boys were tested on their knowledge in two written examinations and an oral.4 McEwan came seventh out of the twenty-eight students remaining on the course. His report read: Must do translation [i.e. should be employed as a translator] and results show that he is better at it than at the spoken language. He is eminently suited to become a translator. Judged on unseen papers alone, he took 2nd place for translation, etc.5

In fact, McEwan got joint highest marks in paper 1, which consisted of prepared and unprepared translation of texts written in traditional characters and old kana spelling, plus an essay in Japanese. It was his mark in the oral that brought him down. At this point the students were divided up between the three Services: six were destined for the Royal Navy, two (including McEwan) for the Royal Air Force, and the remainder for the Army.6 The full course in Japanese lasted for eighteen months and by the end in December 1943 most of the students had attained what SOAS regarded as remarkable proficiency.7 By the end of the course, in December 1943, his final SOAS report makes it clear that McEwan had reached a high standard of spoken Japanese as well as the written language: In colloquial he compares very favourably with the best men in this exceptionally good group, and with a little more practice should be well qualified to undertake interrogation. As a translator he is very good, and has an exceptionally good knowledge of characters. He is somewhat reserved but would be capable of accepting responsibility.8 TRANSLATING AND INTERPRETING FOR THE RAF

McEwan was one of the two graduates of the course who joined the Royal Air Force after the course finished in December 1943. After basic training he attended the intelligence course at Wentworth.9 Having finished his training, he returned to SOAS in 1944 for a month-long refresher course in Japanese, still in the rank of aircraftman 2nd class and was then posted to India.10

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McEwan’s wartime service in the RAF was spent almost entirely with SEATIC (South East Asia Translation and Interrogation Centre), where Japanese translators and interpreters from the three services were employed.11 As a result of the rapid Japanese advance westwards that threatened India, early in 1942 the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (India), known as CSDIC(I), was formed in the Red Fort, Delhi, to extract information from Japanese prisoners. However, there was an acute shortage of qualified Japanese interpreters. Lt./Col. Dredge, a later commander of SEATIC, explained the difficulties: In early 1942 a long-term policy of training in JAPANESE had been put into effect in SIMLA and at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of LONDON, but NO personnel qualified in JAPANESE could be expected from these sources for at least 18 months. … Before Dec[ember] [19]43, the number of BRITISH Army personnel who were both qualified and capable of translating a printed document (KAISHO), let alone a hand-written document (SOSHO), was extremely small. But in Dec[ember] [19]43 the first team of JAPANESE linguists, who had undergone an intensive study of the language at the University of LONDON, reached INDIA, and they were immediately utilised to supplement the NOT overlarge establishments of ACTS [Army Central Translation Section] and CSDIC(I). A second draft of linguists arrived in INDIA in Apr[il] [19]44 and again personnel were divided between ACTS and CSDIC(I) according to their capabilities and training as either translators or interrogators.12

On 26 January 1944, the decision was taken to create a new body to be known as SEATIC with Navy, Army and Air Force contingents under the command of the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia (SACSEA). In May SEATIC was constituted under the command of a US army colonel who brought with him some US army personnel who were of Japanese descent and knew Japanese.13 Since SEATIC was based in Delhi, it was a long way from the headquarters of SACSEA which were in Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and it was only when both headquarters eventually moved to Singapore that they were located in close proximity.14 During the Burma Campaign officers trained in Japanese were attached to CSDIC(I) mobile sections for the interrogation of captured Japanese.15 Others were engaged either in translating captured documents. The results of the interrogations carried out were regularly incorporated into SEATIC bulletins, which made the latest intelligence available to those with a need to know.16 McEwan’s Royal Air Force report makes it clear that he was well equipped to deal with the demands of SEATIC: 376

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… he is extremely keen and hardworking, and has acquired a very good knowledge of written Japanese. He is one of the few translators in SEATIC competent to translate all categories of Japanese documents.17

Precise details of what he was engaged in are not available, but an obituary for King’s College states that ‘he was mentioned in despatches from Burma for deciphering a crucial but seemingly undecipherable message in execrable handwriting’.18 The Japanese surrender in September 1945 did nothing to reduce the work-load of the translators and interpreters.19 In September 1945 he was in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).20 On 3 September 1945 advance units of the South-East Asia Command had moved to Saigon to take over administration from the surrendered Japanese forces, but the initial months were chaotic, partly because anti-colonial Vietnamese were targeting French citizens and anybody who looked French.21 In October 1945 the headquarters of SEATIC moved to Singapore, but then moved back to Delhi leaving ‘a nucleus of interrogators and translators of all three services’ in Singapore. In April 1946 a permanent headquarters was set up in Singapore but by this time detachments had been established in Bangkok, Saigon, Hong Kong, Batavia, Palembang, Medan and North Borneo.22 Later SEATIC moved across the strait to Johore Bahru in southern Malaya, where a number of post-war Japanese war crimes trials were held in 1946– 48.23 The tasks of Mob Sec[tion]s and Det[achment]s were primarily the screening of JAPANESE personnel prior to repatriation to Japan; secondarily, the carrying out of preliminary C-I [Counter-Intelligence] interrogations which would, when necessary, be completed in HQ SEATIC; and thirdly, the assisting of War Crimes Teams in their investigations by the provision of interpreters.24

McEwan was engaged in these tasks in the field, but would occasionally return to headquarters in Singapore.25 Amongst those he interrogated was Colonel Hayashi Hidezumi, who was both in the Kempeitai and chief of staff to the commander to the Japanese armies in Indo-China until the surrender.26 He is also said to have been ‘one of few people from the West ever to have conversed in fluent Japanese with Count Terauchi’.27 According to those who worked with him in Singapore, McEwan was ‘intelligent, mature, tolerant and a good artist’, and he took the unfashionable view that not all Japanese soldiers were war criminals.28 Louis Allen (1922–1991) considered that he had ‘an extreme case of vicarious bad conscience. He had done nothing to harm the peoples 377

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of the East personally, quite the opposite. But he was one of a people, of a nation, which in his view had wreaked havoc upon the East, and somehow he felt he had to make amends.’29 It was only in November 1946 that the pressure of work in SEATIC began to ease off and the path to demobilization was opened.30 According to one of his contemporaries at SEATIC, while McEwan was at SEATIC headquarters in Johore Bahru he ‘studied for the BA degree in Japanese, of London University, … on the basis of whatever books he could scratch up from SEATIC or the Japanese headquarters’.31 After completing his wartime service as an acting Flight Lieutenant in October 1946, McEwan returned to SOAS in autumn 1947 and in 1948, after less than a year as a full-time undergraduate, he graduated with a first class honours degree in Japanese.32 He was immediately appointed to a position at the University of Cambridge at the early age of twenty-four. POST-WAR CAREER: SCHOLARSHIP AND TRANSLATION

McEwan joined the Faculty of Oriental Languages, as it was then called, as a Faculty Assistant Lecturer, the lowest rung on the academic ladder. This was in the autumn of 1948, when Japanese studies at Cambridge was a subject still in its infancy. For an account of the development of Japanese studies at Cambridge see ‘Japanese Studies at Cambridge University’ by Richard Bowring in the separate volume covering Japanese studies at British Universities.33 At the same time as taking up his appointment McEwan was admitted as a Research Student at King’s College. His doctoral work was supervised by Frank Daniels34 at SOAS, his wartime teacher, and in 1951, still aged only twenty-six, was awarded one of the first three PhD degrees in Japanese studies awarded by Cambridge, for his work on Ogyu¯ Sorai.35 The other two were Joyce Ackroyd, who worked on Arai Hakuseki and was later to become professor of Japanese at the University of Queensland, and Geoffrey Sargent, who worked on Ihara Saikaku’s collection of stories Nippon eitaigura and who later taught at the University of Sydney. At this stage McEwan had still not set foot in Japan, and all the work for his doctorate was done in Cambridge. In 1953 McEwan became University Lecturer in Japanese History, a post he held until 1959. In the academic year 1952–53 he went to Japan for the first time, on a year’s sabbatical leave. His objectives were ‘to gain access to and study unpublished texts of the Taiheisaku of Ogyu¯ Sorai and to collect material for an historical study of the Japanese village community in the Tokugawa period. … The scheme of research proposed would cover the administrative and social organization of the village, forms of agricultural cultivation and developments in technology, the effects of the development of money 378

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economy and the effects of famine and natural disasters.’36 During the first half of 1953 he was in Japan and there he carried out research on agricultural history and practice; He took a number of photographs of agricultural landscapes and farming practices in Japan and added annotations identifying the dates and places. He also seems to have known Sugimoto Hisatsugu (1931-), who was at the time a graduate student at Osaka City University but later became well known as a geographer and cultural anthropologist. Sugimoto gave McEwan an album entitled (in Japanese) ‘Photographs of farming and fishing villages in Japan in 1950–53’: this contains short essays beneath each photograph explaining the significance of the scenes.37 During the years when McEwan was teaching at Cambridge there were very few students of Japanese, no more than one or two a year. One of those few was William Skillend, later to become professor of Korean at SOAS, who wrote that, ‘John McEwan was, in those days, totally devoted to his subject, and I recall as the chief characteristic of his teaching his kindliness.’38 He struck Carmen Blacker as a very learned man: John McEwan, or Mac as his friends called him, was in 1955 a remarkable scholar of Tokugawa history. He was deeply read in the Neo-Confucian schools of Shushigaku [the Song-dynasty Confucian scholar, Zhu Xi] and Yomeigaku [Wang Yang-ming, the Mingdynasty Neo-Confucian thinker], and proved one of the few people in the country with whom I could discuss the philosophy and cosmology of Chu Hsi [Zhu Xi] needed for my thesis on Fukuzawa Yukichi. He was equally conversant with the Kokugakusha [Nativist scholars] of the 18th and 19th centuries, and when sufficiently stimulated by wine and congenial company could talk in the language and manner of Motoori Norinaga.39

At the time the Faculty was housed in a large Victorian house in Brooklands Avenue, and McEwan lived in the flat at the top of the house. As Carmen Blacker recalls, his career at Cambridge came to an end in 1959 in sad circumstances: For two or three years after I arrived Mac continued to talk brilliantly of Shushigaku, and of the wisdom of Ogyu¯ Sorai’s policies of taking samurai off the land and herding them into castle towns. His article on Motoori’s views on language was a tour de force when it was first published and has remained essential reading for anyone interested in ‘linguistic superiority’. It was very sad, therefore, when his behaviour began to show signs of unaccountability beyond the merely eccentric. … Eventually Dr Taylor, the Secretary General, persuaded him to resign. He left Cambridge, and we afterwards heard that he had died in Hong Kong. It was a tragic end for so brilliant and unusual a scholar.40

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There is a note dated 1977 attached to McEwan’s papers in Cambridge University Library written by Eric Ceadel, who was then the University Librarian at Cambridge but had earlier been a colleague of McEwan’s as a teacher of Japanese: ‘He resigned … after the slow onset of a severe depressive mental illness. He later went to Japan and then to Hong Kong, where he eventually committed suicide.’41 Ceadel was mistaken about suicide: McEwan’s father had died of heart disease at the age of fifty-seven and McEwan’s death certificate states that he also died of heart disease (haemopericardium from spontaneous rupture of the myocardium).42 The story of his sad decline and illness is told in the correspondence between his mother and the Secretary General of the Faculties at Cambridge: his health had not been good for some time and he had had a spell in a nursing home in Dundee, but in 1957 he was admitted under a magistrate’s order to Fulbourne Hospital in Cambridge, which specialized in mental health. In March 1958 he discharged himself and his mother came down to Cambridge, rented a house and kept house for him; one year later he resigned his lectureship and he returned to Dundee and was under medical care there.43 Unfortunately, few details of his later life from the time of his departure from Cambridge up to his premature death on 15 November 1969 are known. His obituary in a Dundee newspaper stated that, ‘For the last five years he had been engaged in research work in Tokio [sic] and more recently in Hong Kong’ and that ‘he was engaged in research into Chinese history’.44 Another obituary, written by a ‘lifelong friend and colleague’, whose identity is not stated, states that he left for Japan in 1959, and worked for some years as English editor for the publications of the Institute for Asian Economic Affairs (Ajia Keizai Kenkyu¯sho).45 This institute had been founded in 1958 and the first director was To¯bata Seichi (1899–1983), an eminent agricultural economist and policy-maker; it was he who, at the suggestion of Ronald Dore, who gave McEwan the job of translator at the institute.46 At some point, according to the same obituary, he left the Institute and moved to Hong Kong where he began to write a history of Chinese philosophy. He certainly translated several monographs published by the Institute for Asian Economic Affairs but he does not seem to have been a member of staff. McEwan only published two articles during his years in Cambridge but they give glimpses of the learning and scholarship that impressed Carmen Blacker. It should be remembered, also, that he was still only thirty-five when he left Cambridge. His first publication was an article on Motoori Norinaga’s views of phonetics and linguistics as found in two of his works, which was published when he was twenty-five.47 In spite of his youth, this is a sophisticated piece 380

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of work. At the outset he makes refreshingly explicit the importance of historicizing and contextualizing Motoori’s philological writings. It would ... be unreasonable to expect that Motoori should have attained the degree of scientific detachment associated with modern philology. He was inevitably influenced by the intellectual climate of his time, and it is natural that his beliefs and prejudices, as well as certain inadequacies in his materials and methods, should have imposed some limitations on his scientific study of language.

He attributed Motoori’s chief failings to ‘extreme conservatism’ and the ‘inadequacy of his terminology’ but he rated highly Motoori’s understanding of the problems of Chinese historical phonology and concluded that, ‘Motoori saw with remarkable clarity the lines along which research into Chinese phonology must proceed and which have been successfully followed only within recent times’.48 At some time in the 1950s he became interested in the agricultural history of Japan and wrote an article on practices on the island of Tsushima in the eighteenth century.49 His focus was the phenomenon of shifting cultivation, that is to say the practice of slash and burn agriculture in which the cultivator moves from one plot to another, leaving abandoned plots to revert to nature. In the eighteenth century an attempt was made by the Tsushima domain to persuade cultivators to abandon shifting cultivation and adopt the intensive cultivation that was common in the rest of Japan. This was only partially successful in spite of the fact that the domain actually tried to ban shifting cultivation: old habits were not so easy to change. At the forefront of this policy was Suyama Totsuan (also known as Don’o¯; 1657–1732), who was born in Tsushima, studied under Kinoshita Jun’an in Kyoto and in 1677 entered the service of the daimyo of Tsushima, and McEwan bases his study on eleven surviving texts written by Suyama, whose writings have attracted less attention than they deserve. In spite of the eccentricity noted by Carmen Blacker and his apparent breakdown, his departure from Cambridge did not signal the end of his career as a scholar.50 In 1962 his PhD dissertation was finally published as The political writings of Ogyu¯ Sorai.51 This is indubitably his monument as a scholar for it has continued to be cited decades after it was first published and to this day it remains the only study of the full range of Sorai’s thought, including his proposals to the Bakufu, his economic policy and his writings on law and education. He first presents a sketch of Sorai’s life and then discusses at some length his philosophical and intellectual leanings, again comparing him to Xunzi. The remainder of the book consists of judiciously selected passages from Seidan, 381

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Taiheisaku and other of Sorai’s writings carefully annotated and interspersed with commentary explaining the context and significance. Apart from its lasting value as an introduction to the thought of Sorai, this book is also striking for its use of a novel and rarely imitated format, mixing translation with comment and analysis. McEwan left many traces of his scholarship, both in the form of printed works and manuscripts, but of his opinions and his dealings with Japanese very little can now be known. The only detailed obituary, based on information provided by a ‘life-long friend and colleague’, has many personal insights to offer: … Already [at SOAS] he showed a quiet, sardonic, anti-authoritarian wit which was enhanced by his diffident manner and his Dundonian accent. Showing exceptional linguistic talent and capacity to remember Japanese characters, he was mentioned in despatches from Burma for deciphering a crucial but seemingly undecipherable message in execrable handwriting. He himself wrote a pretty fair Japanese hand, no mean accomplishment for anyone not drilled in the brushwork from the age of five. Perhaps his best years were after the war, when he was free-wheeling to a degree in Modern Japanese at the School of Asian Studies in London University while getting more and more immersed in Chinese philosophy on the side. He could read both modern and classical Japanese and Chinese with a combined speed and comprehension probably surpassed by few in England except Arthur Waley. … McEwan found [Ogyu Sorai’s] cynical, scathing comments highly congenial; but he also claimed for him a ‘reverent agnosticism’ which was fundamentally characteristic of himself. The Political Writings of Ogyu Sorai, by using vogue-words of the present, subtly points up the relevance of some of the eighteenth-century Confucian debates, while having all the appearance of an admirable, restrained exercise of scientific objectivity. Alas, John McEwan soon began to display symptoms of the schizophrenia which made it impossible for him to continue in the Cambridge Lectureship to which he had been appointed in 1953. In 1959 he set out for Japan, and for some years acted as English editor for the publications of the Institute for Asian Economic Research. He became a great expert on agrarian administration in eighteenth-century Japan. Then moving on to Hong Kong he began to write a history of early Chinese philosophy. But his illness was by now affecting his powers of reasoning and he was withdrawing into himself, to the great regret of those who had known what the life-long friend and colleague to whom we are indebted for the information in this accounts remembers as ‘the shy, short, freckled and sandy-haired youth with the sardonic humour and the puckish grin and the quick compassionate warmth’.52

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That ‘life-long friend and colleague’ must clearly have been someone who was with him at Dulwich and who remained in some sense a colleague. It seems likely that it was Patrick O’Neill,53 former Dulwich boy and later professor of Japanese at SOAS.54 NOTE ON SOURCES

McEwan was unmarried. Neither his sister, Ann Barclay, nor nephew, David Barclay, know of any papers or letters of his that have survived. ENDNOTES *

1

2

3

For guidance and assistance with the material on which this article is based I am indebted to Martin Allan of Dundee City Archives; Jacqueline Cox of Cambridge University Archives; Calista Lucy, Keeper of the Archive at Dulwich College; Peter Monteith, Assistant Archivist, King’s College, Cambridge; Adele Picken, Archivist at SOAS; Deirdre Sweeney of Dundee Central Library. McEwan’s SOAS Entry Form 1941–42, SOAS Archive SOAS/126. His father’s profession is named in his obituary in The Courier (Dundee), 29 October 1957. Unfortunately, he left no diaries, letters or accounts of his life during the war or afterwards. Official records, the reminiscences of former colleagues and some of his writings give us glimpses of his life, but most of the details are wanting. I have drawn on the writings of his war-time colleagues to get closer to the formative experiences he went through but the particulars of his life remain mostly hidden. In mid-February 1942 a printed ‘Memorandum to Headmasters’ was sent out to all schools soliciting applications for scholarships to study oriental languages for the war effort. The applicants, it was emphasized, ‘must have obtained a credit in one or more foreign languages (ancient or modern) in the School Certificate examination’; they would ‘be required to give an undertaking to be at the disposal of the Government for a period of not more than five years after the termination of their scholarship’. There would be 20 scholarships for Turkish, 5 for Persian, 15 for Japanese and 10 for Chinese. (National Archives [hereafter NA] ED 54/123: ‘Memorandum to headmasters: Scholarships in Oriental Languages’, 14 February 1942) There was no advertisement in the press, but word of the scheme seems to have been leaked and a few local newspapers reported on it (see the cuttings from the Birmingham Post, the Schoolmaster and the South London Advertiser preserved in the SOAS archives: SOAS 23/2). In the event there were 660 applications and 16 scholarships were offered in Chinese, 8 in Persian, 20 in Turkish and 30 in Japanese; 99 applications came from Scotland, of which ten were successful. (NA: ED 54/123, ‘[Report on] Scholarships in Oriental languages’, 31 March 1942; ‘[Report on] Scholarships in Oriental languages [Scotland]’, 23 April 1942. Report of the Governing Body, Statement of Accounts and Departmental Reports for the year ending 31st July 1942 (SOAS, 383

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4

5

6

7

1942), p. 15) For Scottish applicants like McEwan, interviews were held in Edinburgh in late January and there was a rigorous examination, including written and oral language-aptitude tests: these are described in the memoirs of one of his contemporaries: Guy de Moubray, City of human memories (Stanhope: Memoir Club, 2005), pp. 45–47. Although it appears that the boys were allowed to express a choice of language, those choices were often disregarded: only two or three of them had expressed a preference for Japanese but the course started with thirty (NA: ED 54/123, ‘State Scholarship Courses, Japanese, Report, March 31st, 1943’). According to Kenneth Inglis, who was also from Scotland and who, after finishing the Japanese course, joined the RAF, there were aptitude tests at the interviews and applicants were assigned their languages (personal communication, 23 November 2014). McEwan was one of the ten Scottish students whose applications were successful and he was assigned to the study of Japanese, but it is not known if this was his choice. McEwan was thus one of the so-called ‘Dulwich boys’, for they were all given lodging at Dulwich College for the duration of their courses. Unlike those on the later courses, after the reduction of the conscription age to eighteen, they were all still civilians while studying. Amongst McEwan’s fellow students of Japanese were several who became prominent in later life: Patrick O’Neill (1924–2012), who was professor of Japanese at SOAS from 1968 to 1986; Ronald Dore (1925-), eminent sociologist of Japan and Fellow of the British Academy; Sir Peter Parker (1924–2002), who was later chairman of British Rail; and Guy de Moubray (1925- ), whose parents were POWs in Singapore and who became Chief Economist at the Bank of England. Alexander ‘Sandy’ Wilson (1924–2014), a lyricist and composer who had great success with the musical ‘The Boy friend’ (1953), was also on the course, but he found Japanese too difficult and withdrew from the course. One of those on the Chinese course was Edward Youde (1924–1986), who was knighted as British Ambassador to China and died in office as Governor of Hong Kong. ¯ ba, For details of the teaching, probably derived from interviews, see O The ‘Japanese’ war: London University’s WWII secret teaching programme and the experts sent to help beat Japan, trans. Anne Kaneko (Folkestone: The Japan Library, 1995), chapter 2. NA: ED 54/123, ‘State Scholarship Courses, Japanese, Report, March 31st, 1943’. NA: ED 54/123, ‘Dulwich Students: finally agreed division of Chinese and Japanese students between the three services 4.3.43’. According to Guy de Moubray, City of human memories, p. 56, the students were given no choice out of the three Services. This result was largely due to the fact that for a considerable part of their course they dispensed entirely with English in talking to their Japanese instructors. A number of students acquired a remarkable competence in writing essays and letters in Japanese script. … Both the School and the students owe an incalculable debt to Mrs Daniels for her devoted and brilliant work in the teaching and training of these young students.’ 384

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8

9 10

11

12 13 14 15

16

17

18 19

20

21

22

Report of the Governing Body, Statement of Accounts and Departmental Reports for the year ending 31st July 1944 (SOAS, 1944), p. 41. ¯ ba in The ‘Japanese’ war, p. 154. The source given is DanCited by O iels’ The War-time courses. McEwan’s name does not appear here or in the accompanying RAF report, but the identification seems certain as only two of the students joined the RAF and McEwan, as well as being reserved, was on the refresher course mentioned earlier in the report. ¯ ba, The ‘Japanese’ war, pp. 46–47, 49. O SOAS Entry Form 1943–44, SOAS Archive SOAS/128/1 (the course was from 26 April to 23 May). The information in this section comes from Lt./Col. A. C. L. Dredge ‘History of SEATIC (South-East Asia Translation and Interrogation Centre’, a typescript in the National Archives, WO 203/6286. Dredge was the Officer Commanding SEATIC from 9 November 1945 (according to p. 7). The capitalization is as in the original. Since for most of its existence SEATIC was under US command, many of the SEATIC files are kept in the National Archives in Maryland: Correspondence Files 1943–46 – US Army forces in the China-Burma-India theaters of opeartions (identifier 6483847; http://research.archives.gov/description/6483847); these I have not seen. Dredge, ‘History of SEATIC’, pp. 1–2 Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., p. 8. Ibid., p. 4. McEwan was an RAF sergeant when on 21 November 1944 he was commissioned as a Pilot Officer: Supplement to the London Gazette, 26 December 1944, p. 5913. See also his Record of Service, currently held by the Royal Air Force at RAF Cranwell. Copies of many of the SEATIC Bulletins, which were for limited distribution, are preserved at the National Archives but they do not give the names of the interpreters and translators involved. Each one carries a distribution list. For an account of the everyday life of those in SEATIC, see Hugh Melinsky, A code-breaker’s tale (Dereham, Norfolk: Larks Press, 1998), pp. 79–92. ¯ ba in The ‘Japanese’ war, p. 154. The source given is Daniels’ Cited by O The War-time courses. Obituary in the Annual Report (King’s College, Cambridge; 1970), p. 45. The effect of the surrender was to increase tasks in all departments. SEATIC was suddenly faced with enormous commitments in that Detachments of linguists including both interrogators and translators had to be made available at very short notice to proceed to all key-points in South–East ASIA Command. Willie Minto, ‘John McEwan, “Mac”, R.A.F.’, handwritten memorandum. Louis Allen, The end of the war in Asia (London: Hart-Davis MacGibbon), pp. 119–129; Bisheshwar Prasad, ed., Official history of the Indian armed forces in the Second World War: post-war occupation forces: Japan and South-east Asia (India and Pakistan: Combined Inter-services Historical Section, 1958), pp. 194–215. Dredge, ‘History of SEATIC’, p. 7. 385

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23

24 25 26

27

28 29 30

31 32

33

Louis Allen, p. xxxii. The records of the Johore Bahru trials are in the archives of the Judge Advocate General in the National Archives: see WO 235/906, 1002 and 1068. Dredge, ‘History of SEATIC’, p. 7. Recollections of Professor Ian Nish: personal communication. Louis Allen, ‘Innocents abroad: investigating war crimes in South-East Asia’, in Ian Nish and Mark Allen, eds, War, conflict and security in Japan and Asia Pacific, 1941–52: the writings of Louis Allen (Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental, 2010), p. xxxii. Willie Minto, ‘John McEwan, “Mac”, R.A.F.’, handwritten memorandum. Field Marshal Count Terauchi Hisaichi (1879–1946) was Commander of the Imperial Japanese Army Southern Expeditionary Army Group from 1941 to 1945. He was based in Saigon when he heard of the Japanese loss of Burma in May 1945 and suffered a stroke; after the surrender of his armies, he personally surrendered to Mountbatten in Saigon on 30 November 1945. Terauchi was transferred with a skeleton staff to Singapore on 13 February 1946 and died of another stroke in Malaya on 12 June 1946 while detained at Renggam POW camp in Johore. Minto, ‘John McEwan’. Louis Allen, ‘Innocents abroad’, p. xxxiii. Dredge, ‘History of SEATIC’, p. 7. Priority for demobilization was based on length of service although special consideration was given to university students. Louis Allen, p. xxxiii. McEwan’s SOAS Entry Form 1947/1948: SOAS Archive SOAS/132/2; Report of the Governing Body, Statement of Accounts and Departmental Reports for the year ending 31st July 1948 (SOAS, 1948), p. 31. In December 1944 the Interdepartmental Commission of Enquiry on Oriental, Slavonic, East European and African Studies had been established under the chairmanship of the Earl of Scarbrough and a questionnaire was sent to universities with an interest in these subjects. The Faculty of Oriental Languages responded to the questionnaire expressing an interest in a lectureship in Japanese but pointing out that the Faculty concerned itself ‘almost entirely with Classical Oriental languages’ (Cambridge University Library, University Archives [hereafter CUA]: ‘Scarborough Report on Oriental, Slavonic, East European and African Studies, 1945–52’, GB 770 Box 1002: response of Faculty Board of Oriental Languages to the Scarbrugh questionnaire of 3 February 1945). In April 1945 there was a meeting of the Oriental Boards of Oxford and Cambridge at which it was agreed in the discussion on East Asian studies that ‘the essential task in this field is to build up a sinological tradition from the foundation’ but the Cambridge representatives again indicated their hope that a lectureship in Japanese would be established (CUA: [Teaching of] Oriental Studies, 1936–65, GB 770 Box 1000: Minutes of a meeting of the Oriental Boards of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, 12 April 1945). The Interdepartmental Commission’s report, known as the Scarbrough Report, was published in 1947 and recommended the expansion of Oriental, Slavonic, East 386

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34

35

36

37

38

European and African Studies in British universities (Cambridge University Reporter, 24 February 1948, pp. 778–783; Report of the the Interdepartmental Commission of Enquiry on Oriental, Slavonic, East European and African Studies, London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1947). The Commission noted that there had been ‘no systematic development’ in any of these areas of study in Britain and that the submission from Cambridge mentioned that the University wished ‘to be provided with a lecturer in Far Eastern History and a lecturer in Japanese’ (Report of the Interdepartmental Commission, pp. 21, 103). The recommendations were largely accepted by the Treasury and earmarked grants for five years were made to enable the creation of posts in a variety of fields: see Report of the Sub-Committee on Oriental, Slavonic, East European and African Studies (‘the Hayter Report’; London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1961), p. 11. Well before the report was published, in May 1946 the University of Cambridge announced that a new lectureship in Japanese was to be created (Cambridge University Reporter, 7 May 1946, p. 781). In 1947 Eric Ceadel was appointed as the first University Lecturer in Japanese at Cambridge in what was then called the Faculty of Oriental Languages. At the time the only other member of staff working on East Asia was the Czech scholar Gustav Haloun (1898–1951), who was professor of Chinese. Ceadel developed a syllabus for Japanese but he was not to remain alone for long, for in 1948 John McEwan was appointed an Assistant Lecturer in 1948, one of the new posts created as a result of the Scarbrough Report. Ceadel noted that he had taken a BA in classical Japanese at SOAS and was ‘very good’ (Churchill College Archives, Cambridge: Tuck Papers 2/9, Ceadel to Tuck, 22 June 1948). And in 1949 Donald Keene was appointed to an assistant lecturership. These three were the sole teaching staff until the appointment of the first Japanese language lector in 1950 and the appointment of Carmen Blacker to an assistant lecturership in 1955, the year after Donald Keene left for Columbia. Donald Keene, of course, went on to be professor of Japanese at Columbia University. On the early years at Cambridge, see Richard Bowring, compiled and edited, Fifty years of Japanese at Cambridge, 1948– 98: A chronicle with reminiscences (Cambridge: Faculty of Oriental Studies, 1998; downloadable from http://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/postgraduate/ japanese/fifty-years.pdf/view). A biographical portrait of Frank and Otome Daniels by Ronald Dore is contained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume I, ed. Ian Nish, Japan Library, 1994. ‘Ogyuu Sorai’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge (1951); Daniels is thanked as his supervisor in the acknowledgements. CUA: personal file of J.R. McEwan, GB 725 Box 857 Pers 8/2 McEwan: Ceadel to Saunders, 7 March 1952. Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, John McEwan: Collections for a History of Japanese Agriculture, MS Add.8168 (hereafter cited as McEwan Papers). William E. Skillend, ‘The early days, 1947–55’, in Bowring, Fifty years of Japanese at Cambridge, p. 19. 387

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40 41 42

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48 49

50

Carmen Blacker, ‘The next thirty years’, in Bowring, Fifty years of Japanese at Cambridge, pp. 43–44. Blacker, ibid., p. 47. McEwan Papers: note written by Eric Ceadel dated 15 August 1977. Copy of an entry in the register of deaths, Births and Deaths Registry, Hong Kong. CUA: personal file of J.R. McEwan, GB 725 Box 857 Pers 8/2 McEwan: apart from the correspondence between Mrs Evelyn McEwan and the Secretary General, this file also includes memoranda from doctors and lawyers. Courier and advertiser (Dundee), 1 December 1969. His grave, which gives the date of his death, is in Hong Kong Cemetery and an image can be seen here: https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/hong_kong_cemetery/all_ items/images/201309/t20130916_68547.html. Obituary in the Annual Report (King’s College, Cambridge; 1970), p. 45. Ronald Dore, personal communication. ‘Motoori’s view of phonetics and linguistics in his Mojigoe no kanazukai and Kanji san on ko’, Asia Major 1 (1949): 109–118. Ibid., pp. 109, 110, 118. ‘Shifting cultivation in Tsushima in the eighteenth century’, Asia Major 5 (1956): 208–229. In 1961 he wrote his first study of Ogyu¯ Sorai, on whom he had written his PhD dissertation: ‘Some aspects of the Confucianism of Ogyu¯ Sorai’, Asia Major 8 (1961): 199–214. This was the first attempt in the West to come to grips with one of the most important thinkers of the Edo period, and it was not until the 1970s that scholars such as Richard Minear, Robert Bellah and especially Olof Lidin began to publish extensively on Sorai. McEwan starts out by noting Sorai’s interest in language, exploring his association with Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and his circle and their enthusiasm for spoken Chinese. He then turned to Sorai’s philological studies and drew attention to the fact that some of them reached China and were published there. Finally, he compared Sorai’s philosophical leanings with those of Xunzi, the Chinese Confucianist of the third century bce. In 1962 his PhD dissertation was finally published by Cambridge University Press as The political writings of Ogyu¯ Sorai. This is indubitably his monument as a scholar for it has continued to be cited decades after it was first published and to this day it remains the only study of the full range of Sorai’s thought, including his proposals to the Bakufu, his economic policy and his writings on law and education. He first presents a sketch of Sorai’s life and then discusses at some length his philosophical and intellectual leanings, again comparing him to Xunzi. The remainder of the book consists of judiciously selected passages from Seidan, Taiheisaku and other of Sorai’s writings carefully annotated and interspersed with commentary explaining the context and significance. Apart from its lasting value as an introduction to the thought of Sorai, this book is also striking for its use of a novel and rarely imitated format, mixing translation with comment and analysis. 388

JOHN MCEWAN (1924–1969)

In 1965 he contributed ‘The Confucian ideology and the modernization of Japan – as illustrated in the Meiji edition of the Denshun Nencju¯ [sic] Gyo¯ji’ to a special issue of the journal The Developing economies which was devoted to the modernization of Japan and included articles by fellow ‘Dulwich boy’ Ronald Dore and a number of Japanese scholars (The Developing economies, 3 (1965): 560–572. This and other papers in that issue were subsequently reprinted in a book published in Tokyo: John R. McEwan, ‘The Confucian ideology and the modernization of Japan – as illustrated in the Meiji edition of Denshun nenju¯ gyo¯ji’, in Seiichi To¯bata, ed., The Modernization of Japan, ed. Seiichi (Tokyo: Institute of Asian Economic Affairs, 1966), pp. 229–241). These were, of course, the days when the vogue for ‘modernization studies’ in connection with Japan was just beginning, but McEwan steered clear of modernization theory and did not even use the word in his article. Denshun nenju¯ gyo¯ji is a work written in 1839 by the political economist Sato¯ Nobuhiro (1769–1850), and McEwan explores its intellectual roots before turning to the Meiji edition of 1877. His focus is the commentary and appendix added to the work in the Meiji period, which relate the original author’s recommendations to the changed circumstances of Meiji Japan and include some information about the practices of the Department of Agriculture in the USA. In his conclusion, he provides a survey of agricultural education and policy in the Meiji period up to the 1890s, paying particular attention to the role of itinerant agricultural instructors, who fulfilled a role similar to that suggested by Sato¯ Nobuhiro in 1839. He argues that Meiji agricultural policy was not in conflict with Confucian thought and although he does not make this point explicitly it seems that his emphasis is on the continuing validity and utility of agricultural thought of the Tokugawa period and that he shies away from the supposed certainties of modernization theory. His final publications in the years 1966–67 were mostly translations of works by Japanese scholars. One of these was a book on the contemporary financial system of China and another was a book on Indian village structure. Only the third, which was an article on philosophy and the modernization of Japan, concerned Japan. They were: The currency and financial system of mainland China, a translation of Tadao Miyashita’s monograph, Chu¯goku no tsu¯ka kin’yu¯ seido, which had been published in 1965) (Seattle: University of Washington Press and Tokyo: Institute of Asian Economic Affairs, 1966); The socio-economic structure of the Indian village: surveys of villages in Gujarat and West Bengal, a translation of Indo ¯ uchi Tsutomu and sonraku no shakai keizai ko¯zo¯ by Tadashi Fukutake, O Nakane Chie, which was published in 1964 (Tokyo: Institute of Asian Economic Affairs, 1964); and Shimomura Toratarô, ‘The modernization of Japan, with special reference to philosophy’, Philosophical studies of Japan 8 (1967): 1–28. Two of his articles mentioned above suggest an interest in agriculture and it is clear from a collection of manuscripts he left at his death (John McEwan: Collections for a History of Japanese Agriculture: Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, MS Add.8168) that this was much more than a passing interest and that 389

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he was planning a volume on the history of agriculture in Japan. These papers, which were donated by his family to Cambridge University Library in 1977, bear witness to the extensive reading and research he carried out, probably mostly in the 1950s, on the history of agriculture, with particular attention to farming manuals published in the Tokugawa period. His working title for the book was ‘Feudal agriculture in Japan, translated from four agricultural books of the Tokugawa period’ and thus it followed the pattern of his book on Sorai, combining annotated translations with a scholarly survey. What he left at his death was more than two hundred pages of typescript consisting of an extensive introduction to the history of Japanese agricultural manuals and annotated translated excerpts from three manuals, Aizu no¯sho of 1684, Minkan seiyo¯ of 1721 and No¯jutsu kansho¯ki of 1724; the fourth work, which he referred to as Talks in the intervals of agriculture (No¯geki yodan of 1783) is missing from his papers, and perhaps was the last task to be undertaken before submitting the typescript to a publisher. This typescript, which testifies to his high level of scholarship, would have been a valuable contribution to Japanese studies if it had been published and it is to be regretted that his contributions in this area did not reach the readership they deserved. The political writings of Ogyu¯ Sorai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962). Obituary in the Annual Report (King’s College, Cambridge; 1970), p. 45. A biographical portrait of Pat O’Neill by Phillida Purvis is contained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2013. Diana O’Neill has confirmed this identification in a telephone conversation.

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sBUSINESS, TRADE AND INVESTMENT s 35

Charles Sale (1868–1943) and George Sale (1896–1976): Business and Politics in Anglo-Japanese Relations ANTONY BEST

INTRODUCTION

It is in the nature of history that some figures who were prominent in their own times leave relatively little trace of their existence and, accordingly, largely disappear from the historical record. In the case of Anglo-Japanese relations in the first half of the twentieth century one such individual was the businessman Charles Sale. When he died in June 1943 at the age of seventy-five, Sale was a major figure in the City Of London. He was the chairman of the Amalgamated Metal Corporation, which he had helped to found, and, in addition, held positions in the Anglo-Caucasian Oil Company, Messrs Bessler, Waechter & Company and the Sun Insurance Company. He had also served during part of his career as the deputy governor and then the governor of the Hudson Bay Company. The centrepiece of his business interests was, though, the trading firm that his father George had established in Yokohama and London in 1880 and 1882, respectively, Messrs Sale & Company, which then, due to Charles’ talent as a businessman, metamorphosed in the early twentieth century into a merchant bank.1 Given that Sale was a very wealthy and well-connected man who maintained strong links with Japan throughout his life, it is no surprise to learn that he was an important figure in Anglo-Japanese relations. However, as he left behind no private papers or much correspondence with other individuals, he has slipped from view with only occasional references to his existence appearing in the literature. The same plight has also affected his son, George Sale, who from the 1920s appears 391

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to have taken over the daily running of Sale & Company. But he too played his role in Anglo-Japanese relations, especially in the dark days before war broke out in 1941. CHARLES SALE IN JAPAN

The details of Charles Sale’s early years in Japan are lost in the mists of time, but according to Britain’s minister (later ambassador) to Tokyo in 1904, Sir Claude Macdonald, he first worked as a missionary before becoming a servant of Mammon.2 Once he found his calling, Sale’s skill at business quickly led to his firm becoming an important player in Yokohama and Kobe. In 1903 his ambition led him to make two important steps. The first was to merge the business in Japan with an American trading firm, Frazar & Company, to form Sale and Frazar Ltd. The second was to espouse the idea of creating an Anglo-Japanese Corporation that would, as he put it, ‘establish those economical relations between Great Britain and Japan which are at present entirely lacking’.3 In order to further this idea, he consulted with senior figures in Japan, including the prime minister, Katsura Taro¯, and began to seek a financial backer in London in the shape of Baring Brothers, who had recently expressed an interest in investing in the Japanese railway business.4 This scheme did not come to fruition, but when Sale met the chairman of Barings, Lord Revelstoke, in London, the latter was impressed with his intelligence and energy and asked him to provide advice on railway investment.5 Over the next two years Sale duly forwarded a good deal of information about Japan’s finances to Barings and put them in contact with a number of Japanese companies that wished to raise foreign capital.6 In the end his endeavours were in vain for the Japanese government decided in 1906 to nationalize the railway companies and then to funnel all foreign investment in their expansion through the newly-established Industrial Bank.7 This was not to Barings’ liking and it withdrew its interest, but the work that Sale had done seems to have put him in good stead and broadened his contacts with the City as a whole. It is notable, for example, that in 1905 Sale and Frazar was for the first time directly involved in an attempt, eventually abortive, with the City merchant bank Antony Gibbs to raise funds for a Tokyo harbour loan. From this point on, Sale and Frazar became increasingly involved in financial transactions. In 1909 and 1912 it worked with Lazard Brothers to raise loans for the municipalities of Nagoya and Yokohama respectively, and in 1910 collaborated with the Industrial Bank to generate ¥5 million for the Hokkaido Colonial Bank.8 Perhaps in order to facilitate this new, lucrative interest, Sale left Japan in 1908 and based himself in London from this point on.9 392

CHARLES SALE (1868–1943)

There is, though, perhaps an alternative explanation for this change of scene, for in 1906 Sale and Frazar were linked to an unsavoury episode involving the scuttling of one of its ships, the SS Agenor, which led to two of its employees bring imprisoned, and it may be Sale felt that this embarrassment warranted his departure.10 CHARLES SALE IN LONDON

Relocated to the City, Sale’s fortunes thrived. In 1915 he was elected to the deputy governorship of the Hudson Bay Company and in 1918 was one of the founding directors of the British Metal Corporation. This expansion of his interests into British Empire markets did not mean, though, that he broke his links with Japan. Sale and Frazar continued to prosper. Indeed, due to Frazar’s American roots, the company from 1910 until 1924 became the agent for the Ford Motor Company in Japan, which proved extremely lucrative.11 Even when the link with Frazar was broken in 1928, Sale & Co does not appear to have suffered.12 In 1929 Sir Archibald Rose, a board member of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, reported to his chairman during a visit to Japan that, while most of the old British agencies in Yokohama and Kobe had gone under, ‘Sale & Co are in the thick of the Japanese business world, mainly through financial and social relationships. They seem to find it a profitable game.’13 It is also, in this context, worth noting that when Charles’s son, George, began to take on a role in the family business, his welcome during a visit to Japan in 1925 included being given dinner by no less a figure than Baron Mitsui.14 Given the importance of Japan to his interests, it is not surprising that Sale played his part in fostering Anglo-Japanese relations. He first emerged as an important player during the Great War when he helped to provide much of the capital for the bilingual British propaganda magazine, New East, which was published in Japan between 1916 and 1918.15 Then in the interwar period he took on an important role in the running of the Japan Society of London, acting as its chairman between 1925 and 1936. During the 1920s this was, no doubt, a pleasant job as both the British and Japanese governments were keen to promote the idea that the ‘spirit’ of the alliance continued to exist, even if its obligations had lapsed, and the decade witnessed a number of royal visits. The 1930s were, though, to prove a trying time as the rapid deterioration in Anglo-Japanese relations from 1931 onwards made Sale’s job considerably more difficult. In particular, he was faced with the question of how far the Japan Society could go in promoting relations without becoming too overtly political. This issue first arose in the winter of 1933 after Britain had voted at the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva to approve the Lytton report, thus implicitly condemning Japan’s seizure of Manchuria. 393

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Disturbed by this turn of events, on 9 March a council meeting of the Japan Society discussed how it should respond. Some members argued that a memorial expressing regret should be sent to the Japanese ambassador, while others claimed that this would be an infringement of the society’s rules which prohibited its involvement in political matters.16 In the end, the meeting decided unanimously to approve to send the memorial, and the Society’s solicitor, T. Rothwell Haslam, assured Sale the following day that this action could be taken under the organization’s constitution.17 The problem, having taken this step, was that it opened the possibility for the more stridently political members of the Society, such as Brigadier F.S.G. Piggott and Lord Sempill, to argue that further action needed to be taken and that the organization had a responsibility to educate the public about East Asian international affairs. Accordingly, at a council meeting in October 1935 Piggott, Sempill and others pushed forward, in Sale’s absence, the idea that the Society should establish an Anglo-Japanese Association as a kind of political wing of the organization whose work would mirror the lobbying activities of the China Association.18 This proved to be a bridge too far, and at the next meeting in December Sale informed the council that he had conferred at length with Sir Edward Crowe, the vice-chairman, and they believed that any such move would contravene rule one of the Society’s constitution.19 Sale was therefore willing to do much for Anglo-Japanese relations, but he was not prepared to compromise the Society’s position and turn it into a lobbying organization. Far more to his liking, it would seem, was the idea that he developed with Viscount Kano of the Yokohama Specie Bank in 1937 of establishing a Japan Society dining club in the City of London, which it was hoped would assist in making the financial elite look favourably at relations with Tokyo.20 In addition, it is notable that in 1934–35 he was one of the businessmen who helped to finance an impartial and scholarly report commissioned by the Association of British Chambers of Commerce into the causes of Japanese trade competition.21 THE SALES AND THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR

If Charles Sale hoped that gentle propaganda could work to uphold Anglo-Japanese amity then he was to be sorely tested over the coming years, for the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in July 1937 soon lead to a steady deterioration in relations. Sale did his best to hold the line in these difficult circumstances. In October 1937 he wrote to The Times decrying the calls from liberals and socialists for a boycott of Japanese goods and argued that the majority of Japan’s population deplored war and that Britain 394

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should try to encourage the moderates to regain power.22 Sale was, though, getting old by this point, and, accordingly, he left much of the lobbying in support of Japan to his son George. The latter was well placed as he had some useful contacts of his own in the political world; among other things in 1929 he had been asked to act as one of the British delegates to the Institute of Pacific Relations conference in Kyoto. George Sale began to try to influence the nature of the British debate from late 1938 onwards following a visit that he had recently made to Japan. On his return he delivered a lecture to the Japan Society in which he stated that the cause of greatest resentment in Tokyo was that Britain had made no attempt to see the Sino-Japanese War from Japan’s perspective. He thus observed, ‘There is a great need for restraint and courtesy on the part of many would-be leaders in the Church, Parliament and on the Platform toward the peoples and policies, not only of Japan, but all other countries.’23 He duly sent a copy of this lecture to the prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, and to the Bank of England.24 He also wrote to The Times in January 1939 stating that what British trade needed in East Asia was stability and that the best guarantee of that was through cooperation with Japan.25 The problem for Sale, however, was that its efforts came too late. Earlier in the year there had been some sympathy in the City for Japan and this had been fed by the belief that after the Kuomintang’s inevitable defeat the Japanese would need to turn to the London market to fund Chinese reconstruction. This belief was, though, shattered in November 1938 by Konoe Fumimaro’s ‘New Order in East Asia’ statement, in which the Japanese prime minister announced the intention of turning the region into an autarchic trading bloc.26 Sale’s pleas for understanding thus fell on deaf ears for they were now out-of-step with Japanese rhetoric. It is, for example, notable that in February 1939 the China Association turned down his idea that the British trading companies in China should write a joint letter to the Japanese ambassador, as it felt that this would be a mere waste of time.27 Having failed in his attempt to influence public opinion, George Sale continued to work behind the scenes to bring about an AngloJapanese rapprochement. For example, in the spring of 1939 he tried to persuade two Conservative MPs, Captain Alan Graham and Charles Emmott, to visit Japan, even saying that Sale & Co were willing to cover their expenses. The Foreign Office, though, was not keen and told the MPs that the time was not right.28 More broadly, Sale’s efforts in this field brought him into the informal circle of individuals, such as Piggott, Sempill and Arthur Edwardes, who tried to keep the Japanese embassy in London in touch with the small proJapanese faction in the government, such as R.A. Butler, Lord Hankey and Lord Lloyd. Sale was, for example, present at the lunch in 395

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August 1940 that these ‘usual suspects’ set up with two Labour ministers, Ernest Bevin and A.V. Alexander.29 Moreover, in the autumn of that year, it was through Sale & Co that sources in Japan stressed the importance of getting Piggott back to Tokyo in order to save AngloJapanese relations.30 Lastly, it should be noted that in September 1941 Sale’s name appeared on the infamous list of the Japanese embassy’s British contacts that MI5 provided to Churchill following the revelation of Sempill’s conversations with the Japanese naval attaché.31 EPILOGUE

It is surely no surprise to learn that one of the British companies most reliant on Japan for its fortunes should have tried, through father and son, to stem the deterioration in Anglo-Japanese relations. Unfortunately for the Sales, there was little they could do to stop the haemorrhaging. Charles Sale therefore died in 1943 with the future of the original foundation of his fortune in jeopardy. In the post-war era George Sale, who became a Lieutenant-Colonel in the war, tried to maintain Sale & Co as a going concern, but in 1965, as a consequence of poor credit conditions in London and Tokyo, the company went into liquidation owing £3.8 million to its creditors, £1.3 million of which was owed to Mitsubishi Bank.32 Thus, almost ninety years of company history came to an end and the careers of Charles and George Sale began their journey into obscurity. In retrospect, though, it is clear that Sale & Co is a worthy object of study. It was the biggest and last surviving example of the agency companies that had grown from a solely Japanese base. During its lifetime, it acted as an important agent in Japan’s modernization and it emerged in the pre-Great War era as an important player in Anglo-Japanese economic relations and then became significant in the political realm as well. Lastly, its collapse in 1965 can be seen as the end of an era – the agency companies had finally had their day. ENDNOTES 1

2

3 4

5

6

For an overview of Charles Sale’s life, see the appreciation written by Sir Edward Crowe in The Times, 29 June 1943, p. 6. The Baring Archive (TBA), London, Partners Files, 200181, Macdonald (Tokyo) to Revelstoke 9 August 1904. TBA, Partners Files, 200181, Sale to Revelstoke 15 January 1904. For Baring’s activities see Toshio Suzuki, Japanese Government Loan Issues on the London Capital Market 1870–1913 (London: Athlone, 1994) pp. 148–149. TBA, Partners Files, 200181, Farrer to Sale 5 February 1904, and Revelstoke to Macdonald 8 July 1904. See, for example, TBA, House Correspondence, HC.6.1.30.1 Sale to Farrer 1 June 1904. 396

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7 8 9 10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22 23

24 25 26

27

28

29

Sukuzi, op.cit., pp. 148–149. Ibid., pp. 154–155. The Times, 29 June 1943, p. 6. The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 28 December 1906, p. 8, and Eastern Daily Mail and Straits Morning Advertiser, 7 March 1907, p. 5. One of the defendants referred to Sale during the case as a ‘damned scoundrel’. Mark Mason, American Multinationals and Japan: The Political Economy of Japanese Capital Controls, 1899–1990 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1992) pp. 65–67. Entry for Everett Frazar in David Shavits (ed), The United States in Asia: A Historical Dictionary (Westport: Greenwood, 1990) p. 174. Standard Chartered Bank papers, London Metropolitan Archive (LMA), City of London, CLC/B/207/CH03/01/10/4/B, Rose to Turner 21 October 1929. M. Samuel & Co papers, Lloyds Bank archive, London, S/1/1/b/263 Kirkpatrick to Cooper 10 March 1925. Ian Nish, Alliance in Decline: A Study in Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1908– 23 (London: Athlone, 1972) p. 230. Japan Society (JS) papers, London, Council minutes vol.5, 42nd session, 4th meeting, 9 March 1933. JS papers, 1930s correspondence, Rothwell Haslam to Sale 10 March 1933. JS papers, Council minutes vol. 5, 45th session, 2nd meeting, 3 October 1935. JS papers, Council minutes vol. 5, 45th session, 3rd meeting 11 December 1935. Keiko Itoh, The Japanese Community in Pre-War Britain: From Integration to Disintegration (London: Routledge, 2001) p. 47. Association of British Chambers of Commerce papers, LMA, CLC/B/016/MS14476/013 Executive Council minutes 6 March 1935. Sale to the editor, The Times, 5 October 1937, p. 15. Bank of England (BoE) archive, London, OV104/18 ‘Impressions of a Visit to the Far East’ George Sale lecture October 1938. BoE, OV104/18 George Sale to Fisher (BoE) 27 October 1938. George Sale to the editor, The Times, 12 January 1939, p. 15. For an analysis of the City and Japan in this period, see Antony Best, ‘The Jackal’s Share’: Whitehall, the City of London and British Policy towards the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–39 in John Fisher, Effie Pedaliu and Richard Smith (eds), The Foreign Office, Commerce and British Foreign Policy, from the First World War to the End of the Cold War and Beyond (Palgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke, London, forthcoming). China Association papers, School of Oriental and African Studies Library, CHAS/02/08, General committee meeting 16 February 1940. The National Archives, Kew (TNA), FO371/23571 F2737/2737/23 Butler minute 16 March 1939, and F3144/2691/23 Butler minute 7 April 1939. Butler papers, Trinity College Cambridge, RAB E3/191 George Sale to Butler 15 August 1940. 397

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32

TNA BW82/17 Sale & Co (Tokyo) to George Sale 7 November 1940. TNA PREM3//252/5 Eden to Churchill 17 September 1941, no.PM/41/121. See Antony Best, ‘Lord Sempill (1893–1965) and Japan, 1921–41’ in Hugh Cortazzi, (ed.), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits Vol.IV (Richmond: Japan Library, 2002) pp. 375–382. Financial Times, 29 September 1965, p. 6, and The Times, 29 September 1965, p. 15.

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Christopher W. McDonald (1931–2011): A Life in Japan YUNICHIRO NAKAJIMA

Christopher (better known as Chris) McDonald (or ‘Mac-san’) passed away on 2 December 2011, just days short of his eightieth birthday. He spent nearly sixty-two years, substantially all of his adult life, in Japan, witnessing at first hand the country’s transformation after the devastation of the Second World War in to a global growth engine and then into a mature economy and society. Described by one friend as if he had ‘stepped out of central casting to play the British ambassador: tall and distinguished; handsome and urbane; witty and intelligent; astonishingly well-connected’,1 McDonald’s life encompassed a wide and varied range of high-profile activities, as a businessman, sportsman, sumo patron, music lover, charity worker and socialite. EARLY LIFE

McDonald was born in Harrow, northwest London, to parents Albert William and Emily on 13 December 1931 and attended Lon399

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don County Grammar School and Kilburn Polytechnic. Albert was a ‘typical middle class working man’.2 Coincidence led to McDonald’s journey to Japan. Upon leaving school in 1949, he and his best friend were recommended by their headmaster to apply for two vacancies available at the overseas headquarters of National Cash Register Company (now NCR Corporation) in London. ‘One [of the positions] was in the Accounts Department; the other in the Overseas Department. When we arrived for interview we were shown into a waiting room and eventually the Personnel Manager arrived and said “Who’s first?” My friend happened to be sitting nearer the door, so he was interviewed first – by the Accounting Manager. A few minutes later I was called to be interviewed – by the Overseas Manager.’ Several months into his job, McDonald was spotted by George Haynes, NCR’s Far Eastern Director, who asked whether he would be interested in assisting him in re-establishing the business in Japan.3 The idea of going to a far-away land had considerable appeal to McDonald, who had been interested in travel and geography from a young age. That evening he managed to persuade his parents, whose elder son Leslie had fought with the British 14th Army in Burma in combat against the Japanese, to give their consent and accepted the offer the following morning. The assignment had an additional benefit; McDonald was expecting to be called up for National Service soon but left Britain on 24 March 1950, just three days before the papers arrived.4 JAPAN 1950

McDonald arrived in Tokyo in April 1950, less than five years after the end of the Second World War. He was put up at the Hotel Teito, precursor to the present Palace Hotel, which was reserved exclusively for ‘foreign traders’. He found out as he checked in that he was to share a regular double room with three other guests, such was the shortage of rooms available for foreign traders flocking to Japan to take advantage of business opportunities. It took him three weeks to be assigned a room to himself.5 After a two months’ stay at the Teito, a small house was found for McDonald in Soshigaya in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, then a small farming village. It was located about 600 metres from Soshigaya-Okura Station (Odakyu Line), but the unpaved pot-holed roads would turn into rivers of mud in heavy rain, forcing McDonald to hire a bicycle rickshaw to take him home.6 Tokyo’s infrastructure was only just beginning to recover from the destruction caused by the devastating air raids of 1945. Office amenities, even for an American company like NCR, remained rudimentary for many years. Basic commodities were rationed for foreigners as well as Japanese nationals, forcing many to rely on black markets 400

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for essentials. Life, in other words, was not easy. McDonald refrained from grumbling about the conditions of life in Tokyo. He commented later: One thing that I still recall impressed me deeply was that the average man in the street, despite just having lost the war and with very limited resources, was never openly despondent, never complained, was always clean and neatly dressed, and more importantly I think, appeared to still retain a real sense of pride in being Japanese. I have never forgotten this, and am often tempted to draw comparisons with the society of today, in which many people, certain useful elements in particular, appear to lack any feeling of affinity towards their country, seem totally self-absorbed, and care little for what is going on around them. That was clearly not the case in 1950.7 BUSINESS CAREER

McDonald spent thirty years at NCR Japan, rising to become executive director in charge of personnel. In 1979, the recently installed top management team at NCR headquarters decided that greater mobility should be expected of expatriates around the world and suggested that McDonald move to a different country, possibly back to the UK for an executive position, paving the way for someone else to have the opportunity to gain experience in Japan. This did not excite him, having only worked in Tokyo and put down deep roots in the city. He declined the offer and it was agreed that he would leave the company. John Read, an old friend who had decided to return to the UK from Japan, after a twenty-five-year stint running the Rolex division of the Swiss trading firm Liebermann Waelchli, had learnt that Andre Heiniger, the chairman of Rolex, had decided to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary in Japan, which would mean a loss of business for Liebermann. When McDonald told Read about his search for a new position, Read offered to recommend McDonald to Heiniger as the head of Rolex (Japan) Ltd. After one meeting in Geneva, he was offered and accepted the post of president for Japan. Heiniger became his mentor and his son Patrick (who took over control of Rolex worldwide in 1992) became a good friend.8 Over time, Japan grew to be the second largest market for Rolex after the USA. McDonald later became chairman of Rolex (Japan) and stayed at the firm until his retirement in 2007.9 FOOTBALLL10

Football occupied a significant part of McDonald’s life in Japan. He had played the sport at school and afterwards for a London club.

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Soon after arriving at Japan he joined the Yokohama Country & Athletic Club (YC&AC)11 to become their regular goalkeeper (and occasional centre forward) for the following twenty-five years. He was also appointed to arrange the weekly matches with Japanese teams. At the time the YC&AC had the only grass football pitch in the whole of Japan, which made it easy for him to find opponents. Every season the club played around thirty friendlies against leading university teams as well as the best of the company teams and others. McDonald also joined the TRICK Club, representing players from Tokyo, Rikkyo, Chuo and Kwansei Gakuin Universities plus ‘International’ (McDonald and a Korean player).12 One of the players at the University of Tokyo around this time was Okano Shunichiro, who later represented Japan in the national squad (as player and manager) and went on to become the Japan Football Association (JFA) president. McDonald, who was an active player into his mid-forties,13 would later remember that Okano scored several goals against him.14 Also born in 1931, Okano helped McDonald with arranging the weekly fixtures for a couple of years and the two became good friends. He was a member of the All Japan University Students Selection Football Team, which participated in the Third International University Sports Week in Dortmund, West Germany, in 1953. McDonald’s mother, Emily, entertained the team to tea at the family home when the delegation visited England.15 Once Japan was reinstated as a member association of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) in 1950 following the end of hostilities, McDonald’s involvement with Japanese football became more international. He started assisting (informally) the JFA with receiving visiting foreign teams and with liaising with FIFA. In 1958 he was one of the English announcers in the stadium for the football games at the Third Asian Games in Tokyo. At the Games he looked after Sir Stanley Rous, then Secretary of the Football Association and later President of FIFA.16 McDonald was asked to join the organising committee for the football tournament at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games,17 an appointment he accepted with NCR’s blessing, which granted him a month off work. He also provided English announcements during some of the matches.18 It was at the Tokyo Olympics that McDonald met his future wife, Nogami Fumiko, whom he married in 1968. Importantly for Japan, McDonald was instrumental in arranging visits by foreign club teams to Japan, including Stirling Albion in 1966,19 Middlesex Wanderers (1967 and multiple subsequent trips), Arsenal (1968), Tottenham Hotspur (1971), and a succession of other 402

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top English, European and South American Clubs throughout the 1970s.20 Okano arranged for the Japan National Team to travel to England in 1966 to watch the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final of the World Cup, which owed much to McDonald’s help. In 1983, when Japan visited England on a three-match tour, one of the games was played in Gillingham, Kent, the birthplace of William Adams (aka Miura Anjin, ୕ᾆᣨ㔪).21 In view of this historical connection, McDonald arranged for Sir Stanley to attend the game together with Hirahara Tsuyoshi, the then Japanese Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, who was himself a former footballer. Japan beat Gillingham FC 2–1.22 Okano insists that it was McDonald’s ‘determination to make good use in Japan of his particular enthusiasm for the game of football that encouraged us to think about going to England to watch the World Cup. At the very least he opened our eyes to the football scene in Europe and helped us to establish meaningful contacts there. Without that, Japan would have remained an isolated island for a lot longer. His contributions were indeed considerable.’23 McDonald also had a decisive role in securing Imperial patronage for JFA. He and Fumiko had known Tottori Hisako through her parents before she married Prince Norihito of Takamado (1954– 2002), a cousin of Emperor Akihito. She was interested in football and was a Chelsea supporter. Prince Takamado had played soccer at Gakushuin and remained a fan. About a year after they were married in 1984, McDonald suggested to Naganuma Ken, then JFA President, that the Association ask the Prince to become its Honorary Patron.24 After clearing many administrative hurdles, in 1987 Prince Takamado officially assumed this position. Since his death in 2002 Princess Takamado who continues to take an active interest in the sport has taken over as Honorary Patron. SUMO

‘My other great sporting interest has been sumo’, said McDonald in 1992. His first exposure to it was in September 1950, when he was invited by a friend to watch bouts at the old Ryogoku Kokugikan. His initial indifference gave way to a life-long love of the sport when in 1955 he was asked to attend a private dinner party to meet Yokozuna Tochinishiki. The two became friendly, with McDonald joining the wrestler’s ko¯en-kai (supporters’ club) as the only foreign member. He records meeting a number of younger rikishi (sumo wrestler) at the Kasugano- and Dewanoumi-beya (training stables), including Kitanofuji (aged seventeen or eighteen at the time), who in 1970 became a Yokozuna and with whom McDonald developed a long-standing friendship. 403

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Tochinishiki retired in 1960 and McDonald transferred his loyalty to Dewanoumi-beya, where Kitanofuji was based. When the former Yokozuna Chiyonoyama broke away from this stable in 1967 to form his own Kokonoe-beya, taking Kitanofuji with him, McDonald followed and became a staunch supporter of Kokonoe. Because of his patronage of these senior wrestlers he was well regarded in the sumo community and was invited to take part in at least fifteen dampatsushiki (part of a rikishi’s retirement ceremony where his topknot is cut off by family members, patrons and friends).25 For McDonald, the attraction of sumo was the dignity and sense of fair play and mutual respect inherent in the long traditions of the sport. He thought that Sumo reflected sportsmanship in its purest form, with winning always taken humbly and defeat accepted graciously. His loyalty was amply repaid over the years by the wrestlers themselves, particularly by Kitanofuji who on the occasion of McDonald’s fiftieth anniversary in Japan wrote: ‘You always attended the parties at Kokonoe-beya and raised your glass for the future happiness of everyone with your kind and thoughtful Japanese. Now it is my turn. Mac-san, I wish you every happiness and health from the bottom of my heart.’26 ASH TRAY CLUB AND CHARITABLE WORK

McDonald’s work with The Ash Tray Club is well documented. Sometime in 1959 he and three Japanese colleagues from NCR started collecting ashtrays as souvenirs from the various bars and clubs that they frequented in and around Ginza. Soon the idea of donating these to old people’s homes was formed, following news reports of fire damage to these institutions as a result of residents’ smoking and a shortage of ashtrays. They visited two recently established homes, one of which was called Hakujin-kai, in Adachiku, Tokyo around Christmas that year and donated the ashtrays as presents. This proved very popular with the homes and residents and became an annual event, though after the third year the group stopped giving ashtrays and decided to visit only Hakujin-kai. The focus of each visit switched to entertaining the residents and to presenting them with a cash donation collected from NCR Tokyo staff.27 Over time, McDonald (and his family) became increasingly involved with the nursing home which ‘looked upon me as their grandson, and my wife and two young boys, who had started to join us from the early 1980s, as an extension of their family’.28 Over time he was appointed a director (later advisor) of Hakujin-kai Social Welfare Association, which ran the home, helping with its management. 404

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In addition to Hakujin-kai, McDonald had affiliations with a number of charitable organisations in Japan, including St. John Ambulance, YMCA and Rotary Club of Tokyo. MUSIC AND BALLET

Through Rolex’s corporate sponsorship and public relations programmes, McDonald had a great deal of exposure to performing arts. Heparticularly enjoyed music. In his memoirs he lists many worldclass musicians who played for Rolex, including Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, with whom he had ‘a long and lasting friendship’ and who also developed a keen interest in sumo.29 McDonald was also a keen ballet fan, particularly of the Matsuyama Ballet Company, with which he had a long-standing involvement. A special dance requiem was performed by MorishitaYo¯ko, Prima Ballerina, and the Company at a memorial reception for him at the Royal Park Hotel in March 2012.30 SOCIETY

With his imposing height (191cm), good looks, amiable personality and urbane manners, McDonald made a popular ‘face’ at various social events, notably as Master of Ceremony at the Cherry Blossom Ball, an annual event organised by the International Ladies’ Benevolent Society. He performed this role for a total of twelve years.31 Being head of Rolex also gave him a high profile in the public arena, as did his friendships with sumo wrestlers. McDonald served on the Committee of the Japan Branch of the Royal Society of St George for some thirty years, first as Secretary and then as President from 1974. Soon after arriving in Japan he also joined the Japan-British Society and later became a Council member, serving in that capacity for nearly thirty years. All this made McDonald highly ‘clubbable’ and he accumulated a large number of club memberships, including The Tokyo Club (of which he was Secretary), City Club of Tokyo (Vice-Chairman), Tokyo Lawn Tennis Club (Auditor) and others, as well as the London clubs Carlton, Oriental, Royal Automobile, Marylebone Cricket (MCC) and Hurlingham. FAMILY

McDonald married Fumiko in 1968, some four years after they met on the JFA International Liaison Committee for the Tokyo Olympics football tournament. She was Swissair’s representative on the group and also worked as a guest companion at the Olympic Games. Fumiko describes her husband’s career and impressively broad network as 405

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something gained by someone ‘in the right place at the right time’,32 echoing McDonald’s own characterisation of his life with Japan.33 ‘He always had a smile on his face, but was very strict with himself.’ Fumiko was invariably to be found at McDonald’s side at events they hosted or attended. He credits her for ‘keeping [him] on the right track’34 and for influencing both their sons into pursuing a career in art.35 Roger (an art historian) was born in 1971 and Peter (an artist) in 1973; they were named after Messrs. Hunt and Shilton, respectively, both England footballers.36 Roger says that his father was ‘understanding, never angry, though stern. He seemed to have learnt a lot from older, Meiji-era Japanese people, in whose values he found much affinity with traditional British ones. He always wore a tie. I never saw him in jeans. He was open in his thinking, though, and that was how he made friends with people from all walks of life. There was never any mention of difficulty in getting to know them.’37 HONOURS

Chris McDonald was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in June 1978 for ‘contributions to Japan-UK relations, and services to the British community in Tokyo’. He was also decorated by Japan with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, for contributions to promoting cultural exchange between Japan and Britain as well as to the development of football in Japan. Just three months before his death, McDonald was inducted into the Japan Football Hall of Fame. He was too ill with interstitial pneumonia to attend the official ceremony to commemorate his induction; Roger represented him on stage. Sir Bobby Charlton, whom McDonald had known for many years, was amongst friends who visited him at his bedside to offer their congratulations; true to style, McDonald put on a tie and jacket to welcome this distinguished visitor.38 ENDNOTES 1

2 3

4 5

6 7 8

Ian de Stains OBE, Football Gentleman Scores Latest Gong, BCCJ Acumen, Custom Media K.K. for the British Chamber of Commerce in Japan, October 2011. Roger McDonald, interview with author, August 2015. Christopher W. McDonald, Looking Back on 50 Years 1950–2000, (private publication, April 2000), pp. 48–49. C.W. McDonald, Random Recollections, (unpublished,) pp. 2–4. C.W. McDonald, Random Recollections, (unpublished, 2010–2011), p. 7–8. Ibid., pp. 15–16. Ibid., pp. 11–12. Roger McDonald, interview with author, 1 October 2014. 406

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9

10

11

12 13 14

15 16 17

18 19

20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Japan football Association website, http://www.jfa.jp/about_jfa/hall_of_ fame/member/Christopher_W.McDONALD.html. Chris MacDonald features in an account of ‘British Links with Japanese Football’ by Derek Bleakley in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2010 An account of the ‘Introduction of Football from Britain into Japan’ by Mike Galbraith is contained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. C.W. McDonald, Random Recollections, p. 42. C.W. McDonald, Looking Back, p. 58. C.W. McDonald, acceptance speech on the occasion of his induction into the Japan Football Hall of Fame, 2011. Okano Shunichiro, interview with author, October 2014. C.W. McDonald, acceptance speech. An account of ‘The British Part in the Olympic Games, 1964’ by Dick Ellingworth, Olympic Attaché in the British embassy, is contained in Japan Experiences: Fifty Years, One Hundred Views, Post-war Japan through British Eyes, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Library, 2001. C.W. McDonald, Looking Back, p. 58. According to Okano, this was the first time that the Japan National Team was allowed to play against a professional team, having been banned from doing so by Japan Sports Association rules until recently. C.W. McDonald, acceptance speech. William Adams (24 September 1564–16 May 1620) was an English navigator who in 1600 was the first of his nation to reach Japan. One of a few survivors of De Liefde, the only Dutch East India Company ship to reach Japan from a five-ship expedition of 1598, Adams settled in the country and became the first ever Westerner to be granted the rank of samurai. Ibid. Okano, ibid. C.W. McDonald, Random Recollections, pp. 100–101. C.W. McDonald, Looking Back, pp. 59–60. C.W. McDonald, Looking Back, p. 35. C.W. McDonald, Random Recollections, p. 52. C.W. McDonald, ibid., p. 53. C.W. McDonald, ibid., p. 95. McDonald’s elder son Roger is married to a former ballerina from the Matsuyama Ballet Company. C.W. McDonald, ibid., pp. 103–104. Fumiko McDonald, interview with author, 3 October 2014. C.W. McDonald, Looking Back, p. 48. C.W. McDonald, Looking Back, p. 7. C.W. McDonald, Random Recollections, pp. 89–90. Okano, ibid. Roger McDonald, ibid. Her Imperial Highness The Princess Takamado, interview with author, 20 September 2014.

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NSK at Peterlee: A Successful Japanese Manufacturing Investment in the UK NSK STAFF MEMBERS This chapter is based on a detailed memoir produced in 2002 by Japanese members of NSK who devoted much of their lives to initiating and developing NSK’s investment at Peterlee in County Durham. I have also drawn on a draft account of this investment begun before his death by my old friend the late Mr Sukeyoshi Yamamoto OBE who had such a close involvement with this project.1 I wish to thank all those at NSK who contributed to this history, in particular Mr Takao Kieda who edited the memoir and checked this summary. I also wish to put on record my appreciation for the friendship extended to me and to other former British officials by the late Mr Toshio Arata KBE, who served in so many capacities in NSK including that of Chairman and President and who, like Mr Sukeyoshi Yamamoto, was such a good friend of Britain.2

Sukeyoshi Yamamoto and Toshio Arata at J2001 in London

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INTRODUCTION

NSK (Nippon Seiko) was formed in 1914 and started to manufacture bearings in Japan in 1916. The company was revived after the end of the Pacific War. Mr Hiroki Imasato became President in 1948. Under a technical collaboration agreement with a British company, a joint venture company NSK Torrington was set up in 1963 to manufacture needle roller bearings. NSK quickly developed export markets for its products and marketing companies were established in various overseas markets including the USA and Europe. NSK became the leading Japanese manufacturer of bearings surpassing its Japanese competitors, such as NTN and Koyo, to become after SKF the second largest manufacture of bearings in the world. Its growth was in large part due to its manufacturing technology, the quality of its products and its production capacity. NSK’s first overseas plant started production of small size ball bearings in Australia in 1970. In 1972 a plant was opened in Brazil. In 1975 a joint venture with Hoover Ball Bearing Company in the USA began the production of standard size bearings at Clarinda in Iowa. The NSK plant at Peterlee began production in Britain in 1976. NSK was the sixth Japanese company to invest in manufacturing facilities in Britain. It was the first in the North East of England, and the second after YKK, to establish comprehensive production facilities in contrast to simple assembly. (Later, over forty Japanese companies built plants in the North East area of the UK.) PREPARATIONS

Torrington, NSK’s partner for manufacturing needle roller bearings, was initially the sole importer/distributor for NSK in the UK but sales were modest and could not compare with those of NTN who in due course established a manufacturing plant in Germany. Japanese bearing manufacturers were accused of dumping, especially in the UK where the lead against them was taken by RHP (Ransome, Hoffman and Pollard). The Japanese Bearing Manufacturers Association responded by sending a delegation to London in 1969 for interindustry talks. Japanese ball bearings had become fully automated and were much more competitive in price than British ball bearings which were still being made in a more traditional way. At that time the yen was, however, significantly undervalued. NSK began to consider establishing manufacturing facilities in Europe to supply its growing markets in the area and in response to the accusations of dumping. Britain was not at first thought a suitable location for investment because of the British reputation for frequent strikes and what was termed ‘the British Disease’. However the investment environment was not favourable in other European locations 409

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such as Germany, France and the Netherlands. Arguments in favour of Britain included the positive attitude of the British government towards foreign investment, the British industrial base, abundant availability of labour, lower wage levels than in e.g. Germany and the English language. Although Britain was not then a member of the EEC it was expected that she would soon join the community. NSK staff pressed for an early decision to establish manufacturing facilities in Europe and instructions was sent to NSK in London to sound out the British government. About a month later they were told that while British bearing manufacturers were totally against NSK coming to Britain the British government would welcome NSK and would give it as much help as possible to find a suitable UK site subject to the following conditions. The plant was to be in a ‘Special Development Area’ (SDA), more than half of NSK’s products must be exported and the domestic content of the products must exceed 50%. These conditions did not present any problem to NSK whose sales in Britain were less than 10% of their total sales in Europe. The British authorities also promised to give NSK the subsidies specified for SDAs namely 22% of the cost of buildings and equipment, tax breaks and a supplement to cover training expenses. SELECTION OF THE SITE

NSK staff visited many possible sites recommended by the Department of Trade and Industry. They investigated relevant issues such as traffic access, local infrastructure and the availability locally of suitable employees. Their most important concern was labour relations. They believed that most strikes at that time arose from inter-union disputes. They concluded that if there were to be a union in the new plant it should probably be the AUEW (Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers). Accordingly, at the various possible sites, they met representatives of the district committee of the AUEW and explained that NSK intended to set up multi-machines operated by a single worker, automated lines, maintenance and cleaning by the operators, with flexibility between duties. As such arrangements differed from those prevailing in Britain union reactions were ‘not positive’, but as union members wanted new investment in their area they agreed to accept NSK. NSK staff visited many areas including North and South Wales, Scotland and the North West and North East of England. They were attracted on climate grounds to the suburbs of Liverpool, but the area was notorious for strikes. They also considered Livingston in Scotland, but thought it too remote. They finally gave their preference to the North East where industrial disputes had been less frequent and reactions to their plans by AUEW representatives had been more 410

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encouraging than elsewhere. Among the sites, which they visited in the North East, they chose Peterlee new town. It had a large area of industrial land available for new investments and a population of 26,000 in the town and some 200,000 in the surrounding area. The Peterlee Development Corporation had a young ‘aggressive and cooperative’ managing director in Dennis Stevenson3 who impressed NSK staff by his quick understanding and decision-making. Mr Toshio Arata, then managing director of NSK, endorsed the choice of Peterlee. NSK as a whole gave its approval in late 1973 to the investment in the production of five types of bearings in integrated line production from machining of rings to wrapping. The aim was a monthly output of 1,361,000 pieces employing 213 operators and staff. The total investment would amount to 2,700 million yen. The British government were officially informed in January 1974. The Labour Party-led government, which took over from the Conservatives in February 1974, informed NSK that they would honour the promises given to NSK by the previous administration but wanted NSK if possible to accept a trade union in its UK plant. NSK, having chosen Peterlee, had to decide on the specific site within the Peterlee area. They decided in June 1974 on one near the Peterlee town centre and next to the roundabout on the A19 consisting of 25 acres of which 10 acres were an option for future purchase. As this was a former coal mining area there was a large slagheap nearby. NSK turned down a ready-made plant building offered to them by Peterlee Development Corporation, as they wanted a building of their own design. NSK appointed Coward Chance,4 London solicitors, to prepare the purchasing contracts for them. Diana Benjamin, a young solicitor in the firm, acted for them. A purchase price of £8,000 per acre was agreed giving a total at that time of a little less than 100 million yen. One purchase condition, which NSK head office found difficult to accept as it differed from provisions prevailing in Japan, was an undertaking required from NSK to keep the surroundings and site views in good condition. A bizarre problem then arose. NSK head office instructed that the plant was to be built at the other corner on the land for which NSK had a purchase option. This meant that the purchase contracts had to be changed and that a new detour road of over one kilometre would have to be built. The level of the land in question would also have to be raised. Local NSK and PDC staff as well as Diana Benjamin could not understand the reasons for the change. Later, they heard that the decision had been made because a fortune-teller who had been consulted by a senior NSK executive but who knew nothing of the site had declared that there were underground streams under the original 411

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site, that there was a church to the east of the site and that if NSK built on this site it would suffer from labour disputes. Local NSK staff noted that in Europe there were always churches near any site and underground streams were found in most coal-mining areas. But as the possibility of labour disputes was NSK’s most pressing concern they did not want to take any chances and head office orders had to be obeyed. PLANT CONSTRUCTION

Immediately after the investment decision had been made a plant-construction project team was set up. The NSK plant at Otsu was designated as the ‘mother-plant’. In April 1974 NSK Bearings Europe Ltd was incorporated in London and charged with responsibility for construction of the plant. PDC recommended to NSK as a construction company for the plant IDC, which had offices in Stratford-upon-Avon, but NSK had many difficulties in agreeing the design of the buildings with IDC. NSK consulted Taisei, a large Japanese construction company in Osaka, to prepare alternative designs. They produced one for an integrated single-storey production area and a two-storey office building incorporating a canteen and space for ancillary equipment. The building was constructed in the British way with steel frames, brick outside walls and concrete block inside walls. NSK in Tokyo had difficulty in understanding some of British building regulations and prevailing conditions in Peterlee, e.g. in relation to hardness of the local water, electric power and gas supplies and kerosene for washing parts. One of NSK’s initial problems was that some NSK Japanese staff only had limited English and had particular difficulties with the local ‘Geordie’ accent and vocabulary. Complex British regulations covering environmental protection, fire precautions as well as sanitation and safety caused NSK staff much anxiety. They feared that some machines imported from Japan might infringe UK rules and patents. All were overcome in due course without major mishaps. The British government had asked NSK to purchase as much equipment as possible in the UK. As there was little suitable British machinery available NSK focused on multi-spindle lathes, but ended up with only two 6-spindle lathes, some minor machines such as a tool lathe and a boring machine for the tool room. However, NSK were able to order such equipment as boilers, water treatment, gas supply and air-conditioning equipment from British companies. One of the first issues to be decided was the selection of which grinding machines to be used. Should these be American-made 412

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machines or NSK’s own machines? After much debate NSK machines were selected and improvements made to them by the machine-tool department. NSK staff concluded that this decision not only contributed to their success at Peterlee, but also led to significant advancement in NSK production technologies. In November 1974 leveling of the site began but rain made the ground muddy. There were also complications over NSK’s requirements and specifications for underground piping and pits as well as for overhead piping for compressed air and power, exhaust ducts for oil fumes and air conditioning. There were worrying construction delays and cost over-runs. Japanese expectations were frequently disappointed and NSK could not understand how the British side could accept it as normal that plans could so readily be changed and delayed. They were also upset by the way in which the weekly schedules were frequently altered. The initial delay was caused by rain, which lasted for days at the start of construction, NSK were told that as this was the usual practice in the UK they would have to pay for the delay because rain was force majeure. This and the casual British attitude caused much irritation and friction. NSK were disappointed not only by the quality of British construction workers, but also over the availability and capability of British construction machinery. NSK had not been sufficiently prepared for the unfavourable winter conditions including the short hours of daylight, the frequent rains and the frosts, which froze concrete. Local NSK staff had to bear the brunt of criticisms from head office over the delays and cost over-runs. However the local construction workers were friendly. (They would say: ‘Wuon-bi-lon’ which eventually NSK staff understood as ‘It won’t be long’.) After NSK head office had confirmed that production should start as originally scheduled in 1976 IDC were pressed to make what was described as ‘an extraordinary effort for a British construction company’. They managed to prepare the inside of the building so that NSK’s machines could be partly installed in mid-February 1976 while IDC completed decorating and finishing. A large number of huge wooden boxes containing machines for the plant had arrived from Japan in December 1975. A chain of big trailers carried these from Hartlepool to Peterlee and the cargos were stored temporarily wherever space could be found nearby. Japanese managers and trainers also arrived around this time. Together with a local installation firm, Vanguard Engineering Co., Japanese and British employees worked together to install over a hundred machines and pieces of equipment to form four production lines, which were then tested. NSK staff were concerned that the union might insist, as NSK had found in Australia, that all unloading, unpacking and installing had to be done by local union members. No such prob413

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lem occurred at Peterlee and the installation was carried out with both Japanese and British staff cooperating harmoniously ‘without any missing part, even a bolt’. NSK were impressed by the physical strength of their British workforce, but less so by the forklift trucks which they had leased. These had not been kept in good condition while the extended forks were hand-made of channelled steel plate and bent easily. The building was handed over to NSK by IDC on 12 March 1976, but there were much finishing still to do and points of friction remained. Inevitably, perhaps, there were hiccups in the initial operations including a leak of kerosene and rust in the pipes. However, the plant officially started production on 12 April 1976. As a result of the construction problems at Peterlee NSK changed its procedures to ensure that construction company staff would in future be invited to Japan for detailed discussions and NSK would provide drawings and detailed specifications covering ancillary equipment. LABOUR RELATIONS

All at NSK were agreed that a key factor for the success of NSK’s investment lay in achieving smooth labour relations. Before beginning to recruit operators NSK decided to appoint AUEW as the sole union in the plant. NSK had accepted British laws and regulations on conditions of employment but they wanted to obtain the union’s agreement that they would accept such NSK working practices as an enlarged scope of job responsibilities for operators and flexibility of job assignments. In mid-1975 NSK made their presentation to the district committee of seven or eight members of the AUEW. Three members represented skilled workers who had completed apprenticeships. In advance of the meeting NSK staff had visited a few local plants to discover the extent to which production processes were automated in the area and the nature of local labour relations practices in such plants, but they had only found one fully automated plant for making chip potatoes. They had been introduced to a plant manufacturing crankshafts, but its automation was limited to moving parts by overhead conveyor chain between individual operators who attended each machine manually. They were told that in British factories only ‘skilled workers could hold a spanner’. At the presentation meeting NSK explained that they wanted to operate the plant using the same practices as were used in Japan. Unless they could do so, they would not be able to compete with 414

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Japanese or European producers and would be forced to close the plant before long. Japanese practices included multi-machines operated by one worker who would also be responsible for cleaning, maintenance and routine repairs. Foremen or other staff including Japanese could replace absent operators. There would be a tenminute overlap between shifts to ensure a smooth changeover. All employees would wear company uniform. Smoking would only be allowed in rest rooms. Alcohol would not be permitted on site. The representatives of skilled workers objected strongly, but the local AUEW chairman Mr Richmond calmed things down noting the saying ‘put new wine into a new wineskin’ and urged his colleagues to let NSK try their way. NSK feared that there might still be trouble. So they modified the machines for easy one-touch replacement of components and decided to minimize the number of skilled workers they would employ. They also replaced ‘supervisor’ by ‘section leader’ and ‘foreman’ by ‘charge hand’ to emphasize that the latter were not just supervisors and foremen. NSK made it a rule to promote suitable employees to supervising roles rather than recruit from outside. They were determined that NSK’s plant should be one where nonskilled workers could work happily. They were not going to adopt old British working habits and insisted on staff wearing company uniforms that were designed and supplied in Peterlee, as well as hats and safety shoes imported from Japan, although NSK agreed not to institute the Japanese practice of physical exercises at the plant. NSK set out in writing the provisions, which they had outlined in their presentation meeting and tried without success to persuade Mr Richmond to confirm acceptance in writing; he did in the end give them a letter in very general terms. Rather to NSK’s surprise the union agreed that they would give NSK a pre-warning of any strike action and exempted NSK when they joined in national or district strikes Although NSK had some difficult negotiations over wages, disciplinary actions and revision of working conditions with Mr Richmond they generally got on well with him. His attitude was that if no employee of NSK came to him complaining it meant that there was no problem for AUEW with NSK who came to think that the situation was similar to that with their Japanese in-house union. He joined with NSK in defence of the company’s single union policy with AUEW. They did, however, find him a little difficult to understand at times particularly as he was often joking and spoke with a ‘Geordie’ accent RECRUITMENT OF LOCAL STAFF

NSK needed to employ a personnel manager who could start looking for suitable workers to operate the plant as soon as it was ready 415

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to open. Of three possible recruits the best candidate turned down NSK’s offer, but an alternative was hired from November 1974 and sent to Japan for a month’s training. Recruitment of other employees began in July 1975. The first priority was to find nine section leaders and charge hands who were to be trained in Japan for four months. Although NSK had lots of applications not many met NSK requirements and the company had to compromise. NSK thought that their new recruits looked ‘gauche and self-assertive’ to Japanese eyes and had some difficulty in getting them to understand the purpose of their training in Japan. NSK kept them busy in Japan and also organized sightseeing. The recruits were all strong men who walked over twenty kilometres one day. They were surprised by the high prices and some found it difficult to adapt to Japanese food, living conditions and factory discipline, but they were more adapted to the cold than the Japanese who were impressed by the British capacity for beer. Although some remained difficult, they gradually relaxed, good personal relations were developed and the recruits began to understand Japanese ways and appreciate Japanese plant rules. NSK began the recruitment of shop floor workers in March 1976. Although NSK had over a thousand applicants few were found suitable. They were mostly ‘solid single-machine operators in the British way’ who would not even try to understand how NSK operated. ‘Most of them never seemed to be able to operate multi-machines and perform the maintenance jobs by themselves.’ So NSK asked their British personnel manager to change his recruitment policy and suggested that in addition to people from mechanical industry he look at those who had worked for textile plants and other light industries as well as non-manufacturing industries including retail workers. As a result NSK found the numbers they required. Most had no previous experience in mechanical industry. The average age was a mere twenty-one. Initially, wages were set on the basis of a survey in Peterlee, but these had to be increased to reflect the wider and more sophisticated job responsibility required. Unfortunately, the British personnel manager whom NSK had appointed proved unsuitable and had to be replaced. PRODUCTION

When production began on 12 April 1976 NSK had eleven Japanese managers, fifteen trainers and fifty-four local employees. 69,000 bearings were produced in April. By July they were producing 352,000 pieces in four different lines (one each for types 6201 and 6202 and two for 6203). Seven months later they were able to add lines for types 6204 and 6205. 416

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The rate of production steadily increased during the rest of 1976. In 1977 the rate increased to over 900,000 per month. Two-shift working began in 1977 and three-shift in November 1978 when the full capacity of 1.2 million pieces a month was achieved. By 1980 NSK at Peterlee was producing over 2 million pieces a month. In the first few months’ Japanese staff were more engaged in production than training, but in time Japanese staff were able to spend more time in training. In due course at the request of the local charge hands Japanese staff were withdrawn from the shop floor, but in fact Japanese staff were still needed on the shop floor and eventually harmony was reestablished The biggest problem in the assembly section was ‘errors in size of balls to be filled in the feeding hoppers for matching balls and rings selectively’. NSK had twenty-one sizes of balls with an increment of 1 /1,000 mm to provide a specified internal clearance for an assembled bearing. Unless a right size ball was put in the right hopper, the hopper chosen by the automatic matching device fed a wrong size ball between the outer and inner rings making the internal clearance too large or too small. The mistake was traced to a single operator who eventually had to be dismissed. NSK were using British steel material made by TI (Tube Investments) at Desford to whom they had taught a technology of annealing for a more stable steel structure. They had also got TI to improve straightness and surface finish to equal to Japanese standard. However NSK soon found an internal flaw in a bar and had to inspect individually all inner rings made from TI manufactured steel bars. When NSK complained to TI they responded that this was the responsibility of the British Steel Corporation. The then chairman of the corporation who visited NSK took the complaint lightly – much to NSK’s fury. NSK could not, as they would have wished, immediately cut purchases from TI as they had made promises to the British government about local content and procurement. Despite such problems NSK Peterlee came to produce bearings of high quality comparable with those produced in Japan. This level of production achieved required increased sales efforts. One problem NSK had to overcome was the image of Britain as strike prone. Gradually customers in Germany and elsewhere came to appreciate the products being made at Peterlee and NSK products from Peterlee were sold to markets as far away as Hong Kong and Korea JAPANESE STAFF AT PETERLEE

NSK initially planned to have twelve Japanese staff living in Peterlee for five years, Suitable houses had to be found for them and their families. NSK also needed a dormitory for use by engineers on short417

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term arrangements. PDC cooperated and appropriate family houses were made available for use by NSK staff. Initially in order to ensure a successful start to production a number of additional Japanese staff were sent to Peterlee so that at its peak there were over thirty Japanese at the site. To look after the Japanese employees local women were employed and instructed on how to prepare Japanese food including breakfast. Japanese miso, pickles, etc. were brought from London. Life for Japanese staff was not easy at first. While all spoke some English the local dialect was difficult to understand. Soon, however, they were able to settle in and received a warm welcome from the down-to-earth and generally kindly people in the North East. Some of the Japanese staff even enjoyed English bitter which one thought tasted like soya sauce. Of course they missed some Japanese products such as Japanese sticky rice and whenever a Japanese member of staff went to London he would be commissioned to buy Japanese delicacies to bring back to Peterlee. The children of the members of the Japanese staff attended local schools and made friends fairly easily. A kindly English doctor, Dr Brown, met most of their medical needs. They enjoyed travelling around in Britain and other European countries. But they were saddened by the ignorance of local people about Japan and did their best to fill the gaps.

NSK staff and families at Peterlee

CAMPAIGN AGAINST NSK BY LOCAL COMPETITORS

While construction was going on, the British bearing manufacturers particularly RHP5 continued their campaign against NSK investing in 418

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Britain. Mr Barlow, chairman of RHP, led the campaign and declared that the British bearing industry was suffering from over capacity and that there was no need for a new plant in the UK. NSK attempted to point out that NSK were aiming to replace imports from Japan to Europe by bearings manufactured at Peterlee in Britain. The campaign against NSK was taken up in local papers. This provoked a charge hand at the plant to protest to the paper against this unjustified campaign. FINANCING

In latter half of 1975 the Japanese economy was suffering from a serious recession caused by the oil shock and NSK’s Otsu plant was reduced to working only three days a week. NSK’s situation became critical and there was pressure for a delay in the start of production at Peterlee. NSK Europe were also told to seek finance locally. They accordingly discussed the problem with the European Investment Bank in Brussels, but NSK managed to continue to remit the necessary funds in instalments and permission was given to start production as originally scheduled. Cash-flow remained a problem even after production began until sales receipts began to come in. However, subsidies from the British government provided a valuable relief. The British government as promised paid NSK 22% of the amount invested for the building and facilities. NSK also received financial assistance towards the costs of training new employees. The subsidy amounted to £2.2 million equivalent at the rate of exchange prevailing at that time (£1 = 800 yen) of 1.8 billion yen. Although the exchange rate rapidly declined to 400 yen per £1 the subsidy, the bulk of which was received in 1976/77 was a financial boon to the company whose finances were much stretched. NSK received additional financial help from the British government at a later stage in relation to further NSK investments. The British authorities warmly welcomed the NSK investment. HRH Princess Margaret was one of the important British visitors to the plant. On her visit on 11 October 1996 she was greeted by Toshio Arata, Sukeyoshi Yamamoto and the staff of NSK’s Peterlee plant.

Princes Margaret greeted by Sukeyoshi Yamamoto 419

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Toshio Arata and Princess Margaret

CONCLUSION (by the editor)

The NSK investment was not the first Japanese industrial investment in Britain, but it was an important milestone in the history of major Japanese companies coming to see Britain as their location of choice for European investment. We look back on this history now from the perspective of the twenty-first century, in which the contribution of Japanese investment to the British economy is much better known, and the trade and investment relationship between Britain and Japan has become much closer. But it is important to remember that in the 1970s, that was not the case. The economic links with Japan were much less well developed. The mid-1970s was a period in which the long-term lack of competitiveness of much of British industry came into sharper focus in the wake of the quadrupling of oil prices and the failure of attempts by successive Governments to control radical trade unionism or to adopt sustainable economic policies. Many British politicians, in turn, saw Japan, as a country that had grown economically powerful behind protectionist barriers and was now developing an aggressive and predatory commercial strategy towards weaker economic powers in the West. For industrial and political leaders, in Japan and Britain, to see the potential in the relationship – as the leaders of NSK, and the local representatives in the UK, did – showed considerable vision. The fact that Britain had entered what was then the EEC, now the EU, in 1973, and was therefore a country of potential influence in what was rapidly becoming a major and expanding market for Japan, was crucial to this. 420

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NSK had to overcome various hurdles. But the painstaking way in which the company representatives (among whom Sukeyoshi Yamamoto with his excellent command of English played a key role) learned about the local business and trade union culture. They made careful judgments about how to transplant both traditional and modern Japanese business practices, and over time made a success of their investment, so that NSK at Peterlee became a significant Japanese presence in the North East of England, is a tribute to their commitment and dedication, and became in a way a model for other firms. Mr Toshio Arata, as president and later chairman of NSK, made many visits to Peterlee and the North East of England. He was instrumental in providing funds for Japanese studies to Durham University, which conferred on him an honorary doctorate as a token of thanks and respect. He was also awarded an honorary KBE, bestowed by the British Ambassador, Sir David Wright, in 1997: when he died in December 2009, the insignia of the honorary knighthood and the photographs of NSK’s factory in Peterlee were on proud display at his memorial ceremony in Tokyo.

Toshio Arata receiving his doctorate at Durham University.

Aerial View of NSK Plant at Peterlee following its expansion

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ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4

5

Sukeyoshi Yamamoto’s account and the NSK memoirs on which this chapter is based were kindly sent to me by his daughter Yumiyo Yamamoto who also put me in touch with NSK As all the Japanese mentioned by named in this memoir were known in Britain by names in the English order I have not followed our general rule in this chapter Stevenson became in due course Lord Stevenson of Coddenham, CBE, DL Coward Chance, later Clifford Chance, was a major firm of London solicitors. NSK acquired RHP in March 1990 by purchasing all their shares from UPI. The former plants of RHP are major manufacturing bases for NSK Europe.

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Sharp Corporation’s UK Research Investment: Sharp Laboratories of Europe Ltd CLIVE BRADLEY

Sharp Laboratories at Oxford: Clive Bradley with his staff and with Sharp president Tsuji in the centre

SHARP CORPORATION

Sharp had become a major manufacturer of electrical and electronic products by the early 1980s. The company was founded in the 1920s by Hayakawa in the Tokyo region and made relatively simple products like belts and the famous ‘Ever Sharp’ propelling pencil. (The latter gave its name to the eventual Sharp Company in a desire to have a more English-sounding name for its export ambitions.) Hayakawa formed the electrical company and moved to Osaka to escape the consequences of the 1923 Kanto earthquake, which killed his wife, and other members of his family. The first electronic product was a radio, (before the war), and although Hayakawa did collaborative research with NHK (the Japa423

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nese equivalent to the BBC) from the 1930s he produced his first commercial black and white television after the war, which was a first for Japan. In the 1950s, Hayakawa Electric as the company was then called, continued to make various brown and white goods such as televisions, radios, microwave ovens, refrigerators and air conditioners. In 1964 Sharp (now so named) made and marketed the first electronic calculator based on the newly-invented transistor from the US. This first was recognized four decades later by the Science Museum in South Kensington. Sharp grew its business through the manufacture of colour televisions, calculators, and electronic components such as eproms (electrically programmable memories) and LEDs (light emitting diodes) and semiconductor lasers. Sharp was the first company to mass-produce a calculator with a liquid crystal display, which greatly reduced the amount of battery energy for its use. By the 1980s Sharp was manufacturing a wide range of sophisticated electronics products such a laptop computers, organizers, small LCD (liquid crystal display) televisions and was expanding its operations into most of the major consumer counties, particularly the US and Europe. In 1988 turnover was close to 10bn US$ and expenditure on R&D amounted to 10% of this. Sharp’s technology scaled new heights in the 1990s when a decision was taken to discontinue the manufacture of conventional cathode ray tube televisions and concentrate on those based on LCD. This almost single handed stimulated first the Japanese and then world markets in flat panel televisions to the extent that 40 inch plus sets became common place by the middle 2000s and have eclipsed the conventional versions in most major consumer markets. BACKGROUND TO SHARP’S INVESTMENT IN R&D IN THE UK

Sharp Corporation’s decision 1988/9 to invest in basic research facilities on the Oxford Science Parkwas imaginative and pragmatic. In the late 1980s it had become obvious to it and similar Japanese companies that further globalization led simply by exports would have to be replaced by one based on vertical integration in overseas markets. At that time the Japanese economy was enjoying an unprecedented boom and it was relatively easy for companies like Sharp to find resources for investment. The boom in exports in the 1980s led to huge trade surpluses for Japan and consequently worrying trade deficits for importing countries like the UK. The British electronics industry, although still relatively strong, was showing signs of losing competitiveness to Japan and to some extent to South Korea and Taiwan. This problem also affected many other countries, including the USA. There was a similar situ424

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ation in the mechanical engineering industries, particularly with cars and machine tools. In the early 1980s both the US and the UK governments instituted formal discussions with the Japanese government on ways to alleviate the impact on their domestic companies and on the trade balances. In the case of the UK these were held between the Japanese Ministry of Trade and Industry (MITI) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) on an annual basis with the British embassy in Japan taking a substantial role. As a result of these talks and pressure by the UK government MITI used its influence to encourage Japanese companies to invest in the UK, particularly in motor car manufacture and in electronics, for example by Nissan,1 Toyota, NEC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Sharp. In the first stages these investments were in factories, which were mainly assembly plants using finished components imported from Japan. However, as confidence grew in the Japanese company managements these plants soon started to acquire components from local sources, which was a condition for UK government grants. In parallel Japanese component manufacturers started to investin the UK with the encouragement of their Japanese clients. It was generally agreed that the ideal investment was one which was vertically integrated from R&D to sales. Such investment brought advantages both to the host country and to the companies. A Harvard business School report pointed out that that the advantages of introducing manufacturing and product innovation and development skills and employment into the host country would outweigh any negative factors and that the new factories would export and open up new markets overseas, as well as most importantly increasing employment. From the Japanese companies’ point of view there were many advantages in investment in the UK, not the least of these being the lessening of political pressure over excessive Japanese exports and help in developing markets in the European Community. R&D investment in the UK would make it possible to recruit able researchers who had been trained in a scientific and engineering environment where the number of Nobel Prize winners was second only to the US. There was also the opportunity to join in domestic government projects so long as the facilities in the UK were substantial. Many Japanese manufacturers were aware that they were paying very large royalty fees to foreign countries like the US and the UK. They were already heavily investing in research in Japan in an attempt to be more selfsufficient in new ideas. R&D expenditure inmany electronics companies accounted for as much as 10% of turnover. But Japanese companies recognized that they did not necessarily have sufficient skills in their R&D groups to keep their products competitive over a long period. Japanese universities with a few exceptions were not strong enough to provide the type of talent they needed 425

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and there were restrictions in Japan on how closely companies could be involved with universities. One solution was to invest in basic research facilities in overseas countries, the UK (and the US) being particularly favoured because English is the language of science. One aim of such investment was to set up cooperative projects with leading universities and research institutes. Two of the earliest examples in the US were NEC’s investment in a research company at Princeton and Ohstuka Pharma’s laboratories close to the NIH in Maryland. These investments soon ran into accusations that their aim was to vacuum clean the world class research in the US, but this never proved to be a strong deterrent, nor was there a serious political reaction except amongst domestic competitors. The obvious rejoinder was that any leading research in a university was much more easily accessed by a domestic firm if it wanted to. While I was Counsellor for Science and Technology in the British Embassy in Tokyo (1982–88) my task was to get to know as much about the latest developments in Japan. We spoke to many companies about the advantages of investing in research facilities in the UK. Several companies started feasibility studies on investment in research facilities in the UK. This led from 1989 onwards to Sharp, Kobe Steel, Yamanouchi, Toshiba, Hitachi, Eisai, and Fujisawa setting up substantial activities in basic research in the UK. There was not a consistent picture. Some built laboratories inside university campuses but most set up stand-alone companies on science parks.2 It was against this background that Sharp took the decision in 1988/89 to invest in a new stand-alone basic research facility at The Oxford Science Park. SHARP ‘S INVESTMENT IN MANUFACTURING IN THE UK

Sharp’s manufacturing investment in Britain3 had begun in 1985 at Wrexham in North Wales where the first products were microwave ovens and VCRs (the massive imbalance in trade in these products was one of the trigger points for action by DTI in 1982 and afterwards). At its peak output was £250m p.a. and employment reached 1300. Sharp also founded a marketing company in Manchester at the same time, which with typical Sharp foresight and flair, sponsored Manchester United football club for about fifteenyears from 1985. LEAD UP TO SHARP”S INVESTMENT IN R&D IN THE UK

Although a leader in innovation Sharp’s top management was well aware in the 1970s and 1980s of the need to keep abreast with world developments and to be involved in the latest trends. Vice president for technology Sasaki Tadashi spent much of his time meeting the leading 426

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companies in Silicon Valley with the aim of gaining access to new developments in microelectronics such as eproms and flash memories. Another example of this search for new technology was the collaboration with RSRE Malvern in the UK in LCDs where key technologies for the successful mass production of these devices had been developed by Cyril Hilsum, George Gray and Peter Raynes and their colleagues. (Peter Raynes eventually joined us at Oxford see below.) UK university research was and still is second only to the US, as measured by citation indices for research papers. Britain also has the greatest number of Nobel prizes per head of population. Nevertheless, in deciding on a location for their first overseas research facility Sharp top management had a difficult choice. Their manufacturing operations in the US greatly exceeded those in the UK, also the US market and the reputation of Sharp in the US were well in advance of the UK. Although Sharp was a conventional Japanese company in that management decisions were taken through consensus, the way forward was decided by personalities and in particular a product champion. In the late 1980s Sharp recruited an R&D general manager from MITI’s Electro Technical Laboratory at Tsukuba, Kataoka Sho¯ei. The traditional way of recruitment in a Japanese company was to employ staff as graduates and school leavers and there was little turnover at later stages, but Sharp had always recruited talented people at all stages. Vice Presidents Sasaki and his successor Asada Atsushi had come from rivals Fujitsu and Matsushita. Kataoka had already made a national reputation by his invention of a magneto resistance sensor, which was and is still used in almost all microwave ovens.4 Once at Sharp R&D headquarters at Tenri, Kaaoka started to take on the role of champion for the proposed overseas R&D facility. This was a happy choice for the UK. Kataoka had been awarded a British Council scholarship to do a masters course at University College, London in the 1950s and while there he was greatly impressed by the basic research being carried out in the Engineering Department, particularly in opto-electronics. This is a major technology for many of Sharps advanced products. As a result of his enthusiasm for an overseas laboratory Sharp senior management set up a feasibility study team, which decided that a European site was a first priority. The team did not confine itself initially to the UK but considered other countries in the EC. At that time both France and Germany were increasing investment in new science parks following the lead taken by the UK in 1969 when the Cambridge Science Park was first set up. The team and its members made several visits to the UK and to France and Germany and an initial list of twenty-eightpossible sites was drawn up with a matrix showing their ratings against key criteria. Eventually, in 1989 this list was narrowed down to threesi427

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tes at Cambridge, Oxford and Manchester. The European sites, for example at Grenoble, were judged by the team not to be sufficiently associated with basic research in the fields of interest to Sharp and had the added disadvantage of requiring ability in a language other than English. Also communications with Japan were not as good as those available through the UK. In parallel with discussions with the owners and developers of the three sites Sharp personnel held meetings with DTI officials particularly with John Thynne who was the Department’s regional director in Manchester. The Embassy in Tokyo was also informed of their interest. I had known Sharp from the earlier days in Tokyo when I met vice president Sasaki through his assistant Teraishi Issei. I hadvisited Sharp Corporate R&D headquarters at Tenri in 1983 where I had been shown the latest technologies and the plant, which they had recently installed to mass-produce photo electric solar panels based on amorphous silicon technology, licensed from the US. In the course of visiting Japanese electronics companies in the Osaka region in 1987 I again visited Sharp and met Kataoka Sho¯ei. Although a formal decision to go ahead by the main Sharp board had yet to be given, Kataoka, who had been elected to the main board, and his colleagues received strong support for the project from the president Tsuji Haruo, Vice President Asada and the head of Corporate R&D Fujimoto Fumio. Kataoka had been put in charge of the Kashiwa Laboratory in Chiba prefecture near Tokyo. I was recruited as managing director in late 1989 to head the new UK research company and was brought into the discussions on the final selection of a site. I formally joined Sharp in April 1990. I was immediately asked to devise a research programme. The plan was for a stand-alone facility with around fifty researchers in the first stage. No specific budget had been allocated, but it was clear that something in the region of £10 to 20m was required as initial capital outlay and around £5m p.a. running costs. These sums were not likely to be a problem for Sharp’s total R&D of £700m p.a., although the vice-president for finance closely watched the cost. Cambridge was the clear favourite due to its unrivalled scientific reputation, but on examination their science park at that time had only one site available which was large enough and this had the disadvantage of overhead power cables within the site. Manchester had an attractive new science park, which we visited, but the scale of research in Sharp’s product areas was not sufficient. Moreover experience with the Wrexham plant and the marketing company had shown the disadvantages of communication compared with the London area with its more convenient access to major international airports. Sharp were diligently courted by Oxford. A new science park south of the ring road had been announced in 1989 by Magdalen 428

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College in partnership with the property arm of the Prudential Assurance Company. This was to be on land owned by Magdalen. The president of Magdalen, Antony Smith, set up meetings for Sharp senior management with the vice chancellor of the University and with Michael Heseltine who was then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the MP for the region, which covered the Science Park. He gave his enthusiastic support for the concept. As a result of these meetings both parties agreed that Sharp would be an ideal company to invest in the first stage of the new science park. A formal announcement was made in February 1990 at a reception at the Savoy Hotel, which was attended by a government minister (Eric Forth). By locating at Oxford Sharp was not eligible for a regional grant from the DTI, unlike the Wrexham factory, which was in a region that qualified. There were accordingly no formal negotiations with UK Government over the investment at Oxford. SHARP’S R&D INVESTMENT

Once formal approval had been made by the Sharp main board negotiation began in earnest with the Science Park and particularly with Antony Smith and his bursar Keith Wills, as well as wishthe agents for the Prudential. A 3.8-acre site, which was probably the best one on the Science Park, was purchased. Magdalen took a close interest in the design as they realized that the Sharp facility would be a flagship for the new science park. Shimizu were chosen as lead contractors as they were operating in the UK and they already had close relationship with Sharp, having constructed most of its overseas installations as well as a substantial number in Japan including research laboratories. The eventual contract was for the construction of a 3,000 square metre building with individual laboratories, library, canteen and a clean room. Sharp decided to proceed with the establishment of the company, now known as Sharp Laboratories of Europe (SLE) from early 1990, a good two years before it was likely that the facilities at the Oxford Science Park would be complete. Temporary premises were leased for twoyears in Abingdon and I took over in April 1990. These premises were in a single new office block (called Neave House after the local MP Airey Neave who was assassinated by the IRA). We established research laboratories there and I recruited up to twentyresearchers who started work on artificial intelligence, semiconductors and displays. Formally SLE was owned by the four subsidiaries of Sharp in Europe (in France, Germany, Spain and the UK). This was to ensure that we were closely linked with these companies for exploitation of 429

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the research. However, our budget and formal contract were directly with Sharp Corporation in Japan and in the first stage our connection was with Corporate R&D Group and product divisions in Japan. The European subsidiaries with only a few exceptions sourced their designs and products from the business divisions in Japan. On time and on budget we moved into the new laboratories on the Science Park in March 1992. We were formally opened in September that year at a ceremony led by Michael Heseltine and president Tsuji and attended by many distinguished people in industry and academia. The day got off to a disturbing start when after most guests had arrived my receptionist, ashen faced, came to tell me that she had just received a phone call from someone claiming to have planted a bomb to kill the Secretary of State. We had no option but to clear the building and wait while the police searched. No bomb was found and the ceremony continued twohours late. Great credit must go to Michael Heseltine for staying throughout until late afternoon during a time of high political/financial turmoil in London. We became a high profile company because of our size and the reputation of Sharp. Our position on the Oxford Science Park attracted many distinguished visitors over the years, including royalty, the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, MPs and many distinguished scientists and engineers. Although SLE started in 1990 the bursting of the Japanese economic bubble did not at that time have too serious an effect on Sharp and the investment at Oxford progressed as planned. Between 1992 and 1996 the number of staff increased to around fifty with 80% of these being researchers with higher degrees. Over this period we hosted a relatively small number of staff from Japan, perhaps two or three at any one time, the most senior of these being my deputymanaging director. As a new and well-resourced research laboratory we were attractive to young graduates and we were successful in building up formidable research teams. Sharp was generous with funds for new equipment and this included expensive items like molecular beam epitaxy equipment. Our budget was renewed on an annual basis with a six-month review to take account of any important changes. We presented our research programme to Corporate R&D Group also annually and we took part in the Company’s annual exhibition of new technical developments at the All Company three-day event in February. Coinciding with this meeting in Japan we had formal company annual meetings where our accounts were approved by our shareholders (as noted above, Sharp subsidiaries in UK, France, Germany and Spain). At a very early stage (while we were in Abingdon) Sharp dispatched a team of patent specialists under their group general manager to 430

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advise us in developing our intellectual property. Our return to Sharp for their investment had to be in new ideas for eventual incorporation into new products and it was necessary to secure patent rights at an early stage. Fortunately two of my general managers, David Ezra and Robert Brown, were from industry and had a good background in intellectual property. We were also were guided in this by successive deputy managing directors Nakajima Yoshi and Takeguchi Haruo. As a fully funded R&D company in the UK we were eligible to join both national and EU research projects, which we did. We were sought after as partners because of our connection with a major manufacturer with plants in Europe. In most areas, but not all, our research flourished and gave confidence to Sharp that we would be successful. An early success was the development of intelligent software to enhance the performance of microwave ovens by Nomura Toshio and his colleagues in cooperation with Oxford University’s Engineering Department. As many as 60,000 ovens with this technology were made and sold by the Wrexham factory. We also developed under David Ezra novel three dimension displays, which did not require special glasses to get the 3D effect. This technology was incorporated into Sharp mobile phones and in-car displays from 2003 onwards. The artificial intelligence group produced a new form of intelligent Japanese-English dictionary, which was incorporated into Sharp’s Mebius range of laptop computers in 1998. In 1994 vice president Asada with the full backing of president Tsuji invited us to put forward proposals for an expansion of our facilities and activities. This was to be centredon liquid crystal display research. We had been fortunate in attracting Peter Raynes to SLE who was a researcher with a world-class reputation in this field. He became our chief scientist. The facilities were doubled in size to 6,000 square metres. The extended facilities were formally opened in 1996 again by Michael Heseltine who was by then Deputy Prime Minister and president Tsuji. Fortunately this time we had no security problems. From 1996 the number of staff increased to around seventyand at least 70% of these were researchers. We had a very efficient admin group of five under Martin Williams. We began to form closer working links, including staff exchanges, with our colleagues in business divisions in Japan, particularly the Liquid Crystal Display and Semiconductor groups. Part of our funding was sourced from these groups, the rest being from Corporate R&D Group. SLE has continued to thrive under my successor, Stephen Bold and his successor, Ian Thompson, both of who came from industrial R&D backgrounds. Staff numbers rose to 120 by 2006. 431

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Since 2000 when I retired there has been greater emphasis on transferring technology to business divisions. A substantial team has also been built up to develop advance software for mobile phones with considerable success. There has been further infrastructure investment, particularly in semiconductor laser research and in 2005 SLE announced the first fabrication of a blue laser diode using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) processing, a very important development for Sharp as a major manufacturer of these devices. Sharp achieved very substantial sales through the development of SLE system display technology, 3D displays used in Nintendo products and mobile phone privacy software. The success of SLE stimulated Sharp to create Sharp Laboratories of America in Washington State in 1996 and a research company in China. A large investment in new LCD manufacturing in 2008 at the beginning of the world recession caused Sharp considerable financial difficulty from which it was beginning to recover in 2014 when this article was written. SLE has weathered the storm and now has a single shareholder, Sharp Europe, based in Stockley Park near London. The research programme is being diversified to include health and energy technologies with the aim of creating new markets and businesses in Europe. Participation in UK Government and EU programmes continues, as does collaboration with the Oxford Science Park and Magdalen College CONCLUSIONS AND LESSONS

The rapid growth in inward investment in R&D and Design in the late 1980s and the 1990s generated substantial links between Japan and the UK across many sectors of economic activity as well as providing an important component to our cultural relationships. Although in 1990 there were at least seven or eight basic research facilities being built in the UK by Japanese companies not all of these flourished in the long term and at least three fell by the wayside for varying reasons, the bursting of the Japanese economic bubble being one of these. I believe that SLE has been a success because of the very determined way that Sharp ensured that the research we did, albeit mostly for the long term, was identifiable with future products. In our early years we were kept under close scrutiny by the highest levels of Sharp management who took a deep interest in our progress both by visiting us in Oxford and during visits we made to Japan. This scrutiny was never oppressive and was always welcomed by the staff of SLE because it did not evolve into closer direct management by Japan, as could have happened in less enlightened companies. We were left to our own resources to determine our research programmes and to make sure that we met our targets. The third 432

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factor in this success was the presence of a world-class innovative and ambitious parent. SLE has much to thank the foresight and support of president Tsuji, vice-president Asada and Kataoka Sho¯ei. ENDNOTES 1

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3

4

For an account by Sir Robin Mountfield of the Nissan investment and biographical portraits of the leaders of other Japanese companies investing in Britain see Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VI, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2007. An account of Margaret Thatcher’s role in promoting inward investment from Japan see essay by Hugh Cortazzi in volume IX in this series, 2014. The investment probably reached £100m p.a. for a few years around 1989–1995. Investment in Britain was followed by similar investments in France and Spain but was some time after similar activities in the US. Europe was an attractive location because in many aspects of product design and style European consumers and companies were and are the leaders and it clearly made good sense for overseas consumer goods manufacturers to have a presence in this market. He was awarded a prize by the Emperor of Japan for this in 2002.

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Mitsubishi Electric’s Manufacturing Investments in Scotland YOSHIO NOGUCHI

Yoshio Noguchi at the Haddington plant

INTRODUCTION

Mitsubishi Electric is a major Japanese company founded in 1921 with approximately 121,000 employees worldwide. It specializes in the manufacture of electrical equipment including energy and electric systems, electronic devices, industrial automation systems, home appliances, information and communication systems. The company began the manufacture of television sets at Haddington in Scotland in 1979. It later established facilities for the manufacture of videotape recorders (VTR) at Livingston in 1983 and for the assembly of air conditioners also at Livingston in 1993. In the 1970s the demand for Japanese consumer electrical goods in Britain and Europe was expanding rapidly. Local manufacturers complained of the damage caused to their companies by Japanese exports of products, which were generally of higher quality and lower price. There were fears that there would be growing unemployment in the 434

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industries affected and this led to demands for protection through quota restrictions and other non-tariff barriers. The quotas allowed for imports were inadequate to meet local demand and restrictions were placed on the sale of products, which were not labelled as manufactured in a country within the European Economic Community. Japanese companies affected by these restrictions were thus forced to set up manufacturing facilities in an EEC country if they were to maintain and expand their share of the European market. Sony, Hitachi, Toshiba and Matsushita as well as Mitsubishi Electric were all equally affected and chose manufacturing sites in Britain for reasons which I explain below. TELEVISION FACTORY AT HADDINGTON

It was sheer chance that Mitsubishi Electric decided to start manufacture of television sets in Scotland rather than somewhere else in the EEC. A Norwegian electronics company called Tandberg had established a small manufacturing facility in Haddington a small town on the outskirts of Edinburgh where they had been producing successfully for a couple of years a high-end TV in relatively small quantities. Unfortunately, their head office in Norway had run into difficulties and decided to close the factory. This caused much concern to the British authorities and the Scottish Development Agency in view of the prevailing difficult economic conditions and unemployment and they sought an alternative manufacturer to take over the facility. They were delighted when Mitsubishi Electric agreed to start manufacturing television sets in the Haddington facility. Only one condition was imposed on Mitsubishi, namely the continued employment of the existing employees. This Mitsubishi willingly accepted. The fact that there was no trade union in the factory, perhaps because it was a small factory in a small town, was a positive factor for Mitsubishi. Financial incentives, including a Regional Development Grant, also encouraged Mitsubishi to go ahead with the necessary investment. There were advantages and disadvantages for Mitsubishi in taking on an existing factory as opposed to building a brand new factory from scratch. Starting from ‘scratch’ a company can plan an efficient new factory building and facilities as well as new employee training schemes but in case of a ‘take-over’, this is not of course, possible. One advantage of a ‘take-over’ was that it limited the costs of the initial investment. Another was the immediate availability of a trained workforce. The process of assembling a TV set is much the same whatever the model. In theory, Mitsubishi Electric could produce Mitsubishi models right away, but in fact it took three months to install new testing equipment and other machinery. Once the fac435

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tory began to operate again, it soon attained its maximum production. One disadvantage was that the workforces had got used to the ways of the previous company and there were a lot of complaints about Mitsubishi’s way of doing things. Employees would say: ‘I have been working on TV in the past, why can’t we do the same as before?’ ‘Why on earth do I have to pay attention to such small details? ‘It’s not my fault, someone at a previous stage has done it ’ ‘It is not mentioned in my job description’, and so on.

We explained to them that in order to make quality products, it was very important to pay attention to details and to follow the specified work process. Once convinced they were happy to follow the instructions. Mitsubishi’s local management tried to be flexible and realistic in applying the accepted procedures. All in all, as far as the operation of the TV factory was concerned, the pros outweighed the cons. One issue often cited at the time was the productivity or efficiency of the workforces. My verdict on the issue is that there was no remarkable difference between the local work force and that of their Japanese counterpart. If there was a difference it was not due to laziness or inefficiency of the operators; rather it was mostly due to poor management on the shop floor, such as over the supply of parts to the conveyor line, or over work sequence. We had some difficulty in finding the ‘right man’, who was good at thorough planning of work processes. In other words we had a problem over ensuring good middle management. However I often noticed workers were handling heavy things more easily and more quickly than Japanese counterparts and the simplistic, boring manual work did not seem to affect their work attitude as they recognised it as just a job. There were technicians who worked in a 24hrs automatic machine section, who were conscientious professional workmen and who showed no hesitation in coming in to fix a machine even for a midnight emergency call. This reminded me of my experience in Japan where in a smoothly run factory, there were professionals dedicated to their assigned tasks and never in the limelight or noticed, without whom the factory will not run well.1 TV production developed smoothly and Mitsubishi Electric products were exported from Haddington to EC countries. The quality of the factory’s products was of a high standard. Some models were even better than those made in Japan. This was most encouraging for all of us. Employment increased to some six hundred and Mitsubishi 436

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became the largest employer in the town. Production at its peak amounted to some 400,000 sets of which some 65% were exported. When the factory at Haddington ceased production in October 1998 some five hundred were made redundant but every effort was made to find new jobs for them. At the beginning we had seven Japanese managers/engineers; when production ended we only had four Japanese on the staff of the factory. VIDEO TAPE RECORDING FACTORY, LIVINGSTON, 1983

Japanese Video Tape Recording (VTR) machines encountered the same problems as those faced by Japanese television sets. In order to meet European demand for VTR Mitsubishi needed to establish a factory in Europe to make VTRs for the European market. The company had to decide where to place the proposed factory. Some favoured Germany, others France, but finally Scotland was chosen. The successful operation of Mitsubishi’s TV factory at Haddington undoubtedly played a key role in the decision. It would have been theoretically possible to open the VTR factory within the premises of the TV factory, as much of the equipment needed for the manufacture of TVs and VTRs is similar. But we recognized that if we did so we would face a number of difficulties. It would not be easy in Haddington to recruit a sufficiently large work force to meet expanding production targets. An additional important factor was that as a result of a change in British government policy Regional Development Grants (amounting to 40% financial support for new investment) were no longer available for the Haddington area where the unemployment rate was then low. The 40% financial support available was a very important factor for Mitsubishi and the company accordingly sought a location where the grant would be payable. There were several ‘New Towns’ in Scotland, where the grant was available. These were areas with high unemployment as a result of the decline of ship-building, mining and other heavy industries. Mitsubishi Electric chose Livingston as it was the nearest ‘New Town’ to the TV factory. Livingston used to be a mining town and was suffering from high unemployment in particular among young people without professional skills. In order to revitalize the town, the Government, the Scottish Development Agency and the local authority were offering attractive incentives to persuade new industries to locate in the town. We were particularly interested in the availability of many fresh school-leavers and we thought that offering jobs to them would eventually contribute to reviving the local community. Our plan was to employ school-leavers, teach them about our products 437

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and give them sufficient training so that we could establish a successful factory. We accepted the challenge with vigour and enthusiasm. We put particular emphasis on the training of the newly-recruited school-leavers. It was not an easy task since the youngsters had no work experience and unlike Japanese they were not used to group activity and were prone to individualist behaviour. It took some time to make them observe good time keeping and work discipline, but once convinced, they became good workers. Unlike adults, the youngsters were naïve, did not quibble about trivia, listened carefully to what was being told and behaved well. They were also energetic with a sense of solidarity and put forward lots of suggestions about how the work might be improved. This contributed to the high productivity that we achieved. We were all impressed by those youths who had a huge potential, and felt that we had made the right decision. At first, the VTR factory, like the TV factory, was undertaking a simple assembling operation, but as we wanted to add more value to our work, we tried to manufacture a part called ‘deck’, which is the most important component in a VTR. It is composed of a mechanical part called drum, which requires a micro-precision work when grinding from an aluminium bar. The process itself was carried out automatically by an instrument according to a preset programme, but the machine had to be installed in a temperature/ humidity-controlled dust-free room. The machine is so delicate that, despite being installed in the controlled room, it required a minute adjustment according to the weather of the day. The knack to do this was acquired easily by the young operators. As this machine cost over one million pounds at the time, some concern was expressed in Japan about whether the young workers could handle the machine properly. We convinced them successfully. This was the very first use in the UK of this type of precision machine. Eventually the decks were exported to Mitsubishi Electric‘s subsidiary in Malaysia. VTR production peaked at some 480,000 a year of which some 70% were exported. The factory eventually employed some twelve hundred, mostly young people from the area. When production of VTRs at Livingston ended in August 1999 some six hundred employees were made redundant, but about fifty were found jobs at Mitsubishi Electric’s air conditioner plant (see below) and some five hundred found jobs in nearby factories. At the beginning there were eight Japanese managers/engineers employed at the Livingston factory, but when production ceased there were only four Japanese left.

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OTHER JAPANESE FACTORIES IN SCOTLAND

There had been some Japanese factories already in operation in Scotland before Mitsubishi Electric came to Haddington, but Mitsubishi Electric was the first major Japanese company to invest in production facilities in Scotland. It attracted many Japanese visitors from other companies who were thinking of establishing factories. We always welcomed them and let them see in detail how our operation worked. I told then my personal opinion on the merits of having a factory in Scotland. At the time, the area between Glasgow and Edinburgh was called ‘Silicon Glen’ after Silicon Valley in USA. Many Japanese electronics companies opened their factories in the area, including semiconductor enterprises and food process companies. These were mainly major companies but some medium-sized companies related to the majors came as well. AIR CONDITIONER FACTORY AT LIVINGSTON, 1993

In 1993, ten years after the VTR factory had opened Mitsubishi Electric opened another new factory in Livingston despite objections in Japan that three factories in one country meant too much concentration in one area. But the success of the first two Mitsubishe Electric factories in Scotland swayed the arguments in favour of choosing a Scottish location. On this occasion we built from scratch a purpose-built factory near to the VTR site. A key factor in the decision in addition to the success of the TV and VTR factories was the availability of a well qualified workforce and good managers together with the availability of components –in short a good industrial infrastructure. Support given by the government and the Scottish Office were, of course, also factors. Perhaps helped by the current emphasis on climate change, the factory has been running buoyantly since its establishment. ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND FACTORY MANAGEMENT

Japanese companies could open factories anywhere in the European Union but without exception Japanese electronics companies opened their factories in the UK. Japanese car manufacturers also chose Britain as their preferred location despite the fact that at the time the UK economy was stagnant and some Japanese were scornful of what they slightingly referred to as the ‘British disease’ where industry was prone to strikes and had inefficient working practices. The British government and the public worked very hard to revitalise their economy by creating jobs and encouraging investment by British and foreign companies. They also put in place investment 439

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incentives in the form of Regional Development grants, which were surprisingly large and certainly very attractive. But these alone do not account for the huge Japanese investments, which were made. In my view the key factor was the ‘English’ language. A factory operation involves many people on the shop floor, and in order to organise and run the factory efficiently good communications between management and the workforce are vital. In Japan, English is the compulsory foreign language taught in schools, and most Japanese managers are able to communicate with their workforce in Britain without having to use an interpreter. It is ideal if a Japanese manager can speak good English, but even if he speaks only haltingly he can create good mutual understanding, as British workers tend to listen carefully. Most people working in a factory are hard working, sincere and try to understand Japanese managers. In my view the key factors, which led to Japanese companies choosing to invest in the UK, were: 1. 2. 3.

The English language; Government policy encouraging inward investment; Good infrastructure, nationwide communications and road network.

For me, as the person responsible for running the Mitsubishi Electric investment, the most important factor was the English language. PERSONAL CONCLUSION

TV and VTR are now being replaced by LCD and DVD. So it was inevitable that TV and VTR operations came to an end. The Air Conditioner factory was however still in operation in 2014 when this article was written One-and-a-half centuries ago when Japan opened the door to the world and adopted Western modernisation, many Westerners including many British, in particular Scots, came to Japan and helped its industrialisation. The Engineering School, which was the precursor of Tokyo University’s Engineering department, was established by Henry Dyer from Glasgow. Mitsubishi group to which Mitsubishi Electric belongs owed much to Thomas Glover from Aberdeen. Japan learnt much from Britain and I hope that through my work in Scotland I have made a small contribution to British prosperity. It was a bolt out of the blue for me when I was told of my assignment to Scotland. My belief had been that a big factory should be located near a large city, and I wondered why on earth I had to go to a small town in Scotland which was not even on the maps available to me in Japan. Having lived and worked in the country I now have

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a different outlook: my family and I all very much enjoyed our stay of over ten years in Scotland, which became our second home. We are most grateful to all who were always kind and ready to help and support our Japanese family. Television, which was invented by L. Baird, a Scot from Dumbarton, was my business. I feel greatly privileged to have worked making televisions in Scotland. ENDNOTE 1

I have personally talked about this issue with one of my friends who ran a Japanese factory in Wales. He frankly admitted that he found exactly the same situation in his factory.

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Alps Electric (UK) Limited and the Birth of Two Trees Photonics Limited PETER WOODLAND

INTRODUCTION

Alps Electric (UK) Limited was founded in November 1984 as an overseas subsidiary of the radio frequency (RF) division of Alps Electric Co. Ltd, Japan. Its mother factory was in the small town of Soma in North East Japan. It started production of television tuners in a temporary rented factory in August 1985 and moved in 1986 to a permanent custom- built factory on a ten-acre site in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. In the 1970s and 1980s, Japanese companies gained global dominance in many market sectors. Large European consumer electronics firms such as Philips, Grundig and Thomson were suffering from an onslaught of cheap, imported Japanese TVs. The European Commission reacted by introducing protective legislation to prevent Japanese companies gaining market share unfairly by the so-called dumping of

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certain products into the European market at sales prices below their cost of production in Japan. To reduce their direct imports, the major Japanese TV manufacturers set up assembly plants in Europe and urged their key component suppliers also to establish European plants. As a major electronic components manufacturer and probably the world’s largest manufacturer of TV tuners at the time, Alps Electric was among the first of the components manufacturers to transfer some production to the UK. ALPS ELECTRIC (UK)

The first managing director of Alps Electric (UK) Limited was Ogasawara Sho¯ji, a senior board director and one of the first engineers recruited by President Kataoka Katsutaro when he founded Alps Electric in Tokyo in 1948. He was a vastly experienced manufacturing engineer. Although slight in stature and lacking formal English language skills, he quickly bonded his new team of Japanese and English managers and commanded respect with his own self-effacing style of leadership. He created the company’s unique culture that did not tolerate any distinction between office and factory workers and coined the company motto ‘Work hard, study hard, play hard’.

Ogasawara Sho¯ji

The Japanese managers and engineers whom he brought over to set up the production lines and train the newly recruited UK workforce soon ran into both language and cultural difficulties. Ogasawara knew that I had a Japanese wife and quickly recruited her as a language interpreter and cultural mediator to resolve these cultural misunderstandings. Then, in May 1987, he recruited me into his management team as his business-planning manager.

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Peter Woodland

In 1985, the European Commission announced its seven-year plan to form a Single European Market. A widely held belief among Japanese businesses that this might lead to a raising of trade barriers led to more and more production transfer from Japan to Europe, mainly to the UK. Alps expanded its production in the UK and established a second European factory in Ireland in 1988 producing computer keyboards and mouse. Watano Kiyoshi arrived in early 1987 to succeed Ogasawara as managing director in the following year. He had only joined Alps in 1986 from Sanyo Industries, where, as a tough purchasing manager, he had impressed Kataoka, the Alps president.

Watano Kiyoshi

On becoming managing director Watano quickly appointed Tanaka Susumu as his director of manufacturing. He came from the Soma 444

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factory with a wealth of tuner manufacturing experience and a fierce reputation as a tough, no-nonsense manager. A keen sportsman, Tanaka thrived in competitive situations and knew how to build and lead engineering teams from the front. The two men were about the same age and soon struck up an excellent working partnership. Watano assumed overall control of the company and all reporting to Alps HQ, while giving Tanaka full authority to organize and run the factory as he saw fit. As an Alps outsider, Watano needed Tanaka, his ex-Soma right hand man, to handle production transfers and attract the best Soma engineers to strengthen the UK’s manufacturing performance. Watano promoted me to senior manager responsible for legal matters and public affairs, tasking me to establish a purchasing department and local procurement function. This triangular top management structure with Watano fronting Alps HQ and the Japanese customers, Tanaka fronting the factory and the RF Division in Soma and myself fronting local suppliers, organizations and trade bodies in the UK and Europe, lasted throughout Watano’s hugely successful ten-year tenure as managing director. The company became profitable in his first year as managing director, thanks to an improving UK exchange rate and higher production volumes. By the early 1990s, Watano was delivering annual dividends to Alps HQ, while retaining profits within Alps UK to further his own strategic plans. In 1989, fearing that low UK unemployment rates would prevent the UK plant from growing further, senior Soma managers planned to allocate some tuner production for UK customers to Alps’ new Malaysian plant. Watano immediately purchased an industrial unit in Arbroath, Scotland, financed entirely from Alps UK’s own profits and a regional assistance grant from the Scottish Office. Alps Electric (Scotland) Limited was created in November 1989 and production began in April 1990. With this new production capacity, Watano was able to pull the production transfer away from the Malaysian plant. In 1990, Sony TV in Europe asked Alps Japan to design and supply them with a completely new multi-function tuner unit. The Soma factory declined on the grounds that its design engineers were totally engaged in other key work. Watano realized that the loss of this Sony TV tuner business would badly affect Alps UK’s operations. So he created Alps UK’s own design team, based in the Milton Keynes factory, financed entirely from Alps UK profits and headed by his most senior RF design manager, Oyama Toru. In March 1994, Watano created a new subsidiary company, Alps Electric Technology Centre (UK) Limited to raise the status of this local design activity. Free from the design conventions and long-established supplier obligations that constrained the Soma design department, the UK 445

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design team designed tuners with European certificate of origin status and sought out new and untried European suppliers. Using contacts developed by the new purchasing department, a design collaboration agreement was signed with Motorola France to design a new phase lock loop integrated circuit device (PLL IC) for Alps UK’s locally designed tuner. At the time, Motorola had no market share in PLL ICs. This cooperation flourished both between the two companies’ design teams as well as at senior management level. Manufacture of this UK-designed tuner incorporating the Motorola PLL chip followed in Milton Keynes. Not only did this jointly-designed Motorola PLL chip perform better than any other PLL chip worldwide, it was also around thirty percent cheaper in yen terms than its Japanese competitors. Ironically, the RF division in Soma achieved an enormous boost in its own profits by purchasing the Motorola chip for its own huge production volume. The Japanese government had been urging Japanese electronics firms to import more foreign components, especially high value ICs, to prevent tougher trade sanctions against Japanese exports. Alps’ imports of Motorola ICs allowed the Alps president to show the government that Alps had indeed acted on its instructions. Motorola swept from nowhere to become the PLL-IC global market leader and, Jean Louis Chaptal, Motorola’s European technical director, received a Global Achievement Award from Motorola’s US Headquarters. However, there was no such recognition for Watano and Oyama and the embarrassed Soma design managers were left to re-build the damaged relationship with their long-standing Japanese PLL IC supplier. In 1993, the Milton Keynes factory was in full production with over 700 employees producing annually some 5 million tuners and other TV devices such as remote control handsets. Alps Electric Scotland was approaching its full capacity with around 250 employees. Alps UK’s operations were one of the largest contributors towards the whole Alps Electric Group’s profits that year. In recognition, Watano was appointed as a main board director of Alps Japan and I was appointed as the first British director of Alps UK. The following year, Alps automotive division, based in Furukawa in North East Japan, asked Watano to set up an automotive parts production line within the Milton Keynes factory for its growing number of OEM customers in the UK. Watano politely declined. He realized that Alps UK owed its success largely to the support of Soma’s worldclass engineers. Concerned about Soma’s future plan to build a new plant in Eastern Europe, he no doubt felt that this wasn’t the time to show any sign of divided loyalty. He knew that the automotive division had little experience of supporting overseas manufacturing facilities. Having built Alps UK into a highly profitable company, he did not intend to jeopardize everything for a risky automotive production venture. Eventually, the automotive division decided instead to build 446

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a completely new factory for automotive parts production in Kilarney, Ireland. Watano’s decision was sound and justified at the time, but in hindsight, proved to be a strategic error for Alps UK that would have damaging consequences in the coming years. By the mid-1990s, Japanese manufacturers, who had set up in the UK in the 1980s, began to build new factories in Central and Eastern European countries such as Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, where operators’ wages were just ten percent of their Western European counterparts. The availability of large government grant incentives made the production transfer argument all the more compelling. The Alps Group established Alps Electric Czech in November 1995 and it began tuner production in the following spring. Despite the UK design engineers’ efforts to combine several tuner functions into a single module to cut drastically sales prices and remain competitive, sales turnover and profits began to fall. In his final two years as managing director, Watano could only maintain his ten-year record of continuous annual profit rises by hammering down material costs, drastically cutting capital expenditure and relying on Tanaka’s production engineering team to extend through meticulous repair and maintenance the operating lives of machines which were becoming obsolete. Around this time a young apprentice named Jamieson Christmas, studying for his Higher National Diploma (HND), devised an automated tuner alignment system that used the clock signal on a basic laptop computer to replace £500,000 of expensive test equipment and dramatically reduce labour costs – all for just the price of a basic laptop computer and some inexpensive mechanical parts. This phenomenal engineering achievement was awarded the Gold Award for Engineering Excellence, the highest recognition within the Alps Group – the only time that this Gold award was presented to a factory outside Japan

Jamieson Christmas

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Between 1988 and 1998, Watano amassed huge financial reserves in Alps UK’s bank account and the interest earned on these deposits added non-operating income to the operating profit and further increased the company’s overall profitability. Unusual among Japanese MDs in the UK, Watano engaged tirelessly with UK local, regional and national institutions. He became the first Japanese board member of the Milton Keynes Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the first Japanese board member of the UK’s Electronics Components Industries Federation (ECIF) as well as taking an active role in the Japan Electronics Business Association (JEBA). After returning to Japan, he received the OBE for his services to Anglo-Japanese relations. Nitta Tetsuo, who was sent to Alps UK in 1996 to succeed Watano, was a Soma man through and through. A successful tuner design department manager with global responsibilities, he had led a joint collaboration with rival tuner manufacturer, the Dutch firm Philips, to introduce a universal standard for the pin connections in tuners worldwide. Ostensibly Nitta was to use his design management experience to strengthen Alps UK’s local design activities and create new higher value-added products to replace the loss of production to the ever-growing Czech factory. In reality the RF Division wanted its own man back in control of the embarrassingly successful Alps UK, to curb the unpredictable activities of the UK technology centre and to take all decision-making squarely back to Soma. The relationship between Nitta and Oyama was an uneasy one. Oyama was then head of the UK technology centre and had caused Nitta’s design department so much embarrassment by forging the successful European partnership with Motorola. Unsurprisingly, then, as an Alps main board member in his own right, who enjoyed considerable autonomy, Watano sent Nitta on a vague full year’s study project far away in Europe from Milton Keynes. Consequently Nitta was wholly unprepared to take over as managing director in May 1997 as originally planned and Watano stayed on a further year. Tanaka too, who had to retire aged sixty from Alps Japan, was retained on a further one year Alps UK temporary contract.

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In May 1998, Nitta finally became managing director of Alps UK. Watano had steered Alps UK through a turbulent period of huge political and commercial change. With no career position to defend in Alps Japan and no conflict of loyalty, he had always worked in the interests of Alps UK. During the 1980s, the RF Division managed its own sales activities globally and allocated production to its overseas affiliates, such as Alps UK. A sales department was created in the Alps UK subsidiary in 1985 to liaise with the RF Division and manage sales and delivery from the UK factory to its European customers. In Europe, Alps, Philips and Thomson produced and sold TV tuners with their customers split according to their chosen tuner pin configuration. For many years, there was almost no direct competition to drive down tuner prices. This contributed to the large profits that Alps UK made during the early 1990s. All other Alps product sales in Europe were handled by Alps Electric Europa GmbH, based in Dusseldorf, Germany, which operated through a network of national sales offices. During the 1990s, Alps Europa wanted to take over all tuner sales – by far Alps’ largest and most profitable business in Europe. However, Alps’ TV customers, mainly located in the UK, insisted on Alps keeping its sales team beside its UK production lines, So, Alps UK kept its sales office and sales profits. Watano’s sales team adhered to his strategy not to solicit orders from Philips’ customers. However, finally, around 1997, determined to win tuner business at any cost, Alps Europa substantially undercut the broadly similar price that both Alps UK and Philips had been quoting for their respective tuners up to that time and won a large order from a surprised Philips TV company. This proved to be a major error of judgment, which was to have long-lasting catastrophic consequences that Alps Europa could never have envisaged. Philips Tuner plant in Krefeld in Germany lost this core production for their hitherto main customer, Philips TV, and was closed. More ominously, Philips Tuner then built a new Polish factory to reduce dramatically its manufacturing costs and attack Alps UK’s own customer base. Soon, Alps UK’s own customers were pressing them for the same lower Alps Europa pricing, which quickly became the norm. This was happening just as Nitta became managing director. The RF Division soon realized that this new Philips tuner order was impossibly priced to produce profitably in its new Czech factory and transferred the production instead to Alps Scotland, just as an appreciating UK pound was making UK production more expensive. It is a testament to Alps Scotland that it shipped tuners to Phillips TV factory in Austria until the Arbroath plant finally closed in 2001, squeezing a profit from this production that no-one 449

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wanted and keeping over a hundred Scottish workers in employment. The RF Division also sent a senior Soma engineer to become Head of the UK technology centre and become Oyama’s new boss. The decline of Alps UK accelerated during Nitta’s term as managing director. Fierce price competition resulted in a price free fall against a backdrop of a strengthening UK pound. With an impotent and languishing technology centre, no new local product was designed and no production was transferred to either UK plant. Production volumes dropped and the headcount fell. Unable to bear large factory overheads, the company began to lose money. Watano’s carefully deposited financial reserves were quickly depleted and the corresponding bank interest income was lost, further exacerbating the company’s total losses. Watano had cut capital expenditure and left the company exposed. Nitta no longer had the money to purchase new equipment. In contrast, the Czech plant had the newest grant-funded equipment, and could boast of the latest production processes. In defiant response, the UK management resolved to use Jamieson Christmas’s remarkable manufacturing innovation to restore the UK’s competitiveness and effectively neutralize the labour cost differential between the Czech and UK plants without spending huge amounts on expensive new production equipment. There was a short-lived belief that the UK company’s supremacy in software programming could be used to automate more areas of production. However, although it took quite a long time for the RF Division engineers to understand fully the young apprentice’s revolutionary concept, they eventually instructed Nitta to have Jamieson transfer his automated system to the Czech factory. All plans for further automation and more advanced software development in Milton Keynes were abandoned. In April 2001, all production was transferred from the Arbroath factory to the Czech plant and Alps Scotland closed. In early 2001, Nitta was recalled to Tokyo to resume new responsibilities in Alps HQ and Komeya Nobuhiko took over as managing director. Nitta was very much a casualty of the circumstances into which he had been transferred. After little training from Watano, he had taken over a factory weakened by years of inadequate capital investment and no longer with the support of the vastly experienced Tanaka. Then a succession of events had overwhelmed him that would have defeated most managing directors. With none of the freedoms that Watano enjoyed, he had had to follow the global strategic direction of his RF Division, which saw no future role for Alps UK. On his return to Japan, his old boss, Kiyono Tetsuhiro¯, a charismatic head of global research and development, found him a position in the Group’s R & D laboratory in Sendai. This strange twist of fate would 450

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later allow Nitta to act decisively for Alps UK in a way he could never do before. Komeya had spent the previous two years successfully restructuring Alps Ireland and guaranteeing its continued presence as Alps automotive parts factory in Europe – a role that Watano had rejected for Alps UK years earlier. Alps president Kataoka Masataka, who wanted the best possible outcome for Alps UK, had singled out Komeya, who had worked in Alps UK as production control manager in the late 1980s, as the best man to restructure and restore Alps UK operations. Having successfully completed the closure of Alps Scotland in 2001, Komeya initiated a downsizing of the Milton Keynes workforce, making some 250 employees redundant. At the same time, he secured £500,000 of investment funding from Alps HQ to create a much more compact, air-conditioned, clean manufacturing centre of excellence. With President Kataoka’s support, he succeeded in having a small volume production of keyless entry modules transferred from a reluctant and indignant automotive division. He raised salary levels for a much reduced production workforce to retain the best engineers and operators and further raise skill levels. Finally, he appointed the highly respected David Robson as operations director to mastermind the resurgence of this revitalized production facility. NEW DIRECTIONS

As business planning director, my task was to determine a new strategic direction for the company. I knew the UK design facility could not compete in conventional TV markets against the strength of the RF design department. I realized that Alps UK would have to exploit niche sectors and draw upon engineering strengths and expertise where the UK excelled over Japan. One such area was microwave technology in the field of broadband wireless applications. Because of its constitution, Japan had virtually no defence industry. Yet in the UK, many highly skilled microwave design engineers were working on specialized microwave products for military applications. The UK Government was freeing up microwave bandwidths for commercial use in mobile communications, offering Alps UK an opportunity to recruit skilled microwave engineers to design novel microwave broadband products. A new cleanroom facility was built within the clean manufacturing area to support this new microwave R & D activity and I engaged Roy Titchmarsh, a former technical director of a leading UK microwave company, to develop a new microwave marketing strategy. At the same time, I made initial contact with the department of engineering at Cambridge University to explore possible design opportunities in the field of optics. 451

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In March 2001, I was invited to watch the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race as a guest on the Cambridge University hospitality boat. After the race, the River Thames flooded its banks that day. While waiting onboard to disembark, I was drawn into an exciting discussion with Professor Bill Crossland, head of the university’s photonics department, about a plan to form a new photonics research centre. He was looking for three or four main industrial sponsors to partner the university and I immediately promised Alp’s involvement without any idea how I could possibly secure the funds from Alps Japan. I submitted my proposal to my former boss, Nitta in Alps Japan, who, in turn, promoted it strongly to his director Kiyono. Nitta held a real affection for the UK workforce and perhaps wanted to make amends for the painful redundancies that followed his departure. Kiyono was a visionary R & D director, who realized that Alps could not remain a global technology leader indefinitely by using just the knowledge base within the company or even within Japan itself. He understood that Alps would have to reach out and engage with global centres of excellence such as world-class universities. So, with his endorsement and President Kataoka’s strong support, the Alps board approved a £2.5 million investment towards the creation of the new Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics (CAPE) at Cambridge University – the first ever such investment by the Alps Group for a university outside Japan. After three years of complicated legal work to draw up contracts between the university and industrial sponsors from the USA, Europe and Japan, the £20 million CAPE research facility opened in 2004 on the West Cambridge Science Park. Its mission was to create a pioneering collaboration between the University and its industrial partners to develop jointly new products to satisfy actual market needs by using the university’s blue sky research. The partners were selected to represent different global regions and different sectors of the supply chain, from materials through components and sub-assemblies to finished products and systems. Between 2001 and 2004, the Alps UK sales force eventually became a branch office of Alps Europa GmbH, but continued to be based in and pay rent to the Milton Keynes factory and to contract its warehousing and transport activities out to Alps UK. Another Alps subsidiary, Alpine Electronics also contracted its UK warehousing to Alps UK and a large area of the factory was converted into warehousing. The automotive keyless entry module production continued to grow, but no new work was transferred from Japan. The UK management set about creating new business with UK firms, either as straightforward contract manufacture or by using their design engineers to design competitive new products. One such collaboration was with a Northampton-based satellite TV installer. 452

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The UK Technology Centre designed a high performance masthead amplifier unit for satellite dishes. Over 500,000 units were produced in Milton Keynes and the product became a UK market leader. However, Alps UK limped along, barely surviving with this combination of warehousing and manufacturing income. While studying part-time for his electronics degree, Jamieson Christmas was developing a novel meshed laser communication system, involving complex optics and software programming. As soon as he’d graduated with a 1st class honours degree, I sent him to Professor Crossland’s department of photonics in Cambridge University to do his doctoral studies in laser beam steering using liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) technologies. Accurately steering the laser beam was critical to the success of the meshed laser communication module he was designing. However, when CAPE opened, Jamieson quickly recognized the wider importance of laser beam steering using LCOS devices to create virtual images for light projection systems. His original project was shelved and, for the next five years, Jamiesom came to lead the Alps Group’s most important project at CAPE. Remarkably, he became the first person in the world to invent complex algorithms that massively sped up image creation using phase-only holography to make real-time video projection using holography a reality for the very first time. In 2005, I was appointed managing director of Alps UK with the continuing strong support of President Kataoka. Even so, the RF Division wanted only one factory in Europe, namely the Czech factory, and the growing automotive division hadn’t forgiven the UK plant for Watano’s refusal to cooperate ten years earlier and only wanted their production plant in Ireland. Unlike the UK plant, both the Czech and Irish companies received attractive EU and national development agency grants and tax incentives. Realizing that there was no hope of production transfer from any division in Japan to help Alps UK, I set the UK managers a challenging target to double our local business turnover every six months and, incredibly, we achieved that goal for over three years. Alps R & D division in Japan appointed Sasagawa Shinichi as director of the Alps UK technology centre and undertook to take over its operating costs. Sasagawa’s main role was to manage the CAPE activities and control Alps’ £2.5 million investment, but he became a staunch admirer of Alps UK’s local design activities and gave invaluable support to Jamieson and myself. By 2008, Alps UK’s situation had stabilized to a broadly breakeven financial position with about half its income coming from a growing volume of automotive and local business manufacturing and the other half from rental charges to the technology centre and sales branch office and from its warehousing services contracts. Just as it 453

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seemed that Alps UK had survived its most challenging period, the global financial crash happened. The Alps Group had to renegotiate its global corporate debt and its bankers demanded that it quickly reduce its global production capacity. With no supporters in the product divisions in Japan and generally acknowledged as the easiest factory in the world to close, Alps UK was singled out as one of the two manufacturing plants worldwide whose closure would satisfy the bankers’ demands. I was summoned to Alps HQ and instructed to complete the factory closure by December 2009. Throughout this closure process, Alps’ research activity in CAPE continued largely unaffected. Through a local UK initiative, a development collaboration began with BAE Systems to incorporate the new phase-only holographic technology into an airplane head-up display and Jamieson Christmas demonstrated an early prototype hand-held holographic micro-projector at the Alps technical show in Tokyo in 2008. However, the advent of the Apple iPad with its touch screen capabilities curbed consumers’ demand for stand alone micro-projectors and Alps was not targeting the aerospace market or BAE Systems as a strategic customer. Its main preoccupation during the closure of the Milton Keynes plant was to achieve a smooth and orderly transfer of production for its key Japanese customers. It seemed likely that, despite the promise of the phase-only holographic technology, the whole research programme would simply grind to a halt with the completion of Alps’ five-year investment period in CAPE in September 2009 and the subsequent closure of Alps UK at that year-end. The BAE Systems project was indeed terminated. Then, quite fortuitously, Jaguar Land Rover began to show a real understanding of and interest in this revolutionary hologram technology. Jaguar Land Rover already undertook research work at Cambridge University and was a customer of Alps in the UK. I was called again to Alps HQ in Tokyo in the autumn of 2009 for hasty discussions on how to retain Jamieson Christmas and his research team and continue the hologram technology development for automotive head-up display applications. President Kataoka, Komeya Nobuhiko, the former MD of Alps UK and then head of Alps automotive division and Kuriyama Toshihiro, Global R & D director (and later to succeed Kataoka as Group president) all supported my proposal to establish a new company in the UK, with Jamieson Christmas, his key optics engineer Dr Dackson Masiyano and myself as main shareholders with Alps Electric as a minority corporate shareholder. Named after its two main founders, Woodland and Christmas, Two Trees Photonics Ltd was founded in November 2009 and started operations in January 2010, just days after the closure of Alps UK. Alps concluded back-to-back development agreements with Jaguar Land Rover and with Two Trees that enabled Two Trees to 454

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operate profitably without seeking other investment funding. Over the following four years, Dr Christmas and his team worked completely unnoticed in the head-up display market to prove the concept, refine and improve the technology and develop the world’s first laser holographic head-up display. Together with Alps, they overcame all the formidable design and manufacturing challenges to satisfy the rigorous product standards required by the automotive market and Alps delivered its first head-up display products to Jaguar Land Rover in October 2014 for factory fitting into a range of their vehicles. Two Trees is now globally acknowledged as a world leader in phase-only holographic technology with a staff of ten uniquely qualified engineers and an IP portfolio of over twenty patents. It is now developing advanced holographic head-up displays and near-eye devices for more and more partners in the automotive, aerospace, consumer, medical and other industrial markets, placing the UK in the forefront of this cutting edge technology. Through an unimaginable series of improbable and fortuitous happenings, Two Trees Photonics has risen from the corpse of the sacrificed Alps UK. Watano’s courage in defying the RF Division and creating a culture of local UK design, Alps UK’s enforced necessity to invent to survive, the factory’s progressive apprenticeship scheme that gave wings to the uniquely talented Jamieson Christmas, the presence of the truly visionary Kiyono, and his chance appointment of Nitta, the continuous support of President Kataoka, my Cambridge boat race invitation and the critically timed flooding of the Thames and the just-in-time show of interest from Jaguar Land Rover – all these seemingly unconnected events brought about the remarkable birth and growth of Two Tree Photonics.

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Chugai Pharmaceutical in the United Kingdom MARTIN EDELSHAIN

INTRODUCTION

Chugai Pharmaceutical Co Ltd. was founded in 1925 to import medicines primarily from Europe. It successfully evolved into a manufacturer of both prescription and over-the-counter drugs and tonics and from the 1960s started to invest in research to develop its own products. The products, which it developed and commercialized, included drugs for cancer, bone and heart disease: these were sold primarily in the domestic market. By the end of the 1970s Chugai’s management decided that the company should be research driven and should embrace the emerging field of biotechnology. To achieve an adequate return on the investment required to pursue its goals the company needed to access international markets with the products it would develop. The focus on biotechnology led Chugai to license and develop the compound erythropoietin, and subsequently to discover and develop lenograstim, two biological products that established Chugai’s leadership in Japanese biotech and would subsequently achieve block-buster status. However, a patent dispute that was resolved in favour of the contesting US company, left Chugai with only limited ability to sell these products in the Japanese and European markets. Chugai first entered the European markets with lenograstim (or ‘Granocyte’) through a joint venture with the French company Rhone-Poulenc Rorer. Despite only limited access to international markets, the domestic market sales of these two products sustained for many years the company’s growth and continuing heavy investment in research and development. By the mid-1980s it was becoming clear that the rapidly increasing costs of drug research and development, in part driven by 456

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regulatory requirements for new pharmaceutical products, required companies to recoup the cost of drug development by selling these products in all the world’s major markets. In order to achieve its ambitions, Chugai had to transform its hitherto largely domestic business into one capable of developing and obtaining regulatory approval for products in the US and Europe. In support of these ambitions Chugai issued convertible Euro bonds in London, laying the foundations with UK-based investment institutions for a strong international investor base. CHUGAI IN LONDON

It was against this background that in 1986, Chugai opened its UK Office, its first representative office in Europe. Its primary purpose was to serve as a platform for collecting information about the regulatory, clinical development and market environments in Europe’s major markets, as well as to initiate and build relationships with regulatory officials and key clinical opinion leaders. The office was also intended to provide international experience to the company’s most talented young executives who could go on to lead Chugai along its path to globalization. The choice of London as its location was based in a number of considerations. Its geographical location, the City’s position as Europe’s financial capital, its transport links and the presence of a large number of Japanese (mainly) financial companies were all factors. The UK Government’s welcoming posture to foreign investment was also significant. Importantly, from Chugai’s business perspective, the UK represented one of Europe’s leading pharmaceutical markets, with a long record of ground-breaking medical and pharmaceutical research and a strong tradition of supporting this research with high-quality clinical development infrastructure. Access to this research and clinical development infrastructure facilitated the collection of information in the areas of interest to Chugai’s researchers and the establishment of relationships with leading scientists and clinicians in the UK specializing in Chugai’s targeted clinical fields. The ease of communicating in English, the first foreign language of many of the company’s executives and scientists, added to London’s attraction. From a social perspective, the already extensive Japanese community in London, with Japanese schools, supermarkets and medical clinics, eased the transition of executive’s families to an overseas posting. The favourable experience of the Chugai’s current chairman and CEO, Osamu Nagayama, of studying in England and his subsequent early banking career posting to the City, no doubt also influenced the choice of London, when as Vice-President responsi457

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ble for internationalizing the company, he led the project to establish Chugai’s overseas presence. Chugai selected Turnham Green for its London Office. This part of West London had easy access to Heathrow airport and to Japanese community facilities in West London for those Japanese executives choosing to live near their office. The initial work of the office was information gathering and relationship building, but gradually its functions were expanded to include the clinical development of Chugai’s own products, in order to obtain European regulatory approval and associated marketing activities in preparation for the launch of these products for sale in European markets. The clinical development activities initially involved the planning, recruitment of clinical sites and management of clinical studies undertaken at the participating hospitals and the compilation of the data generated, required by the regulators in Europe to approve for sale a product that had already passed through earlier stages of pre-clinical (toxicity and pharmacokinetic studies) and Phase 1 and Early Phase 2 human trials (proof of concept, safety and efficacy) in Japan. Chugai’s staff in the London Office worked with their counterparts in headquarters to supervise these studies, initially employing a Clinical Research Organization (CRO) to manage the day-to-day interactions with the trial sites. Subsequently Clinical Research Assistants (CRAs) and medical officers were either recruited locally or seconded from Japan to manage the trials directly. The relationships that Chugai’s London office had built with key opinion leaders in the relevant therapeutic fields were important in the engagement of clinical trial sites and the recruitment of clinical trial participants. In May 1993, Chugai Pharma UK was established in the same location, with an investment of £2 million. Its aim was the creation of a marketing and sales organization to launch and distribute Chugai’s product lenograstim (marketed under the name of ‘Granocyte’) in the UK. Subsequently in January 1994 the London Office was incorporated as a new company ‘Chugai Pharma Europe’ (CPE), and Chugai Pharma UK (CPU) became its subsidiary. After the approval and launch of Granocyte, CPE continued to undertake development of Chugai’s own products in the UK and in other European countries. From 2003, CPE worked closely with Chugai’s strategic alliance partner, Roche, assisting their development programme to obtain regulatory approval in Europe and the USA for RoActemra, Chugai’s original novel biological compound for the treatment for Rheumatoid Arthritis. RoActemra also has a very important connection with UK academia. In the early 1990’s, after seconding two young scientists to the UK’s Medical Research Council (MRC) Chugai’s researchers decided to license the MRC’s humanising antibody technology. This 458

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was cutting-edge science discovered in the UK and Chugai was quick to see its future potential. Chugai’s research group in Gotemba, Japan, successfully combined this technology with its proprietary antibody engineering technologies for the in-house development of a succession of Chugai’s antibody drug candidates, of which Ro Actemra was the first to be developed and approved for sale. Ro Actemra has positioned Chugai as a leader in the field of antibody therapeutics in Japan. It is now one of Chugai’s most successful drugs and is having a global impact on the treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis, as well as providing a royalty revenue stream to the MRC. When, in January 1994, Chugai successfully launched Granocyte (a product used extensively in cancer treatments) through CPU into the UK market with its own sales and marketing operation, Chugai became the first Japanese pharmaceutical company both to develop and market its own product in the UK and European markets. Granocyte, a drug that stimulates the proliferation of white blood cells, strengthening the body’s immune system, quickly became an important product for the supportive care of cancer patients on chemotherapy, and also in the field of bone marrow transplantation. CPU continued to grow its business year on year, helping to introduce the breast cancer drug Taxotere into the UK as a partner of the French pharmaceutical group, Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, and also established many links with UK academia by supporting MRC clinical trials and scientific programmes. In its marketing approach, CPU has whenever possible highlighted its Japanese roots, reinforcing the understanding amongst clinicians in the UK that Japan stands for quality, innovation and long-term partnership. The launch of RoActemra for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in 2009, in partnership with Roche UK, led to the doubling in size of CPU and paved the way for further expansion of the company. CPU has since in-licensed from European companies four oncology products for sale in the UK, which will ensure further growth of Chugai’s activities in the UK in future years. Back in 1997 Chugai established Chugai Pharma Marketing Ltd (CPM) in London as the holding company for its commercial operations in Europe. CPM’s role was to manage the development of Chugai’s European businesses and look for opportunities to expand its product portfolios, whilst creating a platform for future product introductions from the fruits of Chugai’s own research and development programmes in Japan. In 2015 Chugai reorganized its structure of companies within the UK to reflect Chugai’s plans to accelerate translational clinical research – moving projects from the research laboratory to clinical validation (for safety, efficacy and proof of concept) – on a global basis. To that end, the development company (CPE) and the commercializing company 459

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(CPM) were merged together to form one company with the goal of quicker product development and commercialization within a seamless and integrated organization. The restructured company has all the needed functions to ensure that it can respond proactively to an everchanging healthcare market in Europe that now requires not just proof of a drug’s clinical activity but also its cost effectiveness. Chugai’s new strategy of translational clinical research will ensure that the UK will always be an important place to conduct clinical research and development for Chugai’s pipeline products. Thanks in large part to the UK’s vibrant and internationally successful pharmaceutical industry, the UK’s strong tradition of medical research and its advanced clinical development infrastructure, Chugai’s progress in the UK has been greatly helped by the ability to recruit and retain high quality local employees, who have combined a broad experience of the pharmaceutical industry with a willingness to join with Japanese colleagues to build a company together, adopting the best ideas from each business culture and to work in an environment of mutual respect. This cross-cultural team has worked hard on the challenging task of introducing Chugai, its technologies and products, to a traditionally Western facing UK medical community, and winning its trust. CHUGAI’S CONTRIBUTION TO CULTURAL EXCHANGE

Chugai itself has been a consistent supporter of activities that promote mutual understanding between Britain and Japan. Even prior to its investment in the UK, Chugai participated in the ‘Wolfers’ and ‘British English teaching’ programmes,1 engaging the scheme’s teaching assistants at its headquarters to provide training in English language and culture. Chugai has supported the Japan Education Trust established following the Japan Festival in the UK in 1991 and now incorporated into the Japan Society. Chugai has been a regular sponsor of the various initiatives to encourage awareness of Japanese culture and language in over 1000 British schools. Most recently it acted as a major sponsor of Japan400, celebrating the 400th Anniversary of Japan-British Diplomatic, Trade, Scientific and Cultural Relations. Chugai also co-sponsored in 1985, with GlaxoSmithKline, Sir Hugh Cortazzi’s biography of Dr Willis, the British pioneering doctor in nineteenth-century Japan, highlighting his significant contribution to the progress of medicine in Meiji and pre-Meiji restoration Japan. The strength of Chugai’s relationship with the UK is underlined by the participation in Chugai’s International Advisory Board of Baroness Bottomley, a former secretary of state for health in John Major’s government.

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Several members of Chugai’s top management team, including the current president, Tatsuro Kosaka and vice-chairman and grandson of the company’s founder, Motoo Ueno, previously served in Chugai’s London office. The experience provided them with business skills and cultural insights that are proving invaluable in leading the globalization of Chugai’s business through its strategic alliance with Roche. ENDNOTE 1

See separate chapter in this volume by Graham Healey with an appendix by Nicolas Maclean.

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42 SELLING BRITISH ELECTRONICS TO THE JAPANESE

Part I: Selling to Japanese Manufacturers Investing in Britain IVOR COHEN

INTRODUCTION

Japanese television companies first gained a foothold in the British market, importing sets, in 1973, when the ‘Barber Boom’ created more demand than could be met by indigenous manufacturers. The quality of the sets soon gave them a competitive advantage and British companies lost market share. After a period of conflict, the two industries began to negotiate a process of ‘orderly marketing’ of imports. This encouraged some Japanese to start manufacture in Britain, with the support of the Government. While some started Greenfield factories (Panasonic and Sony), others formed joint ventures with UK companies (Hitachi with GEC and Toshiba with Rank) while some bought existing factories. Mitsubishi Electric took over the bankrupt Tandberg plant in Scotland and Sanyo bought the Pye Lowestoft factory. All had some understanding with the UK Government that they would buy from UK suppliers a proportion (never publicly revealed) of the components they used. By 1980 most of these companies were making sets. MULLARD LTD

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) urged UK suppliers to rise to the challenge but many British companies found Japanese requirements too demanding in quality and price and preferred to concentrate on the military and telecommunications industries. An exception to this was the major electronic component supplier to the 462

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TV industry, Mullard Ltd, for whom the consumer sector was too important to neglect. I was appointed Managing Director in January 1979 and, after organising a market study to establish whether Japanese competitors were unfairly undercutting Mullard, came to the conclusion that they were more efficient and that, therefore, Mullard had to learn to compete on Japanese terms if it wished to survive. The main issues were quality, price and being able to meet the technical specifications for the components designed in Japan. Mullard needed to understand what made the customers tick, so a course describing Japanese business culture was designed. It lasted three days and included talks by the Japanese managers of the TV factories, economic and political history, business practices and etiquette and even an exposure to Japanese food and drink. Sales staff, product managers and the managers of Mullard’s UK factories, indeed anyone who faced the Japanese companies as suppliers or competitors, attended the course. The course emphasised the high quality requirements of the Japanese companies. This meant a reversal of the pre-war Japanese reputation for poor quality. Our view was that, if the Japanese were able to make such an improvement, so could we. Joseph Juran, one of the great quality experts revered in Japan, came to lecture on his methods. There was a concerted push to improve quality using his techniques with dramatic results. Faults per million devices fell from 38 in 1977 to 2 in 1982 for integrated circuits and from 26 in 1980 to under 1 in 1982 for cathode ray tubes. Other products showed similar improvements. As a consequence, analysis by Which showed that sets made in the UK, which did not require a repair in the last twelve months had risen from 42% in 1976 to about 95% in 1982 while the comparable figures in 1982 were nearly 100% for sets made in Japan but about 70% for those made elsewhere in Europe where manufacturers were not exposed to Japanese competition. Coping with price pressure required restructuring on a large scale particularly for cathode ray tubes. A by-product of improved quality was the reduced cost of manufacture. Selling expenses were also drastically reduced particularly by the use of computers and a rigorous reduction in waste. If Mullard was only asked to quote when a model was transferred for manufacture to Britain this was not enough for us. The television sets being made in Britain had been designed a year or two earlier in Japan and production levels in Britain were a fraction of those in the home factories; so it was not possible to compete. To give a chance to local suppliers the Japanese had to design their sets in Europe. This was a proposal, which I made in my role as a member of the UK negotiating team. The proposal received a non-committal response and we were told ’the customer is king’. Fortunately Mullard, as part 463

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of Philips, had access to their Tokyo office. A team of Japanese engineers was set up to visit the laboratories in Japan, learn what were their requirements and also introduce them to new Mullard component designs. In addition, British product specialists for integrated circuits and picture tubes visited Japan quarterly and yearly respectively to ensure depth of contact. Their customers discovered that there was a range of unique European applications such as Teletext, which were not known to their laboratories and which European consumers were buying from home manufacturers. Thus Mullard demonstrated its commitment to serve its Japanese customers. To show my support, my commercial director and I made a yearly visit to the top managements in Japan to ensure that all was going well. Morita Akio of Sony showed that he felt such visits were of value by receiving me on my first visit; on subsequent visits to Sony the host was Morita’s brother. It would be wrong to imply that all went smoothly but the overall result, by the time I retired from Mullard in 1987, was that the company had grown its turnover with Japanese TV companies to £60m and it supplied about 90% of the purchases they made in Britain of products, which Mullard could supply. Ten years later the figure had reached £200m. This was a step in the right direction but I wanted to encourage other component companies to supply Japanese manufacturers who would often complain to me that they could not find good suppliers. This situation was soon to change. JAPAN ELECTRONICS BUSINESS ASSOCIATION (JEBA)

In 1991, the British Government and ECIF (Electronic Components Industry Federation), the UK’s component trade organisation, formed a working party to examine the trading relationship between British and Japanese companies A study done for the working party had shown that the Japanese electronics industry in Britain had a demand for £1bn (25% of the total demand) and UK based companies sold them £150m, of which Mullard was by far the biggest supplier. It was decided to sponsor an organisation committed to encouraging British companies to supply the UK based manufacturers. It was called the Japan Electronic Business Association (JEBA). Not only would the DTI back JEBA, but it would also be supported by the Japanese Government through JETRO, which was now concerned with encouraging imports into Japan. Given my past role in Mullard, the DTI and the ECIF invited me to become Chairman. The new Association was launched in mid-1991 by the then Secretary of State, Peter Lilley, and the Director General of JETRO in London, Mr Nakao. While much work on the principles of the operation had been settled by the working party, the new 464

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Steering Group (consisting of a number of executives from companies actively supplying the Japanese) began work on the details. The declared objectives for JEBA were: a) b) c) d)

To provide a network of component manufacturers committed to meeting the requirements of Japanese electronics manufacturers; To provide Japanese electronics manufacturers with ready access to competitive sources of supply; To pool knowledge about supplying Japanese electronics manufacturers and to share this with those with little experience in this field; To encourage UK-based components suppliers and their Japanese customers to develop long-term working partnerships.

It aimed to achieve these objectives through: 1)

2) 3) 4)

Visits by up to twenty British companies to Japanese factories where the needs of those companies would be described thus helping British and Japanese companies to explore the opportunities for doing business together; Visits to successful British suppliers where the processes they used could be described thus showing British companies that it was possible to do business with Japanese firms; Regular briefing sessions where members could hear lectures and discuss ways of being successful through the study of particular cases; A regular newsletter describing the work of the association.

The DTI supported JEBA. The Industry Division provided the budget and the secretariat consisting of a couple of enthusiastic junior officials. The Exports to Japan Unit (EJU) was also involved. Over the years, with the normal civil service job rotation, several sets of officials, all of them enthusiastic, served JEBA. As I became involved in the programme, I realised that JEBA could adopt some of the techniques used in Mullard to establish a basis for communication with the Japanese companies. One of Mullard’s early actions had been to set up a Japanese business culture course. Like Mullard, JEBA, with the help of SOAS, did so too. I had stressed repeatedly during my meetings in the 1980s with the Electronics Industry Association of Japan (EIAJ) on behalf of the British industry that the Japanese companies needed to design their equipment in Europe for European needs. By the time JEBA was formed, some companies had established design centres: the study mentioned above showed that the longer a company was 465

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operating in Britain the greater proportion of local components it used. There was much interest in JEBA. One hundred and fifty companies joined it by the end of the first year. Companies like Philips and Motorola belonged although they had the resources to deal with the Japanese themselves. This helped to give gravitas to JEBA but it was especially gratifying that so many small companies, which needed help, joined the association. One advantage small companies got from membership was the access through factory visits to companies, which would otherwise have not been willing to see them. Twice a year there were briefing meetings at which supplying companies spoke about the way in which they had been successful, while Japanese representatives outlined what they expected from suppliers. Up to a hundred companies would turn up. There was also a news-sheet, giving details of our programme and offering a place where companies, which became suppliers could trumpet their success. An annual bilingual directory of goods and services offered by UK companies was published. When Michael Heseltine became President of the Board of Trade he introduced the concept of export promoters who would be seconded from their companies to promote the sale of a particular industry’s products to specific countries. Japan was an obvious country to target. Electronic components were an obvious claimant for an export promoter. Philips seconded Peter Bacon (see account of his experiences in Part II below), a sales manager who had spent several years in Japan after working in Mullard. He started in 1993. With him in place, JEBA had an excellent and enthusiastic helper in its task of liaising with the Japanese both in Britain and Japan The promoter role became especially significant when we decided to adopt another of Mullard’s techniques. However many design centres were established in Britain, most of the designs would be initiated in Japan. Mullard had always sent British engineers to Japan and ensured that the Tokyo office worked with Japanese designers. JEBA did not have such resources, but we organised ‘design-in’ missions to go to Japan consisting of engineers from a number of British companies. Bacon organised the visits to the design centres of a selection of the major Japanese companies. The emphasis was on discovering the needs of the Japanese and getting British products specified. Before the missions left, I told their companies that they were in it for the long haul and they should not expect quick orders. The project had the enthusiastic support of the British embassy in Tokyo and the consulate-general in Osaka. Bacon did an enormous amount of preparatory work, visiting all the Japanese establishments before the mission and ensuring that everyone knew what was going to happen. 466

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The first mission went in April 1994 and turned out to be a great success. Ten companies sent representatives and between them they saw seventeen design centres in two weeks. The British embassy and the consulate-general in Osaka hosted receptions. JETRO also played its part providing two interpreters. All the data was presented in Japanese. This was much appreciated by Japanese executives who were used to Western companies arriving with all their material only in English. The host companies told Bacon that this was the first time they had seen Western companies arrive to do real business rather than just rubberneck. Even my predictions that it would be a long haul were confounded when some companies received real enquiries. Several of the mission members realised that they could not have done so much by themselves. We had a winner and it was soon arranged that the next mission should go in January 1995. Four days before the second mission was due to leave, Kobe experienced a major earthquake. It was nevertheless decided that the mission should go ahead and the embassy sent a senior official down to Osaka to help with the arrangements. Only two Japanese companies were unable to receive the mission. Thirteen British companies joined the mission and twenty-seven establishments were visited. To achieve all this without hitches was a remarkable achievement. Bacon was able to report later that £15m of orders had been generated from the first two missions with a further £30m in the pipeline. There was a mission most years after this but from the fifth, the emphasis was changed to concentrate on particular market areas such as telecommunications with smaller groups of companies going. The missions helped to establish JEBA with a high profile with the Japanese in Japan as well as in Europe. . In parallel with the missions to Japan, there were visits to Japanese plants in Britain and also to successful British firms. Most of the visits to the Japanese were oversubscribed and we had to try to choose companies with products and services required by the Japanese to fill the gaps in their supplier base. The visits to the British companies attracted less interest, perhaps understandably as the members were looking for business opportunities rather than the chance to learn. After a while, we were asked to send missions to Japanese factories in the rest of Europe where the local suppliers were not interested in supplying them, probably because the small number of factories in those countries did not provide much demand. We sent missions to Spain, France and Germany but they were not very successful. The European Commission was interested in the way JEBA was working and sent an official to one of our briefing sessions but not much happened after that. Only Britain liaised with the Japanese – it was not until 1996 or 1997 that the French introduced their own programme called ‘Japon – C’est possible’. 467

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Our work in Japan showed the significance of the Japanese international procurement offices (IPOs) in Singapore. After the second mission, a group of members went to Singapore and had a successful visit. It was accordingly decided that there should be a conference for the IPOs in Singapore, which I chaired. Both the British and Japanese Governments saw the conference as significant, so the British high commissioner and the Japanese ambassador were present. 1994 and 1995 were the high points of JEBA’s success. The Japanese companies had put much new investment into Britain for new applications such as photocopiers and telephones and British companies flocked to sell their goods to them. A survey done in 1995 showed that the demand from the Japanese had risen to £1.7bn, a growth of 70% in five years while the goods supplied from Britain had risen to £450m – a threefold increase and a doubling of market share. It was particularly interesting that over 75% of their plastic and metal parts were sourced in Britain. In the 1980s it was the shortage of good plastics suppliers which the Japanese lamented most; so that industry had been very successful. JETRO gave us much support. They paid for interpreters for the ‘design-in’ missions and gave us much moral support. From 1995 they started to provide, at their cost, keynote speakers from blue chip manufacturers such as Sony, NEC, Ricoh, Sharp and Alps. The embassy in Tokyo was equally supportive from the beginning. The ability to hold meetings or receptions in the embassy compound provided prestige for JEBA members. Unfortunately, around the turn of the century, the British Government stopped the ‘Action Japan’ campaign and subsumed the work into a general trade campaign. This upset JETRO, but I was able to point out that JEBA remained dedicated to working with JETRO and the Japanese industry. Keeping our commitment to the Japanese industry was paramount; so when a proposal was made to widen JEBA’s remit to cover other Far Eastern countries, I objected and a separate body (PREBA – Pacific Rim Electronics Association) was established. Early on, JETRO had organised a working party of representatives of Japanese OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) in Britain to advise on how to improve business with British suppliers and to articulate their concerns and complaints about their conditions. There were regular meetings with them, usually with Bacon, the Secretariat and myself from the British side but it was difficult to persuade the Japanese managers to be frank and open in front of their competitors. JEBA’s success led to other approaches in 1996. The Mexican State of Baja asked us to organise a meeting to persuade British companies to set up factories there. Japanese companies had used the establishment of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) to transfer their production to Baja, which offered cheap labour and 468

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good communications. North American content had to be increased or the Japanese would suffer penalties. I chaired the meeting at which representatives from Sony, Matsushita and Hitachi spoke about their needs. There was some response to the opportunity with several companies visiting Baja and one or two setting up there. There was less success from a meeting held with representatives from Japanese companies in India, which I also chaired. After JEBA’s performance had reached its zenith, the market began to change. The Far Eastern financial crisis in 1998 caused an upsurge of cheap imports from the area into Britain and, from about 1996-7, the strength of the pound started to make manufacture of standard TVs in Britain uncompetitive, particularly as the former Eastern Bloc countries offered skilled workforces with low wage expectations. By 2000-1, Japanese companies had moved the production of 3 million TV sets, 2 million plus VCRs and 8 million mobile phones out of Britain to those countries, taking with them not just assembly work but also the demand for components. JEBA decided to respond to this in two ways. The first was to plan a mission in September 1999 to Hungary, to visit the factories being set up there. The British embassy was enthusiastic and we were able to persuade a few British companies to see what business could be obtained. Most were not interested in trying. One or two decided to set up operations in Eastern Europe but I am not certain how successful they were. There was enough interest for a further mission in 2001 but the value of sterling and British labour costs were limiting factors The other element to the JEBA plan was the exploitation of the market opportunities being created by British and European innovation. The best way we could get Japanese design carried out in Europe was on the basis of European technological success. Japanese and American phone manufactures had been caught out by the success of the European GSM mobile phones. Companies like Mitsubishi and Motorola, which had been strong, found themselves outwitted by Ericsson and Nokia who came to dominate the market – and not just in Europe. They had been outwitted because they did not have proper development operations in Europe, which would have known what was going on. Instead their policies were determined in laboratories and marketing departments in Japan and America committed to their home markets. JEBA encouraged Japanese companies to set up design centres in Britain to take advantage of its closeness to a technically resurgent European electronics market. Telephony was not the only area where the Europeans were ahead. Digital TV was another. Over the 1980s and 1990s, most original design for TV and its related products had been done in Japan and Europe while the Americans had concentrated on personal computers. European standards had emerged for a digital system, 469

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which gained momentum. Japan had its own system but it had not been adopted elsewhere and the American plans for digital TV were in disarray. We urged the Japanese companies based in Britain to design digital TV sets in Britain. There were, however, some problems. Set top boxes to enable existing analogue sets to access digital TV were cheap. Manufacturers of new digital TV sets had to ensure that their new sets could receive both digital and analogue services. This added to their costs and made it difficult for them to compete on price. Also, the head offices in Japan did not recognise the significance of the British plans and so would not support the development resources needed by their UK subsidiaries. To rectify this, a seminar on digital TV was set up in November 1999 in London to which companies were invited to send their senior managers from Japan. I chaired the seminar which was judged a sufficient success that it was repeated the following May in Tokyo in the ambassador’s residence. Japanese companies did set up development facilities for digital TV, but the unwillingness of the British public to pay for integrated sets initially limited the market. The number of companies in JEBA fell to just over a hundred. One of the reasons was that we had decided to charge for entry into the Directory. The charge was nominal – a few hundred pounds but it was enough to deter some. My own view was that we were better off without such companies. If they were not willing to spend a small sum of money to promote their wares in English and Japanese they were unlikely to have the resilience to be good suppliers. The other reason was the reduced opportunity for British suppliers following the exodus of the Japanese to Eastern Europe, which meant that JEBA could no longer help. There was, however, a new intake of members because the Japanese began to become aware that their developments back in Japan would be helped by support from specialist British high technology companies. They asked JEBA to introduce such companies to them and Bacon organised a series of what became known as ‘High Tech Missions’. When I was in Japan for the Digital TV conference, I met one such mission and was impressed by the range of goods and services offered and the enthusiasm of the people involved. By 2000, therefore, the emphasis was beginning to change. We were no longer pursuing the Japanese factories in Britain but trying to follow them to Eastern Europe and were confining our UK activities to development centres, which the Japanese continued to strengthen even as they stopped manufacturing. We hoped that British companies getting their products designed in UK laboratories would be able to sell them wherever the final equipment was produced. The third part was to get British products designed in Japan for the world market. This changed JEBA from an import substitution organisation 470

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to an export promoter and budget restraints meant that JEBA could no longer be supported by the Trade support organisation. It was agreed to merge PREBA and JEBA, particularly as PREBA’s marketing stance had changed as the Chinese, Taiwanese and Koreans emulated the Japanese by withdrawing production from the UK. PREBA, therefore, had started to become an export promotion operation like JEBA. It placed strong emphasis on China, which is where many Japanese companies had set up their plants. Now that the Japanese had withdrawn so much from the UK, the objections we had a few years earlier to a merger were no longer valid. So, in mid-2002, we agreed the merger and I went with the EJU officials to break the news to the JETRO director in London who took it quite well when we made clear that there would remain a strong emphasis on Japan. The merged organisation would have a new name but marketing under the JEBA name would continue for a year or two. The Chairman of PREBA was Keith Etherington, a Mullard manager who had run the non-semiconductor part of the business in the mid-1990s and had been on the JEBA Steering Group until Philips moved him to Eindhoven. He had worked with the Japanese manufacturers in Britain and had an international role in Philips. He was the ideal person to take over the new job. Philips supported Peter Bacon for three years until he formed his own company with an office in Yokohama to carry on the export promotion efforts, with initial financial support from the UK Government, working with interested British companies. While this account has covered a Government supported approach, Peter Bacon’s story of working successfully with about fifty British technology companies to build up business worth hundreds of millions in Japan demonstrates that the private sector, once given the encouragement, which JEBA had provided, could show that, as the French had expressed it, ‘Japon – c’est possible’.

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Part II: Selling to Japanese Companies in Japan PETER BACON

INTRODUCTION

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) over many years sponsored various programmes focussing on Japan including ‘Opportunity Japan’, ‘Priority Japan’ and ‘Action Japan’ campaigns. In 1993 Michael Heseltine, then secretary of state and President of the Board of Trade launched the Export Promoter (EP) Initiative. Ten out of the 100 budgeted EPs were allocated to the Exports to Japan Unit (EJU), which was backed by Richard Needham, the minister of trade who had longstanding links with Japan I was the thirteenth businessman seconded to the unit to follow up on the JEBA initiative and build business links between Japanese inward investors and the UK supply base. I was closely involved with the missions sponsored by JEBA and was then encouraged to set up a company to carry this work forward. Electronics Link Asia Ltd (ELA) was established in 1996, at the end of my secondment to EJU, and continued until 2012, working closely with the British embassy in Tokyo and the British consulate-general in Osaka. The office rental was initially covered by DTI, but British companies who used its services soon wholly funded the costs of the venture. The Japanese electronics companies with whom we dealt eventually lost market share to other Asian countries, British companies who had used our services set up their own offices and business needs changed. The company was accordingly wound up in 2012. Some limited consultancy work still takes place but on a reducing scale. WORKING WITH JEBA

Sir Ivor Cohen has described in Part I the establishment of JEBA and its ‘design-in’ missions. A key aim was to persuade British suppliers to learn from the Japanese companies and in doing so, to develop 472

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long-term business relationships. It would have been fruitless to insist on more local content, when many of the UK suppliers were not in a position to supply parts of the quality needed. We started in 1993 by visiting the Japanese electronic companies investing in Britain. They told us bluntly that British suppliers just weren’t up to the job, and did not understand the Japanese insistence on maintaining the quality of their products. I recall being whisked to one major Japanese mobile phone headquarters to meet four identically grey suited corporate executives, who took turns to tell us that we had little chance, stressing that their quality must not be compromised by using overseas suppliers. Several British and Japanese managing directors of Japanese companies in the UK who wanted to increase local content encouraged us to persist. So in 1994 we assembled our first mission of ten companies In one exchange with Mitsubishi Electric (MEI) in Scotland we were told that they had looked for British suppliers but they were ‘all bad’. We responded by telling them that that we wanted to work with their design staff in Nagaoka-kyo, Kyoto and would introduce ten good British suppliers to them. The challenge was taken up and when we visited them in Kyoto on our first mission in 1994 we met all their design section heads. One British company at least developed business relations with MEI as a result of that first meeting. The members of our first team were all enthusiastic and a good impression of the UK supply base was created, but this was only a beginning and real business had yet to be done. One particular supplier who showed the persistence needed to succeed in Japan was visiting Panasonic Kadoma. When he was told that the (key) person he needed to meet was unavailable that day he replied that he must meet someone that day, as otherwise his whole visit to Japan, including travelling to Panasonic Kadoma, would be fruitless. He waited patiently for an answer. Eventually he was asked if he was ready to miss lunch and take a taxi to another office where the key person he needed to meet now became available after all. These two stories from our first mission explain how the Japanese companies began to recognize our enthusiasm to do business and willingness to learn. The mission’s visits to Japanese factories started with group presentations to the company. One to one meetings followed these presentations. As each company explained what they had to offer in front of one another as well as the Japanese customer, several had to smarten up their stories. We soon learnt what worked, and what didn’t. The Japanese companies were impressed by the fact that we visited them as a group in places often far away from Tokyo involving demanding travel schedules. We did, of course, have embassy receptions and displays, but the key to success lay in the meetings which we had with decision-makers often deep in the Japanese countryside. 473

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A meeting to be successful needed thorough preparation in advance, so that the Japanese side could collect the relevant people together who would make the necessary collective decision. JETRO, noting the support given to us by DTI, started to give us their enthusiastic backing, firstly by funding interpreters, but then also offering to fund senior Japanese executives to travel from Japan to the UK. These senior executives spoke to us in the JEBA seminars in the UK chaired by Sir Ivor Cohen and we asked JETRO to arrange speakers who would teach us about Japanese business and how to be better suppliers. This was industry-to-industry support facilitated by the DTI and funded by JETRO. Our first speaker was Kanoi Nobuo, who was at that time chairman of Aiwa Ltd but had been the executive vice-president of Sony Corporation TV division, and with whom, when in Philips, I had had several discussions, as we needed to learn how to become better suppliers.1 Following Kanoi Nobuo, we had other senior executives, including Dr Sekimoto president of NEC Corporation, Kataoka, the president of Alps Ltd who was very supportive, and Sakurai, president of Ricoh Corporation who had opened Ricoh’s factory at Telford. This further raised our profile in Japan and opened more and more companies’ design centres to us. Several executives from the UK operations of Japanese companies went on to higher things in their companies, and stayed in contact. In total there were eight so-called ‘design-in’ and ‘high technology’ missions as the programme evolved into supporting technology exports to Japan. An interesting new challenge emerged in the UK, namely how to persuade high technology companies to work together on a mission with companies whom some considered to have inferior technology. The managing director of one Cambridge company initially declined to participate as he thought he would be ‘polluted’ by association with other companies with humbler technology than his. But his wiser fellow director explained that we had the ear of senior Japanese management thanks to the JEBA brand, and embassy support at a high level; so they had nothing to lose. The senior contacts made at one Japanese company on that mission led to business worth millions for this Cambridge company. (This was the same company that told us we had no chance!) The British embassy in Tokyo and the consulate-general in Osaka gave enthusiastic support to companies on our missions. Tsukatani Akiko of the consulate general was particularly supportive and active in promoting the companies, and said that their strenuous efforts had generally raised the UK industry profile in Japan. We visited the headquarters of Makita in Anjo, Aichi-ken in 1995. The Japanese managing director of the Telford factory had explained to his management that a mission organised by the British government was coming to their factory, and urged them to look after us. When we got to the factory the entire top management team of the company was seated before us in proper status order, with scores of staff seated behind. 474

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WHAT JEBA LEARNT – HOW TO ENGAGE WITH THE JAPANESE

The first lesson learnt was that business with the Japanese companies was really possible. We had to have good technology or products to offer. Meticulous preparation, persistence and willingness to answer the seemingly endless questions were needed. We had to understand that the Japanese companies, with which we wanted to do business, were totally committed to perfection, and that their questions were not intended to deter us but to ensure that we could meet their high standards. Japanese companies such as Sony were ready to work with their UK suppliers in order to improve them. Long-term partnership, such a key feature of Japanese business, was seen as benefiting both sides. At one JEBA suppliers meeting at Panasonic facilities at Cardiff, the purchasing director Terry Davies explained to us that they had only ‘let go’ of three suppliers in twenty years, and this was only after huge efforts had been made to try to keep them on. In some cases, members of these missions found that they could succeed more quickly than they had expected, so long as they really understood what was required and responded quickly and flexibly. We also learnt the importance of strong personal relationships and came to realise that we should not depend on written contracts to do business. Members saw that those who spent time in growing these relationships gained long term success. Complaints from Japanese customers should be used as a learning opportunity and responded to in the positive spirit intended. We were told that rather than see complaints as a negative, we should see silence as the real negative, in that the Japanese company had given up trying to improve us. We all also learnt about ‘face’, ‘honne and tatemai’, when to push and, for many suppliers, when to listen more … and how to listen. And the importance of ‘after 5pm’ business discussions, the reason Kirin and Asahi [beers] are such vital participants in Japanese business life. NEXT STEPS: MOVE TO A BUSINESS VENTURE

I was encouraged by the British embassy in Tokyo to take this successful programme forward, and to persuade British companies to support this work financially, in other words to develop a business. This depth of involvement and continuous follow-up work for UK companies was beyond the resources that DTI and the embassy could provide for just one business sector. But it was the route to success. So after my secondment from Philips to the DTI ended in 1996 I set up Electronics Link Asia Ltd (ELA). Under the ‘Action Japan’ programme there were up to nine other export promoters covering a variety of sectors. This led to the establishment of the ‘British Industry Centre’ (BIC) in Yokohama, as a ‘first base in Japan’ for UK electronics companies. 475

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Our next step to demonstrate our commitment was to set up an office for ELA in Japan. The natural place for this was the BIC, which was backed by the embassy under the ambassador’s leadership. Jon Elliott from the embassy provided effective support at working level. The British Chamber of Commerce in Japan (BCCJ) in Tokyo managed the BIC under embassy supervision. DTI gave a financial guarantee to Nomura the landlord. As we grew our client list, we offered a base for any JEBA member visiting Japan and, as a service to the DTI and the embassy, continued to promote JEBA in Japan. The visibility of the British electronics industry had been low in Japan; JEBA helped to improve this. Sir David Wright, the British ambassador at the time, opened our office in the BIC in Yokohama in January 1998, together with Kanoi Nobuo, exec vice-president of Sony Corporation and chairman of Aiwa. This followed immediately after the opening of the BIC itself by Tony Blair, then British prime minister. Key UK clients were present including David Milne of Wolfson Electronics, and Rodney Scott of Philips Printed Circuits.

From left: Ian de Stains, Sir David Wright, Tanaka Hisao (ELA), Tony Blair, Peter Bacon, AN other, Alan Mason

As Sir Ivor Cohen has explained, Mullard Ltd, as part of the multinational Philips Company, had an office in Japan, which was crucial for developing sales to the Japanese inward investors in the UK. This office, although located in Tokyo, was not a sales office for Japan as such. It was a liaison office, which engaged closely with the design centres of Japanese companies, so that the Philips components could be incorporated into the TV products at the design stage, i.e. ‘designed-in’. ELA performed a similar function for other British electronic component manufacturers who wanted to develop busi-

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ness with Japanese firms. ELA, like JEBA, introduced UK suppliers directly to the key designers in the Japanese factories and ensured that opportunities for British firms, including firms new to the market were followed up. ELA was not an agent or a distributor, but a liaison company, which acted like a ‘nakodo’, the go-between who still plays a role in many Japanese marriages. Our clients face to face in Japan did the selling. Our role as a go-between was a key to success. Our clients simply wanted sales. But they had to learn how to prepare, how to manage the meetings, how to avoid misunderstandings, how to follow up and what not to do. In this way we were definitely part of the sales process but not direct salesmen. We would introduce and help UK companies. We were a nonpartisan source of information to Japanese companies. This kept the door of their design centres open to us, and we would often be asked for advice e.g. ‘do you know any UK company who does X?’ Japanese companies had good networks, research offices and technology scouting operations in USA, but often didn’t know what was available in the UK. Together with the embassy and the consulate-general we were able to explain what Britain could provide. Our Japanese staff consisted of retired employees of Japanese companies who had worked in the UK or USA. Our first and most senior staff member was Awaya Takahiko, who had been design director for Panasonic TV in the UK. They were not employed to sell British products. Their role was to act as links and intermediaries with Japanese business. The retired manager of the Philips liaison office in Tokyo, Tanaka Hisao, joined us from the start of this venture; his reputation and contacts gave us additional gravitas in Japan. In the twenty-first century, electronics business increasingly moved more and more out of Japan into other Asian countries. As a result UK suppliers did not have the same clear focus on Japan as they had had earlier and the number of new clients in the electronics field was not increasing sufficiently to cover the much higher costs of full-time staff. So it was decided that this venture would have to close. ELA now became a small scale consulting operation and the office in Japan was closed. The BIC initially had a financial guarantee from the DTI, although this guarantee was never called on, as the centre was fully funded by its tenants. It grew for several years, but as tenants moved on to set up their own offices the numbers reduced. The DTI decided to withdraw the guarantee and it closed. OUR SUCCESSES

Over twenty UK companies were clients of ELA. Ten companies won some thirty significant contracts.2 477

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Our most successful client was TTP Communications Ltd of Cambridge, spun out of The Technology Partnership to supply software and semiconductor IP for mobile phones. They grew their business in Japan with our help to £10 million per year. They then asked us to help recruit a Japan country manager and set up TTP Communications K.K. Other clients of ELA such as Wolfson also set up their own Japan office and worked closely with distributors. Our network of Japanese electronics contacts continued to grow. Apical Ltd, another of our clients, had unique image improvement technology, which could help to improve photographs taken with digital cameras. As Japan was at that time the leading manufacturer of digital cameras, they focussed on the Japanese market. Their first customer was Nikon. Olympus regarded them as the most Japan oriented supplier they had ever met. Apical appreciated the support, which they had had from JEBA and ELA. Elixent Ltd was enabled to develop such significant business with Panasonic Corporation that Panasonic decided to buy the whole company, and set up its ‘Panasonic Bristol Design Centre’ with a staff of over thirty. They had had no experience with Japan until they worked with us. They had the right technology at the right time, and thanks to links with senior Japanese executives their CEO made a particularly good contact with Toshiba in his first week in Japan. They accepted all the challenges of the Japanese market and worked hard to meet Japanese targets. The late Kenneth Lamb CEO of Elixent knew how to do business in USA and was determined to make a success of the Japanese market. He told us frankly that he knew nothing about Japan, and asked us to teach him everything that mattered. His only large customers were in Japan. After Apical had gained four Japanese customers, they considered setting up their own office or at least a support facility for their customers. A new joint venture company, Electronics Link Japan, with a sales and support function was set up under Steve Crane who brought some former members of the staff of the company for which he had acted as CEO. As time passed, Apical’s customers lost business to other Asian makers, and some Japanese customers developed their own technology. Other companies, such as ARM, CSR and Imagination Technologies, have made a huge success in Japan by having the advanced technology and the absolute commitment that Japan was central to their plans. CONCLUSIONS

The most successful companies were those where senior directors (including CEO) were personally involved with their sales in Japan, and were willing to learn. 478

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Japanese companies at times seem to be among the worst with which to do business with their pressures over quality and delivery, endless questions and seeming delays in decision-making. Yet they could be the best long-term partners and most reliable customers. The main requirements for success in Japan were: Top level support (CEO) of UK company, Face to face meetings in Japan, Making commitments and sticking to them, Accepting challenging targets, and never giving up, Having Japanese business as an essential target, not just getting an initial order, Getting to know honest and open Japanese intermediaries and listening to them, Willing to learn.

These basic rules apply not just in the electronics business area but in all areas of doing business with Japan. To sum up: maintain consistent high level Japanese relationships, understand how they work, introduce the best people in your company, ensure that they make the efforts needed, listen and learn, support them intensively and never give up. ENDNOTES 1

2

Painful discussion at times, maybe, but a real bond was formed between us. When he joined the JEBA programme, he was willing to pass on his excellent advice, not only to our high tech members, but anyone we introduced to him on the mission, indeed it seemed he liked to teach all who come across his path. As listed on the Electronics Link Asia Web site: Since 1996 ELA has helped its clients achieve more than 30 significant sales successes in Japan, including: ESM: sales to Panasonic Semis 2000-2001 TTPCom: sales to Shintom, Panasonic Semis, Panasonic Mobile, Sharp Mobile, Toshiba Semis, Toshiba Mobile, and others 2000-2006 Philips/AIK: sales to Panasonic and Sony 2000-2001 Prestwick Circuits: sales to Sony and others 2000-2003 Alan Group: sales to Fuji-Copian, Hochiki 2000 Elixent: sales to two major companies T and P 2003-2004 Celoxica: sales to Omron, Toshiba 2003 TTP: sales to five major Japanese companies (names withheld) 20022006 Magic4: sales to two major Japanese mobile companies S, P 2003-2004 Apical: sales to Nikon and five other major companies O, KM, SE, K, R ( see ‘success stories’ page) 2004-2006

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Wool in Japan: A Very British Story R. PETER ACKROYD

INTRODUCTION

It was only when in 2011 I asked the ambassador (Sir David Warren) if I could run a flock of sheep on the lawn of the embassy residence in Tokyo that I realised the only sheep on the island of Honshu were kept in a zoo in Chiba. The idea of an ovine invasion of British diplomatic premises stemmed from witnessing Japanese delight at seeing flocks of Dorset Horn and Bowmont sheep safely grazing on an appropriately grassed-over Savile Row one fine autumn day in early October 2010. This was to celebrate the launch of HRH The Prince of Wales’ Campaign for Wool. Perhaps the most prominent bespoke tailor on the Row participating in the festivities that day was Henry Poole, the company founded in 1806, which famously was the tailor of choice for the Showa Emperor while he was Crown Prince, and again for his son Prince Akihito, now the Heisei Emperor, in 1953 for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. A Royal Warrant from Tokyo still sits proudly on the wall in Poole’s elegant reception at number 15 Savile Row.

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Several houses on the Row can trace strong connections with Japan, particularly in the 1930s. Anda Rowland, owner of Anderson and Sheppard famed for their bespoke business in Hollywood for most of the twentieth century showed me a ledger from 1936 that included several wealthy Japanese customers of the pre-war era. The bespoke tailoring skills of London have been elegantly and faithfully reproduced in Tokyo1 and can be seen today enjoying the global revival in personal tailoring, often in British fabrics, but also in Italian and Chinese offerings, something that never occurred in the 1930s, but did appear briefly in the 1940s. English wool cloth had been used in the barter trade with Japan since the early seventeenth century in exchange for locally woven silks. Unlike the sheep, the silk worm and the mulberry bush were common across Japan. The local love of silk for kimonos and other traditional garments no doubt led to a later appreciation of fine wool worsted suitings and bespoke tailoring that continues to thrive today. PRE-SECOND WORLD WAR

To achieve Japan’s military goals in the latter part of the Meiji era the Imperial Army and Navy needed uniform fabrics for the near arctic winters of the northern steppe that send temperatures in Korea to well below zero. The only reliable source of winter serge, drab, Melton and greatcoat cloths were the mills of the West Riding of Yorkshire where woollen and worsted spinning and weaving had been at the heart of the English Industrial Revolution. The first wool from Australia landed in Liverpool in 1807 and was woven into a suit for King George III in Rawdon, near Leeds the following year. A.W. Hainsworth, a mill established in the same valley in 1793 received an order for black serge shipped to Yokohama in 1899. Other woollen fabric and blanket orders followed and the 1904 invasion of the Dalian Peninsula following the torpedo attack on Port Arthur (present day Dalian) that started the Russo-Japanese War of that year was fought by Imperial forces wearing uniform cloths mainly woven in Europe. The Japanese government was eager to cut the country’s dependence on imported wool fabrics and even investigated the possibility of populating certain parts of the country with breeds of sheep for specific purposes, an idea quickly abandoned on climatic grounds. The supply of cold-climate uniforms for the Imperial Armed Forces however, remained a high priority. The first government-sponsored woollen mill to open in Japan was in the Tokyo area and the Senju Textile Manufacturing Company began its operations in 1897 with six carding machines, six woollen spinning frames and forty-two weaving looms producing 300,000 square metres of woollen fabric per year capable of tailoring 80,000 military uniforms. Crossbred wools for Senju were 481

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mainly imported from UK and New Zealand, as Australian merino was already too fine for the winters of Northern China and Korea. Not long after the Meiji Restoration government officials were required to wear Western-style dress, a move that inadvertently increased demand for imported cloths in wool and cotton. Strong and growing demand for fabrics from abroad continued and in 1906 a concerned Government increased the ad valorem duties on imported wool fabric to 30% and to 25% on woollen spun yarns. In the early part of the twentieth century traditional kimono stores such as Mitsukoshi and Takashimaya began stocking wool muslin, a relatively lightweight fabric that had the drape qualities of silk and cotton but was infinitely more adaptable and breathable. Interest in Western fashion continued to grow in the early part of the last century and imports of fabrics from the UK for more newly-established Tokyo and Osaka department stores, mainly linked to the railway companies at main terminals and styled on the English model, can be traced through the journals of key UK weavers and cloth merchants of the era. Dormeuil, a leading fabric merchant in London and Paris that continues to enjoy excellent business in Japan have a ledger entry for the company’s first sale to a Kansai customer from Osaka in 1914. Dormeuil’s first of many shipments to Japan was a selection of dark blue and charcoal grey men’s business suitings, a style that has changed little in a hundred years. The Japanese wool textile industry continued to expand at a rapid pace in tandem with Tokyo’s early twentieth century territorial ambitions in Asia. Of major significance was the building of the Daidoh worsted mill, a top-making facility (the process prior to worsted spinning) in 1916 perfectly modelled on the English system. This state of the art of the time mill was completely flattened by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, but was rebuilt with new machinery and UK technology in 1936 in Aichi (Prefecture) under the name Kurihara Keori. The wool industry expanded rapidly around Nagoya and Ichinomiya in the 1930s and by 1936 Japan had become a major force in the world of wool, but totally reliant on imported raw material. According to Itoh archives, from 1935 to 1939, Japan produced an average of 398m sq. yards per year of woollen and worsted fabric compared to 471m in UK, 101m in Italy, 220m in France and 567m in the USA. This was quite an achievement for a country that some twenty years previously produced negligible yardage. In 1936 Australia placed a total ban on exports of wool to Japan. This forced the industry to seek sources of coarser wool in China. Japanese wool importers in the 1920s, based mainly in Osaka, discovered that British wools from the hills were endowed with an extraordinary ‘crimp’, a springy quality that was perfect for stuffing quilts and more importantly, futons. The trade flourishes to this day. 482

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NATURE OF THE JAPANESE MARKET FOR WOOL

The entire Japanese wool industry had been cloned on British woollen and worsted manufacturing systems invented in the mill towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire during the Industrial Revolution and significantly advanced technically in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Wool was synonymous with the UK and the belief that the best woollen textiles come from Britain persists across Japan to this day amongst consumers who consider themselves ‘product aware’. Japanese department stores were modelled on British stores such as Kendals, Marshall and Snellgrove, Selfridges, Dickens and Jones and Harrods. Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi, which opened in 1904 in Tokyo, is redolent of Kendals in Manchester. Japanese craftsmanship associated with traditional dress, particularly the kimono, fits well alongside the skills associated with bespoke tailoring of soft handle wool worsted fabric in men’s wear. That fine wool fabrics were the first to be marketed alongside silks and brocades was a significant juxtaposition of complementary merchandise in department stores that once only specialised in the kimono. Some uniquely British styles in formal dress were adopted in the early Meiji era. This sartorial anglophilia ranges from the Imperial Family and attendant politicians constantly appearing in public in morning coat, respectable bridegrooms across the nation wearing the same, school uniforms retaining an un-breachable dress code and an extraordinary penchant for tartan and tweed that dates from the 1920s and 1930s. All survived the acrimony of the Pacific War. POST WAR TRADE IN WOOLLEN TEXTILES

As war raged on the Korean Peninsula from 1950 to 1953, the global wool industry was enjoying a manufacturing boom unprecedented in the history of the fibre as allied governments invested in wool uniforms for the winters north of the 38th parallel. In Japan, the post-war recovery began slowly as imports of raw wool recommenced in the years preceding the signing of the 1951 Peace Treaty in San Francisco. In 1957, just twelve years after the Pacific war, the Menzies government in Australia was the first unilaterally to open negotiations on free trade with Japan. The Australia-Japan Commerce Agreement was a clever move at a time when certain Australian visionaries saw their national interests in danger of being side-lined by European nations seeking greater unity on the other side of the world Commenting on the Japan-Australia agreement in an ABC broadcast in 2007 to commentate fifty years of trade in the region, the former Prime Minster, John Howard said ‘The Menzies Government and particularly John McEwan the Deputy Prime Minister and Trade Minister was visionary enough in 1957 to realise that Australia and 483

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Japan, despite their military conflict only 12 years earlier, had an enormous future in this part of the world.’ The UK spinning and weaving industry at the time was not at all happy about the prospect of near duty free Australian merino entering Japan and the Wool Textile Delegation in Bradford protested to the Board of Trade demanding even stricter import quotas on wool into Japan. But the woollen and worsted spinning and weaving industries in the Aichi and Osaka Prefectures started to dominate the global wool industry as it had nearly done in the 1930s. The British Wool Textile Delegation continued to protest ‘in no uncertain terms’ about unfair competition and Japan’s woollen and worsted export performance. In seven years from 1952 to 1959, exports of yarn had increased some sixty-fold from 130,000 lbs to 8,043,000 lbs and cloth exports some thirty-fold from 531,000 lbs to 15,722,000 lbs. In the autumn of 1959 Mr. E. Barlow, Secretary of the British Wool Federation went to Tokyo with a Board of Trade delegation to protest. ‘This unfair competition by Japan is an impediment to the reduction of duty under the GATT – to which Japan now subscribed – for any move to reduce trade barriers must now inevitably take into account the possibility of imports of cheap Japanese goods’, Barlow wrote in the Annual Report of the National Wool Textile Export Corporation (NWTEC) in 1960. Japanese predatory pricing policies (in British eyes), begun in the early 1950s, continued well into the 1960s and were allegedly responsible for the USA introducing a much-criticised tariff-quota on wool fabric that remained in force until the late 1990s. As far back as 1947, British fact-finding missions had been visiting Japan to assess the growing (perceived) threat of the Kansai woollen mills, several of which had been untouched by allied bombing. Gordon Kaye, a former Chairman of the NWTEC and one time Managing Director of Taylor and Lodge, perhaps the most well respected UK weaver of worsted suiting cloths in Japanese eyes, recalls the early pioneer days of trading with Japan in the 1960s when everything was controlled by quotas and currency. In 1961, the Japanese government following the abandonment of a (deliberately) complicated scheme linking access to raw wool with export performance, increased duties on fabric beyond the 20% ad valorem by adding a further tax of 170 yen per sq metre. The British government protested via the embassy in Tokyo stating ‘the move was not in the spirit’ of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce concluded in 1962. It was something of a last-ditch local attempt to stem the rise in imports governed by a growing Japanese appetite for certain types of foreign goods that had begun a century earlier. The global quota for wool cloth entering Japan doubled at the end of 1962. Exports of wool cloth to Japan grew from £3.3m in 1962 to £5.1m in 1963. The 170-yen extra duty per sq. metre was abandoned in late 1963 and quotas were soon to become 484

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a thing of the past. ‘Japan became a totally different place after the Tokyo Olympics of 1964’ noted the late Geoff Richardson, Director of the NWTEC who had organised the British Wool Textile stand at the Harumi Exhibition Centre, beyond the Ginza in Tokyo. The Japan of the post-war years attracted a number of European entrepreneurs or ´merchant adventurers’. One of these was Bill Brandsten. Born in Poland of Jewish parents in the turbulent early 1920s, Bill escaped the Nazi occupation by fleeing to Soviet Russia where he was interned. After the war he made his way to Vladivostok, eventually reaching Yokohama in the mid-1950s. His first business ventures were in Hong Kong where he imported fabric from the UK, Italy and Japan for the burgeoning garment industry. He represented leading fabric weavers such as Loro Piana from Biella, Italy, Hield Bros from Bradford and Martin and Sons in Huddersfield. As the Japanese market began to open in the 1960s, Brandsten Japan opened in Tokyo and Osaka with the same mills they represented in Hong Kong. The Okura Hotel opened in Tokyo’s Minato-ku in 1962 and the Mandarin opened its door on Connaught Road in Hong Kong’s Central District a year later. Bill took up residence in suites in both of these luxurious additions to life in the Far East from where he conducted his growing and eventually highly profitable business of selling fine suitings and tweeds to the merchants and traders who supplied the numerous tailors of Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Bill, who loved to tease British diplomats and textile barons from Yorkshire and the Borders saying he was more British than any of them...because he chose to be, died in Monte Carlo in 1982. The legend and legacy of Brandsten Japan lives on. The British embassy in Tokyo and the British consulate general in Osaka had developed a very cordial relationship with the Japan Textile Importers Association (JTIA), a division of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MITI) when bilateral negotiations were taking place about quotas and tariffs in the 1960s. Leading the Japanese side was JTIA Chairman, Mr Tsuru Yagi of Yagi Tsusho, a family owned textile-trading company founded in 1946 that thrives to this day specialising in fashion imports, many from the UK. Once the fabric market had freed up, JTIA took on the role of assisting selected countries to export to Japan by providing leading edge market information and very often funding for joint promotion of British woven fabrics in Japan. This gamekeeper turned poacher role of JTIA baffled many a British businessman, but not Geoff Richardson the Director of the NWTEC and T. Kondo, the Commercial Officer holding the textile portfolio at the Embassy. They extracted all they could get their hands on, including funding for lavish fashion shows and tailor events, British Fabric Fairs at the British Export Marketing Centre, sadly now a car showroom on Aoyama-dori and many more marketing activities that left the Italian fabric weavers somewhat bewildered about British connivance with the locals. 485

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In 1970, the embassy and the JTIA organised a highly acclaimed British Fabric Fortnight with one-hundred-and-fifty top tailors across Japan. The joint embassy – British Overseas Trade Board – JTIA annual autumn promotion continued for twenty years, each year with a thirty man trade mission led by the chairman of the NWTEC, always an old Japan hand and invariably chairman of his own wool manufacturing company. Each year JTIA and the chairmen of the leading Japanese textile import companies on the Board would host a dinner at the Saison Restaurant in the Imperial Hotel; Hokkaido smoked salmon, Kobe beef and the finest claret the Imperial cellars could decant. ‘Good job we aren’t picking this tab up’ muttered Geoff Richardson ‘could feed a family of five for a fortnight.’ Japanese government largesse came abruptly to a halt in 1989. An era had ended. In the post-war years, Japanese fashion designers attempted to create a uniquely local look, often inspired by traditional country themes of fields and farms of rural Japan. It is probably not very politically correct to say it never really took on, but that is basically the case. Kenzo needed to go to Paris for his clothes to receive any real acclaim, as did Comme des Garçons, a line created and styled by Rei Kawakubo. Japanese fashion has invariably remained rather ‘esoterically ethnic’, a term that really means unwearable in the workplace. Western trends, however, have triumphed in post-war Japan with Britain, the USA and Italy constantly vying for first place in the fashion hall of fame. A stroll through modern-day Marounuchi in Tokyo confirms that the Anglo-Saxon look in luxury fashion is very much alive and thriving in elegant Japan. Burberry, Paul Smith, Aquascutum, Daks, Dunhill, Hackett, Barbour, Margaret Howell, Mackintosh and several brands that have been long dormant or defunct in the UK have remained centre stage in the smarter parts of town. US brands, particularly the preppy ones such as Brooks Brothers, Paul Stuart, Ralph Lauren and J Press have enjoyed a certain notoriety in Japan akin to the esteem in which they are held at home. The story behind the success of these brands is almost unique to Japan. It stems from a particularly Japanese attachment to the concept of fabric quality that dates back to the kimono stores that became the department stores of today. Selection of patterns has always been a part of Japanese ritual that has survived the decline of bespoke tailoring and the arrival of computerised clothing manufacturing. Few outside the textile trade realise that many of the iconic brands of Bond Street, Madison Avenue and the Via Montenapoleone sold in Japan are made in Asia, mainly China, to Japanese specifications. Suits and jackets are often tailored in British or Italian cloths whose weaver’s names feature prominently on or in the garments. This relatively new marketing concept is known in the trade as ‘ingredient branding’ and is not dissimilar to the role UK fabrics played in the bespoke tailor’s stores of the 1960s and 1970s where pattern swatches 486

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were ritually scrutinised by demanding consumers paying premium prices for custom-made luxury. As the liberalisation of trade in textiles gained momentum some fifty years ago, entrepreneurial Japan realised that it needed to make some strategic decisions about the future direction of clothing supply in a market where firstly Japanese fashion designers were not fit for local purpose in a country governed by a strong conformist corporate culture, secondly the hand-sewn tailoring trade would soon be confined to the upper echelons of the luxury market and thirdly, labour costs in Japan would require the clothing industry to seek out manufacturing facilities offshore. These trends benefitted the higher quality UK woollen and worsted industry at a time when the UK High Street was abandoning its commitment to source locally, with catastrophic consequences for bulk weaving in, mainly, West Yorkshire. Imports of wool and cashmere knitwear from the UK were kept under quota until the late 1960s to protect a local industry that had quickly recovered in the two decades following the war. Conversely, competitively priced Japanese knitwear soon began to threaten British brands long established in the English Midlands – that is until the Hong Kong Chinese, already working across the border in Guandong Province as early as 1970, undercut everyone. Southern China and latterly, Bangladesh are the source of over eighty percent of knitted goods entering Japan. Only a resilient few frame knitters in the Scottish Borders around Hawick, the Highlands and Islands and the English Midlands, no more than fifteen firms in total, continue to supply niche knitwear demand in Japan. Cashmere has always enjoyed a ‘king of wools’ reputation around the world and the Japanese throughout most of the last century would never have trusted the Chinese to process a fibre so delicate from Inner and Outer Mongolia. This clearly benefited the town of Hawick whose denizens boast ‘the same soft waters that gently wash the delicate cashmere cardigans are from the same source as the waters selected for our fine malt whiskies’. It is almost Robby Burns and many a Japanese has been heard to purr on hearing these words at receptions for the Scottish knitwear industry at the British embassy in Tokyo whilst knocking back duty free single malts. James Sugden, President of the Scottish Textile Association and formally Managing Director of Johnstons, a company weaving in Elgin and knitting in Hawick, sees a secure future for the brands showcased in Isetan, Mitsukoshi, Takashimaya and the select stores. ‘They have stood the test of time and the market is now very much in their favour as quality, provenance and country of origin grow in importance in premium retailing’, said James in London in the summer of 2015. 487

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Several famous names fell by the wayside in the 1980s and 1990s or were acquired by Hong Kong conglomerates. Happily, some strong knitwear brands, particularly Hawick Cashmere, Jamieson’s of Shetland, John Smedley, Johnston’s of Elgin, and Lyle & Scott are reaping the benefits of perseverance. A few more are supplying Britain’s headline designer brands with genuine Made in UK knitwear as Japanese (and many more) consumers refuse to pay premium prices for designer merchandise of dubious provenance. In the 1970s, 1980s and even the early 1990s, textile and clothing conglomerates in Tokyo and Osaka began to form strategic manufacturing alliances with UK and American fashion labels that already enjoyed a certain level of brand equity in Japan. Sanyo Shokai, a clothing and textile trading company established in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo long before it became the satellite suburb it is today, was one of the first Japanese operations to embrace a foreign fashion brand. Burberry, not unknown in smart Japan before the war and famous for its First World War trench coats and distinctive house check was a perfect partner for Sanyo in 1970 as Japanese consumers began to clamour for conspicuous labels and logos. The UK wool trade benefited significantly from this early joint venture as Burberry Japan sought to authenticate collections with imported fabric from Europe. This pioneer tie up came to an end in the summer of 2015 after forty-five years of collaboration. Burberry is now seeking to reposition its brand at the higher end of fashion in Japan and abandon the bazaar of the ground floor of the department store, the curse of so many designer names licensed in Japan where haberdashery items in their house check sell for under a 1000 yen. Daidoh, devastated by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, reopened post-war operations in 1947 and by the late 1960s and early 1970s was specialising in finer micron worsted suiting fabrics under the name Milliontex, a slick brand aimed at the growing moneyed classes. Some sectors of the American market quickly developed a liking for Milliontex’s shiny finishes and British mills came up against serious competition in the USA, a market they considered their own. An early association with the vibrant New York men’s wear fashion scene of the 1970s prompted Daidoh to begin discussions with Madison Avenue’s most celebrated brand, Brooks Brothers, founded in1807 to dress the conservative classes and their offspring across the United States. A licensing deal was signed in 1979 and Brooks, now made almost exclusively in eastern China in Daidoh factories, soon became the ‘go to’ brand of the aspiring ‘salaryman’ in Japan. In 1982 Paul Smith had just begun to be recognised for his ‘classically quirky’, but highly distinctive men’s wear look in the UK following the opening of his Floral Street store in London’s Covent Garden. Paul’s style suited the Japan of the heady 1980s but was 488

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sufficiently unique and inspiring to sail through the turbulent 1990s relatively unscathed. The Paul Smith route to market was via C. Itoh, a traditional trading company with specialist knowledge of the textile trade. Paul Smith’s success in Japan through lean years and plenty is well documented with Jiox Corporation manufacturing the men’s collection and Onward Kashyama producing the women’s wear for the two hundred Paul Smith stores across Japan. Paul Smith has twelve stores in the UK. Paul was one of the first British businessmen to visit Japan after the catastrophic earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster of March 2011, when many foreigners fled the country: he was active in encouraging foreign businesses to show solidarity with their Japanese staff and customers during the reconstruction process Many icons of the British classically elegant look have enjoyed profitable tie-ups with Japanese traders and middleman and some Jermyn Street names are now entirely Japanese owned. Sankyo Seiko acquired Daks in 1991 and Renown took control of Aquascutum and Kinloch Anderson, also in 1991. Not only do several Royal Warrant holders owe their current existence to Japanese fashion anglophilia, a good few British weavers do as well. In the 1990s UK (and Italian) mills began to interact directly with Japanese designers, clothing manufacturers and department stores through a variety of textile trade fairs supported by the BOTB. The main event, Première Vision, held in Paris each autumn and spring quickly attracted a large number of Japanese buyers. This in turn forced Tokyo and Osaka textile commission agents to attend to customer and supplier needs in Paris, something hitherto unthinkable in the highly conformist culture of Japanese trading. In the mid-1990s the Japan Imported Textile Agency Council (JITAC) was formed by a number of leading fabric agents to create a coordinated approach to the new market transparency brought about by European trade fairs. For anyone who had become used to the cagey complexities of the Japanese trading system it was almost a revolutionary awakening for Japanese retailers when they saw the UK weavers’ ex-mill price lists at textile events in Paris. JITAC continues to play a key role in supporting UK weavers in Japan with a twice-yearly fabric fair at the Tokyo Kokusai Forum. Many of the, merchandisers, buyers and fabric selectors visiting Paris and the JITAC events in Tokyo over the last twenty years were from a style of modern retailing that is unique to Japan. ‘Select stores’, a sector in which the main players are United Arrows, Beams, Ships and Tomorrowland specialise in an immaculately assembled selection (from whence the name ‘select’) of coordinating merchandise ranging from shirts, ties, knitwear, shoes, leather goods, bags, watches and, more importantly, ranges of suits and jackets. The carefully curated racks of sports jackets all carry sleeve labels from tweed 489

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mills in the UK and the suits, still in the blues and greys of Dormeuil’s first shipment to Kansai in 1914, proudly display the name of the British (or Italian) weaver, as was always the case in Japan. The ‘select’ stores reflect a peculiarly Japanese obsession with the didactic as seen in glossy fashion magazines, particularly Men’s Ex, Leon and GQ where page after page is devoted to teaching both young and old how to dress for specific occasions and the art of mixing and matching separates and accessories. Isetan department store (now amalgamated with Mitsukoshi), which is in the same league as the ‘select’ stores’,dates back to the late nineteenth century. The neo-classical building with the deco design facade that houses the main Isetan store in Shijuku is seen as the guide to ‘who is who’ and ‘what is what’ in fashion in Japan. Isetan’s iconic status in Tokyo explains why the store, particularly the men’s wear annex, consistently out-performs other department stores in Japan. The Campaign for Wool Japan in 2015 is partnering with Isetan as is the UK Great store promotion, a logical choice as over fifty British fashion brands are stocked in the store. In a pre-recorded video message for Wool Week Japan, the Campaign Patron, HRH The Prince of Wales said: When I launched my Campaign for Wool in January 2010 to an audience of mainly British spinners, weavers and designers I was immediately reminded by so many of those present of the importance of the Japanese market for British woollen and worsted fabrics. British fashion, I was also delighted to hear, enjoys a particularly high profile in Japan where classical good taste continues to flourish alongside the avant garde.

The Briar Court is an unprepossessing business hotel on the road leading out of Huddersfield to the rolling hills of the Yorkshire Pennines that has been home from home for Japanese businessmen regularly visiting local cloth mills each February and September. In early autumn of 2015 I asked Gordon Kaye how Fintex, an English worsted merchanting company, now owned by the Japanese, was faring. Gordon had just returned from the Briar Court where he had encountered teams of buyers from Isetan, Mitsukoshi, Miyuki, Onward Kashiyama, Sanyo Shokai, M. Ueda, Ohga, Yoshysma, Kangoyo and United Arrows. ‘Business is quite good’, he noted, with characteristic understatement. The late Donald Richie, when asked about his view on modern-day Japan compared to the post-war experiences some sixty years earlier always noted ‘Well, everything has changed, except nothing’. And so it seems to be with the wool trade. ENDNOTE 1

One of these was Eikokuya where Kobayashi the proprietor was a staunch supporter of all British promotions. 490

44

The British Chamber of Commerce (Japan), 1948–2015 IAN DE STAINS

Margaret Thatcher in conversation with Ian de Stains. Adrian Thorpe, minister at the British Embassy, is in the centre

Early in 1948 a handful of British businessmen – post-war pioneers – met in Tokyo to discuss ways in which they might help each other take advantage of the obvious business opportunities that peace and the Occupation afforded. Among them were the late William Salter and the late Douglas Kenrick, two men who essentially spawned the idea of creating a British Chamber of Commerce in Japan. Although founded in 1948, it wasn’t until 1955 that what was then the ministry of trade and industry (MITI) permitted the use of the name British Chamber of Commerce in Japan (BCCJ). This granted the organisation Foreign Juridical Person status under Article 36 of the Civil Code. The Treaty of Commerce, Establishment and Navi491

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gation between Japan1 and the United Kingdom ratified that status in 1963. Only then did the chamber set up a permanent secretariat, which was initially manned by a volunteer. Hugh Cortazzi, who was commercial counselor in the British embassy from 1966 to 1970, recalls that he tried to attend all the main meetings of the executive committee of the chamber (as his predecessor Colin Harris had done). If he could not do so either John Whitehead or Alan Harvey, first secretaries (commercial), would represent the embassy. Hugh Cortazzi writes: Our aim was to ensure that British companies were briefed on the trade promotion activities of the embassy and our efforts to prise open the Japanese market. Bill Salter who acted as secretary was at that time one of the few British businessman who was fluent in Japanese. We helped as much as we could even sometimes drafting the minutes of meetings. We planned a major trade promotion British Week in Tokyo in 19692 and when Ben Thorne was appointed as head of the British Week office he worked hard with members of the chamber to engage British companies in backing our efforts. The chamber elected as its chairman during the run-up to British Week Duncan Fraser who represented Rolls Royce3 and who galvanized the enthusiastic support of the British business community in Japan.

Sadly, much of the chamber’s early archive was lost during a move, so we can only speculate about what issues dominate the early proceedings of the chamber. It would be fascinating to know, for example, what the BCCJ’s position was with regard to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, which was a catalyst for the rapid development of the capital.4 A similar effect is expected as a result of Tokyo having won its bid for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which should generate renewed investment and growth in the nation. The British Week with the backing of the BCCJ and its members was a success. But this was not intended by the embassy or members of the chamber to be a one-off event. Expo ’70 in Osaka5 attracted many visitors from Britain including the Prince of Wales on his first trip to Japan and the British pavilion showcased some British achievements, but this was not a trade show. The embassy and the chamber were determined to keep up the impetus and show that Japanese accusations that British business was not trying hard enough were unjustified. An important step in the promotion of British exports was the establishment of the British Export Marketing Centre (BEMC) in Aoyama 1-chome.6 Peter Wakefield succeeded Hugh Cortazzi as commercial counselor in the rank of commercial minister. When he returned to London to run the official campaign to promote 492

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exports to Japan Ben Thorne who had returned to Japan as director of the BEMC became commercial counselor. In both capacities Ben Thorne worked closely with the chamber being coopted onto the chamber’s executive committee. Mrs Kazuko Kon, who spent her entire career with the British embassy in Tokyo, has commented that: The BCCJ and the commercial section of the embassy were always extremely close. The British Export Marketing Centre was also a key partner. I have happy memories of our collaboration on such things as the Opportunity Japan, Priority Japan and Action Japan campaigns that ran through the ‘90s.

Martin Barrow, who for many years headed Jardines in Japan, was President of the chamber from 1979–1980 and he, too, remembers the close connection with the embassy: Of course we had very good connections. But at the time we had few links with the relevant people in the Japanese government – with MITI, the Gaimusho [Ministry of Foreign Affairs], the Ministry of Finance and so on. So we set out to build those links, as at the time there remained several barriers to trade and investment that we needed to bring to their attention.

All the British ambassadors in Tokyo and their staff responsible for commercial and economic work have consistently given high priority to working closely with the Chamber and its members. The BCCJ’s chairman was usually the head of a major British company in Japan. Trading companies such as Jardines, Swires, Dodwells and Cornes were always active members of the chamber and the heads of these and other firms took it in turns to act as chairman of the chamber. Among these were Graham McCallum of Swires, Lew Radbourne of Dodwell’s and Martin Barrow of Jardines. But some chairmen were representatives of industrial companies, such as Norman Macleod of ICI; and the executive committee reflected the then make-up of the British commercial community, which included senior expatriate managers from the major banks, accountancy firms, traders as well as heavy industry such as BSC, Wiggins Teape and Beechams. Until responsibility for trade relations passed to the European Economic Community (later the European Union) negotiations on trade issues with Japan had to be negotiated by the embassy and the department of trade in London. Issues which closely affected British companies and consequently members of the chamber included the various quotas and restrictions imposed by the Japanese government. 493

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The problems faced by Scotch whisky in the Japanese market was one on which members of the chamber were closely involved.7 The chamber of the 1970s and early 1980s was as much a social grouping as a centre of expertise and lobbying on trade and investment issues. It held regular lunches at which distinguished visitors – ministers, senior officials, Japanese as well as British – would address large audiences. The economic climate was difficult in the aftermath of the first and second ‘oil shocks’, and with the Japanese government continuing to rely upon voluntary trade restraint arrangements with trading partners to rein in exports in sensitive sectors, and discriminatory tariffs on imports of scotch whisky and confectionery. There was constant tension between the embassy, seeking to encourage British companies to be more active and aggressive in a market, which, while difficult and expensive to exploit, was nonetheless significant market, which, while difficult and expensive to exploit, was nonetheless significant, and growing, and Whitehall, which wanted to take a tougher line on trade barriers and systemic Japanese trade surpluses. The Chamber, which consisted for the most part of companies who had taken the plunge and understood the Japanese market, played an important role in helping to get these messages across, as well as in identifying areas where the British and Japanese Governments could be more active. At the same time, the Chamber and Embassy working together had an equally significant part to play in helping newcomers to the Japanese market understand how business was done in Japan and the unique pressures of a market whose size and sophistication made it crucial for exporting companies seeking to become active on the world stage, while nonetheless requiring major investment in time and money, for a lower level of return-on-equity than could be found in smaller but more accessible markets. Throughout the 1980s, as the terms of trade began to turn more in favour of countries exporting to Japan, with the Plaza Accord, the revaluation of the yen, and the gradual elimination or amelioration of those tariff and non-tariff barriers that had inhibited business development, the Chamber developed a valuable hand-holding role for new entrants to Japan. During this period the chamber went from strength to strength, with important figures such as Ray Giles, then of Beecham Group plc, played a key role in the creation what would eventually become today’s European Business Council (EBC). The year 1987 was particularly significant. The BCCJ Executive Committee made the decision to hire an executive director with a media and communications background. At the same time, thanks to the generosity of Robin Maynard MBE, then of Sedgwick & Co Ltd, the chamber office was moved to a central location with improved office space and a large 494

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meeting room at its disposal. For the first time, the chamber had a proper home. Maynard has commented: My enthusiastic support for the BCCJ was based on what is known in the treaty reinsurance business as a reciprocal trade. Particularly during my extended spell as the Lloyd’s of London general representative in Japan, speakers at chamber events delivered helpful new business concepts and direction sourced from outside the financial services sector. My reciprocity was to have successive Lloyd’s chairmen, who were no longer simply selected from the insurance and reinsurance market, lift the shrouds on the workings of the city.

In 1987, the chamber’s current operations manager, Samata Sanae, joined the BCCJ. She recalls that, ‘There was no PC, so our executive director brought in his own machine from home so I could work on an internally produced directory of members.’ By far the longestserving employee, Samata is certain about the chamber’s greatest strength today: the generosity of its members: I think the volunteer spirit of our members, especially the contribution by the executive committee, is incredible. I have learned such a lot from their attitude to service in the community.

The 1990s were years of great expansion. Under the editorial leadership of the executive director, the chamber produced a number of publications such as Japan Posting, Human Resources in Japan, Research and Development in Japan, Seihinka, and Gaijin Scientist (which was also published in a commercial Japanese translation). These were the result of such chamber initiatives as the science and technology action group (STAG) and the small and medium business initiative (SAMBI). At the time the chamber also issued a journal, Insight, which was produced in-house. The London Club, later renamed the UK Kai was formed to involve more Japanese members. The late Yamamoto Sukeyoshi of NSK Ltd who was the first Japanese to be invited to join the executive committee said on his election: ‘I thought about my contribution and decided to prepare a monthly economic report from the perspective of the manufacturing sector.’ Yamamoto served from 2000 to 2012 and rarely missed a monthly meeting. As President of the Board of Trade in the early 1990s, Michael Heseltine was determined to launch a major expansion of UK export promotion. In his department, the DTI, Jane Owen headed the Exports to Japan Unit as successor to a series of former commercial diplomats at the Tokyo Embassy. The Unit was originally set up in 1973 under Peter Wakefield as special adviser to the British Overseas 495

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Trade Board and Paul Dimond. The Unit had been the first specialist country office in the DTI charged with export promotion, staffed by specialists who had served in Tokyo, had been through the FCO Japanese language training and who could from their experience present credible help to potential exporters (the DTI established in 1993 a new Business in Europe programme drawing partly on this model). In addition, the DTI recruited business people who had also worked in Japan to assist, styled Export Promoters. The Chamber also played a full and supportive role in these various export promotion campaigns. The aim was not just to advertise the Japanese market to British exporters, but help UK companies understand how engaging with Japan would make them more competitive, in terms of benchmarking themselves against the highest standards of technological development and customer service. Over time, the emphasis shifted from general promotion of Japan in the UK to sector-specific initiatives, and to helping suitably-qualified companies to invest in Japan. A significant development was the establishment in 1997 of the British Industry Centre (BIC)8 in Yokohama. This initiative was designed to encourage British firms to set up and do business in Japan, by helping to reduce set-up costs and potential difficulties. The export promoter responsible for this was Mike Ingle MBE, recently returned from four years in Japan with Sedgwick who was asked to look at the feasibility of an incubation centre in Japan that would enable companies to gain a foothold with the minimum of difficulty. Ingle explains: At the beginning of this feasibility study I spent much time assessing the demand by visiting British companies with a potential interest. In addition I worked with the executive director of the BCCJ, the commercial department of our embassy in Tokyo, and also JETRO in London. I needed to find the most suitable location, estimated costs, and sources of finance. I also needed to identify the support we would have from both countries long term. There proved to be a significant general interest in the idea. The first question was where the British Industry Centre should be located. The BCCJ was very helpful in providing guidance and we narrowed the location down to Yokohama, having considered various locations around Tokyo to be too expensive. One very important question remained. Who would administer the Centre? I considered a number of possibilities but the obvious answer really was the BCCJ. However I was very conscious of their limited resources. Despite his heavy workload, the executive director visited the UK several times to help me promote the British industry centre to companies urging them to seek the valuable opportunities, and help them understand the Japanese business culture and particularly the real benefits of having a physical presence there. He was a key speaker

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at some of our seminars and discussions and I valued his support enormously.

In January1998 Prime Minister Tony Blair, the British ambassador, Sir David Wright, the mayor of Yokohama and the president of the chamber, Richard Neal OBE, formally opened the British Industry Centre in the Yokohama Business Park. Ingle commented: The BIC attracted a huge amount of attention. Other countries wondered if they might emulate it. It was, without doubt a huge feather in the chamber’s cap.

The Centre ran successfully for several years and played an important role in helping a number of small and medium sized enterprises from the UK to establish themselves in the Japanese market. 2008 saw the chamber’s 60th anniversary – a significant milestone in Japanese society – and the occasion was marked by a gala evening, the British Business Awards (BBA), now an annual event that is arguably the high spot of the BCCJ’s busy events calendar. The 2009 BBA was to become the cover story for another new initiative: the launch of a new BCCJ magazine. Insight had been retired as the chamber focused through the 1990s on building an online presence and an interactive website, which handled virtually all the members’ needs. But in the mid-1990s a small start-up company, Custom Media, approached the chamber with an idea, as publisher Simon Farrell explains: We proposed a bimonthly membership magazine and were invited to present our ideas to the executive committee. I was pretty sceptical, but we were delighted to hear within an hour that they liked our business plan. With me as editor, the first issue was published in December with the British Business Awards (BBA) as top story. It was a bare-bones issue, with a marble BBA trophy decorating the cover. During the launch party at the British Embassy Tokyo, one joker loudly said to much laughter that the trophy on the cover resembled a Dubai skyscraper. We were crushed with embarrassment. The magazine has survived an earthquake and economic crises, but has since grown to a monthly 52-plus pages. BCCJ ACUMEN has become more a lifestyle, culture and arts magazine for the British community (and Anglophiles) in Japan than a simple business publication. It is now also distributed with the Financial Times and at UK and Japanese airports. We are indeed very grateful to the BCCJ for taking a risk with us and we look forward to many more years of publishing BCCJ ACUMEN.

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The earthquake to which Farrell refers was of course that of 11 March 2011. It was followed by a devastating tsunami and the nuclear meltdown; a triple disaster that left vast areas of Tohoku in ruins. While this was a prompt for many in the foreign community to leave Japan, the BCCJ, together with the British embassy, quickly took action to get out as much timely information as possible to members. For Lori Henderson MBE, this was literally a baptism of fire. She had just been recruited to take over from the executive director who was retiring after almost twenty-five years at the helm and was in the hand-over phase: Immediately following the events of 3/11, the BCCJ established the ‘Disaster Relief Forum’, which brought together representatives from the public, private and civil sectors, at the British embassy Tokyo, to share information and collaborate on finding solutions to help ease the awful human suffering that was happening in Tohoku. From the day following the disasters, one of our long-term friends, an NPO leader in the field was able to feed us information on what local people and communities really needed – water, sanitary products, adult diapers, and so on. Some of our member companies had already written huge cheques to support international NPO activities (e.g. Red Cross disaster relief projects) in the area. Our strength came not from our financial reserves (we are also an NPO) but from our network – in Tohoku, Tokyo, throughout Japan and in the UK. People wanted to help. We were able to work swiftly to directly connect local communities in Tohoku with companies, organisations and individuals who could help deliver products and people to areas that needed them most. These were often areas that were not yet receiving media attention or ‘formal’ support from the Japanese government. Immediately following the emergency relief phase of the March 11 disasters, we went on to establish the Back to Business (B2B) Initiative for Tohoku. From as early as May of that year, local people were telling us that they were tired of ‘saying thank you’ to volunteers and supporters, and simply wanted to feel a sense of normalcy returning to their daily lives”.

In October 2014 the BCCJ signed an agreement with the British government to help UK companies secure business from the Rugby World Cup 2019 and the Tokyo Olympics / Paralympics 2020. Under the agreement, the chamber joins a global network of British business groups around the world that are working in tandem with government to support British exporters – those who are already operating in the Japan market and looking to expand, and those seeking to enter.

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According to executive director Lori Henderson: Things are going well so far. The initiative, which has allowed us to hire an additional member of staff, has helped us deepen relationships with Japanese organisations and companies. The October 2014 agreement was witnessed by invited guests from the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai) – one of Japan’s leading national business associations. Subsequently, Japanese participation in BCCJ events has increased (from 18% to 35% YOY) and our members are pleased to have regular chances to connect directly with C-suite representatives from Japanese multi-national corporations. Current President David Bickle calls it ‘enriching our platform’.

Henderson believes there is clearly an appetite on the Japanese side for learning from London 2012 and Rugby World Cup 2015, and the BCCJ is currently right in the thick of the action – arranging events in Tokyo that showcase UK expertise, and sharing information with the UK regarding knowledge gaps on the Japan side: It’s also great to be part of something ‘bigger’ than ourselves. There’s so much experience in the British Chamber global network and the agreement allows us opportunities to collaborate on an almost daily basis with Chamber and Government teams throughout the region and the world.

ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4

5

See articles about the conclusion of this treaty by Robin Gray and Sosuke Hanaoka in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume II, ed. Ian Nish, Japan Library, 1997. See article by Ben Thorne in Britain and Japan, Biographical Portraits, Volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. Duncan Fraser who was awarded a CBE for his work in promoting British trade with Japan has described his life in Japan in his contribution to Japan Experiences Fifty Years, One Hundred Views, Post-War Japan Through British Eyes, compiled and edited by Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Library 2001 Sir Frabcis Rundall, who was British ambassador to Japan, at the time of the 1974 Olympic Games recorded his impressions of the Games in a dispatch to the foreign secretary of 30 October 1964. The Japan Society in number 150 of Proceedings for 2013 reproduced the full text of this dispatch together with some contemporary photographs. Hugh Cortazzi who was first secretary in the embassy at the time recalls that members of the British team enjoyed the hospitality and support of many British businessmen The view of this event by Sir John Pilcher, British ambassador at the time, is reproduced in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015.

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6

7

8

See ‘The British Export Marketing Centre and the Promotion of British Exports from 1972’ by Paul Dimond in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. See ‘Scotch Whisky in Japan’ by Stuart Jack in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. See also in relation to the BIC part II of the chapter in this volume entitled ‘Selling British Electronics to Japan’ by Ivor Cohen and by Peter Bacon. In Part II of this chapter Peter Bacon describes one company which took advantage of the facilities provided by the BIC.

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English Lawyers and Japan from the 1960s to the Present Day TONY GRUNDY

Global legal brands hit Tokyo in 1987: The ‘R.M.G. Goulding’ and ‘Grundy Croock’ Foreign Law Offices

INTRODUCTION

This article concentrates on three themes where English lawyers might be said to have ‘punched above their weight’ in contributing to the development of the legal services sector in Japan: s s s

The development of international finance and securities work for Japanese companies from the early 1960s onwards. The contribution of English lawyers to deregulation of the legal services sector in Japan. The practices developed by the London headquartered law firms who set up offices in Tokyo when the law permitted them to do so in 1987.

BACKGROUND

Although the modern Japanese legal system drew heavily on other civil law systems such as France and Germany, and imported its 501

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securities laws from the United States, there has been a strong influence from English law in fields such as insurance and maritime law, and most recently, product liability law which was influenced by the English model. The Meiji constitution of 1889 drew on the work of Professor A.V. Dicey of All Souls College, Oxford. THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCE AND SECURITIES WORK FOR JAPANESE COMPANIES FROM THE EARLY 1960S ONWARDS

In post-war Japan, US lawyers, numbering sixty-eight in 1955, were instrumental in establishing the first modern Japanese law firms. These lawyers, known as junkaiin, were permitted to practise Japanese law but no additional foreign lawyers were permitted after 1954. Their practice was mainly inbound foreign direct investment (FDI) from the United States and they employed Japanese lawyers to assist them with administrative tasks such as filing foreign exchange applications for investment. Although the junkaiin were, in the main, good lawyers, they did not plan succession well, or indeed concede that their practices could be taken over by a younger generation of Japanese lawyers. The primary focus of these US lawyers was corporate work but beginning in the early 1960s, Japanese companies began raising finance in the US capital markets. Ken Tsunematsu of Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu recalls an issue by Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co., Ltd (now Toshiba Corporation) in 1962, when he was an employee of that company. The issuer’s counsel was Thomas Blakemore of Blakemore and Mitsuki (the firm which Ken Tsunematsu later joined). Underwriters’ counsel was John Christensen of McIvor Kauffman & Christensen. Then in the same year, Shin MitsubishiHeavy Ltd. (now Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) issued the first convertible bond by a Japanese company. In 1963, a change in taxation laws in the United States made it practically impossible for foreign issuers to raise money in that market and this contributed to the birth of the Euromarket in London. This created opportunities for the London based British merchant banks to help Japanese companies raise funds and they naturally turned to the City law firms which they felt most comfortable with, Slaughter and May and Linklaters & Paines. Nicholas Wilson of Slaughter and May recalls ‘a small flurry of straight debt Japanese issues in 1964 and the following years’. He notes that ‘they had no equity content and were relatively modest in terms of amount in relation to the size of the companies. There was an element of dipping the toes in the water one felt.’ At that time, the negotiation was mainly done in London although in 1963 Peter 502

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Benham of Linklaters went to Tokyo for an issue for Canon Camera Co., Inc. (now Canon Inc.). His cousin, Alan Welsford (then senior partner of Slaughter and May) joined him on the trip acting for the trustee elect. A particularly memorable issue in 1964 was that for Toyo Rayon Co., Ltd (now Toray Industries, Inc.) led by SG Warburg & Co. Ltd. Geoffrey Williams of Slaughter and May acted for Warburgs whilst David Pearson of Linklaters & Paines acted for the issuer. The transaction and the meetings in Tokyo are described in some detail by Warburg’s Ian Fraser in his autobiography.1 He notes that ‘the first deal that we did in Japan was the very opposite of boring’: Uncle Siegmund [Warburg] had been on a British financial mission to Tokyo and had made the acquaintance of Mr Okumura who was the head of Nomura Securities, the leading Japanese stockbroking house. After reading about our Italian pioneering bond issue2 he came to call and invited us to do one for one of his best clients, Toyo Rayon, the Courtaulds of Japan. [Peter] Spira and I set off to Tokyo in January 1964 with a team of expert professionals, Geoffrey Williams, David Pearson, both lawyers, and John Grenside, a top accountant. Japan was just beginning to emerge from the ashes of defeat… but had not yet begun to make any serious mark industrially, commercially or financially. Their cars were too small to accommodate six-foot Englishmen and they had to hire a fleet of Cadillacs to pick us up at the airport. As in 1964 they were not accustomed to receiving Western visitors, it was an honour and a pleasure for them to give us the best possible impression of their country and its remarkable hospitality. We had given ourselves a fortnight to set up the deal. The negotiations were slow and difficult. The representatives of Toyo Rayon, an aristocrat called Koyasu and a Shinto priest’s son called Sakamoto, could scarcely have been more delightful to negotiate with. But in the carefully regulated society of Japan, then as now, companies are not free to act as they would wish; they have to fall in line with the ‘guidance’ given them by the Ministry of Finance. In this case the Ministry appeared in the form of an American lawyer practising in Tokyo who issued ‘guidance’ in the most tactless and offensive manner, embarrassing everybody round the table. At one stage I lost my temper, a thing I have only done two or three times in my life, and insulted not only the dreadful American but also poor David Pearson, whose duty was to advise the Japanese company on the implications of the transaction under English law. I had committed the ultimate gaffe causing the American and Pearson to lose face and therefore in the process losing even more face myself. I stood up and they all stood up, I bowed and they all bowed and Spira and I left the room wondering what would happen next.

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In 1973, Linklaters’ Charles Allen-Jones, acting for Hill Samuel, visited Japan for the first English law convertible bond, again for Canon Camera. The meetings took two weeks and he worked with John Christensen and Ken Tsunematsu. These relaxed time schedules and the absence of modern internet and email communications meant that there was time to socialize with one’s fellow lawyers and clients – something which continued to be a feature of this practice until the 1990s. Tony Herbert of Allen & Overy’s first visit to Japan was also in 1973, acting for Warburgs and a convertible bond for a smaller company, Eidai Sangyo Co., Ltd, which subsequently went bankrupt.3 Tony recalls as follows: John Christensen was an excellent tutor, straddling as he did the conventions and requirements of Japan and the Anglo-Saxon financial world. The Warburg people and I, having studied the financials of the Japanese company, came with a menu of ideas for innovative covenants and events of default. John had to explain that the Ministry of Finance would not contemplate any of these things. What had the Ministry to do with the free negotiation of financial terms? I remember John explaining the concept of freedom in this context by the very American example of Henry Ford’s famous dictum that his customers could have whatever colour car they liked, so long as it was black.4 The transaction was also memorable, at least for me, by the fact that the company had engaged no less a figure than Kunio Hamada as their adviser. He had relatively recently set up his own firm of Hamada & Matsumoto. In retrospect, it was striking that the Japanese lawyers involved, in a relatively small transaction, represented the crème de la crème of their profession.

Kunio Hamada, acting for the issuer, recalls that he took a holistic approach with a view to ensuring that all parties were protected, including investors. There were tough negotiations; crafting, and seeking consensus on, the necessary protections. He notes that, in practice, the right approach might well have been not to take that issuer to the market but ‘this was, of course, impossible because the Japanese underwriter had already obtained the go signal from the Ministry of Finance under the then strict “cue system” for Japanese issuers to tap foreign markets’. In 1975, The Bank of Tokyo, Ltd (now The Bank of TokyoMitsubishi UFJ, Ltd.) issued the first ever floating rate note by a Japanese bank in London led by Credit Suisse White Weld. Iain Murray and Terence Kyle of Linklaters & Paines acted for the underwriters and Shuji Yanase of Blakemore & Mitsuki for The Bank of Tokyo, Ltd. There was a real feeling of creating something new at the drafting meetings in London. Meanwhile during the due diligence meet504

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ings in Japan, Iain Murray broadened his range of services provided to clients by cooking breakfast every day for a star young banker at the apartment in which they were staying. Iain was heard to comment on his return something along the lines of ‘you’d think they would teach them how to boil an egg at Cambridge’. Tim Freshwater (a.k.a. Mr Shimizu) of Slaughter and May spent a considerable period of his time during the second half of the 1970s on business trips to Japan. He notes that before the advent of fax or PCs, meetings would take the following format. First, four days of meetings starting with a blank sheet of paper and gathering information orally about the issuer’s history and business to be written up long hand by the English lawyer in the hotel room every evening. The draft would be sent by courier to printers in London on Thursday evening; Friday would be taken up with discussion and negotiation of the legal agreements and the first draft disclosure document would arrive back in Tokyo on Sunday evening. This left the weekend free for relaxation and often included trips to Hakone or Nikko. Then, over the next three days, the contents of the offering document would be verified and agreed. Tim believes that the enhanced role played by lawyers in Japanese deals, particularly after the Japanese securities houses took over as Lead Managers in 1976, influenced the way that transactions were executed globally. He says that these deals contributed significantly to enhancing deal technology in the Euromarkets. In 1981, the Commercial Code of Japan was amended to permit a new type of security ‘bonds with detachable warrants’. The legal framework contained some ambiguities,5 which needed careful discussion with the Japanese Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice. Rupert Beaumont of Slaughter and May spent three weeks settling the voluminous documentation with Kunio Aoki and Kenji Nino of McIvor Kauffman & Christensen. As Rupert Beaumont wrote in 1997:6 We are all well aware of what was being created in terms of warrant documentation, and the way it linked into the bond documentation, was of immense importance to the international capital market for Japanese issuers. These documents would be – as indeed they did become – the template for all future bond with warrant issues by Japanese issuers. It was essential therefore that they should work and be clear. The end result was a good cooperative effort on the part of all those involved, both those drafting, negotiating and settling the documents, and those such as Kenji Nino and Karl Essig who discussed the documents with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice behind the scenes and ensured that they were accepted as falling within the commercial code requirements. We were amused by the fact that the other issue which launched one day after my issue, 505

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was based on identical documentation – a good and sensible example of wider Japanese cooperation.

In fact, there were two such issues based on identical documentation done in the following week, one done by Linklaters & Paines and one done by Allen & Overy (I hasten to add that none of the lawyers involved breached their duties of confidentiality). During the 1980s, Japanese lawyers played their part in the British privatizations such as British Telecom and British Petroleum. In each case, a portion of the shares was sold in Japan. Mitsuhiro Yasuda looks back at how fortunate Japanese lawyers were to be involved in such ground-breaking transactions. There had been none in Japan or in the United States. No Japanese lawyers had any experience of this work and it tested their ability to understand and explain technical issues to the Japanese regulators. For example the concept of partly paid shares (a device designed to make shares affordable for ‘Sid’) was unknown in Japan. What comes through very strongly from talking to all the lawyers is how well they cooperated in order to serve their clients. Also, they all became firm friends over the years and, when speaking in English, were all on first name terms! The English lawyers (who were of course among the finest in the City) treated the Japanese lawyers as equals and showed great flexibility and pragmatism when it came to addressing the difficult legal and disclosure issues which came up. On the English side, there was great respect for the excellent technical legal skills displayed by the Japanese lawyers; their ability to review complex documentation in English and also to analyse difficult issues under Japanese law where there were no clear answers. A big difference between the two groups of lawyers was that the English lawyers were drawing on many years of domestic corporate and finance experience, but in the Japanese domestic markets, lawyers were simply not involved in that type of work. Also, laws were drafted from a domestic perspective and it was not clear to what extent they should be applied to transactions done outside Japan. Japanese lawyers would, where necessary, obtain opinions from scholars such as Professor Tanaka of The University of Tokyo. There is no doubt that, viewed from Japan, the leading English law firm for capital markets transactions in the 1970s was Slaughter and May and a significant number of those on the left hand column of the firm’s notepaper (including Nicholas Wilson and Adrian Smart) were to be found in Tokyo most weeks (of course, staying at the Hotel Okura). At Linklaters & Paines, the left hand column of the notepaper allowed the work to migrate to more junior partners, the most well-known of whom is John Edwards. John first visited Japan in 1974 acting for the Middle East bank, KFTCIC on an issue for 506

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Mitsui OSK Lines, Ltd. John recalls arriving in Tokyo and receiving a telex letting him know that the client was unable to be present and that John would be their ‘representative’. His duties started with an opening speech at the ‘kick-off meeting’ (a very formal meeting at the start of a week of documentation meetings and attended by the most senior representatives from each party). John shared the qualities of the more senior English lawyers but also had a less hierarchical approach. One of the second generation Japanese international lawyers described his approach in this way ‘John acted in an impartial manner and treated both senior and junior lawyers equally… He was a good example of how lawyers should act toward other lawyers.’ During the 1980s John Edwards and his colleagues built Linklaters’ reputation in Japan and the firm became ‘equal first choice’ with Slaughter and May. Reflecting on his career in 1997 John wrote as follows:7 It is now probably impossible to collect together all the various subtle things that I learnt over the many years I spent travelling to Japan. A number remain in mind, which, when analysed, are of course all rules of life and conduct, that apply equally in other parts of the world although in some cases, sadly, they appear to be in the process of being forgotten. Such rules included: never lose your temper in public – anything other than politeness, or perhaps on occasion firm politeness, will not be tolerated, and the Anglo-American habit of banging the table and appearing to be enraged will be regarded as a loss of face not so much on the part of those to whom such a tirade is addressed, but on the part of the person who appears to have lost his temper. Never cause anybody in Japan to lose face in the presence of others, however innocently the situation may have arisen. For example, never ask a question in such a way that its answer inevitably puts the person giving the answer in a less than favourable light. Remain good humoured and tolerant – this does not mean that one has to give up matters or principles which are important to one’s client; but compromises can be found, and moreover can be found in a way which will ensure that neither side is seen to have ‘backed down’. Avoid confrontation and seek to persuade by logic and clear argument rather than by force. As the years went by I felt, and still feel, that I have learnt an enormous amount from my long and happy association with this extraordinary country.

Yasuzo Takeno recalls that when he was a young lawyer working in London he and some other colleagues were invited to lunch at Slaughter and May. Asparagus was served which the Japanese lawyers consumed in its entirety whilst the Slaughter and May lawyers (except for one) left the stalks untouched on their plates. The exception, Peter Grindrod, sensing the unease felt by the Japanese lawyers at their lack of table etiquette, decided to crunch his way through the stalks to ease their embarrassment. It worked.8 507

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In the 1980s, the volume of issuances by Japanese corporates in the Euromarkets increased significantly and more junior partners became regular commuters between London and Tokyo.9 Mark Welling, a fellow commuter, recalls the 1980s as follows: Familiarity with the transactions, how they were run, with the people involved and (broadly) how to behave were immensely (and rightly) important. I recall that when we (or certainly I) first started getting involved, all the core legal documents were already highly advanced. And we understood why. They were comprehensive and complicated documents in English which had become templates which were trusted, familiar and (generally) understood by the other parties (Japanese bankers and lawyers; trust companies; paying agents, etc.) and it was perfectly reasonable and understandable that change or creativity, unless for very good reasons indeed, were unwelcome. The drafting of (non-legal) sections of prospectuses/offering circulars was, of course, different and there good, clear drafting skills in English as well as a genuine interest to understand the business of the relevant company were (rightly) highly praised. I continue to treasure the memory of my much-praised succinct written description of the largest grab-bucket dredger in the world which, had the stock exchange permitted the inclusion of photographs, would have saved me about three hours hand-writing in the middle of the night in the Hotel Okura. I still sometimes reflect on that period and those transactions. How much did the detailed documentation actually matter compared with the importance (particularly for Japanese parties) of the inter-relationships (amongst all the parties)? How much reliance was in fact ever put on the offering circulars compared (again) with the relationships between the principal parties? I don’t for a minute suggest that somehow form and process were not important but they formed a very specific part of much more subtle and complex relationships which were crucial to the deals. And having English lawyers (from trusted firms) who were themselves familiar, trusted, knew (generally) how to behave, built good relationships with their English and Japanese counterparts (as well as the documentation teams of their clients) was (arguably) absolutely crucial at that formative stage of opening up the international capital markets to swathes of corporate Japan. Extraordinary though it would all look to today’s market participants, it seems to me that it was effective, efficient, got the priorities right, had people involved in the crucial aspects at the right levels and allocated risk where it belonged. Difficult to think how else that market could have developed at that time.

Separately from the fly-in fly-out lawyers, a few English lawyers did practise in Tokyo in the period before 1987. In the early 1970s Richard Russell of Johnson Stokes & Masters was based in the Tokyo office of Matsuo & Kosugi. He was followed by Paul Giles of the same firm in 1979. They practised Hong Kong and English law mainly in the field of ship finance. 508

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In 1976, two lawyers from Clifford Turner (now Clifford Chance), Pierre Verkhovskoy and Geoffrey White, formed an association with a Japanese law firm Nakagawa Law Office founded by Mr Noboru Nakagawa. Together, they built up a thriving leasing and finance practice; Geoffrey White also worked two days a week on secondment to The Bank of Tokyo, Ltd. Although at the time, some Japanese lawyers viewed them with concern because the law did not clearly permit them to practise in Japan, the view now is that they were a strong force for good in the development of finance practices in Japan and earned their firm the reputation of being the best London finance firm for Japanese clients. Japanese lawyers also admired their capacity for hard work, which they had not always seen among the American lawyers in their own firms. Geoffrey White describes ‘the completely fortuitous development in 1978 of samurai leasing’ as follows: From the early to mid-70s Japan had developed what were considered at the time by many in the US to be unacceptably high trade surpluses. Intense pressure was applied by the US Government on the Japanese Government to take steps to have the trade in-balances corrected. In early 1978 the Japanese Government’s Ministry of International Trade & Commerce (MITI) came up with the idea that the Government (through Government owned Export-Import Bank of Japan) provide below commercial rate US dollar denominated loans to Japanese companies which would purchase foreign (ideally US) manufactured capital equipment which such companies would then provide to foreign users on full payout finance leases (likewise at below market rates (but leaving a healthy margin with the Japanese lessors)). The MITI idea remained as such on paper until by chance British Airways (then an unincorporated part of the UK Government) heard of the same from The Bank of Tokyo and having no financing arranged for a new Boeing 747 which it was due to take delivery of in a matter of weeks took up The Bank of Tokyo’s offer to meet in Tokyo to see if the MITI idea could be put into practice in relation to such aircraft. The Bank then asked Geoffrey White, ‘being an English lawyer’, if (through Nakagawa Law Office) he could represent the Bank and Japan Leasing Company (which Bank of Tokyo asked to act as the lessor of the aircraft as Bank of Tokyo, being a bank, was not authorised to do). In the event it proved possible to arrange and document the transaction in time for the aircraft to be purchased by Japan Leasing on its delivery by Boeing and leased to British Airways on terms significantly below market rates. The structuring became quickly known as ‘samurai’ leasing. News of the transaction quickly spread and other airlines on hearing of the lease rate obtained by British Airways rushed to see if they could obtain similarly preferential financing. As Nakagawa Law Office had documented the first ‘samurai’ lease, Japan Leasing and other Japanese

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leasing companies instructed Nakagawa Law Office to act for them on almost all of the many further ‘samurai’ leases documented prior to the Japanese Ministry of Finance (under intense IMF pressure) forcing an end to the programme in 1979. The ‘samurai’ lease programme had also had the effect of Japanese leasing companies becoming known outside Japan, the British Airways transaction having been the first occasion on which any Japanese company had leased equipment on a cross-border basis. With the ‘samurai’ lease programme having been terminated, other means of utilising some of the proceeds of the continuing trade surpluses needed to be found. In the first instance this took the form of cross-border lending by Japanese commercial banks. In time however such activity was restricted by the Bank of Japan in light of its concerns as to the level of the foreign credit exposures built up by the Japanese banks. No like constraints were placed on Japanese banks extending short to medium term loans to domestic customers. This then provided an opportunity for the leasing companies, and Japanese trading companies, whose activities were not controlled by the Bank of Japan, to step into the breach which they did by financing purchases of capital equipment with the proceeds of domestic borrowing and then providing the equipment on full payout leases, or instalment sales, to foreign lessees, on many occasions in structures which combined the Yen denominated debt provided by the leasing companies with foreign (most often US) tax based leases. This in turn then lead to the development of the Japanese tax based leveraged lease market which, from a first transaction in 1985 involving aircraft put on lease to Air China, had by the early 90s developed into the single most important source of financing of Boeing and Airbus aircraft.

Overall, the Japanese lawyers feel that they learnt many skills of the trade from the English lawyers. Kunio Hamada puts it in a characteristically balanced way as follows ‘We watched how they did what they did and saw those things which we should follow that worked in Japan and those things which did not work in Japan which we should not follow.’ In summary, whilst Japanese lawyers learnt M&A techniques from the US lawyers, the English lawyers contributed to the development of their finance practice skills. In 2015, an area of growth for Japanese lawyers is international dispute resolution and they are working closely with, and learning from, English litigation and arbitration lawyers. In addition, the largest Japanese law firms now number several hundred lawyers and are expanding their operations outside Japan, particularly in Southeast Asia. Again, they look to the experience of English law firms whom they see as being more truly global than American firms.

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The bankers from the big four Japanese securities companies also learned a lot from the English lawyers. From the mid-1970s, they gradually replaced the British merchant banks as the lawyers’ clients. CONTRIBUTION OF ENGLISH LAWYERS TO DEREGULATION OF LEGAL SERVICES IN JAPAN

In 1986, liberalization of the Japanese legal market was under active consideration between the US and Japanese governments and the London law firms were watching these developments with some interest and mild apprehension.10 The general feeling was that if the law changed, permitting foreign law firms to establish themselves in Tokyo, then it would probably be necessary to set up an office there, if only for defensive reasons. In addition, Japanese companies had become acquisitive outside of Japan during the bubble era and this, together with the planned establishment of the European single market in 1992, suggested that a rich seam of corporate work should be available to those firms that opened offices in Japan. The clients seemed generally supportive although the level of EU investment in Japan was much smaller in scale than from the United States. Some Japanese law firms and clients saw the presence of foreign law firms as positive for the development of Tokyo as the third international financial centre, alongside London and New York. All that said, opening in Tokyo was a much more adventurous thing than most English firms had ever done before. Few partners in those firms had much experience of living in Japan beyond the Hotel Okura in Tokyo and the Royal Hotel in Osaka. The new law duly came into effect on 1 April 1987.11 In 1987 I, together with my partner James Croock, opened Linklaters & Paines Tokyo office. Looking back on the regulatory environment, James reflects as follows: Relaxation of the law to permit foreign law firms to operate within Japan was accompanied by detailed and somewhat bureaucratic regulations, which inevitably created some frustration for foreign law firms. These regulations for example required the use of the names of Japan based partners as well as the name of the foreign firm itself,12 precluded the employment of Japanese Bengoshi by foreign law firms or the giving of Japanese law advice and required that the signage and other marketing materials of the foreign law firm showed the name of the local partners in print somewhat bigger than the actual name of the foreign law firm. No doubt some of these regulations reflected a very different approach to the practice of law in Japan from that in the US and the UK. Nonetheless, there was also a sense that the rules were intended to inhibit so far as possible the activities and growth of foreign law firms and to protect for so long as possible the interests of local law firms.

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The authorities took enforcement of the rules seriously. It is known that officials from the Ministry of Justice visited premises occupied by foreign law firms to check whether or not the signage complied with the regulations.13 One US law firm is known to have had to change its signage because the name of the firm itself was fractionally larger than the names of the local partners. The requirement to use the name(s) of the Japan resident partners created some amusement amongst the expat legal community. Apart from the potential to stir up delusions of grandeur amongst those whose names now featured alongside the long established and internationally recognized name of the foreign firm itself, the rule gave rise to some anomalous names of which probably the catchiest was ‘Jolly Gaikokuho Bengoshi Jimusho’. This was the name of a Nagoya based law firm which undoubtedly had the most cheerful appellation amongst the foreign law firms.

Two examples of Tokyo office letterheads illustrate James’ point.

Discussions about deregulation in the 1980s and the 1990s had been done at a government-to-government level and, on the Japan side, needed to be had both with the Ministry of Justice and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (Nichibenren). The role of Nichibenren complicated the negotiations in relation to foreign lawyers. As Takuo Kosugi wrote in 1992:14 Although the negotiations between the US and Japan on the foreign lawyer issue are being conducted between the two governments 512

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the independent opinion of Nichibenren cannot be discounted. Unfortunately Nichibenren does not represent a single unified opinion. Nichibenren consists of regional bar associations, each having an equal voice on important decisions of the Nichibenren…Since Nichibenren is not supervised or controlled by the Supreme Court or the Ministry of Justice, there is no outside moderating influence over the process. In general, the attitude of Japanese lawyers on the issue is a very conservative and radical change for the present system does not come easily.

There were certain relaxations of the requirements in 1994 and 1998 but the real breakthrough was made in 2004. English lawyers had allowed the Americans to take the lead in the 1980s and 1990s; this changed in the early 2000s. In 2001, the Japanese Government passed the Justice System Reform Promotion Law, which called for the creation of a government office to implement legal reforms proposed by the Judicial System Reform Council. Consultation groups were set up in ‘the Office for the Promotion of Justice System Reform’. One consultation group focused on internationalization, including the foreign lawyers’ issue. The members of this group comprised three academics, two representatives of corporates, two Japanese lawyers, two non-Japanese lawyers and two government officials. The English lawyer in the group was Hideo Norikoshi, a former bureaucrat at the Japanese ministry of foreign affairs who had trained to become a lawyer at Slaughter and May. Verbatim minutes of the committee’s discussions were posted on the internet and, perhaps for the first time, clients were asked how their needs for legal services could best be served. Hideo’s diplomatic skills were invaluable on the committee and also in guiding the diverse group of English, American and other European lawyers towards making proposals which might have a chance of success. At one point, Hideo was moved to remark that the previous two decades of negotiations between Japanese lawyers and foreign lawyers had been characterized by two sides behaving equally unreasonably; progress might be achieved if one side, at least, put forward reasonable proposals. The final recommendations exceeded expectations and proposed substantial liberalization enabling foreign lawyers and Japanese lawyers to become partners and for foreign law firms to hire Japanese lawyers. There has always been a measure of ambiguity about whether the restrictions on foreign lawyers in Japan over the last twenty-five years derived from genuine differences in the role of lawyers or were just protectionist. Those arguing in favour of the former proposition, note that under Japanese law, the mission of the attorney is to promote social justice15 or, as described by Kunio Hamada writing in 1988,16 ‘the use of the term “market” for legal practice is, in Japan,

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very problematical, because the Japanese legal profession considers its role to be more than just providing economic results for its clients’. Looking back over the last twenty-five years, some Japanese lawyers are satisfied that the creation of a very restrictive legal regime in 1986, in the words of one, ‘delayed the onslaught of foreign law firms for many years’. They are proud of what they achieved. Others point out that nobody asked the clients what they wanted, and there is a view that clients (both Japanese and foreign) were not as well served during that period as they might have been. That has now changed and most of the restrictions have now gone. Viewed in 2015, where we are now, is that the quality of legal services in Japan across the board is much higher, which is good for clients and lawyers. Also, foreign and Japanese lawyers are free to work in the same firm or not, as they choose. In the last fifteen years, English lawyers have played a prominent role in the Legal Services Committee of the European Business Chamber17 and in the Gaiben Kyokai (an umbrella organization of foreign lawyers established by Charles Stevens of Freshfields in 1999). James Lawden also of Freshfields served as co-Chair of the EBC Committee from 2007 to 2015 and co-Chair of the Gaiben Kyokai throughout the same period. In addition, the British Embassy was proactive in arranging meetings with relevant Japanese ministries when ministers visited from the UK. There were also several visits by the Presidents of the Law Society of England and Wales including Mark Sheldon in 1993 and David McIntosh QC in 2003. In the 1990s, the English lawyers hoped that something might be gained by taking a slightly softer approach than their American cousins. In 2015, attitudes seem to have hardened somewhat in relation to the remaining restrictions. One issue derives from the basic approach of licensing individual lawyers rather than law firms and that, to obtain a licence, a foreign lawyer must have at least two years qualified experience outside Japan. This is inconsistent with the typical modern career path for young lawyers who wish to practise in Japan where language and cultural skills are also important and, in addition, the quality of work obtained in Tokyo is often better and more relevant than in other places. Some think that the requirement to go into exile for two years is a disincentive for the brightest young lawyers who would look at other markets. Reiko Sakimura, co-Chair of the Gaiben Kyokai and a representative on the cabinet study group on the Gaiben system is quite clear. ‘This is discrimination, pure and simple; there is no equivalent experience requirement for newly minted Japanese lawyers.’ At the time of writing in 2015, the study group looking at the issue is evenly divided on this point with those Japanese lawyers opposing abolition of the rule pointing to the need to protect consumers from poorly 514

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trained foreign lawyers. This somewhat misses the point that English lawyers undertake two-year training contracts before qualification and that their firms have highly developed risk management and internal training programmes.18 A more encouraging approach was signalled by the Nichibenren international relations committee at a joint seminar with The Law Society of Singapore held in June 2015. They stated clearly that regulating foreign lawyers was no longer a trade issue and that the focus is on harmonizing regulation and procedures for lawyers practising cross border. Singapore has a clear goal to establish itself as a regional hub for legal services and unsurprisingly has no requirement for licensed offshore lawyers to have two years experience outside Singapore! ENGLISH LAW FIRMS IN 2015

By the end of 1989, most of the major London firms had established offices in Tokyo and lawyers who had as their primary qualification the laws of the United Kingdom comprised the second largest group, after the Americans and nearly one third of the total number of Gaiben. In addition, in the early 1990s Margaret Windridge of Charles Russell & Co became the first barrister to register as a Gaiben. Most of the English law firms in Tokyo have now had their 25th anniversary parties and can look back at what they have achieved. They now see themselves as global law firms, headquartered in London rather than English firms, and most practise Japanese and US law as well as English law. The English firms have not really taken advantage of the increase in supply of Japanese lawyers as a result of the changes in the training system nor have they been as successful as might have been anticipated in attracting and retaining senior Japanese lawyers. Rather they have tended to focus on complementary cross-border work and multi-jurisdictional practice areas where they believe they have a competitive edge over Japanese law firms. Most of the firms remain foreign managed even if they have Japanese partners. It is tempting to compare this to the journey undergone by some of the global investment banks in Tokyo who used to be foreign managed, but now are mainly run by Japanese officers. One successful investment bank comprises joint ventures between Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. and Morgan Stanley – enabling them to combine the best of both Japanese and foreign business skills. Such arrangements might suit law firms as well. Although the business models have limited similarities, such a structure could enable the Japanese and foreign lawyers to maintain a measure of individual cultural identity which might be attractive to the best legal talent. 515

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I am very grateful to the many friends and former colleagues, clients and others who generously made time to discuss this account with me. Their names are set out below. The opinions expressed in the article are, of course, my own and I also take ownership of the errors and omissions which inevitably must have crept in as I try to cover such a broad subject. ENGLISH LAW FIRMS

Allen & Overy Tony Herbert, Chris Roberts, Mark Welling, Alex Pease, Cees Vellekoop, Simon Black Clifford Chance (Clifford Turner) Geoffrey White, Tom Budgett, Bob Charlton (Asian Managing Partner BLP based in Hong Kong), Reiko Sakimura, Co-chair Gaiben Kyokai Freshfields James Lawden (Consultant to Weerawong, Chinnavat & Peangpanor, Bangkok), Edward Cole Herbert Smith Freehills Peter Godwin Hogan Lovells (Lovell White Darrant) David Moss, Michael Hancock (Deputy General Counsel, Global Risk at HSBC in London), Rikako Beppu, Chair, European Business Chamber Legal Services Committee Linklaters (Linklaters & Paines) David Pearson, Charles Allen-Jones, John Phipson, Keith Benham (son of Peter Benham), John Edwards, Terence Kyle, James Croock (International General Counsel, Dechert LLP, London), David Holdsworth, Peter Frost Norton Rose Fulbright (Johnson Stokes & Masters) Paul Giles, Jeremy Gibb Slaughter and May Nicholas Wilson, Tim Freshwater, George Goulding, Christopher Saul JAPANESE LAW FIRMS

Anderson Mori & Tomotsune (Tomotsune Kimura & Mitomi) 516

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Tsuyoshi Nagahama, Nobuyuki Tomotsune, Akira Kawamura, Saneaki Ichijo, Hirohito Akagami Aoki Christensen & Nomoto (Mclvor Kauffman & Christensen) Kunio Aoki (I am very grateful to Kunio for permitting me to include extracts from his Firm’s Centenary book) Matsuo & Kosugi Tasuku Matsuo, Takeo Kosugi Mitsui Yasuda Wani & Maeda Mitsuhiro Yasuda (Marunouchi International Law Office), Akihiro Wani (Morrison & Foerster, Tokyo) Mori Hamada & Matsumoto (Hamada & Matsumoto) Kunio Hamada (Hibiya Park Law Offices), Toru Ishiguro, Yasuzo Takeno, Mitsuhiro Gemba Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu (Blakemore & Mitsuki / Tsunematsu Yanase & Sekine) Yasuharu Nagashima, Ken Tsunematsu, Shuji Yanase (President & Representative Director, OK Corporation), Hidetaka Mihara, Miyuki Ishiguro Nishimura & Asahi (Masuda & Ejiri / Asahi) Takashi Ejiri, Takashi Yoneda Oh-Ebashi Law Offices Shirou Kuniya LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Robert Binyon, Morgan Grenfell Ian de Staines, OBE, Executive Director of British Chamber of Commerce in Japan (1987–2011) Michael Dobbs-Higginson, Credit Suisse White Weld Martin Edelshain, SG Warburg ‘ Co. Ltd Lori Henderson, MBE, Executive Director of British Chamber of Commerce in Japan (2011 onwards) John Howland Jackson, Kleinwort Benson, Morgan Guaranty, Nomura International Tom Jackson, 1st Secretary Head of Economics & Trade Policy, British Embassy, Tokyo Masako Nomoto, Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities 517

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Eric Sedlak (Partner, Jones Day), Chair, Legal Services Committee, American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, Co-chair Gaiben Kyokai Professor Yutaka Tajima Hugh Trenchard, Kleinwort Benson ENDNOTES 1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

The High Road to England published by Michael Russell. This is reference to the Autostrada transaction which is generally regarded as the first Eurobond issue. A further description of this transaction appears in Keiji Matsumoto’s book Cross-border Securities Trading and Corporate Finance. Tony Herbert’s reflections on his times in Tokyo, ‘Memories of Japanese securities issues and John Christensen’, are published in the Aoki Christensen Nomoto centenary book, Kokusai Bengoshi no 100 nen (100 years of International Lawyers). See for example, Problems regarding the Practice of Bonds with Warrants, Yutaka Kubota, Bengoshi. Shoji Homu 1990: There have been some hundreds of issues of such warrants since and they are becoming increasingly popular. The documentation required for an issue includes a trust deed (under which the style of bonds is determined) warrant instrument (under which the contents and the style of the warrants are determined) and subscription agreement as well as paying agency agreement, prospectus and other documents. All of the above are in English and are very detailed. Due perhaps to the limitation on the number of securities companies involved in issuing such securities, there appears to be a set formula for each of the above documents and the same wording is adhered to down to the commas and stops with variations only in proper nouns and minor variations reflecting preferences of the issuing companies. (The majority of warrant issues are done within a very short period of time adhering to a strict timetable and involving parties over a number of countries. Therefore, those who started up after the patterns were set could not change them very easily.) On every issue, Japanese and foreign lawyers certify that all the agreements are valid and enforceable in appropriate courts of law. However, I consider that a number of problems exist within these standard terms. (unofficial translation)

6.

7.

By that time, the position was regarded as settled and these views were ignored by the market. This is an excerpt from a chapter entitled, ‘Japan’s First Bonds with Warrants Issue’ published in the Aoki Christensen Nomoto centenary book referred to in Note 4 above. This is an excerpt from a chapter entitled ‘From Scotland to Tokyo’, John Edwards’ reflections on his times in Tokyo, published in the Aoki Christensen Nomoto centenary book referred to in Note 4 above.

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8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14. 15.

16.

17.

18.

Peter Grindrod was the most active partner of Slaughter and May in the Japanese market in the 1980s and early 1990s. He passed away in 2008 and, in accordance with his wishes, a luncheon was held at the MCC in London. Toru Ishiguro, who had worked with Peter many times, travelled to London to be there. Until the mid-1980s, the commute involved flying via Anchorage; in total a twenty hour journey. All the commuters would pay their respects to the huge stuffed polar bear at Anchorage airport. See Passing the Flame, Linklaters 175 year history published in March 2013 at p. 64 and p. 66. Many papers have been written on this period. A balanced paper is one by Dr Christopher Rathbone writing in 2000 from Hokkaido University ‘An Analysis of the Japanese American Dispute over Foreign Legal Consultants: The Lawyer Model Approach’. http://hdl.handle. net/2115/22317 Gaiben Law Gaikoku Bengoshi ni yoru Horitsujimu no Toriatsukai ni Kansuru Tokubetsu Sochi Ho (Act Providing Special Measures for handling Legal Business by Foreign Lawyers). 1985 Law No 66 For an explanation of the reasons for this, see T. Kosugi ‘Liberalisation of the Activities of Gaikokuho Jimubengoshi in Japan’ 1992 35 The Japanese Annual of International law p. 94 at p. 100. The photograph at the top of this account was taking at the request of the Ministry of Justice. It shows the signage of Linklaters & Paines and Slaughter and May’s offices which were in the same building in Kanda. Until the English lawyers arrived, Kanda was not known for its law firms but only for second hand book shops and ski equipment shops. Kosugi, referred to in Note 12 above at p. 103 Article 1 of the Attorney Law (law no. 205 of 1949) states that ‘An attorney is entrusted with the mission of protecting fundamental human rights and achieving social justice.’ K Hamada “The Reaction of Japanese Lawyers to the New Law” (1988) 21 Law Japan 43 The Annual White Papers of the European Business Chamber, including the Legal Services Committee are available on the European Business Chamber’s website https://www.ebc-jp.com/. The minutes of the meetings of this study group are available on the Ministry of Justice’s website http://www.moj.go.jp/housei/gaiben/ housei07_00013.html.

Notes on terminology 1.

2.

The following terms are in common use among the legal community in Japan ‘Gaiben Kyokai’ Foreign lawyers association ‘Gaikokuho Jimu Bengoshi’ or ‘Gaiben’: licensed foreign lawyers ‘Gaikokuho Jimu Bengoshi’s Jimusho’: foreign lawyers office ‘Nichibenren’ (Nihon Bengoshi Rengokai): Japan Federation of Bar Associations or JFBA ‘English lawyers’ refers to lawyers who are qualified in England and Wales not to their nationality. Under the Gaiben system, the law of

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3.

primary qualification was erroneously referred to as the ‘law of the United Kingdom’. Reflecting their international practice, most Japanese lawyers adopted the Western format for their names. This approach has been followed in this article.

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46

The British Pavilion at the Aichi Expo, 2005 PAUL MADDEN

INTRODUCTION

Since London’s Great Exhibition in 1851,1 cities around the world have vied to showcase themselves and the latest wonders of human creativity by hosting World Fairs or, as they have been called since Montreal in 1967, ‘Expos’. The decision to host an Expo has often reflected a wish to show the growing importance of the country and city hosting it. Expos2 have also been used to boost local industry and culture and attract tourists. Japan’s first Expo, in 1970 in Osaka, was one of the most successful Expos of all time, with 64 million visitors, a number only surpassed by Shanghai, fortyyears later. A ‘portrait’ of that extravaganza by Sir John Pilcher, British ambassador to Japan at that time, was con521

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tained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX.3 Japan also hosted smaller, specialised Expos in Okinawa in 1975, Tsukuba in 1985 and Osaka in 1990.4 The British pavilion at Expo 70 was designed by the Central Office of Information and the UK took part in a small way in the other specialised expos. AICHI 2005

Japan’s decision to host a major Expo in 2005 in Nagakute, Aichi prefecture, about 13 km from Nagoya, Japan’s fourth city, was the brainchild of Dr Toyoda Eiji, President and later Chairman of the Toyota Motor Corporation. The company’s Toyota City car plant lies 20 km from the Expo site. Dr Toyoda had a vision of bringing the world to his hometown. Unlike many Expos, Aichi was located in a relatively rural area, some way out of Nagoya. It was not intended to support urban regeneration. In fact, the theme chosen was ‘Nature’s Wisdom’ and, with a strong emphasis on sustainability, pavilions were designed with the aim of minimum temporary or permanent environmental impact. By the end of the twentieth century in the UK and some other countries, there was a growing sense that Expos were an outmoded means of promoting the national brand. In a world of mass global travel, and the rapid dissemination of information via the internet, many – particularly in finance ministries – questioned the benefits of spending money on funding national pavilions at these periodic world fairs. Moreover, Aichi’s location, not in one of Japan’s mega cities, and not in a hub on the world travel circuit, suggested that the Expo might fail to attract significant numbers of visitors – Japanese or international. BRITISH PARTICIPATION AND PREPARATIONS

It was not a foregone conclusion that the UK would decide to participate in the Aichi Expo. But eventually, a personal approach from the Japanese Prime Minister to the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and persistent lobbying by Toyota and several companies associated with it, produced agreement to take part. A budget of £4m was agreed, with half coming from the British Government (Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Department of Trade and Industry, and UK Trade and Investment). The other half came from a consortium of companies: Toyota GB; Inchcape (a Toyota distributor in many international markets) and GKN (a major Toyota supplier), plus HSBC, Shell and BNFL (British Nuclear Fuels). A steering group was established, incorporating the major public and private sector contributors and, as the FCO’s head of public diplomacy, I was asked to chair it. 522

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Leading an Expo pavilion has been seen as something of a poison chalice for officials. They have a tendency to overrun on budget. And you risk being criticised either for having spent too much money on a preposterous white elephant, or not enough money to do justice to your country. Or probably both at the same time. To mitigate some of these risks we decided to let a single contract to a private sector organisation to design, build and operate the pavilion over the six month period of the Expo, from March to September 2005. We set about establishing a competition to identify a suitable candidate. We drew in the British Council, the UK’s international cultural organisation, to help make the selection. Sir John Sorrell, former head of the Design Council, and a member of the FCO’s public diplomacy advisory board, joined the selection committee. A series of criteria was devised to obtain the optimum balance between creativity, ability to construct the pavilion in the particular operating environment of Japan, and to staff and manage it during the operational phase. In the event, we considered six competing proposals. It did not prove to be a difficult decision, as one candidate appeared to be clearly the best. This was a consortium of Ten Alps (the events organisation founded by former rock star Bob Geldof); the designers Land Design; and the Natural History Museum (with their expertise in content around the overall Expo’s Nature theme, and in curating visitor flows).Tim Spencer MD of Ten Alps led the consortium and Peter Higgins of Land Design became creative director for the pavilion. Both played a major role in its success. The main elements of their proposal were a British style garden, housing a number of artworks, and a series of exhibits showcasing contemporary innovations based on ideas from nature. Meanwhile, the FCO commissioned some market research on what Japanese people, particularly young people in our target category, hoped to see in a British pavilion. Slightly frustratingly, although not altogether surprisingly, their expectations were fairly stereo-typed. They wanted Beefeaters and Beckham. This ran counter to the overall Green theme of Aichi. It was also not in line with thinking in London on promoting the UK brand. Whilst the traditional imagery of history and pageantry remained one key aspect of the tourism brand, it was considered important not to suggest that Britain languished in a ‘heritage ghetto’. The aim was for the pavilion to promote a more accurate, modern image of the UK, replete with creativity and contemporary innovation. A small team was established in the FCO to oversee the project. One crucial innovation was recruiting Steve King, the former director of group financial control at Inchcape, to liaise with the contractor and approve spending. This was to prove invaluable, alongside the decision to retain a significant contingency reserve, in ensuring that the overall project was completed within budget. Steve became the 523

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pavilion director based in Aichi in the months leading up to the Expo and throughout its operating period. Neil Hook, the then consul general in Osaka was designated as British commissioner to the Aichi Expo, and was responsible for local liaison with the Expo authorities. The press and public affairs Department of the British embassy Tokyo, led by Joanna Roper, played an important role in promotional activities around the pavilion. Altogether 121 countries participated at Aichi. Participants were allocated a basic cuboid structure for their pavilion, in one of several sizes. In keeping with the sustainability theme of the Expo, there was relatively limited scope for major building works, so countries had to differentiate themselves by the way they ‘dressed’ their pavilion. THE BRITISH PAVILION AND GARDEN

Pavilion interior

Pavilion garden 524

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One UK differentiator was the garden, the entry point to the pavilion. Most pavilions tended to be exclusively indoors. Designed by Grant Associates, the garden was based on a woodland setting, rather than a more formal English country garden. Much thought was given to what plants representative of the UK might be available and likely to flourish in the Japanese climate. Eventually it was decided to create a coppice of locally grown lime trees, initially shaped in a geometric outline, but allowed to evolve with natural growth over the six months of the Expo. Under this canopy, the ground cover changed with the seasons: the Expo ran from March to September, Spring to Autumn. Daffodils were followed by bluebells, foxgloves and angelica. Ferns and grasses were present throughout the term. Within the garden were placed a series of artworks by nine prominent contemporary British artists, supported by the British Council and curated by Paul Bonaventura of the Ruskin School at Oxford University. One of the most notable was ‘White House’ by Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey: a monolithic white block in the shape of a house, it would be gradually eroded by dripping water, showing the impact of natural forces in the landscape. It subsequently emerged that, unbeknown to the Pavilion organisers, the artists had placed a model of a whale at the centre of the block, which would eventually be exposed as an act of protest at Japanese whaling policy. In fact, the rate of water erosion was slower than anticipated and the whale never emerged, avoiding potential controversy. Although the consistent position of British governments of all political persuasions in recent years has been to call for an end to whaling, the Expo would not have been particularly singled out as a channel for pursuing this policy goal. Other artworks included ‘Borderline’ by Richard Deacon, portraying contemporary plastic fragments which will become a major constituent of sand in the millennia ahead. A felled oak tree ‘For the Time Being’ by Anya Gallacio, symbolised regrowth and regeneration. Cornelia Parker’s ‘Moon Landing’ imagined that a lunar meteorite had fallen in the pavilion grounds. Some visitors were surprised to find a native American totem pole in the British pavilion, adapted by Ross Sinclair in ‘Real Life Family Tree’ to the context of his own family. Richard Woods’ ‘Folded Floral Repeat no 5 and no 6’ superimposed one carpet pattern on another as a comment on Darwinian natural selection. Perhaps the most popular with visitors was the sensory experience through which they entered the pavilion, consisting of John Riddy’s photographs of ‘London Skies’, together with Catherine Yass’s soundtrack of birdcalls ‘Call’. The concept of basing the pavilion’s internal exhibits on innovations drawn from nature proved to be an inspired one. Literally, it was inspired in part by the Great Exhibition of 1851, where Joseph 525

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Paxton’s revolutionary Crystal Palace which housed the Exhibition, was said to be based on the structure of a water lily pad. The design team had to come up with exhibits which not only explained an innovation clearly, but also offered a hands-on opportunity for visitors to learn by touching and doing. Everyone was conscious that, in the course of a day at the Expo, the visitors would be passing through a significant number of pavilions and there was a danger that they might become bored with simply looking at things as mute observers. Hence the emphasis in the UK pavilion on involving the visitor in ‘experiencial’ exhibits.

‘Hanging by the hair’ The display ‘Hanging by a hair’ really caught the imagination, showing how the loveable gecko lizards cling to walls by millions of tiny hairs on their feet. This natural phenomenon had inspired a new adhesive tape. ‘Natural architecture’ showed how the hexagonal panes of the greenhouses at the world famous Eden Gardens Project in Cornwall, had drawn on the shape of bees’ honeycombs, to reinforce the structure’s resilience. ‘Seeding the future’ showcased the Royal Botanical Garden Kew’s work on the Millennium Seedbank. The Ultracane developed by Leeds University scientists to help visually impaired people, based on the way bats use ultra sound to navigate, was the basis of ‘Seeing with Sound’. ‘Smart Fabric’ showed how researchers at Bath and Reading created clothing to regulate temperature-using concepts borrowed from pinecones. Reduced 526

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friction swimsuits for Olympic athletes, mimicking the texture of sharkskin, were showcased in ‘Swim like a shark’. ‘Tidal energy’ demonstrated the TidEl system for harnessing tidal power to generate sustainable electricity. After the expo the active exhibits were donated to the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. Exiting the pavilion, the visitor passed through a corridor containing twenty-eight bird boxes: when they put their eye to the hole, they could enjoy stunning photographs from the National Trust. Following the expo, these were installed in Kuragaike Park in Toyota City. To maximise the impact of the pavilion the Embassy established a dedicated website www.my-earth.org.uk. The aim was to expand the reach of the pavilion, so that information about the pavilion and contents was available to people who didn’t have the opportunity to visit the Expo. It was also hoped that visitors to the pavilion would take the chance to follow up online and deepen their connection with the UK pavilion. The site received over a million visits. It was decided to include a small retail outlet as part of pavilion. This was intended partly to meet the expectations of visitors of being able to procure something to take away from their visit. It was also hoped that profits generated might make a useful small contribution to the overall source of funds for the pavilion. It was originally anticipated that the items for sale should be exclusively themed around the sustainability theme of the pavilion, and a number of items were produced featuring the gecko logo. However feedback from the sales staff was that there would be greater sales prospects if the shop stocked more traditional British foodstuffs, familiar to a Japanese audience. After some internal debate, an adjustment of the stocking policy was agreed, and one of the most successful ranges was the Prince of Wales’ Duchy Originals organic food products. On 28 September 2004 an event was hosted at Lancaster House in London, to introduce the UK pavilion, with presentations on its contents. It was hosted by Sir Stephen Brown, Chief Executive of UK Trade & Investment, in the presence of HRH the Duke of York. THE EXPO

The Expo opened on 25 March, with the British ambassador Sir Graham Fry representing the UK. Each participating country was subsequently allocated a National Day to showcase its pavilion. The UK’s national day was 22 April. HRH the Duke of York officiated. He toured the pavilion and made a public speech. Most countries mount a cultural performance in support of their national day. The UK’s ‘Stomp’ were selected to represent Britain. They are a 527

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spectacular percussion act, using everyday objects. Stomp had been founded in Brighton in 1991, winning early success at the Edinburgh Festival. By 2005 there were permanent shows in London and the US as well as touring versions travelling around the world. Later, in 2012, they were to appear as part of the closing ceremony at the London Olympics. Stomp proved an inspired choice at Aichi. Their high energy percussion performance transcended all language barriers. And they found a ready audience in Japan where there is a strong tradition of Kodo drumming. Other VIP visitors to the pavilion included Their Imperial Highnesses Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, HIH Prince Hitachi, HIH Princess Takamado and former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto. EVALUATION

There are various ways of evaluating the success of a pavilion at a world Expo. The total number of visitors is a useful indicator, as there is much competition between the different pavilions to attract visitors, who will be able to visit only a limited number of pavilions in any one day. In total the UK pavilion received over 3 million visitors. This was around 1 in 7 of the 22 million people, largely Japanese, who visited the Expo. That was particularly good because the UK’s relatively late decision on participation meant that the location allocated to its pavilion was slightly less central than that of some comparator countries. Qualitative feedback is also important and surveys of visitors to the pavilion indicated high levels of satisfaction as well as recognition of the UK’s innovation and commitment to sustainability. The UK pavilion was voted in the top five of all pavilions by 63% of its visitors. Critical acclaim is also a valuable criterion. Everyone associated with the UK pavilion was delighted when it was awarded the bronze prize ‘Nature’s Wisdom Award’, by the Expo organisers. This was a strong confirmation of the pavilion’s success in portraying the overall Aichi theme of sustainability and environmental awareness. Considering that some other countries had had significantly higher funding, and a longer lead-in time to devise their pavilions, this was no mean achievement. Two of the individual exhibits also won eco-tech awards for promoting sustainable energy and environmental education. Overall the UK’s pavilion at the Aichi Expo was judged a significant success. It provided important impetus to the UK’s commitment to participate in the next Expo in 2010. Delivered on time and within budget, it won the bronze prize in its category, and provided an excellent showcase for the UK in Japan. 528

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ENDNOTES 1

2

3 4

The Great Exhibition, coming at the height of the Victorian fascination with industrialisation, was an extraordinary success. It attracted over 6 million visitors: a third of the British population at the time, in an era when travel was slow and expensive. The surplus funds generated by the Exhibition sparked the creation of the great cultural institutions in London’s South Kensington – the Natural History Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Science Museum. Other World Fairs soon followed in New York, Paris and Chicago. Since 1928, expos have been authorised by the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions, under an international treaty. Expos have been used to symbolise the coming of age of a country, in terms of economic or political development, like Barcelona in 1982. Sometimes they have reflected the ambition of a nation’s second city to cut a dash on the world stage and demonstrate they were not in the shadow of their capital, for example Osaka in 1970 (after the Tokyo Olympics in 1964) and Shanghai in 2010 (after the Beijing Olympics). Often it has promoted significant urban regeneration, as in Brisbane in 1988. Since Brisbane, ‘nation-branding’ or promotion of a country’s industry, tourism and culture, has become a key motivation for Expos. Ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books for the Japan Society, 2015. The International Garden and Greenery Exposition took place in Osaka in 1990, with Sir Julian Ridsdale MP as British commissioner .

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sCULTURE s

47

Victorian Novelists in Japan: Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Charlotte and Emily Brontë in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries HARUNO KAYAMA

An English Signpost with Japanese in Haworth, Yorkshire

Since the Meiji era (1868–1912) many Japanese have been interested in the Victorian age (1837–1901). This interest continues today. There have been many academic works about the social history, culture, and literature of the age. The Victorian Studies Society of Japan, founded in 2001, has around 350 members today.1 Many of these are interested in Victorian literature. The 2015 membership list shows that more than 60% of the members also belong to English literary

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societies, most of which are related to Victorian writers. Victorian fiction has long been widely read in Japan. In the Meiji era, when Western culture became popular, novelists including Bulwer-Lytton (1803–73), William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63), Charles Dickens (1812–70), Charlotte Brontë (1816–55), Emily Brontë (1818–48), Wilkie Collins (1824–89), Lewis Carroll (1832–98), Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930), Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94), and poets such as Alfred Tennyson (1809–92) and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82) were introduced to Japan. For example, the fifty volumes of Meiji Honyaku Bungaku Zenshu¯ [The Complete Works of Literature in Transla¯ zorasha in 1996–2001, contain tion in the Meiji Era], published by O the translations of these authors’ works published in newspapers and magazines during the Meiji era. In the Sho¯wa period (1926–1989), more translations of Victorian fiction, especially novels, were produced and made English ‘classics’ more accessible to general readers. In the Meiji era the original English texts were often abridged or even adapted in Japanese versions, whereas in the 1920s and the 1930s, translations of unabridged, fulllength novels were published. For example, from 1925 to 1928, an eminent scholar of English literature, Hirata Tokuboku, produced a complete translation of Dickens’ David Copperfield. The first complete translation of Jane Eyre was published in 1930, followed by Wuthering Heights in 1932. English literary works were often used in this period as materials for English textbooks. Erikawa Haruo, professor of Wakayama University, who has researched the history of English language education in Japan, noted that 70% of the English textbooks used in high schools under the prewar education system (equivalent to first and second year mandatory courses at postwar universities) were works by such writers as Hardy, Conan Doyle, Dickens, Shakespeare, John Galsworthy (1867–1933) and George Eliot (1819-–80).2 According to Professor Erikawa, Hardy and Conan Doyle were the most frequently used authors in 1930.3 Fukasawa Suguru, a Hardy enthusiast, recalls that hundreds of students in high schools read Hardy’s works in English classes before and even during the Second World War: ‘Hardy’s gloomy atmosphere and the nice people in it were just right for us in those depressing days.’4 From the late 1980s to the beginning of the 1990s, coinciding with the years of economic expansion or ‘bubble’, faculties of English literature were very popular at universities and many students, especially women, studied Victorian novels. Many literature lovers from Japan also visited places associated with famous writers in Britain during this period. The initial issue of Brontë Newsletter of Japan suggested that in the late 1980s, literary magazines such as Bungaku 532

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Kai [Literary World] and women’s magazines like Fujin Gaho¯ (Lady’s Illustrated Magazine) introduced their readers to Haworth in Yorkshire because of its close connection with the Brontë sisters.5 The well-known novelist, Ko¯no Taeko, visited Haworth with a poet, Tomioka Taeko, and in 1985, wrote a travel essay, ‘A Pilgrimage to Brontë Country,’ for Bungaku Kai. When I first visited Haworth in 1988, I was surprised to find some signs of B&Bs in the village written in Japanese. Victorian writers have been popular in Japan and have had significant influence in Japanese literature.6 Today there are several literary societies devoted to them. Although there are no specific societies for poets such as Tennyson and D.G. Rossetti, we have organizations for novelists such as the Thomas Hardy Society (founded in 1957), the Dickens Fellowship (1970), the Brontë Society (1985), the Elizabeth Gaskell Society (1988), and the George Eliot Fellowship (1997). All these societies which started in the latter half of the twentieth century generally collaborate with similar societies in the UK, occasionally plan events together and invite distinguished scholars from around the UK for lectures at the meetings of the societies. In terms of registered membership, the largest of these societies are the Thomas Hardy Society, the Dickens Fellowship and the Brontë Society. According to Kenkyu¯sha Yearbook of English 2015 they had 153, 164 and 185 members respectively.7 THE HARDY SOCIETY

The Thomas Hardy Society of Japan is the oldest Hardy Society in the world.8 It was founded in 1957, about ten years before the UK Thomas Hardy Society (1967). Japanese academics became interested in Hardy’s novels from an early period. The first translation of Tess of the d’Urbervilles, although abridged, was published serially in Teikoku Bungaku from 1906 to 1909. In 1912, Ushihara Torao, who came to be regarded as the ‘earliest Hardy monographer in Japan’,9 wrote a graduation thesis on Hardy’s novels while at Tokyo Imperial Uni¯ sawa Mamoru’s essay, Hardy Bungaku no Kenkyu¯ [Studies of versity. O Thomas Hardy’s Literature], was published by Eiho¯sha in 1949. In the summer of 1957, Nihon ni Okeru Thomas Hardy Shoshi [Bibliography of Thomas Hardy in Japan] by Yamamoto Bunnnosuke, was produced. To commemorate this magnum opus, 37 Hardy enthusiasts met at Nihon University on 12 October 1957 and the Thomas Hardy Society of Japan was founded.10 That afternoon, seven lectures on the novelist were delivered to the audience of about 500 (mostly students). A greeting from the head of the British Council in Tokyo (Dr L.R. Philipps) was read by Dr Takahashi Genji of Meiji Gakuin University.11 A warm congratulatory message was received from the 533

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¯ sawa Mamoru, Dorset County Museum (R.F. Dolton, curator).12 O professor of Kanazawa University, was elected chairman of the Society. According to the initial issue of The Bulletin of the Thomas Hardy Society of Japan, membership in the first year was over 120, most of whom were academics but included some general readers and students.13 From its start in 1957, the Society has continued to hold annual meetings and publish annual journals and biannual newsletters. It has also published books such as 20 Seiki Sho¯setsu no Senkusha Thomas Hardy [Thomas Hardy: A Pioneer of the 20th Century Novel] in 1975, Thomas Hardy Jiten [A Thomas Hardy Dictionary] in 1984, and in 2007, Thomas Hardy Zenbo¯ [The Total Picture of Thomas Hardy], which is a collection of essays in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Society. This collection is a massive work of over 800 pages, in which forty-five members of the Society wrote essays on Hardy’s novels, plays, short stories, poems and other themes including the film adaptations of Hardy’s novels and Hardy’s use of English. THE DICKENS FELLOWSHIP

The Dickens Fellowship of Japan started as a branch of the UK Dickens Fellowship in 1970. According to The Japan Branch Bulletin III, Uchiyama Sho¯hei, professor of Waseda University, while staying in London for his research in 1964, frequently visited the Dickens House Museum in Doughty Street and participated enthusiastically in events held by the Dickens Fellowship.14 He returned home with the idea of founding a branch of the Fellowship in Japan and consulted two distinguished Dickens scholars, Professor Miyazaki Ko¯ichi (Seijo¯ University) and Professor Koike Shigeru (Tokyo Metropolitan University), and obtained their agreement.15 The three professors made the necessary preparations and in 1970, the centenary of the novelist’s death, Professor Miyazaki met John Greaves, the Honorary Secretary of the Dickens Fellowship, in London.16 The ‘Tokyo Branch’, the 157th branch of the Dickens Fellowship in the world, was officially approved at that time.17 On 23 December an inaugural meeting was held at Gakushi Kaikan in Tokyo. The first president and honorary secretary was Miyazaki Ko¯ichi, and the second, Koike Shigeru. Professor Koike later suggested that Dickens had appealed to Japanese readers because he was a Victorian ‘self-made’ man who had managed to reach the top of his profession by hard work, but even after he had achieved great success as a novelist, he always had a feeling that something was missing.18 Professor Koike commented that as a victim of the cult of ‘self-help’ and ‘success’ of the times, ‘Dickens was rather like the Japanese in postwar years.’19 As its name suggests, the ‘Fellowship’ has occasionally held events to promote friendship 534

VICTORIAN NOVELISTS IN JAPAN

among its members. Public readings of Dickens’ works have been given, an anniversary dinner for the novelist’s birth has been held, and classic films such as Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist have been shown. Some enthusiastic members made annual trips and read Dickens’ novels together in hotels. From about 1975 the Fellowship gradually grew to be more academic and more international. In addition to lectures by prominent Dickensian scholars from inside and outside Japan, scholarly papers were presented at the spring conference. The late Philip Collins, professor at the University of Leicester, wrote to the Fellowship in 1979: ‘I am delighted by news of the vigorous interest which Japanese scholars have lately been displaying in Dickens.’20 Since 1995, prominent scholars, such as Michael Slater and Malcom Andrews, have been invited almost every year to give lectures. In 1998, the Japan branch website was created and digitalization of the members’ essays began. The spring conference in 2004 was held in the New Hall of the British embassy, Tokyo. The Japan Branch Bulletin XXVII, contained a photograph of David Elliott of the British Council, giving an address to the Japanese Dickensians present.21 The Fellowship also held joint meetings with other literary societies. In the autumn of 2004, the annual general meeting was held in association with the AGM of the Gaskell Society of Japan and a symposium was held on ‘Dickens and Mrs. Gaskell as Social Novelists.’ In 2014, they had a joint meeting with the Japan Mark Twain Society, in which keynote addresses on the two novelists were given and a symposium comparing their description of American life took place. The Fellowship has continued to meet twice a year, with the AGM in the autumn and a conference in the spring. There have been two important publications in the last ten years: Dickens Kansho¯ Jiten [The Reader’s Encyclopedia of Charles Dickens] (2007), and Dickens in Japan: Bicentenary Essays (2013), a collection of essays written by fourteen devoted Dickensians in Japan. According to the website of the UK Dickens Fellowship, ‘by their strenuous effort it [the Japan Branch] has grown into one of the most significant of the overseas branches of the Fellowship’.22 THE BRONTË SOCIETY

The Brontë Society of Japan (originally called the ‘Brontë Centre’23) was founded on 16 October 1985. It started relatively late, almost three decades after the Thomas Hardy Society and fifteen years after the Dickens Fellowship. However, judging by the present membership, it is now the most popular of the three societies. The first Japanese translation of the Brontë sisters’ works was Riso¯ Kajin [An Ideal Lady] by Mizutani Futo¯, a scholar of Japanese literature, 535

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in 1896. It was an abridged translation of Jane Eyre published in serial form in a magazine called Bungei Kurabu [Literary Club]; however, the series was cancelled all too quickly after the fourth instalment.24 Iwakami Haruko, professor of Shiga University, mainly attributes this failure to ‘the literary scene in Japan at that time’ and ‘the receptiveness of the Japanese reading public themselves’. ‘People were not yet ready to accept an indomitable heroine who sought independence of will and attained a loving marriage against all the conventionalities of the time.’25 As Professor Iwakami suggests, a few more decades were needed for Japanese readers to accept the work with sympathy.26 Brontë Newsletter of Japan (issue 6) mentions two Englishmen who lectured on the Brontë sisters at Tokyo Imperial University in the 1920s; Robert Nichols (1893–1944) and Edmund Blunden (1896– 1974).27 Blunden is considered to have particularly stimulated the students’ interest in Wuthering Heights with his animated lectures on the novel.28 The complete translations published in the 1930s of both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights made these works accessible to the general reading public. Ko¯no Taeko, the novelist, who was to be the first president of the Brontë Society of Japan, wrote that she had learned about the Brontë sisters in an English poetry class at a women’s college in Osaka toward the end of the Second World War.29 Looking back on those days, she reflected that in the midst of the Tokyo air raids of 1945, Emily Brontë’s last poem, ‘No Coward Soul Is Mine’ repeatedly flashed across her mind.30 Following the war, she found and read the translation of Wuthering Heights in 1949 and was so deeply engrossed in the novel that she was inspired to start writing.31 Indeed, the translation and the influence of popular culture all seemed to have contributed to the popularity of the Brontës by the time the Brontë Society of Japan was founded in 1985. American films, Orson Welles’ Jane Eyre and Laurence Olivier’s Wuthering Heights were released in Japan, in 1947 and 1950 respectively. The Takarazuka Revue Company, a famous Japanese theatrical group uniquely composed only of women, first staged the musical, ‘Wuthering Heights’, in 1969. Kate Bush’s song, ‘Wuthering Heights’ in 1978 was ‘a hit’ in Japan. The Brontë Society created the ‘Brontë Prize’ to encourage the production of rigorous academic essays and published books such as Brontë, Brontë, Brontë. They also held a variety of cultural events including exhibitions, literary tours and open lectures. In the autumn of 1987 there were big exhibitions called ‘Wuthering Heights: the Brontë Sisters Running across the Moors’ in Tokyo (2–11 October) and Takarazuka, Hyo¯go Prefecture (15–26 October).32 According to Brontë Newsletter of Japan dated 19 December that year, these were very successful; in total, 11,000 people visited the exhibitions to see such valuable items as the famous portrait of the Brontë sisters by 536

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Branwell Brontë, which had been loaned from the National Portrait Gallery in London.33 Two guests from the UK Brontë Society (the chairman, Arthur Hartley and council member, Mark Seaward) attended the opening ceremony and subsequent events in Tokyo and Hyo¯go.34 Literary tours and open lectures followed those exhibitions. ‘Brontë tours’ began in 1988. The purpose of the tours was and is to visit places in the UK and Europe with connections to the Brontë family and to acquire a better understanding of their background. In the first tour in 1988, in addition to Haworth, Thornton and Scarborough in England, they visited Brussels where Charlotte and Emily had stayed to improve their French in 1842.35 In 1991 they started to hold annual open lectures on ‘Brontë Day’36 for those who were interested in their works and lives. These activities led to a remarkable increase in the membership in the 1990s: according to Kenkyu¯sha Yearbook of English, over the six years from 1988 to 1993, the registered membership increased by 100 to 250 and the Kansai branch was launched in 1993. In 1995–96, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Society the twelve volumes of Brontë Zenshu¯ [The Complete Works of the Brontës] were published. Nine dedicated scholars translated the Brontës’ works as well as Mrs Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

The Thomas Hardy Society, the Dickens Fellowship, and the Brontë Society have made significant contributions to the study of English literature in Japan. They have produced distinguished experts as well as promoting the popularity of the works of these authors. However, in the last twenty years the membership of these literary societies has generally been decreasing. According to Kenkyu¯sha Yearbook of English, for instance, the membership of the Thomas Hardy Society which was over 370 at the peak of its popularity in 1976–78 has dwindled to 153 by 2015. The popularity of the Brontë Society, which had 340 registered members for the six years from 1995 to 2000.37 has since gradually decreased and at the last count only had 185 members. There was not such a sharp drop in the membership of the Dickens Fellowship, but from 2009 to 2011, it decreased from 175 to 160.38 Why did this decline occur? After the collapse of the ‘bubble’ economy in the early 1990s and the subsequent ‘employment ice age’ of 1993–2005, when the number of job seekers noticeably exceeded the number of jobs on offer,39 people chose to study more ‘practical’ subjects than English literature hoping that other subjects would help them to secure jobs. 537

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According to figures in Recruit College Management published in 2013, the number of applicants for admission to university who intended to study ‘foreign literature’ decreased by 10,137 over the five years between 2008 and 2012.40 In fact faculties of literature, whether Japanese or foreign, have generally been unpopular since the late 1990s. Report on School Basic Survey conducted by the ministry of education, culture, sports, science and technology indicates that while the total number of universities increased from 1998 to 2010, the number of faculties of literature declined.41 This trend reflects the government policy to promote practice-oriented education. There was a ‘crucial change’42 in English language education around 1990. In the Sho¯wa period (1926–1989), the works of such writers as Hardy, Conan Doyle and Dickens were often used as material for English textbooks at prewar high schools. However, as stated clearly in its curriculum guidelines for junior and senior high schools in 1989, the government began to attach greater importance to ‘practical communicative competence’.43 As Takahashi Kazuko, professor of Meisei University, explained, this change led from about 1993 to literary works being gradually superseded by ‘daily conversation’ materials in junior/senior high school textbooks.44 A similar change was also seen in English textbooks for university students. From the beginning of the 1990s, textbooks focusing on oral communication skills began to replace literary textbooks, and since 2009 no new title in the English and American literature has been published.45 Young people accordingly have had fewer opportunities than in earlier periods to read fine works of literature in English. On 8 June 2015, the education ministry issued a notification, urging eighty-six national universities to review their overall organization and operations.46 Specifically the ministry instructed the universities to submit a draft of six-year ‘streamlining’ plans, starting from the 2016 fiscal year. This top-down reform generally targets the liberal arts field including literature. This means that national universities are being pressured to abolish some of their departments devoted to academic fields such as humanities and social sciences or convert them into more ‘useful’ ones (e.g. science and technology) which will, supposedly, better meet the needs of society. It is not easy to determine how far the study of humanities and social sciences benefits industry and commerce. However, as the Science Council of Japan has argued, ‘studying humanities and social sciences plays an important role in critically thinking about and assessing the human condition and the society overall’.47 As a lover of literature, I consider these changes unfortunate. Although there are fewer students who read the works of Hardy, Dickens or the Brontës before and after entering university, I hope that there will be opportunities for Japanese people to learn about these writers and enjoy their works. Owing to the spread of the Internet, information 538

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is freely available about literary events and activities in the UK. Moreover, English books, films, TV dramas and radio programmes are readily available to us today. Harry Potter books and films are very popular in Japan. Many Japanese have enjoyed the TV drama, Downton Abbey, with its portrayal of an English aristocratic family in the turbulent years before and after the First World War. There have also been interesting publications and events in Japan as well. Honkaku Sho¯setsu (2002)48 by a famous Japanese novelist, Mizumura Minae, is adapted from the story of Wuthering Heights. Complete translations of Dickens’ novels by Tanabe Yo¯ko were published in 2010–11. Dickens’ final and unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, will be presented on the stage as a musical comedy in April, 2016. Most recently, Wuthering Heights was performed for three weeks in May 2015 by popular Japanese actors and actresses at the Nissay Theatre in Hibiya, Tokyo.49 Although there were some noticeable modifications of some characters and situations, the play fully captured the spirit of the original work and received standing ovation. True masterpieces have a transcendental appeal to readers and audiences at all times and everywhere. ENDNOTES 1. 2.

3. 4.

5. 6.

7.

8. 9.

10.

11.

Kenkyu¯sha Yearbook of English 2015, Tokyo: Kenkyu¯sha, 2015, p. 187. Erikawa Haruno, Nihonjin wa Eigo wo Do¯ Manande Kita ka [A Socio-Cultural History of English Language Education in Japan], Tokyo: Kenkyu¯sha, 2014, p. 76. Ibid. Fukasawa Suguru, ‘Common Voices of Japan on Hardy,’ The Bulletin of the Thomas Hardy Society of Japan, no. 16 (1990), p. 2. Brontë Newsletter of Japan, no. 1 (31 March 1986), p. 3. ¯ temae UniFor example, Matsumura Masaie, emeritus professor of O versity, analyses the influence of Victorian novelists on Tsubouchi Sho¯yo¯, Natsume So¯seki and Tanizaki Junnichiro¯. Bungo¯tachi no Sei e no Manazashi [Passions and Sexuality as Literary Concern to Sho¯yo¯, So¯seki, and Tanizaki: Vein of English Literature in the Three Masters], Kyoto: Minervashobo, 2011. Kenkyu¯sha Yearbook of English 2015, p. 197 and p. 185. As for the Brontë Society, however, the membership information it discloses is quite different from that reported in Brontë Newsletter of Japan, no.90 (1 April 2015). Having inquired of the Society as to this point, I used the data provided by the latter. Fukasaka, op. cit., p.1. Yamamoto Bunnosuke, ‘The Late Prof. T. Ushihara: Earliest Hardy Monographer in Japan,’ The Bulletin of the Thomas Hardy Society of Japan, no. 3 (1960). The Bulletin of the Thomas Hardy Society of Japan, vol.1, no.1 (1958), pp. 15–22. See the translation of the greeting in The Bulletin of the Thomas Hardy Society of Japan, vol.1, no.1 (1958), pp. 2–3. 539

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

12. 13.

14.

15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

24.

25. 26. 27. 28.

29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39.

40.

Ibid., pp. 5–7. See the ‘membership list’ in The Bulletin of the Thomas Hardy Society of Japan, vol.1, no.1 (1958). The Japan Branch Bulletin of the Dickens Fellowship, no. 3 (1980), pp.1–2. The Dickens House Museum (the head office of the Fellowship) has since been renamed the Charles Dickens Museum. Ibid. The Japan Branch Bulletin of the Dickens Fellowship, no. 10 (1987), p.1. Ibid. The ‘Tokyo Branch’ was renamed the ‘Japan Branch’ in 2000. ‘Dickens and the Japanese,’ The Yomiuri Shimbun, 6 April 2015. www. yomiuri.co.jp/otona/special/sakababanashi/20150406-OYT8T50235. html Ibid. See the back of the cover of The Japan Branch Bulletin of the Dickens Fellowship, no. 3 (1980). The Japan Branch Bulletin of the Dickens Fellowship, no. 27 (2004), p. 79. See www.dickensfellowship.org/branches. The head office was Komazawa University, Tokyo. Brontë Newsletter of Japan, no. 1 (31 March, 1986), pp. 1–2. Iwakami Haruko, ‘The Brontës in Japan: How Jane Eyre was Received in the Meiji Period (1868–1912),’ Brontë Studies: the Journal of the Brontë Society (UK), vol. 27, issue. 2 (2002), p. 91. Ibid. Ibid. Brontë Newsletter of Japan, no. 6 (19 December, 1987), p. 3. Ibid. Also, in his preface to The Brontë Sisters, Tomoji Abe refers to Prof. Blunden’s comments on Wuthering Heights while the latter was teaching at Tokyo Imperial University. The Brontë Sisters, Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 1957, pp. 1–2. Ko¯no Taeko, ‘Arashigaoka no Cho¯ Shizensei’ [‘The Supernatural in Wuthering Heights’], The Complete Works of Ko¯no Taeko, vol. 9, Tokyo: Shincho¯sha, 1995, p. 339. Ibid., pp. 339–40. Ibid., pp. 340–41. Brontë Newsletter of Japan, no. 6 (19 December 1987), p. 2. Ibid. Ibid. Brontë Newsletter of Japan, no. 7 (31 March 1988), p. 4. The first Sunday in June. According to the home page of the Brontë Society of Japan (http://brontesociety.jp/), it originates from an episode that occurred on 5 June 1826, when Patrick Brontë returned from Leeds with a box of wooden toy soldiers, which fired his children’s creative imagination. See the data in Kenkyu¯sha Yearbook of English from1995 to 2005. Kenkyu¯sha Yearbook of English, from 2009 to 2011. For example, the job opening-to-application rate for university graduates had fallen below 1 in 2000. See www.works-i.com/surveys/graduate.html. Recruit College Management, no. 179 (Mar. - Apr. 2013), Tokyo: Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd., p. 8 & p. 13. 540

VICTORIAN NOVELISTS IN JAPAN

41.

42.

43.

44. 45. 46.

47.

48.

49.

From 1998 to 2010, the number of universities increased from 604 to 778, whereas the number of faculties of literature decreased by 18 to 131. Erikawa Haruo, ‘Shido¯yoryo¯ kara Mita Jyugyo¯ no Henka to Tenbo¯’ [‘Changes and Prospects in English Classes as a Result of the Ministry’s Curriculum Guidelines’], Eigo Kyo¯iku [The English Teachers’ Magazine], vol. 56, no. 7 (October 2007), Tokyo: Taishu¯kan, p. 12. Kazuko Takahashi, Nihon no Eigo Kyo¯iku ni Okeru Bungaku Kyo¯zai no Kano¯sei [The Possibilities of Literary Materials in English Teaching in Japan], Tokyo: Hitsujishobo¯, 2015, p. 9 & p. 11. Ibid., pp. 33–47. Ibid., pp. 49–51. The Yomiuri Shimbun, 18 June 2015. http://blog.livedoor.jp/srachai/ archives/1645551.html Japan Press Weekly, 10–16 June 2015. See www.japan-press.co.jp/modules/news/index.php?id=8279. A True Novel (2013), an English translation of Honkaku Sho¯setsu, created a buzz of excitement among literary critics in Britain and America, as was indicated in book reviews in The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The leading actor and actress were Yamamoto Ko¯ji and Horikita Maki.

541

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Minton for the Meiji Emperor MARY REDFERN

INTRODUCTION

There are three dessert stands dating from the late nineteenth century in the collections of the Imperial Household Agency in Tokyo: a low comport with a turquoise blue border with roses in reserves and two pierced baskets — one of double-lozenge shape and supported by a pair of reclining putti bedecked with vines, the other round and carried on the heads of the Three Graces as they stand back to back. Shaped to suit the dining practices of late nineteenth-century Europe and America, with their classical imagery and rococo styling these objects may also be considered consummately ‘Western’ in style, and yet each is ornamented with the Japanese imperial chrysanthemum crest. Nonetheless, these ceramics were not crafted from Japanese porcelain, but English bone china; the marks on their bases revealing that they were created in Minton’s factory at Stoke-on-Trent. Following the Meiji Restoration, the emperor’s duties came to include the reception of foreign dignitaries. In time, the emperor’s role in such engagements extended to the banqueting table, and from 1873, meals in Western style became a feature of imperial receptions for the diplomatic corps.1 Demanding more than just people and food, these occasions also required an abundance of objects for the dinner table. In 2000, these three Minton dessert stands were displayed as part of the exhibition ‘Kyo¯en: kindai no t¯eburu a¯to’ (English title: ‘Imperial Feasts: Modern table art’) at the Sannomaru Sho¯zo¯kan, the Museum of the Imperial Collections.2 Featuring examples of Meiji-era Western-style tableware preserved in the collections of the Imperial Cuisine Division, this exhibition offered a glimpse of the material culture of the Meiji Emperor’s table. Nonetheless, much about these objects remained uncertain. Dating the dessert stands to around the 1870s ¯ kuma Toshiyuki, questioned how these to 1880s, the curator, O items had been acquired: were they commissions or were they a gift? 542

MINTON FOR THE MEIJI EMPEROR

Furthermore, with only three pieces extant, were they actually used?3 Working primarily from the objects themselves, it was only possible to conjecture. However, as a painting of a dessert plate with turquoise blue border and reserves of roses in the Minton Archive indicates (Figure 1), these objects also left traces in the archival record: traces that may be found both in Britain and Japan.4 TRACING THE MINTON SERVICE

Although the Minton pieces in the Imperial Collection have hitherto been broadly dated to the 1870s and 1880s, it is possible to date these pieces more closely. Many of the ceramics made by Minton feature impressed year marks, and these can also be found on the pieces now in Japan: the low comport has the mark 1874, while the stand with putti has that for 1875. These year marks impressed into the unfired clay do not correspond to the completion of the decorated vessel, but the production of the ceramic blank. The decoration, meanwhile, is not dated, but recorded by means of a pattern number, which allows it to be traced into Minton’s production records. The base of the comport is inscribed with the pattern number G2051, written in overglaze red. As the depiction of this pattern in the Minton Archive’s pattern book features a central chrysanthemum crest (Figure 1), it is evident that it was first commissioned for the Japanese imperial household. As such the corresponding record for G2051 in Minton’s estimate books, which is dated 28 May 1875, offers further confirmation that these items were commissioned in 1875. However, although the Japanese crest indicates their intended destination, neither object, pattern book nor estimate book shed light on who was responsible for the commission. Having confirmed the date of the production of these pieces, it was then possible to locate records relating to this service in the extensive volumes of records known as the Goyo¯doroku or ‘Record of Imperial Supplies’, preserved in the Archives of the Imperial Household Agency. Therein, a Japanese translation of an estimate from the retailer Mortlock and Son dating to circa 1875 describes a dessert service comprising forty-eight plates decorated in blue, eight sets of comports in three sizes, and eight openwork baskets with figure supports, half of which are round in shape, with a combined price of £260 12s.5 A further record, dating to 10 October 1876, documents the receipt of these items by the Imperial Cuisine Division; all are described as ceramic with a blue ground.6 Although no detail is given as to their maker, the presence of a Mortlock’s retailers’ mark on the stand with putti, the correlations in date and colour, and the description of openwork baskets with figural supports in the order listing all stand to indicate that the service described in the purchase records is 543

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that now represented by the three dessert stands in the imperial collections. Most importantly, these records demonstrate that the dessert stands were not received as gifts or acquired as samples, but were commissioned by the Imperial Household Ministry as part of a service large enough that it would be suitable for use at table. JAPAN’S ENCOUNTERS WITH MINTON

In 2000, it was suggested that the acquisition of Minton ceramics by the imperial household might have been related to Christopher Dresser’s visit to Japan.7 Following the suggestion of Sir Philip Cunliffe Owen of the South Kensington Museum, Dresser travelled to Japan with a gift of British manufactures to be presented to the recently established museum (now Tokyo National Museum). As one of the companies Dresser worked with, it is unsurprising that Minton ceramics were included in this gift.8 However, as his own account documents, Dresser did not arrive in Japan until 26 December 1876, presenting his gift the following January. As such, it is unlikely that he had any particular influence on either the selection of Minton or the execution of this commission. The Japanese did not need to wait for Christopher Dresser to bring Minton to their attention. On 7 November 1872, members of the Iwakura9 Mission travelled to the Minton factories as part of their visit to Britain. As the chronicler of the mission, Kume Kunitake, stated, Minton produced ‘the most highly-prized china in Britain, its reputation rivalling that of Paris’.10 However, Kume also recognised the importance of a country patronising its own manufactures: All countries compete in their respective industries, and rather than endure the shame of stooping to use their rivals’ goods, they always turn to products manufactured domestically to supply their nations’ needs.11

If the imperial household was going to employ another country’s ceramics on the emperor’s table, there had to be a very good reason. In order to understand why these objects were purchased, it is necessary to move beyond an encompassing label of ‘Western’ to consider what exactly these objects might have offered that other ceramics could not. MINTON, SÈVRES AND ROYALTY

Although the ceramics commissioned by the imperial household were to be made in England, in style they were resolutely French. As the annotation for pattern G2051 details, this is a dessert plate in the socalled Old Sèvres shape (written as ‘O/S’).12 Combining a rich turquoise ground with conspicuous gilding and hand-painted floral motifs, 544

MINTON FOR THE MEIJI EMPEROR

the design selected for the emperor’s table captures the style of the tableware produced at the French factory of Sèvres in the eighteenth century with only slight modification. The Japanese emperor was not the only one to have Minton’s Old Sèvres for his table. While historicist styles were very much en vogue in Victorian Britain, Minton’s Sèvres-style productions had also enjoyed the conspicuous patronage of Queen Victoria, the best known example being the 116-piece dessert service she purchased at the Great Exhibition of 1851.13 Queen Victoria’s fondness for dinner services in the style of Old Sèvres was perhaps influenced by her uncle, King George IV, whose passion for the French factory established what may be considered the finest collection of these wares in the world.14 In buying Sèvres, however, George IV was not only buying objects, but an image and indeed a material culture of monarchy. Founded in the mid-eighteenth century, Sèvres had enjoyed a very close relationship with both Louis XV and Louis XVI, flourishing under their ownership and patronage. Abruptly terminated in practical terms by the French Revolution (which also released many of Sèvres finest productions onto the market), the association between monarch and manufacture nonetheless remained potent. In nineteenth-century France, both Napoleon I and Louis Philippe I lent their patronage to Sèvres in exchange for works that bolstered their own sovereign identities.15 In Britain, while George IV acquired some pieces that post-dated the revolution (most notably the Table of the Grand Commanders commissioned for Napoleon that was subsequently and unsubtly featured in the British monarch’s state portraits), he was drawn to pieces that elucidated royal associations: whether the porcelain busts of the French royal family or the lavish dinner service commissioned for Louis XVI’s personal use at Versailles (for which he paid nearly £2000).16 By acquiring Minton’s versions of these historic wares, Victoria was able to employ the unmistakeably royal style of France’s lost monarchs, while also supporting her own manufacturers. Sèvres-style Minton services were also ordered for other members of Britain’s royal family. On the occasion of the Prince of Wales’ marriage to Princess Alexandra of Denmark in 1863, a dessert service of Minton china was commissioned for the royal couple. Now at Sandringham House, the service comprises plates, comports, ice-pails, sugar bowls and other items, all emulating the style of eighteenth-century Sèvres (Figure 2).17 Featuring delicately painted putti holding the couple’s entwined monograms, the service marks the union of two royal houses and the anticipation of offspring. With their rich turquoise borders, generous gilding and floral reserves, dishes from this service bear strong semblance to the plate designed for the Japanese imperial household, demanding closer comparison. 545

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Where the dishes commissioned for the Prince of Wales (Figure 3) feature luxuriant oak swags, the pattern prepared for the Japanese emperor (Figure 1) employs more controlled festoons of berried laurel. In addition, the reserves on the Japanese service are more regular and geometric. However, with both plates featuring intense turquoise borders, floral reserves and gilt garlands contained with the lobed rim of the Old Sèvres style, the overall impression is one of striking similarity. A second Minton dessert service preserved at Sandringham with turquoise ground and year marks for 1872 includes a pierced basket with putti support almost identical in shape to that preserved in Japan, the only difference being that the putti on the Japanese example are integral to the bone china support, while those at Sandringham are modelled separately in unglazed parian ware.18 Considering these examples, it is apparent that the tableware chosen for Japan’s emperor in 1875 was conspicuously similar to services made for the future British royal family in the years preceding, which itself borrowed heavily from earlier French models. THE IMPERIAL COMMISSIONS OF 1875

Records for other imperial commissions at this time suggest that this similarity was intentional. The dessert service was not the only item purchased from Mortlock: the order also included dinner plates, a coffee and tea service and glassware.19 Furthermore, accompanying records reveal that this was one of a suite of orders placed with British companies between 1875 and 1877 for glassware, silverware, ceramics, chairs and a table: the full material culture required for a banquet. Glassware was ordered from F. and C. Osler, a service of silver-gilt and cutlery from Garrard and coffee wares and other table accessories came from Hunt and Roskell: all leading companies of the time.20 However, it is the record for the furniture that is most revealing. Therein it is noted that the table commissioned for the emperor, ‘Should be made using Brazilian mahogany, like [that] at Buckingham Palace.’21 Coincidence seems unlikely. Instead, the tableware acquired for the emperor’s table, and even the table itself, was intended to be explicitly ‘royal’ in nature. Through the creation of this material connection to the ruling houses of Europe, the objects commissioned by the Imperial Household Ministry sought to define the emperor’s place within an international ruling elite. Pieces from the Minton tea and coffee service commissioned through Mortlock were also exhibited in 2000, and can likewise be found in the pattern books of Minton archive (Figure 4). Unlike the dessert stands for which practical application remained uncertain, the active use of the coffee service was suggested by the survival of replenishments of identical design made by the Japanese company 546

MINTON FOR THE MEIJI EMPEROR

Seiji Kaisha in the 1880s.22 However, a different kind of record demonstrates that the Minton dessert service was also used, while additionally giving an insight into how that use was received. THE MINTON SERVICE IN USE

In 1881, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, and Prince George (later George V) visited Japan23 as part of a roundthe-world tour in which they served as midshipmen aboard HMS Bacchante.24 The sons of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) and grandsons of Queen Victoria, they were received by the Meiji Emperor on 25 October and dined with him the following day after attending a military review. In the published record of their travels the princes offered the following account of the dinner: At 6 p.m., having shifted into uniform, we went to dine with the Mikado, at the same palace at which we called upon him yesterday. The dinner (to which all the ministers were invited) was served in a large hall that had never been used before; its sides were constructed with the same plain white wood crossbeams as we remarked yesterday in the other parts of the building, and the wall spaces between them were decorated with Japanese paintings in the old style — the stork, the symbol of long life, and the evergreen fir tree, the symbol of happiness, being introduced frequently. These two objects it is the proper compliment to have always present before the eyes of a guest at a Japanese entertainment. There were a few huge china jars between five and six feet high, each containing a tree in flower, standing in the corners and by the sides of the doors, and with the exception of these there was no other furniture of any kind in the room beyond the dining-table and chairs, and the effect of this was cool and pleasing. The service of gold plate on the table was made by Garrard, and was the same which we had seen at Marlborough House before it was sent out some years ago. Its only ornaments are the imperial dragon and the chrysanthemum — the Mikado’s crest. These flowers also are the only ones which are used for the decoration of the table. The dessert service of Minton china was an exact facsimile of the blue one with roses in plaques at Marlborough House. The Mikado talked to us both, one on each side of him, through Mr Nagasaki as interpreter, during the whole of dinner time. At the end His Majesty proposed the health of the Queen, which we all drank standing, and then Eddy proposed that of the Mikado, in which all joined in a similar manner.25

Often only cursorily described in guests’ memoirs, the princes gave a detailed account of their material surroundings from the Japanese paintings on the walls to the British gilt-silverware and ceramics that graced the table. The detailed nature of their description belies their familiarity

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with these items. The service of gold-plated silver by Garrard was part of the suite of orders placed in 1875, and had been offered up to royal inspection before its despatch to Japan as the princes observe.26 Meanwhile, the princes’ description of the Minton dessert service in blue with roses in reserves identifies it as that commissioned in 1875. The princes’ account of their dinner with the emperor confirms that the Minton dessert service was indeed used on the imperial table, but their description demands further scrutiny. It is not the emperor’s service that they describe as ‘blue … with roses in plaques,’ rather they observe that it ‘was an exact facsimile of the blue one with roses in plaques at Marlborough House’.27 This service was not one that they had seen before, but it called to mind one they knew well. Marlborough House being the residence of their father the Prince of Wales, the service they refer to is almost certainly that commissioned at the time of his wedding (Figure 2). That they recognised the emperor’s tableware in such terms demonstrates the attention that might be paid to such details as the vessels chosen for the serving of food, but it is their description of the service as an ‘exact facsimile’, that is most revealing. The service commissioned for the emperor’s use was indeed very similar to that belonging to the Prince of Wales, and likely intentionally so. However, if the imperial household’s intention was to reveal the Japanese emperor as a royal sovereign equal to his European peers, the outcome on this occasion was quite different. Recognising the similarity between the two services, for the British princes the service placed upon the emperor’s table was merely a copy, imitative and so inauthentic. Their own debts to France, meanwhile, were left unacknowledged. The inauthenticity of the objects on the table of the Meiji Emperor lay in the eye of the beholder. While the Treaties of 1858 allowed for greater exchange between Japan and the western world, like many visitors the princes longed to see an exotic Japan. Commenting on the clothes worn at court, they wrote: We could not help thinking how very much better the Japanese gentlemen would have looked in their own old court suits, which it seems such a thousand pities that they have abandoned,… The dignity and the picturesqueness of their national court dresses, would add immensely to the effect of court receptions and ceremonies if it were again revived.28

Visitors from Europe and America often voiced such a desire, and yet even amid the apparent domestic backlash against things Western in the late 1880s, the Japanese emperor, empress and court attendants retained their Western-style attire for many functions. These material things had been carefully selected to define their new position among the sovereigns of the world, even if their claims were not always so readily accepted. 548

MINTON FOR THE MEIJI EMPEROR

CONCLUSION

The ceramics discussed here were neither the earliest nor the only Western-style tableware employed at court: Japanese manufactures in both traditional and Western styles also had a place upon the imperial table during the Meiji era. However, by delving into the records to draw out and distinguish the intention behind this commission from its later reception, the strategies driving the adoption of alternate material cultures in Meiji-era Japan may be better understood; meanwhile, a new chapter on the interwoven ceramic histories of Britain and Japan is opened. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This article draws on research undertaken towards my doctoral studies at the University of East Anglia, which were generously supported by a PhD Studentship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK (grant number: AH/J500148/1). I am also indebted to the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the Japan Foundation Endowment Committee who supported periods of research within Japan.

Figure 1: Pattern G2051, 1875, from ‘Pattern Book G1800–G2099,’ Stoke-onTrent City Archives: Minton Archive 2429. Purchased by the Art Fund and presented to the City of Stoke-on-Trent. All intellectual property rights are reserved.

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Figure 2: Pieces from the Minton service commissioned for Edward, Prince of Wales, and Princess Alexandra of Denmark; Minton, England, c.1863. Royal Collection, RCIN 7452, 7454, 7456, 7457 and 7462. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015.

Figure 3: Spare or sample plate from the Minton service commissioned for Edward, Prince of Wales, and Princess Alexandra of Denmark; Minton, England, 1862. Gardiner Museum, Gift of N. Robert Cumming G05.4.5. Image courtesy of the Gardiner Museum.

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Figure 4: Pattern G2102, 1875, from ‘Pattern Book G2100–G2199,’ Stoke-onTrent City Archives: Minton Archive 2118. Purchased by the Art Fund and presented to the City of Stoke-on-Trent. All intellectual property rights are reserved.

ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4

M. William Steele, Alternative Narratives in Modern Japanese History (London: Routledge, 2003), 127. The exhibition catalogue includes images and dimensions of these pieces, see: Kunaicho¯ Sannomaru Sho¯zo¯kan, ed., Kyo¯en: Kindai no teburu a¯to ([Japan]: Kikuyo¯ Bunka Kyo¯kai, 2000), catalogue numbers, 1–3. In 2013, the author was able to examine the low comport and the basket with putti support through the kindness of the Imperial Household Agency. ¯ kuma Toshiyuki, ‘Kyu¯chu¯ yo¯shokushi ko¯’ in Kyo¯en: Kindai no teburu O a¯to, ed. Kunaicho¯ Sannomaru Sho¯zo¯kan. ([Japan]: Kikuyo¯ Bunka Kyo¯kai, 2000), 6–7. The principal records referred to here are: ‘Pattern Book G1800– G2099’ and ‘Estimate Book G1300–G2826,’ Minton, 1870s, Stokeon-Trent City Archives: Minton Archive 2429 and 1507; ‘Goyo¯doroku ko¯nyu¯,’ vol. 11, 1877, Archives of the Imperial Household Agency (ᐑෆබᩥ᭩㤋): 68979. Through the kindness of the staff of these archives, these records were examined by the author in 2015 and 2014 respectively.

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5

6

7 8

9

10

11 12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

Order list, Supplies Division after Mortlock, c.1875, from ‘Goyo¯doroku ko¯nyu¯,’ vol. 11, 1877, Archives of the Imperial Household Agency: 68979. Confirmation of receipt of tableware, Imperial Cuisine Division, 10 May 1876, from ‘Goyo¯doroku ko¯nyu¯,’ vol. 11, 1877, Archives of the Imperial Household Agency: 68979. ¯ kuma, ‘Kyu¯chu¯ yo¯shokushi ko¯,’ 6. O For Dresser’s account of his visit, see: Christopher Dresser, Japan, its Architecture, Art and Art-Manufactures (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1882). For details of his gift, see: Kishida Yoko, ‘Sausu Kenjinton Hakubutsukan to Nihon: Kurisutofa¯ Doressa¯ no hakonda 1876 nen no kizo¯shinasenteikijun nitsuite,’ Art Research 12 (2012). A biographical portrait of Iwakura Tomomi by Andrew Cobbing is contained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2013. Kume Kunitake, The Iwakura Embassy, 1871–73: a true account of the Ambassador extraordinary & plenipotentiary’s journey of observation through the United States of America and Europe, eds. Graham Healey and Tsuzuki Chushichi (Matsudo: Japan Documents, 2002), 2:389. Ibid., 3:141. ‘Pattern Book G1800–G2099,’ c.1875, Stoke-on-Trent City Archives: Minton Archive 2429. Queen Victoria presented much of this service to the Emperor of Austria, supplementing the pieces she retained with further orders from Minton. These items form the core of the Royal Collection’s holdings of Sèvres; for the comprehensive catalogue of these works, see: Geoffrey De Bellaigue, French Porcelain in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen (London: The Royal Collection, 2009). For the use of Sèvres by Napoleon, see: Steven Adams, ‘Sèvres Porcelain and the Articulation of Imperial Identity in Napoleonic France,’ Journal of Design History 20.3 (2007); On Louis-Philippe I, see: Tamara Preaud, ‘Brongniart as Administrator’ in The Sevres Porcelain Manufactory: Alexandre Brongniart and the Triumph of Art and Industry, 1800–1847, ed. Derek E. Ostergard (New York: Yale University Press/Bard Graduate Center, c.1997), 46, 48. Geoffrey de Bellaigue, ‘A Royal Keepsake: The Table of the Grand Commanders’ Furniture History 35 (1999); Joanna Gwilt, French Porcelain for English Palaces: Sèvres from the Royal Collection (London: Royal Collection Enterprises, 2009), 10, 134–135, 184. Royal Collection, RCIN 7452–7469. In 2015, the author was able to examine pieces from this service at Sandringham through the kindness of the staff of the Royal Collection Trust and Sandringham Estate. Royal Collection, RCIN 18224–18230. For a brief discussion of this service, which features paintings after Edwin Landseer, see: Vega M. Wilkinson, ‘Minton’s “Landseer” Dessert Services’, The Antique Dealer and Collector’s Guide, October 1986. Order list, Supplies Division after Mortlock, c.1875, and confirmation of receipt of tableware, Imperial Cuisine Division, 10 May 1876, 552

MINTON FOR THE MEIJI EMPEROR

20

21

22 23

24

25 26

27 28

both from ‘Goyo¯doroku ko¯nyu¯’, vol. 11, 1877, Archives of the Imperial Household Agency: 68979. These records may be found in ‘Goyo¯doroku ko¯nyu¯’, vol. 11, 1877, Archives of the Imperial Household Agency: 68979. My wider research suggests that the Garrard service referred to is that described by contemporary newspapers, for example: ‘Plate for the Mikado’, The Times, May 31, 1876, 6. This article has been discussed by Rousmaniere, see: Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, Vessels of Influence: China and the Birth of Porcelain in Medieval and Early Modern Japan (London: Bristol Classical Press, 2012), 155. Order list, Supplies Division after ‘Banchingu’, c.1875, from ‘Goyo¯doroku ko¯nyu¯’, vol. 11, 1877, Archives of the Imperial Household Agency: 68979. Author’s translation. ¯ kuma, ‘Kyu¯chu¯ yo¯shokushi ko¯’, 6–7. O An account of ‘Royal Visits to Japan in the Meiji Period 1868–1912’ by Hugh Cortazzi is contained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume II, ed. Ian Nish, Japan Library, 1997. Prince Albert Victor and King George V, The Cruise of Her Majesty’s Ship “Bacchante”: 1879–1882, comp. John Neale Dalton (London: Macmillan and Co., 1886). Ibid., 2:39–40. This was reported at the time, see: ‘The Prince and Princess of Wales’, The Standard, 27 June 1876, 5. Prince Albert Victor and George V, Bacchante, 2:39. Ibid., 2:31.

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Britain and the JET Programme: Five Individuals GRAHAM HEALEY

The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme is the world’s largest people-exchange programme. So far more than 60,000 young people from more than forty countries have participated in it. Its aims are encapsulated in its formal Japanese title: ‘A programme for the invitation of young people from overseas to carry out language guidance and other duties’ (Gogaku shido¯ nado o okonau gaikoku seinen sho¯chi jigyo¯). The use of the term gogaku shido¯ (‘language guidance’) rather than gogaku kyo¯iku (‘language teaching’) suggests that the intention is to recruit not professional teachers but classroom assistants or resources. The word nado (‘and the like’) indicates that the programme’s participants will also be expected to contribute to the institutions to which they are assigned in other ways, for example through sport, music and drama. And the use of sho¯chi, ‘invitation’, rather than boshu¯, ‘recruitment’, strengthens the impression that this is a programme designed to further overall cultural communication rather than simply to attract people who wish to make teaching their careers. The programme was established in 1987 under the auspices of the ministry of home affairs (now the ministry of internal affairs and communication), the ministry of education (now the ministry of education, culture, sports, science and technology) and the ministry of foreign affairs. In the following year, the three ministries jointly established the council of local authorities for international relations (CLAIR), which oversees the JET programme as part of its remit to support local government bodies in all their international activities. Each participant in the programme is appointed as an assistant language teacher (ALT), a coordinator for international relations (CIR) or a sports exchange advisor (SEA). ALTs work in schools alongside Japanese teachers. The role of CIRs, who are usually based in prefec554

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tural offices, is to foster the prefecture’s international relations. The function of SEAs is to promote the prefecture’s international sporting activities. In 2014 a total of 4,101 ALTs, 364 CIRs and 11 SEAs were in post. Three hundred and sixty-six ALTs and 17 CIRs were from the UK.1 When the JET Programme was established, two much smaller programmes already in existence were merged with it. In the USA, the mombusho¯ [ministry of education] English fellows (MEF) programme (derived from the Fulbright programme) ran from 1977 to 1986 and in the UK the British English teachers scheme (BETS) or ‘Wolfers scheme’ ran from 1978 to 1986. The BETS (Pre-JET) scheme is described in an annex by Nicolas MacLean (formerly Nicolas Wolfers). THE BRITISH JETS

This section draws on answers to a questionnaire sent to members of the JET alumni association (JETAA). It makes no pretence to being a scientific survey. The number of questionnaires returned is not statistically significant, and the respondents are doubly self-selected. Not only are they members of JETAA, whose purpose is to maintain a sense of community among former JETs, but they also took the trouble to complete the questionnaire. Both these facts would indicate that their experience of JET was a positive one. Participants who found life on the programme uncongenial, or who served their year or two in Japan happily enough but do not regard the experience as an especially important part of their lives, would have remained out of reach. But I believe the following reflects reasonably accurately the experience of most British JETs. The great majority of JETs join the programme immediately on graduating, when they are in their early twenties. Some have worked for a few years before applying and are in their mid-to-late twenties. Very few are over thirty. They include graduates from virtually all degree-awarding institutions in the UK and among them they have studied most of the academic subjects offered. It is unsurprising that graduates in Japanese studies, international relations and journalism would be attracted to a programme offering the opportunity to live and work in Japan, but graduates in physics, biochemistry, pharmacy and paediatric neurodisability are also to be found among the JETs. The number of JETs assigned to the biggest cities is relatively small. Most are posted to provincial cities, small towns or rural communities. The programme has ‘seeded’ back in Britain large numbers of people (some now at or near retirement age) able to inform their fellow-citizens about life in Japanese communities of all kinds, including remote farming and fishing villages. 555

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The reasons JETs give for applying to the programme are varied. Some (sons and daughters of business people or diplomats) have spent part of their childhoods there. Some have long been interested in the country as a result of reading a particular book or taking part in martial arts. Some have taken degrees in Japanese. Some are intending to pursue a career teaching English overseas. Some have friends or chance acquaintances who have been on the programme. And some have simply happened to see a poster in the students’ union advertising a talk on the programme. When asked what they believe they achieved as JETs they answer, more often than not, that they were able to give their students, and other members of the communities in which they lived, the opportunity to broaden their horizons by seeing Japan from a different point of view. Almost none makes any reference to raising the standard of spoken English in their schools. Some JETs have married and settled down in Japan. (At least one of the first party of the teaching assistants on the pre-JET or ‘Wolfers scheme’, to go to Japan in 1978 is still there.) Some have devoted themselves to the study of Japanese language and culture and become academics or professional translators. Almost all have found the course of their lives determined to some extent, often profoundly, by having been JETs. FIVE INDIVIDUALS2

Lesley Downer Lesley Downer identifies herself simply as ‘writer’. She has published travel books, cookery books, biographies, novels and books on social history, and has written and presented several television programmes and series. Her subject is always Japan. Lesley’s mother was Chinese and her father a professor of Chinese language, so she grew up in a house filled with books on East Asia. She studied English at St Anne’s College, Oxford, graduating in 1971, and after spending some time in India took an MA in South Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Having begun to make pottery, she read Bernard Leach’s The Potter’s Book: it was this that first aroused an interest in Japan. In 1978 Lesley became one of the first group of twenty-two teachers recruited under the British English Teachers Scheme. At interview a question was put to her which, she says, ‘turned out to be absolutely crucial to my entire life’. Asked whether she would prefer to go to Tokyo or to the countryside, she answered ‘the countryside’. She had a mental picture of a verdant bucolic setting, but found herself in Gifu, capital of Gifu Prefecture and a sizeable city. Only later did she become aware that ‘in Japan inaka (the countryside) meant anywhere that wasn’t Tokyo’. 556

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Her terms of employment at Gifu Women’s University (Gifu Joshi Daigaku) were very favourable: she taught six hours a week and had vacations free. As she did not then speak Japanese she was not required to attend staff meetings. She also taught at another local university, took on evening classes for the Rotary Club and gave tuition to a housewives’ group. She was ‘much taken care of’: Japanese friends and colleagues would invite her to shrine and temple festivals and take her to see sword-making and cormorant fishing. But she was very lonely. There were almost no other foreigners in Gifu. She applied herself to studying Japanese and brought it up to a ‘functional level’. When her first year came to an end she hesitated to renew her contract, but eventually decided that rather than abandon Japan, she would stay for a second year and try to ‘fix’ her unsatisfactory first year. She had taken up tea ceremony and ikebana in the first year and in the second turned to pottery, Zen Buddhism, calligraphy and aikido¯. Having decided not to stay in Gifu for a third year, she went back to India for a year then returned to Japan and lived in Kamakura, earning her living by freelance teaching. She then won a cookery contest (her winning recipe was for vegetarian moussaka with Kikkoman soy sauce). The prize was a pair of airline tickets, which enabled her to spend time in Hokkaido and Okinawa. Shortly after winning a prize in a second cookery contest, she returned to Britain with a considerable collection of Japanese recipes, which she turned into a book. She has since published four more books on Japanese food and drink. Back in Britain she was dismayed by the ignorance about Japan that she encountered everywhere and exasperated by the fact that many people who knew nothing about the country were happy to express strong views on it. She decided that a corrective was needed: ‘That was where the urge to write came from, I suppose.’ She returned to Japan and prepared to write a travel book by retracing the route recorded by the poet Basho¯ in his prose and verse diary Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North). Basho’s path was now a major highway, so she followed a parallel route, hitch-hiking on the main roads, walking on the side roads, and staying in tiny villages. The result was On the Narrow Road: Journey into a Lost Japan, which came out in 1989 and was well received in both Britain and the USA. It eventually became the basis for two television series, one produced by Channel 4 in association with the US broadcaster WNET, and the other, which she presented in Japanese, by NHK. Lesley spent 1991 preparing and presenting a television series about Japanese food. It was at this time that she conceived the idea for The Brothers, her first work of social history, which was eventually published in 1994. This is an account, set against the history of the last century, of the Tsutsumi family’s creation of the huge Seibu railway 557

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and department store empire, and of the feud between the founder’s two sons. It became a New York Times Book of the Year in 1995. Her next book was Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World, published in 2000. Lesley undertook some months of participative research in Kyoto to gather the material for this book, and believes (‘modesty aside’) that it is the most authoritative work in English on the subject. Her view of geisha is unsentimental: in spite of their yielding and submissive demeanour, she says, they have to be tough, even unscrupulous, to survive in a world in which they have themselves always been ruthlessly exploited. Her first biography was Madame Sadayakko, The Geisha who Bewitched the West, a study of the life of Kawakami Sadayakko, who toured the USA and Europe in the early twentieth century at the head (along with her husband Kawakami Otojiro¯) of a theatrical troupe whose performances were immensely popular. Their exotic melodramas, filled with dances, swordfights, hara-kiri and pitiful suicides by wronged women, played a large part in forming the Western stereotype of Japan at this period. Puccini saw Sadayakko perform and (Lesley believes) modelled the persona of his Madama Butterfly on her stage presentations. In 2008, Lesley published a historical novel, The Last Concubine. This was followed by The Courtesan and the Samurai and Across A Bridge of Dreams. A fourth novel is in hand. This quartet depicts the lives of women during the upheavals surrounding the Meiji Restoration. Unusually, they see these events from the point of view of the Shogunate, the losing side. Of her time on the JET Programme Lesley says: ‘It completely changed the course of my life.’ Being placed in Gifu meant that for two years she was obliged to learn Japanese and the niceties of Japanese culture. But the bar was sometimes set very high. She remarks with amusement that when she was researching her book on geisha, although she did her best to adopt a suitably modest demeanour and use the highest level of polite speech, the women still told her off for being ‘too pushy’. Angela Davies Angela Davies is a self-employed translator, interpreter, consultant, trainer and teacher. Although she has never set up a company, her career is best described as ‘entrepreneurial’: she has spent her working life acquiring knowledge and skills to enable her to meet present and expected demand for her services. In 1966 Angela was one of the first three students to register for undergraduate courses at the Centre for Japanese Studies at Sheffield University. She was encouraged in her decision to do so by her father, an importer who dealt principally with eastern Europe but 558

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had recently started to do business in Hong Kong: ‘he saw Japanese as the language of the future’. She graduated in 1970 and went to work as personal assistant to the managing director of Sumitomo Sho¯ji in London. This post enabled her to maintain and improve her spoken Japanese and to acquire office skills. After three years she returned to Liverpool to work as a freelance translator and interpreter. In 1974, she began to undertake work for C Itoh Plant Sales, which imported cranes and other heavy machinery, and for the glass manufacturers Pilkington Brothers Limited. The work involved translation of commercial and technical documents, including patents. Her technical knowledge was at first limited, but she eventually became proficient. In 1984, the International Garden Festival was held in Liverpool with the aim of revitalising tourism in the city. Angela acted as translator and interpreter for the team who designed and built the Japanese Garden, which proved to be one of the most popular features of the Festival and eventually won the prize for best outdoor garden. In 1985 she was invited by the garden team to visit Japan. She took her six-year-old son Sammy with her. Her hosts took the opportunity to form an Anjera-kai (‘Angela Club’) which continued to meet annually for the next twenty-five years. At its meetings the Club would receive a report on Angela’s activities during the year and, as Sammy grew up, one on his activities as well. In 1987 she became one of the first people to join the newly-established JET Programme. She served for a year as a CIR in Kagawa Prefecture and formed close friendships with her colleagues in the prefectural office which she has maintained ever since. In 1990 she was invited to work for six months as an international liaison officer at the International Garden and Greenery Exposition in Osaka, after which she was commissioned by a number of Japanese government organisations to act as coordinator of visits to Kew Gardens and the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society and (because she spoke French and Spanish) to accompany parties on visits to Europe. A Japanese gateway at Kew originally built for the Japan-British Exhibition at White City in 1910 had by the 1990s become very dilapidated. In 1994 Angela was commissioned to liaise with the Japanese designers and craftspeople who came to restore it and create a Japanese landscape garden as a setting. For this work she was awarded the Satoh Prize for International Relations by the Parks and Open Space Association of Japan. In 2001 she worked with the teams that restored the Japanese Garden at Tatton Park in Cheshire and created the Japanese Garden at that year’s Chelsea Flower Show. Both were led by Professor Fukuhara Masao of Osaka University of the Arts, whom Angela had first met at Kew. In all, she worked as translator and interpreter for Professor Fukuhara for about eighteen years, accompanying him on lec559

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ture tours in the UK, Europe and Australia. The importance of personal relationships built up over time is a salient feature of her career. In 2003 Angela visited Kagawa, where her son Sam was then a CIR. While there she learned of a school on the island of Naoshima in the Inland Sea that needed an immediate replacement for an ALT who had left prematurely. Since she could carry on her translation work via the internet, she took on the post for six months. Angela’s relationship with Kagawa Prefecture has two strands: the first from her time as a CIR and the second from her time on Naoshima. In 2005 she was asked to act as one of the prefecture’s ‘goodwill ambassadors’, a role in which she continues, and which she regards as ‘one of the legacies of being a CIR or ALT’. Since her time on Naoshima her work has been largely based in the UK. As well as translation and interpreting, she has also taught at a number of institutions, including Liverpool John Moores University. She has been active in the Japan Society North West. As chair, she instituted a series of Japan Days, for which she received the Japanese Ambassador’s Commendation. In 2013 she was awarded the Commendation of the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs for her contribution to Anglo-Japanese relations. Sam Rosen Sam Rosen is Angela Davies’s son. He first visited Japan with his mother in 1985, and was with her there for a year in 1987–88, when she was serving as a CIR in Kagawa. He spent that year in a local primary school and learned Japanese. He attributes his ultimate decision to study Japanese language and literature at university to the fondness for Japanese stories that he developed then. In 1998 he embarked on his degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He spent the year 1999–2000 studying Japanese literature at Keio¯ University, Tokyo. On graduating in 2002, he joined the JET Programme and himself became a CIR in Kagawa for three years. His duties covered many aspects of the prefecture’s overseas relations, including running ‘international understanding’ seminars for Kagawa citizens. The effect of these activities is, in Sam’s view, ‘hard to quantify’. The people who attended the international understanding seminars, for example, were no doubt already interested in the world outside Japan. More important, perhaps, was that the presence of a foreigner in the prefectural office gave local government officials the opportunity to engage with other ways of thinking. His involvement in local activities not specifically related to his work also had its effect. When the manager of a small bar in Takamatsu needed to add a musician to his band Sam took the job. The band released an album with Sam on keyboard. 560

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When Sam finished as a CIR he participated in an undertaking of the international affairs division of Kagawa Prefecture that was not directly related to the JET programme. This was a project under which the prefecture funded local groups in Laos which disposed of unexploded ordnance and carried out community projects. As part of this effort, Sam went as a member of a party from Kagawa on a study trip to Laos. When he came back to Britain in 2005, Sam worked as a freelance interpreter and translator, sometimes taking on jobs on behalf of his mother. One such was a week’s interpreting for a British company, HellermanTyton, which was involved in a complex negotiation with the share holders of a Japanese partner. Shortly after, Sam was invited to join the company, which gave him ‘the perfect opportunity to go back to Japan’. He remained with the company for nearly ten years. In 2014, he joined Inaba Denki Sangyo¯, an Osaka-based company manufacturing and distributing electrical and electronic equipment. The company is a very traditional one, and Sam’s work is partly focused on ‘internationalisation’. As well as promoting overseas sales he has also acted as project manager for the relocation and upgrading of a factory in Malaysia. Peter Matanle Peter Matanle is a senior lecturer at the School of East Asian Studies, Sheffield University. His research is broadly in the field of social and cultural geography, focusing currently on Japan’s post-industrial development. Peter was born in Kenya and spent his early childhood in East and West Africa. ‘So for me going to Asia was not as big a deal as it might have been for some. Asia and Africa are quite different, but it wasn’t quite such a leap to go and live in a different place with different smells and surroundings.’ He graduated from Cambridge University in 1986 with a degree in History. ‘All my colleagues from University seemed to be putting on a suit and heading into the City and I didn’t want to do that.’ He spent the next few years teaching English in Spain, Portugal and Japan. Having met a JET participant while in Japan, he decided that the programme would provide a good way of getting to know the country and its people and learn the language. ‘I didn’t know what I’d use those attributes for, but it seemed as though Japan and Japanese might take me somewhere.’ From 1989 to 1991 Peter served as an ALT in Tokushima Prefecture, teaching for the first year in Kaminaka, an isolated mountain town, and for the second year in Tokushima City. He believes that it was ‘hugely interesting and valuable’ for Kaminaka to have a JET there ‘to bump into, have a natter, and perhaps even develop a kind of relationship with’. In 1991 he moved to Tokyo to become 561

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a programme coordinator for CLAIR. After leaving JET he took an MA at Essex University then embarked on a PhD at Sheffield University. He was a ministry of education scholar at Do¯shisha University, Kyoto, from 1999 to 2000, during which time he completed his PhD thesis. Peter offers an interesting analysis of the structure and operations of CLAIR at the time he was working there. It was a joint venture of the ministry of home affairs, the ministry of education and the ministry of foreign affairs, but the ministry of home affairs was dominant because it provided the bulk of the funding. About half of CLAIR’s work was to do with JET. (Now it is much less.) He was at CLAIR in the early years of the JET Programme, when many problems that it had to deal with were new both to local government and to the three ministries: disagreements and misunderstandings between local government and ministries, between ministries, and between JETs and their employers. CLAIR was where these new concerns were processed. Faced with a new problem, CLAIR would suggest to the ministries and local governments how the matter could be dealt with and seek reactions. On the basis of the responses received, a new policy or structure of behaviour would be established. ‘Nowadays there’s much less of that sort of thing going on. I’ve visited CLAIR quite a few times in recent years and they always ask what it was like in those days. There’s not much of an institutional memory: even senior managers only serve two or three years.’ CLAIR was clearly seen by the Japanese government to be an important organization. The chairman was a former vice-minister for home affairs, the most senior civil service post in the ministry. ‘If a problem went all the way up to the level of the chairman and he made a decision on it the local governments really had to toe the line.’ In spite of the fact that it was not a government body it did in practice have considerable authority in that it oversaw the ‘messy process’ of bringing information and opinions together and devised systems for dealing with them that would generally be accepted by the ministries and local authorities The JET Programme was, in fact, only a relatively small part of CLAIR’s business, but it generated a great deal of work. Once the embassies had selected the participants all their application forms were sent to CLAIR, which was responsible for placing them. Some participants would request to go to particular places – Tokyo and Kyoto were particular favourites. Most of these requests could not be met. If two JETs were married CLAIR would place them in the same city. If they were in a relationship but not married they might be placed in the same prefecture, but not the same city since if the relationship broke up problems could (and did) arise from the fact that the two people were still in the same town. 562

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The JET Programme was part of a much broader policy to internationalise local government affairs. ‘We were continually stressing to JET participants that language education, even education in general, was not considered to be the first priority. That was grassroots internationalization . . . an exchange of minds, information and cultures.’ The participants worked in schools because that was where they could be in regular contact with younger people, both students and teachers. (The majority of teachers with whom JETs were working were in their twenties and thirties.) ‘The message was continually being driven home that it was an exercise in international relations. What was hoped for was that JETs should return to their home countries with warm feelings and fond memories of Japan.’ ‘JET was hugely beneficial to me,’ Peter says. ‘I don’t think I’d be here now researching about Japan if it hadn’t been for JET.’ But unlike that of many former JETs, who commonly speak of ‘falling in love’ with Japan, Peter’s view of the country is not a sentimental one. He would not, he says, use the word ‘Japanophile’ of himself. He went to Japan because ‘I thought it would be an interesting challenge to go to a place that was perhaps not suited to who I am, that spoke a language that was so different to the languages I already knew and that was populated with people that were so distant from my knowledge of humanity.’ Richard Buttrey Richard Buttrey joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2003. In 2015 he became chief of staff at UK Trade and Investment, a government department charged with supporting UK-based enterprises wishing to increase their exports and with encouraging overseas companies to consider the UK as a place to set up or expand their businesses. His inspiration to join the JET Programme came from his sister Kate, who, after graduating in History from Durham University, served as an AET from 1992 to 1994 in two schools in a rural area ¯ ita Prefecture. She was the first AET that either school had had, of O and the first British person that many local people had met. Her greatest contribution, in her view, to the lives of her students was being able to open their eyes to the possibilities that lay outside the farming communities from which they came, including the possibility of travelling abroad. She describes herself as ‘a shy and fairly unconfident person’ when she went to Japan (she was twenty-one) and says that her JET experience ‘gave me a real confidence and selfbelief’. She also believes that it helped her to obtain a legal training contract on her return to the UK as she was able during her interview to cite things that she had learned in Japan. In 2008 she joined the 563

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international commercial law firm Ince & Co, where she became head of knowledge and information services in 2015. Richard and Kate grew up in Cheshire. From his school in Warrington Richard went to Hertford College, Oxford to study physics. What Kate had told him of her experiences in Japan had been very positive, and the idea of following her example took root. By the time he graduated in 1997 he had been offered a place on the civil service ‘fast stream’, but deferred taking it up for a year in order to serve as a ‘one-shot’ JET teacher at two dozen or so schools on the ¯ sumi Peninsula, the most southerly part of the island of Kyushu. O (‘One-shot’ teachers are not attached to a particular school but have a ‘circuit’ of schools to which they make regular visits.) On his return to the UK in 1998 he took up his civil service place and spent three years on a series of technical projects, including cybersecurity, crisis response and methods of countering serious organised crime. He returned to Japan from 2001 to 2003 as a Daiwa Scholar at NIRA (the National Institute for Research Advancement), a think tank based in Tokyo. Here his interests began to move from purely scientific and technical topics towards politics and policy-making. He worked on a comparison of international administrative systems and on security policy relating to Afghanistan and North Korea (the DPRK). It was on his return to the UK after this period as a Daiwa scholar that Richard joined the FCO.3 In 2005 he married Mie, whom he had met while at NIRA. They have a son and a daughter. (The impact on her own life of her time as a JET that Kate says she values most is that it led indirectly to the addition of Mie, William and Emily to her wider family.) The JET Programme changed the pattern of Richard’s life fundamentally. ‘I would never have applied for the Daiwa scholarship if I hadn’t been on JET and if I hadn’t been on Daiwa I would probably never have joined the Foreign Office . . . As a JET, you’re in a relatively humble role as a teaching assistant. [As a Daiwa scholar] the name of Daiwa on your card makes a difference. Then I went back as a member of the British embassy with diplomatic status. In each of these different guises I have managed to see different aspects of Japan.’ CONCLUSION

One of the aims of the JET Programme is that after their time in Japan participants should return to their home countries as ‘chinichika’ – an invented word meaning ‘people who know about Japan’. The hope is that, having spent part of their early lives in Japan they will become part of Japan’s ‘soft power’ diplomacy, acting as a source of reliable first-hand information about Japan, closing some of the gaps 564

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in their fellow-citizens’ knowledge of the country and correcting misapprehensions. The careers of the former British JETs described in this chapter show that in this respect the programme achieves its object remarkably well. Acknowledgements:

I should like to thank the following for their help and advice in preparing this chapter: Mr Eiji Watanabe and Ms Miki Nemoto of the Japanese embassy in London; Ms Susan Meehan of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation and Ms Sarah Parsons, chair of the JET Alumni Association. APPENDIX

BRITISH ENGLISH TEACHERS IN JAPAN: THE PRE–JET (OR WOLFERS) SCHEME NICOLAS MACLEAN Addressing the Diet during an official visit to Japan in the 1980s the Prince of Wales stated that the two most important new developments in UK-Japanese relations since the Second World War had been large numbers of Japanese companies investing in Britain and young Britons coming to teach in Japan. In 1976 I was asked to present a paper to the Chatham House Japan Study Group on ‘Options for the Development of Europe’s Relations with Japan in the 1980s’. The largest lacuna was in culture and education. After talking with various people in Japan, including the head of the British Council in Tokyo, I became convinced that, despite a negative reaction from an official in the Japanese ministry of foreign affairs who told me that Japan had all the English teachers they needed from the USA, Japan would benefit from recruiting English-language teachers from Britain. On my return to London I discussed this with Hugh Cortazzi, then deputy under-secretary in the FCO, with the then Japanese ambassador in London Kato Tadao and his information counsellor Sakamoto Jutaro, who favoured a programme which spread the young Britons around Japan rather than concentrating them in a few big cities. During the spring of 1977 I was asked to write a detailed paper arguing the case for my proposed teaching programme. I presented my paper in July 1977. Having learned of the sensitivity of the Japanese teaching union to an influx of young foreigners, who had for the most part not passed teaching qualification exams, I proposed that the British recruits should be termed ‘teaching assistants’. I also 565

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stressed the dual nature of the programme, namely that the teaching assistants should be cultural ambassadors as well as good models of spoken English. In general it was thought most beneficial for future UK-Japanese relations to recruit young people who were planning to take up careers in a wide variety of professions, and who would be mainly based in the UK. The programme’s long-term aim was to bring our two peoples closer together and promote mutual understanding, with a maximum multiplier effect. The biennial meeting of the Joint Cultural and Educational Commission in London under the Anglo-Japanese cultural agreement was scheduled for January 1978 and what had come to be called ‘The Wolfers Plan’ (I was then called Nicolas Wolfers) was put on the agenda by the British side. The director-general from the Japanese ministry of education would only promise that the proposal would be carefully considered by him and his colleagues when he got back to Japan. However, several Japanese journalists asked pertinent questions at the subsequent press conference about the so-called ‘Wolfers Plan’and it was picked up in the Asahi Shimbun’s influential Tensei Jingo column. This was noted by a young member of the House of Representatives in Japan, active in the Japan-British Parliamentary Group, Koizumi Junichiro, later Prime Minister, who helped to galvanize support for the plan. The ministries of foreign affairs and education agreed that twenty-five young British graduates should be invited to spend at least one year in Japan as English-language assistants. In the first few years companies and universities as well as schools offered places. Ambassador Kato invited me to chair the interviewing board that now had to be set up in London, but as I was then only thirty-two, I suggested that a senior retired diplomat should take the role. Sir Stanley Tomlinson, a former deputy under-secretary at the FCO, who had started his career in Japan in 1935, was invited to do so. Graham Healey from Sheffield University and Dick Storry from Oxford University represented the British academic community on the interviewing team. I was also a member of the board. The interviewing board remained in place for nearly ten years until the advent of the JET programme, greatly helped Ms Watanabe Junko from the Japanese ministry of education. Candidates had to be under thirty-five and a graduate of a university or polytechnic. In the end twenty-two successful applicants were sent to Japan in 1978. Three of the possible posts were left unfilled, because of last-minute fall-outs. There were already some young Americans in Japan under a Fulbright programme, but their role tended to be mainly focused on the cultural ambassador aspect and so-called ‘one-shot teaching’, which 566

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meant lots of self-introductions, but very little actual teaching. The British model was completely different, as the teaching assistants were either just at one school or at a ‘base school’ where they did most work, but where they could visit a small number of neighbouring schools to spread goodwill. After three years its long-term future seemed assured and the scheme was renamed ‘The British English Teaching Programme’. I took part in briefing the new recruits at the very thorough, week-long preparatory courses for the new recruits, organized at the Euro-Japanese Exchange Foundation in Lane End, High Wycombe, by Ms Teruko Iwanaga. These introductory courses are now much shorter because of larger numbers. Since the establishment of the JET scheme there has not been a single large interviewing board. During the nine years of what is now sometimes referred to as ‘Pre-JET’, numbers recruited rose to around fifty a year and returnee assistant teachers established their own alumni organization, named after the first Briton in Japan, William Adams from Gillingham in Kent, known in Japan as Miura Anjin. I was made honorary chairman of the William Adams Association, or Miura Anjinkai, now partially merged with the JET Alumni Association. Some of those who went to Japan under the Pre-JET scheme have had significant careers. Richard Westlake, who had been posted to Matsushita Denki, joined ICI. Peter Tasker, posted to Suntory, stayed in Japan where he became a successful author and expert on the Japanese economy and stock market. Dr Derek Massarella pursued an academic career in Japan as an historian. Elizabeth Silver worked for many years with Marubeni in London. Roger Goodman became professor of Japanese at Oxford University and Mark Williams professor of Japanese at Leeds University. Andy Sparks became ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nepal. Alastair Morgan has been appointed ambassador to North Korea. ENDNOTES 1

2

3

This information was retrieved from the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, September 2015. I am grateful to the subjects of the following biographical sketches for agreeing to be interviewed. All quotations are taken from these interviews. He spent the next three years in London, working in a variety of policy roles. He contributed to strategic polcy-making in relation to Pakistan, Libya and Iran, cross-cutting themes such as counter-terrorism and (because of his training in physics) counter-proliferation. Richard’s first diplomatic posting to Japan was as a political officer in 2006–2007, analysing and reporting insights on regional and domestic

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political issues. He liaised with the Japanese government on the then unprecedented overseas deployment of Japanese Self-Defence Forces personnel to Iraq, where they worked alongside British Army personnel on reconstruction. From 2007 to 2010 Richard was in New Delhi as deputy head of the science and innovation network, India. India was not a signatory to the Non-proliferation Treaty, and Britain’s objective was to establish a dialogue on scientific matters from which politics would as far as possible be excluded. From 2011 to 2015, Richard was head of trade development, UKTI, at the British embassy in Tokyo, leading a team providing support services to British companies seeking to expand their businesses in Japan. He cites the technology platform Hailo and the augmented reality advertising firm Blippar as examples. One of his principal interests is ‘disruptive technology’ – the use of digital platforms to innovate in a way that can prove disruptive in the market. Companies such as Hailo and Über, for example, which make taxis or rideshares more or less instantly available, may ultimately affect the demand for cars. In the course of his career Richard has moved from purely technical work towards political and commercial policy-formation. An experience he greatly enjoyed, and which he clearly regards as formative, was working as staff officer to Lt-General Sir Edmund Burton on the review of a major PFI project, reorganising and integrating diaparate departments while maintaining the organisation’s capability. He found it ‘really fascinating’ to be present at Sir Edmund’s meetings with senior political figures and to observe his military approach – ‘leadership rather than management’.

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50

Fujiyama Naraichi (1915–1994): A Young Diplomat in Wartime EIJI SEKI

ORIGINS AND UPBRINGING

Fujiyama Naraichi was born in Shibuya, Tokyo in 1915. His father Fujiyama Takeichi (1885–1930) came from a samurai family in Saga prefecture, Kyushu. Takeichi was a brilliant boy who graduated from Tokyo Imperial University and joined the ministry of home affairs in 1910. He served as governor of Oita and Tochigi prefectures. Tochigi was an important post because one of the Imperial villas was in the Nasu highlands, which were part of the prefecture. There he had the opportunity to form a close relationship with the Showa Emperor who invited him to rounds of golf followed by dinner. Fujiyama Naraichi recalled his boyhood in Shibuya, Tokyo in his memoir ‘One Junior Diplomat and the Pacific War’. He had to live with his grandfather because his father had died when he was a 569

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15-year-old schoolboy. Shibuya in those days was a village between Tokyo and its western suburbs. From the window of his house he could enjoy a magnificent view of Mt. Fuji. His grandfather had spent many years as a military attaché in Europe; so he grew up learning a lot about Europe. His grandfather who was interested in fashion and who paid great attention to what he wore, often took him to western restaurants where he exposed to European culture and mores at an early age. In 1935 he entered Tokyo Imperial University where he was able to enjoy life as a university student and did not have to attend any lectures, which did not interest him. He attended classes by distinguished professors such as Dr. Miyazawa Toshiyoshi on constitutional law as well as Dr. Wagatsuma Sakae on civil law. He was greatly impressed by the courage of Yokota Kizaburo¯, Professor of international law, who did not hesitate to criticize openly the behaviour of the Japanese Army in front of an officer who happened to be in his lecture hall on secondment from the Army. Fujiyama was a firm believer in democratic institutions and individual liberty. He was a progressive keenly aware that Japan lagged far behind America and Britain especially in matters such as civil liberty, human rights and the social status of women. As a pacifist student he was much concerned about the increasingly pronounced encroachment of the army and the nationalists into politics following the Manchurian incident of 1931. On 26 February 1936 the news of a rebellion by a group of young nationalist officers and soldiers of the Imperial Guards Regiments shocked the whole nation. They failed in their attempt on the life of Prime Minister Okada Keisuke but succeeded in assassinating the Inspector-General of Army Education, General Watanabe Jo¯taro¯ and other political leaders in the so-called ni-ni-roku 2.26 incident. Fujiyama and his university friends became greatly concerned about the future of their country. He hated the military training programme introduced at the university around that time and detested all the bombastic lectures given by an army colonel assigned to the university. In October 1939 Fujiyama passed the senior diplomatic service examination to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He frankly admitted that his main motive was to escape from his own country, which continued to become increasingly militaristic. WASHINGTON AND THE USA

The following April Fujiyama boarded the newly built NYK luxury liner Nitta Maru at Yokohama enjoying a most comfortable transpacific voyage in an air-conditioned first class cabin. If he had lingered longer in Japan, he could have been drafted into military service. In 570

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fact his mother told him that a draft notice was served on him twice whilst he was abroad. After reporting to the Japanese embassy in Washington, he went to North Carolina University. He recognized that anti-Japanese and pro-Chinese sentiments were growing among his fellow students. When he complained that ‘Nanking bugs’ might have caused his American friend his itchy skin rash friend retorted that he should call them Tokyo bugs. The notorious incident of the Nanking massacre fueled anti-Japanese sentiment and many of his American friends started to avoid him. In March 1941 he returned to the Embassy where he helped in the code room. Though his job was to decipher simple low-grade cables, he was able to follow the negotiations by Ambassadors Nomura and Kurusu with Secretary of State Cordell Hull for the adjustment of Japan-US relations. As time passed he realized that American-Japanese relations were deteriorating. Yamada Yoshitaro¯2, a first secretary in the embassy, whom Fujiyama respected said one day that there would be no way to dislodge the Japanese military from power other than go to war and be defeated. Despite Japan’s deteriorating relations with the US Fujiyama was able to enjoy his life in Washington. He often went to concerts and one evening was completely captivated by performance by Rachmaninoff with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy. He was transferred to the political section of the Embassy in June 1941 where he could follow the international situation with greater ease and had more opportunity to listen to what his senior colleagues were saying about the negotiations with the United States. In his memoir he recalled that a huge number of cables were flying day and night between the embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; some of those made him worry. On November 26 Secretary of State Cordell Hull delivered ambassadors Nomura and Kurusu an ultimatum to withdraw Japanese forces from China and French Indo-China. He also demanded that Japan water down her Tripartite Alliance Treaty with Germany and Italy of September 1940. Kurusu was not on good terms with Hull. It was an unfortunate and insensitive decision by the Japanese Government to send Kurusu to Washington not least because of his role in concluding the Tripartite Treaty with Japan, Germany and Italy in September 1940. Hull In his Memoirs, Hull described Kurusu as … the antithesis of Nomura. Neither his appearance nor his attitude commanded confidence or respect. I felt from the start that he was deceitful. Knowing what I did of Japan’s intentions from the intercepts, 571

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from our regular information, and from my analysis of Japan’s attitude during our previous conversations, it did not seem possible to me that Kurusu, when he left Japan, did not know the plans of his Government and the role he was intended to fill. The purpose in sending him to Washington was an alternative one. In the first place he was to use all pressure and persuasion possible to induce us to accept Japan’s terms. In the second place, if that failed, he was to lull us with talk until the moment Japan get ready.

On the morning of Sunday 7 December 19413 Fujiyama was still soundly asleep when the telephone rang asking him report to the embassy immediately. He rushed off with no time to wash. Arriving at the Embassy he found the two political first secretaries Okumura Katsuzo¯ and Yuki Shiroji frantically at work producing a clean copy of the ultimatum which Nomura and Kurusu were instructed to take to Hull by one o’clock in the afternoon. In his memoirs Hull recalled that ‘toward noon ambassador Nomura telephoned my office to ask for an appointment with me at one o’clock for himself and Kurusu. I agreed. The Japanese envoys arrived at the Department at 2:05 pm and went to the diplomatic waiting room. At almost that moment the President telephoned me from the White House. His voice was steady but clipped: ‘There’s a report that the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbour.’ Hull was inclined not to see the Japanese envoys but he did meet them in his room at 2:20 pm. When they were ushered into the room Secretary of State Hull was waiting with the intercepted Japanese final note in his hand. He received Nomura and Kurusu coldly and did not ask them to sit down. He told them: In all my conversation with you during the last nine months I have never uttered one word of untruth. This is borne out by the record. In all my fifty years of public service I have never seen a document that is more crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions on a scale so huge that I never imagined until today that any Government on this planet was capable of uttering them.

Hull added: ‘Nomura seemed about to say something. His face was impassive, but I felt he was under great emotional strain. I stopped him with a motion of my hand. I nodded toward the door. The Ambassadors turned without a word and walked out, their heads down.’ Fujiyama’s role in these events is briefly referred to in Demystifying Pearl Harbour, a New Perspective from Japan by Iguchi Takeo (translated by David Noble and published in 2010 by International House of Japan). The circumstances surrounding the delay in delivering the Japanese 572

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ultimatum to the US government have been the subject of much controversy over the years. Iguchi analyses the issues in some depth. The outbreak of the war between the United States and Japan put an end to Fujiyama’s enjoyable stay as a young diplomat in Washington. During the morning of Sunday 7 December 1941, crowds of American citizens started gathering in front of the gate of the embassy shouting anti-Japanese abuse as the news of the Japanese ‘treacherous’ attack on Pearl Harbour kept pouring in. Soon the city police and FBI came to cordon off and guard the embassy. The embassy staff and their families, about fifty of them altogether had to move to the Embassy and stay within its compound. Fujiyama managed to bring his car, which had been parked in a nearby street to the Embassy. Towards the evening the telephone lines were cut off. Radio and newspapers were the only source of information. American police officers were considerate to the Japanese internees. They brought various things needed by the Japanese from nearby shops. Permission was ranted for the delivery of goods purchased or ordered previously from department stores and other shops in town. Fujiyama was permitted to go back to his apartment escorted by a policeman to pay the rent, water and electricity bills. The lady clerk in the office shook his hand and wished him well. It was so crowded in the Chancellery that he spent uncomfortable nights sleeping on the carpeted floor of the dining room of the Embassy till the American officials arranged collapsible beds with blankets to be delivered to make life easier for the internees. On 29 December they were instructed to move on to Hot Springs, Virginia. Fujiyama was sad to leave the Embassy in such circumstances. They were transported in buses to Union Station where they boarded a special train to their destination. The Homestead Hotel in Hot Springs where those from Washington as well as from other consulates in the United States and South America stayed was a famous de luxe hotel which American dignitaries like Cordell Hull had frequently used. In the movie theatre at the resort Fujiyama had his first chance to see the film of Gone with the Wind. Food in the hotel restaurant was excellent and at dinnertime there was music played by a girls’ chamber orchestra. A Japanese army officer one day suggested to Fujiyama that he should request the Americans to downgrade their treatment in consideration of the hardships, which Japanese soldiers were undergoing in fighting. Mr Pool, the American official on duty could not understand Fujiyama’s request. He replied that the Germans and Italians were complaining about their food and treatment. But from that evening, the menu for the Japanese was cut in half and sadly for Fujiyama the entertainment was also terminated. There were, he thought, many things that the Americans 573

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and Europeans could not understand about the Japanese mentality. He was kept quite busy assisting his senior officers in all various matters. In June 1942 they learnt that diplomats would be exchanged at Lourenço Marques (now Maputo, Mozambique). On 10 June 1942, the internees were sent by train to Jersey City on the Hudson River and were transferred to the Swedish steamship Grippsholm with huge green crosses painted on her sides. The ship left New York on 18 June 1942 with 1,066 evacuees from the United States When they called at Rio de Janeiro where they were not allowed ashore they were joined by 383 more. The Asama-maru carrying allied diplomats had left Yokohama on 17 June and arrived at Lourenço Marques on 22 July 1942. The Grippsholm arrived there two days earlier. BERLIN

Fujiyama was disappointed when he was told that his next post would be Madrid, but in fact this was later changed to Berlin. He found himself among thirty Japanese left behind. Two Japanese army officers consoled him by saying that he might be drafted straight into the army if he had gone back to Tokyo. After about a month he found a small Portuguese passenger bound for Lisbon. The American passengers on board refused to speak to him in the small bar. The ship made slow progress round the Cape of Good Hope and along the west coast of Africa. From leaving New York it took him three months to reach Lisbon. He took a train to Berlin via France. Paris under German occupation looked grey and dismal especially at night due to the curfew in force. He reached Berlin on 7 October 1942 and went straight to the Japanese embassy in Tiergartenstrasse. The building was well built and looked impressive with all modern facilities including compressed air tubes for the transmission of documents. He called on ¯ shima Hiroshi. As soon as he entered the the ambassador General O ¯ shima shouted at him ‘I hear you came from the United room, O States. Unless you change your mind [attitude], you will be no good here’. Fujiyama wondered how he would ever be able to change his mind as he had been instructed to do. Since he had joined the Foreign Service he had tried hard to live up to what was expected of a Japanese diplomat. Fujiyama was assigned to the economic section in the embassy where his job was to prepare radio propaganda material to be beamed at Britain and the east coast of the United States. To collect information he listened to BBC broadcasts, which he thought, were more accurate than the German ones. One day he noticed that the number of British fighters reported lost by the BBC was larger than the German count. 574

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It was still fairly quiet in Berlin though there were queues for food and tobacco. Air-raid warning sirens went off from time to time. He doubted if Germany could win the war. He earned the displeasure of his pro-German colleagues when he often pointed out the overall strength of the United States. He once wrote a frank letter to his former senior officer Terasaki Hidenari in Tokyo expressing his pessimistic assessment of the future of the war for the Axis nations. Terasaki showed the letter to the foreign minister To¯go Shigenori who commented: ‘Even a junior diplomat foresees German defeat.’ Towards the end of 1944 the air raids became intense and continuous as allied air bases came closer to Berlin. For the sake of safety, in April 1945 the Embassy had to evacuate to Bad Gastein where in mid May, as they hoped, they were taken prisoner by the US forces rather than by the Soviet forces which were advancing towards the west. The Americans he met for the first time since he left the United States three years previously looked robust in stark contrast to the tired-looking German soldiers. They were interned in bad Gastein until 24 July when they were bussed to Salzburg and then flown to Le Havre. USA AGAIN

After a week they boarded a huge American transport ship the Santa Roza bound for New York, which they reached on 11 August. Looking up at the Statue of Liberty, Fujiyama felt as if he had returned home. They had heard while on their ship of the dropping of an atom bomb on Hiroshima. At Bedford, Pennsylvania they also learned about Japan’s unconditional surrender on 15 August. Fujiyama consoled himself with the fact that his country has been saved from utter devastation. He found that even in the United States some daily necessities such as Colgate toothpaste and Vitalis hair tonic were hard to obtain in those days. Since there were professional musicians in their party like the pianist Konoe Hidemaro¯ and the violinist Suwa Nejiko, they organized concerts not only for other Japanese internees but also their American captors. On 18 November they started on a four-day journey over 5,000 kilometres across the American continent arriving at Seattle on 22 November where they transferred to the Army transport ship General Randall, which sailed for Japan on 25 November. POSTWAR CAREER

They reached Uraga near Yokosuka on 6 December. He immediately headed for Okayama in the southwestern part of Tokyo where his mother was waiting. He knew his house had miraculously survived 575

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the air raids, as he was able to recognize it in a detailed aerial photograph shown to him by an American official at Bedford. Making himself comfortable with a kotatsu and tasting whisky from a bottle his mother carefully kept for his return after all these years, he wondered how a vanquished Japan would fare under allied occupation. His memories of his happy days in the United States always remained in the back of his mind and he was delighted to return to the USA in 1953 sa to serve in the consulate-general in New York. After a stint in Tokyo he served from 1959 to 1965 in Austria and then in Indonesia. In both posts he held the rank of minister. In 1971 he was appointed as Japanese ambassador first to Vienna followed by Rome in 1975. He was appointed as Japanese ambassador to the Court of St James’s in London in 1979 where he served till his retirement in 1982. Later in life he converted to Catholicism. His wife Shizuko was daughter of Professor Takagi Yasaka of Tokyo University. He died in 1994. ENDNOTE 1

Yamada who lost his life aboard the Awa-maru torpedoed by a US submarine in the South China Sea on April 1, 1945 was at that time head of the research Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The ship he boarded was on her way back from Singapore after delivering goods and supplies for American POWs in Southeast Asia in accordance with an agreement worked out through the neutral nations.

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Kazuo Chiba (1925–2004): An Outstanding Japanese Diplomat HUGH CORTAZZI

INTRODUCTION

Kazuo Chiba who was born on 19 April 1925 died on 14 September 2004, aged seventy-nine. He was Japanese Ambassador to the Court of St James’s from 1988 to 1991. He spoke and wrote impeccable English. He was outspoken in his opinions, but combined frankness with an easy charm, a quick wit and an English sense of humour. He was an outstanding representative of his country who developed a deep interest in Britain and worked hard to promote better understanding. EDUCATION

Kazuo Chiba was the son of Chiba Shin’ichi whose first diplomatic post had been in the Japanese delegation to the Versailles Peace 577

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Treaty and who had specialized in French. When the family was living in Paris Kazuo was sent by his parents to an English school in the Rue de Courcelles run by a Mr Harvey. Although he was ‘chastised by the sons of a Chinese (Kuomintang) diplomat for some puerile nationalistic remarks on my part about the, then current, invasion of Shanghai by Japanese forces, on the whole I had a good time, made friends and learned not only the English language but also the British outlook through studying history, geography and literature.’1 On his family’s return to Tokyo Kazuo went first to a Japanese elementary school where the ‘The general view of Britain was that of “a has-been power”. An old mangy lion, with decayed fangs.’ When he reported this to his father he was told that this was wrong and he should ‘never underestimate a mettlesome nation like the British’. He went on to the Peers’ School (Gakushuin). There ‘peer pressure and teachers’ face caused [him] to superimpose a Japanese accent on my King’s English’. In 1944 he was accepted by the Imperial Japanese Navy as a reserve officer candidate. In the Japanese navy he was struck by the deep influence of the Royal Navy. He did his basic training at the erstwhile Port Arthur on the Kwantung Peninsula. Just before the end of the course Kazuo went down with pneumonia. After a stint at Yokosuka he was posted to Kure where because of his knowledge of English he was assigned to intelligence duties and ‘put to work on intercepting voice radio traffic of the US radar picket destroyer screen network surrounding Okinawa’. At Kure he was close to Hiroshima. He saw the flash caused by the atomic bomb and never forgot the horrific sufferings of those affected by the bomb. Kazuo’s parents died before the war had ended. He managed to get accepted by Tokyo university, where he studied law and political science, which were the usual subjects required for top civil service jobs. He graduated in 1949 and ’thanks to [his] grounding in English’ passed the examinations, which were revived in 1948, to join the Japanese diplomatic service to be re-established after The Peace Treaty came into force in 1952. At the training school, where he was taught by English, Welsh and American teachers, the emphasis was on English composition and conversation. He was then sent to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Medford in Massachusetts graduating from there in 1951. Kazuo found his mastery of English invaluable in the international negotiations in which he was engaged during much of his working life. When asked which two books he would take if he were exiled on a desert island he declared that he would choose the Manyo¯shu¯ and Shakespeare’s plays. He had an insatiable curiosity, especially about the English language, and took delight in using unusual turns of phrase and idioms, which 578

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sometimes puzzled his Japanese subordinates who were less well versed in the intricacies of English. He greatly enjoyed double entendres and at once spotted any sexual innuendo. He had a good, rather English, sense of humour. CAREER

Like all young diplomats he began his career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimusho) performing the inevitably rather humdrum tasks which fall to new recruits. There he made the acquaintance of a number of young British diplomats such as Hugh Cortazzi and John Whitehead with whom he kept in touch during their long diplomatic careers. He admitted in an essay entitled ‘The great, the good and the tyro’2 : ‘In my youth I was a snotty know-it-all, subdued only when recognizing (very infrequently) superior intellect, talent or character in others. I suspect quite a few of us are like that, including “the great and the good” of English life.’ Arrogant he may have been when he was a young new entrant, but he was always ready for a good and friendly argument. In addition to stints at headquarters in Tokyo, Kazuo served in Tehran, Washington and Moscow, where he filled the number two position as minister. 1974 he was posted as consul-general in Atlanta and then in 1976 to West Berlin. In 1978 he became director-general in charge of the Middle Eastern and African bureau in the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo. His first ambassadorial post from 1980 to 1982 was as Japanese ambassador to Sri Lanka. He then became head of the Japanese delegation in Geneva to the international organizations based there. One of these was the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), the predecessor organization of the WTO (World Trade Organization). He served as chairman of its council in 1984– 85 and as chairman of the GATT contracting parties from 1985 to 1986. He was thus closely involved in the negotiations leading up to the Uruguay Round. While in Geneva, doubting whether he would ever be posted to London as he had hoped he and his wife spent a long holiday travelling round Britain. Fortunately for him and for Britain he fulfilled his ambition and was posted to London in 1988. While serving in London he travelled widely and in a series of speeches up and down the country he worked hard, in his impeccable English, to explain Japanese views and developments. He became widely respected by British politicians, civil servants and businessmen, and was one of the most active members of the diplomatic corps in London. As ambassador of a major country with which Britain sought to develop increasingly friendly relations he was much sought after. As soon as his intelligence, charm and exceptional knowledge of the 579

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English language became generally known doors at the highest level became open to him. He was not intimidated by any of the leading personalities he met (including Margaret Thatcher). He could and did hold his own in every forum. From his arrival he gave unstinting support to the efforts which were then being made on the British side to organize what would be an unprecedented and wide-ranging Japan Festival in Britain in 1991 to mark the centenary of the founding of the Japan Society in London.3 He and his wife Keiko, whom he had married in 1954, worked strenuously for reconciliation between British and Japanese ex-servicemen and supported activities to help handicapped people. As ambassador in London he was ‘pursued… by British media wanting to know my reaction to the suffering of former British POWs or of comfort women’. He admitted to having had ‘occasional nightmares, coupled with the knowledge of dark deeds over the war years by my own countrymen in the zones of conflict’. But he had also witnessed the sufferings caused by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. Keiko provided unstinting support throughout his career. Unlike some ambassadors’ wives she never became stuffy and arrogant. She was relieved when his diplomatic career ended and she could live again in the small house that they had bought in the suburbs of Tokyo. In the Japanese Embassy he was a hard taskmaster, expecting his subordinates to match his own output and his understanding of language. But he was especially considerate towards British staff who worked for him and who felt great affection for him. LATER CAREER

After his retirement from the diplomatic service, Chiba was a frequent visitor to London and became an adviser to a number of British and Japanese companies, including the Foreign and Colonial Pacific Investment Trust. His incisive comments gave a valuable insight into the Japanese economic and political scene. He was also active in various aspects of Anglo-Japanese relations, especially in the area of cultural and educational exchanges. He gave his personal support to the 2001 Japan celebrations and accompanied the Japanese Crown Prince who was joint patron with the Prince of Wales, as they had been of the 1991 Festival. Kazuo accompanied them on their visit to the Japan Matsuri in Hyde Park.4 He also visited other Japan-related events in England and was particularly impressed by the efforts to bring Japanese culture to the attention of local people (at the grass-roots as it was termed). 580

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Appropriately he was chosen to accompany the Emperor on his state visit to Britain in 1998, not least to help in dealing with the media and continuing anti-Japanese feeling resulting from ill-treatment of prisoners of war in the Far East. For his own account of the Imperial Visit to Britain see ‘The human dimension of the Japanese Imperial state visit’.5 On this occasion, as a member of the suite, he was made an honorary KCMG. PLEASE! LET ME FINISH…

Kazuo was persuaded by the late George Bull to contribute a series of essays to the journal Insight Japan, published in London, between 1995 and 2003. These were collected and published by Japan Echo in Tokyo in 2005 under the title Please! Let me finish… These essays cover a wide range of topics and personal reminiscences and demonstrate not only his broad understanding of diplomatic issues but also of Japanese character. In his essay,6 which gave the collection its title, he noted that Japanese views sometimes got overlooked in international forums because they were not presented sufficiently forcefully or reiterated enough: As chairman of the GATT… Council, I was asked by the Secretariat to approve the membership of a small working group [WG] to be created. To my surprise it did not contain Japan, which as a very major trading nation had a substantial interest in the subject matter of the WG, but included a small Western Hemisphere nation without any apparent connection to it. In response to my query, the official told me that whereas Japan had spoken on the matter once briefly, the other country’s Representative had intervened repeatedly and at length, revealing his personal academic interest in the substance. Wielding the Chair’s prerogative, I put Japan on the list while retaining the other country, and instructed our man on the WG to talk a little bit more than usual in order to ‘raise the profile’, as the jargon went, of our delegation. In retrospect, perhaps I should have told him to interrupt the other man, and would not have been surprised if he put on a pained expression and transmitted an unspoken message to me that it went against his grain!

Chiba sometimes found it difficult to adopt a ‘low posture’ in discussions with his friends, but in his essay ‘Appreciating Japan’s low posture stance’7 he justified it in the following terms: Importantly, low posture today has one significant aspect: it is the embodiment of Japan’s no-aggressive, peace-loving and benign international attitudes. It is not merely an expedient for adapting to bad times, but reflects the deep roots of our national character, which, as is well-known, puts the utmost importance on consensus building. 581

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This means that instead of confrontation and precipitate forcing of events, patient efforts for incremental improvements and a search for harmony are the preferred means to achieve results.

Within Japan he lectured on international affairs and tried to instil greater understanding among young Japanese of the world outside Japan. In his essay ‘Polishing my uncut diamond students’8 he discovered quickly that the past education of the students to whom he was asked to lecture and who ‘stared blankly’: … had not given them even the rudiments of history or current affairs to understand what I tried to tell them. To test this, I asked how many had heard of Admiral Togo… Not one had. As a follow-up I asked if they had read at least part of the text of our Constitution. Only a few, all of them girls, said that they had briefly, at middle school.

As his courses of lectures proceeded he found that the ‘nappers (almost invariably men) [were] not snoring loudly any more’. He found them ‘largely free from hubris’ and hoped that they would develop ‘a healthy foundation of realism’ Kazuo was an internationalist by conviction and as a result of his diplomatic experience but he recognized that ‘in the utmost recesses of the Japanese psyche there is a strong collective atavistic yearning for a supposed idyllic life of isolation in our islands. We yearn to be untroubled by outsiders, free from unwelcome jolts…’ But it was ‘glaringly evident that at this stage of human development…isolation is no more practicable for Japan’.9 Kazuo thought deeply about all the international issues with which he was involved including the Middle East and Africa (an area for which he was at one time in his career director general in the Gaimusho). On relations with China he felt that further efforts were needed to see if both nationalisms could peacefully coexist.10 CONCLUSION

Chiba was unusually frank and outspoken for a Japanese diplomat. He was a tough negotiator and always argued his corner with vigour and logic. Although he was courteous in discussion, he did not suffer fools gladly. For some Japanese he was probably too outspoken, and his contempt for Japanese politicians may sometimes have shown. Perhaps this was why he was never appointed vice-minister (the equivalent of permanent secretary) or ambassador to the United States. This was fortunate for Britain as, instead, London became the pinnacle of his career. 582

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ENDNOTES 1

2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Kazuo Chiba Please! Just let me finish…, a posthumous collection of writings published by Japan Echo Inc. Tokyo, 2005. Hereafter ‘Please!’. This quotation comes from an essay entitled ‘Growing up with the English Language.’ P.51 of Please! I shall never forget the occasion shortly after his arrival as ambassador when I took Martin Campbell White to see my old friend in the Japanese Embassy in London to explain our plans. Kazuo listened courteously but put me in my place after my perhaps unduly enthusiastic speech by saying that next time he would do the talking! For comments by Kazuo on the 1991 and 2001 Festivals see also ‘The case for celebrating friendship between nations’, pp. 146–149 of Please! See “The Princes and the crowds’, pp. 150–154 of Please! Pp. 72–78 of Please! Pp. 20–25 of Please! Pp. 45–50 of Please! Pp. 160–164 of Please! Page 64 of Please! Page 164 of Please!

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Young Japanese Diplomats Sent to Study at British Universities SADAAKI NUMATA

INTRODUCTION

Each country has its own system of training its diplomats in linguistic and other skills required for their career. After it faced the stark challenge of communicating effectively in the cut and thrust of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Japanese foreign ministry started sending its young recruits to universities in Britain, the United States, Germany, France and other countries, in limited numbers up until the beginning of the Pacific War. When the foreign ministry was resurrected after the hiatus of the war and the Allied occupation, the policy became established and has continued on an expanded basis to this day. The training scheme has been closely linked to the ‘career’ system for Japanese diplomats. The ‘career diplomats’ were recruited through the higher diplomatic service examination, which was in place between 1894 and 1948.1 This was a separate examination from the higher civil service examination for domestic ministries, and had a foreign language proficiency test. This examination was continued until 2001, when it was merged with the civil service examination to broaden the basis of recruitment. Those who passed the examination were groomed as all-round generalists who would become ambassadors and senior officials in the ministry. In this portrait, they are called ‘A Track’ officers. There were also separate examinations to recruit consular officers or specialists in a variety of foreign languages or particular fields of expertise, who were called ‘B Track’ officers. This account focuses primarily on A Track officers up until the late 1970s, when the scheme was expanded to B Track staff.

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MUTSU HIROKICHI3

Mutsu Hirokichi

The first Japanese ‘career diplomat’ who had an Oxbridge education was Mutsu Hirokichi, son of the legendary foreign minister Count Mutsu Munemitsu, who concluded the revised AngloJapanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation of 1894 and was the lead Japanese negotiator for the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). As recounted by his son, Yonosuke Ian Mutsu,1 Hirokichi was sent by his father to England and arrived at Cambridge at the age of twenty-four in April 1888, having spent the previous year for intensive study of English at University College, London, and under private tuition. He stayed at the home of the Passinghams, whose daughter Ethel (Japanese name Iso) he would marry in Japan in 1905. He studied law at Trinity College, Cambridge, then moved to London where he passed the examinations in the Inner Temple, and returned to Japan in 1894, passed the higher diplomatic service examination in 1895 (according to the foreign ministry tradition of identifying the cohorts of recruits by the year in which they passed the examination, he belonged to the ‘class of 1895’) and became a diplomat in 1895. Upon his father’s death in 1897, he became a count. He served in Peking, San Francisco and London, where he was closely involved in preparing and staging the Japan-British Exhibition in 1910. Although he was appointed as minister to Belgium in 1914, he took early retirement due to ill health and devoted the rest of his life to philanthropy and education until his death in November 1942. Yano Makoto went to Oxford in 1912 after passing the higher civil service examination and joining the Tokyo metropolitan government. He entered the foreign ministry after passing the higher diplomatic service examination in 1913. He later served as minister to Spain. 585

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PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE3

Saionji Kinmochi

Makino Nobuaki

The Paris Peace Conference was held from January to June 1919 to set the peace terms following the end of the First World War. The head of the Japanese delegation was Marquess (elevated to Prince in 1920) Saionji Kinmochi, former prime minister and genro (senior statesman). Its sixty members included Baron (elevated to Viscount in 1921 and to Count in 1925) Makino Nobuaki, former foreign minister, Chinda Sutemi2 (ambassador to Britain), Matsui Keishiro3 (ambassador to to France) and Iju¯in Hikokichi (ambassador to Italy) as plenipotentiary ambassadors. Although Japan participated in the conference as one of the five major powers with France, Britain, Italy and the United States, in practice the ‘Big Four’ leaders were the dominant figures at the conference. Japan’s basic stance was that it would not interfere with European affairs and expected the other four powers not to meddle in Far Eastern affairs. When President Woodrow Wilson of the United States announced his Fourteen Points as the basis of peace, Japan felt at a loss about how to respond and feared that the idea of the League of Nations might impose some constraint on its national sovereignty. It chose not to swim against the tide of the conference and concentrated its efforts on issues of direct interest to Japan. Japan proposed unsuccessfully the inclusion of a ‘racial equality clause’4 in the Covenant of the League of Nations on 13 February as an amendment to Article 21. By so doing it sought to resolve the problems arising from the exclusionary legislation and practices against Japanese immigrants notably in the United States, Australia and Canada during the preceding decades. Among the members of the Japanese delegation were some young and spirited diplomats who would go on to play leading roles in the foreign ministry, such as Arita Hachiro¯ (class of 1909, foreign minister 1936–1940), Saito¯ Hiroshi (class of 1910, ambassador to the United States 1934–1939), Shigemitsu Mamoru (class of 1911, for586

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eign minister 1943–1945 and 1954–1956), and Horiuchi Kensuke (class of 1911, vice-minister 1936–1938, ambassador to the United States 1938–1940).

Arita Hachiro ¯

Shigemitsu Mamoru

Saito ¯ Hiroshi

Horiuchi Kensuke

They felt acutely that the Japanese delegation had been ill-prepared and poorly staffed for this major international conference. Horiuchi noted in his memoirs of the conference that, except on issues of high priority to Japan, the delegation had no choice but to practise the Japanese virtue of silence. They felt frustrated that the presentations of the Japanese delegates compared poorly with the eloquent performance, for example, of Wellington Koo of China. While in Paris, the four got together and drafted proposals for the reform of the Foreign Ministry. They made three main points; (1) ‘Open Door Policy (to attract able outside talents to the ministry)’, (2) ‘Training of officers’ and (3) ‘Institutional expansion and enhancement’. When the recommendations were presented to Marquis Saionji and Baron Makino, they both endorsed it fully, with Baron Makino deploring the lack of language proficiency of the delegation members. Upon their return to Japan, the four young officers and their sympathizers called for the establishment of a committee within the ministry to formulate and execute a reform programme. The drafting of the reform programme was undertaken by the study committee for 587

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the institutional reform of the foreign ministry established in October 1919 under the chairmanship of vice-minister Uehara Masanao, with the participation of senior officials as well as younger officers including Arita and Saito¯ . The deliberations by the committee on the training of officers resulted in 1921 in the sending of three attachés to Switzerland to work at the embassy in Berne for the first six months and then to study at Swiss universities for the following six months. In July 1922, under a new ministerial ordinance, a system was established to post a select group of young recruits abroad as ‘overseas researchers’ to ‘study language and other matters required of diplomats’. YOUNG DIPLOMATS SENT TO BRITISH UNIVERSITIES 1922–1937

Under the new scheme, out of the class of 1921, three were sent to Britain, two to France and one to Germany. They were given three years to study at universities in these countries, so that they would have enough time to master the languages. The first ‘overseas researchers’ sent to Britain were Iguchi Sadao, Tajiri Akiyoshi and Ota Tomotsune.

Iguchi Sadao

Iguchi Sadao, according to his son Iguchi Takeo, spent his first year staying with an English family to brush up his English, and then spent the following two years at Oxford.4 Towards the end of his tour in Britain, he took a trip to the industrial areas in the north of England and submitted a report on the trip in English to the foreign ministry. He went on to become vice-minister in 1951–1952, ambassador to Canada in 1952–1954, ambassador to the United States in 1954–1956, and ambassador to the Republic of China in 1959–1963. According to his memoirs,5 Tajiri Akiyoshi avoided London where there was a Japanese community and went to Oxford, Leeds, Edinburgh and then spent some time in Aberystwyth in Wales. He studied eclectically English literature, constitutional law, diplomatic history, and China. He travelled in Europe twice and took part one winter in a university-related settlement movement in the East End of London. 588

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Kita Nagao, class of 1922, and later consul general in Tsingtao, and Inoue Taku, class of 1923, followed Iguchi as ‘overseas researchers’ at Oxford.

Asakai Ko¯ ichiro¯

Asakai Ko¯ichiro¯, class of 1928, according to his memoirs,5 chose to go to Edinburgh University as an ‘overseas researcher’ between 1929 and 1932 because there were only one or two other Japanese there, He once took part in a debate on the Manchurian Incident, where he spoke according to the official Japanese government line, but was hugely impressed by the eloquence of an ethnic Chinese from the West Indies who said, ‘China has right! Japan has might! Ladies and gentlemen. Right or Might! Which do you support?’ He reopened the Japanese embassy in London as chargé d’affaires in 1952 staying until 1954.6 He became vice-minister in 1960–1962 and ambassador to the United States in 1963–1967. Kakitsubo Masayoshi, class of 1931, studied at Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1932–1935, and served as ambassador to Switzerland in 1967–1969. Published biographical data, foreign ministry and Cambridge and Oxford Society, Tokyo, records7 indicate that, in addition to these ‘overseas researchers’, some of the ‘attachés’ assigned to the embassy in London also did some studies at British universities. Those who spent some time at Oxford were Takeuchi Ryu¯ji, class of 1927, ambassador to West Germany, vice-minister 1960–1963 and then ambassador to the United States in 1963–1967, Yamada Hisanari, class of 1928, vice-minister 1961–1964, and, after becoming a member of parliament, minister of the environment 1977–1979, Shimazu Hisamasa, class of 1929, who became ambassador to Canada 1964–1966, and Fukuda Tokuyasu, class of 1935 who, after becoming a member of parliament, was minister of posts and telecommunications in 1976. Uryu¯ Matao, class of 1938, who became ambassador to Ethiopia 1970–1973, was at Wadham College, Oxford in 1940–1941. Shirahata Tomoyuki, class of 1938, was at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1938–1939. Akatani Genichi grew up abroad and went to Hertford College, Oxford, in 1936–1939; he joined the foreign minis589

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try in 1945. He served as under-secretary general of the UN and ambassador to Chile. Yukawa Morio, class of 1933, studied at Edinburgh University and became ambassador to Britain in 1968–19727. He was responsible for the visit of His Majesty The Showa Emperor to Britain in October 1971, and served as Grand Master of Ceremonies at the Imperial Household Agency in 1973–1979.

Kato¯ Tadao

The memoirs of Kato¯ Tadao, class of 1938, entitled ‘Sent to Britain Three Times’,8 give us a good idea of what life was like for a young Japanese diplomat at Cambridge University as the Second World War was breaking out. Although he had passed the higher diplomatic service examination, he had not yet graduated from the University of Tokyo and could have been subject to conscription. However, thanks to the arrangement worked out between the foreign ministry and the Japanese military in the spring of 1937, deferment of conscription was granted to those young foreign ministry recruits who had been selected to study abroad as ‘overseas researchers’. This enabled Kato¯ to arrive at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in the spring of 1939. Britain entered war with Germany on 3 September that year. With the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941, just as the Michaelmas term in his third year ended, he had to cut short his studies at Cambridge and was confined in London with other Japanese staff of the embassy for seven months until he boarded from Liverpool the repatriation ship El Nil, provided by the British government, to convey him and his colleagues to Lourenço Marques (today’s Maputo, capital of Mozambique), where he boarded the Tatsuta maru, provided by the Japanese government, to bring them back to Japan. It had sailed from Japan carrying Sir Robert Craigie, the British ambassador to Japan and his staff. Having passed the diplomatic service examination in Japan, he would have qualified to be a postgraduate student, but he chose to enroll as an undergraduate at Emmanuel College so that he could make more British friends. He spent his first year in digs and, in his second 590

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year, was given a room in college with a British Quaker room-mate. Given the wartime scarcity of food, the dinner at the college dining hall, compulsory at least four times a week, almost always consisted of mutton, his pet aversion. He bought pound cakes, which he shared with his British room-mate, to make up for the culinary deficiency. In the winter of 1940, after the disastrous British and French withdrawal from Dunkirk, a debate was held at Emmanuel College on whether conscientious objectors should be allowed to opt out of military service. Kato¯ took part in the debate and argued in defence of his roommate, who was a conscientious objector, that the right of conscientious objectors to opt out could be seen as a valuable proof of Britain’s commitment to defend freedom, which was what the war was about. For his Tripos Part I, he chose European medieval history, British constitutional history and economic history. He found the weekly supervisions quite tough, with the heavy reading assignments and also the essay writing that took him two or three times longer than his fellow British undergraduates. One lesson that he learned from his tutor H.S. Offler was that historians should not impose particular interpretations of history on their readers. The purpose of studying history was to nurture scepticism. For his Tripos Part II, he shifted to economics and enjoyed listening to the lectures of Joan Robinson on economics as well as those of Harold Laski on politics. Despite the challenges of the time, he found himself at ease and enjoyed Cambridge. The main reason for this was his prowess in soccer. In the 1940–1941 season, he was selected to be one of the eleven Blues of the Cambridge Soccer team. Apparently, he was at that time the third Japanese to be selected as a Cambridge Blue, following a coxswain in rowing and a tennis player. He also enjoyed pub-crawling and going to the Cambridge Union debates where, in the midst of the Sino-Japanese War, they debated whether to keep open the Burma Road. He was also invited to be a guest member of the Conservative Club. Kato¯ returned London as first secretary in 1953–1956, and then served as ambassador to Britain from 1975 to 1979 through what could be called a crisis period for British democracy under the Labour government. Sunobe Ryo¯ zo¯ , class of 1940, was the last ‘overseas researcher’ sent to Britain before the war. He first went to Oxford but then transferred to the United States. He became ambassador to the Republic of Korea in 1977–1981 and vice-minister from 1981–1983. YOUNG DIPLOMATS SENT TO BRITISH UNIVERSITIES POSTSECOND WORLD WAR9

The practice of sending the new recruits to foreign universities including British universities was resumed with the class of 1950. Before 591

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that, Miyazawa Yasushi, who later became ambassador to Germany, went to study at London University on a British Council scholarship. Fukada Hiromu, class of 1950, was the first to be sent to Oxford in the post-war years. He spent three years at Balliol College, Oxford. He served as ambassador to Australia in 1990–1992.

Okazaki Hisahiko

Okazaki Hisahiko, class of 1951, earned his B.A. in economics at Cambridge, where he studied from 1952 to 1955. In his memoirs ‘A Half-Century on the Frontline of International Affairs’,9 he wrote that in those days, under tight fiscal constraints, the ministry was only able to select, on the basis of performance in the higher diplomatic service examination, three or four recruits out of ten a year to study abroad for three years, while the rest were given six months to study. Among those who took English as their foreign language in the examination, the one who ranked first was sent to Oxford and the second was sent to Harvard. Okazaki ranked third and was sent to Cambridge. At Emmanuel College, he read economics under Maurice Dobb and obtained his B.A. He was the first Japanese student at Cambridge since the end of the war. There was anti-Japanese sentiment in Cambridge because of the gruelling experience of the two battalions of the Cambridge Regiment as POWs of the Japanese Imperial Army on the Burma front. However, Okazaki felt at ease at Cambridge because he was treated as a ‘gentleman’. He avidly read books on British history, which helped him when he rewrote Japan’s modern political and diplomatic history in retirement after serving as ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Thailand. He wrote about Mutsu Munemitsu, a cousin of his grandfather, in ‘Mutsu Munemitsu and His Age’. Sawai Teruyuki, also class of 1951, studied at Oriel College, Oxford in 1952–1955 and later became ambassador to Norway. Iguchi Takeo, class of 1952, and son of the aforementioned Iguchi Sadao who had been at Oxford thirty years earlier, studied at St. John’s College, Oxford, and later became ambassador to New Zealand. Ukawa Hideyuki, class of 1953, read P.P.E. at University College, Oxford and later became ambassador to Brazil. 592

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Owada Hisashi

Owada Hisashi, class of 1954, was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he earned his LL.B. in 1959. Although he was sent there initially for three years, because of his brilliant academic achievement in international law, the foreign ministry granted a one-year extension upon the recommendation of his tutor. He went on to become vice-minister and then permanent representative to the U.N. Upon retirement from the foreign ministry, he joined the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where he was elected president from 2009 to 2012 as the first Japanese judge to hold that post, and continues to serve there. In June 2015, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Law by Cambridge University. From the mid-1950s to the late 1970s, there was a steady pattern of four, sometimes five, young recruits being sent to British universities each year, roughly evenly divided between Oxford and Cambridge, but also Edinburgh in a couple of cases. They were given two years to study. In addition, prospective Russian experts spent one year at the Army School in Beaconsfield, to be followed by another year at London University before they were sent to Moscow. In some years, future Arabic experts studied at SOAS before they were sent to the Middle East. By this time, there was a steady stream of Oxonians and Cantabridgians from the Japanese foreign ministry every year. They include five former vice-ministers (Owada Hisashi, Saito¯ Kunihiko, class of 1957, Cambridge, Hayashi Sadayuki, class of 1959, St. John’s College, Oxford, Kawashima Yutaka, class of 1963, Trinity College, Cambridge, and Takeuchi Yukio, class of 1966, Worcester College, Oxford), one former ambassador to the United States (Saito¯), two former ambassadors to the United Kingdom (Hayashi Sadayuki and Orita Masaki, class of 1964, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford), one former ambassador to France (Ogura Kazuo, class of 1962, Cambridge), and two former ambassadors to China (Sato¯ Yoshiyasu, class of 1957, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, and Nishimiya Shinichi, class of 1975, University College, Oxford, although he sadly passed away before assuming his post.) 593

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While studying at British universities they held diplomatic passports as ‘attachés’ of the embassy. They were not obliged to work for a university degree, but were encouraged to improve their English, make friends with the British and students from other parts of the world, and absorb what they could in anticipation of their future assignments abroad. At Oxford, some opted to read P.P.E. (philosophy, politics and economics, also known as Modern Greats) as undergraduates. Some others did the special diploma in social studies. Yet others did the foreign service programme. At Cambridge, some did the economics Tripos as undergraduates, while others read law and other postgraduate courses. In my class of 1965, two including myself went to Oxford and two went to Cambridge. At University College, Oxford, I chose to do P.P.E. as an undergraduate, which meant struggling with two tutorials a week for two years. Although I had a good command of English, having spent one year at an American prep school (Choate) as an American Field Service exchange student, I found the tutorials and the essay writing quite a challenge, especially in general philosophy, where I had to grapple with linguistic intricacies. At one point, I said to my philosophy tutor, Rom Harré, ‘I am already a professional diplomat. Why do I have to keep fiddling with abstract philosophical language?’ I still remember his answer. He said, ‘Mr Numata, just think of this as an exercise in critical methodology, in using your grey cells. I’m sure you will find it useful later in your career.’ He was right. Years later, I realized that these tutorials taught me a lot about critical thinking, which we tend to lack in the conventional Japanese education system. Also, the discipline that I learned in expressing myself in English with clarity and precision helped me later when I had to act as the interpreter for our prime ministers and also when I had to face the international media as official spokesman. Starting from the class of 1977, the foreign ministry expanded the scheme to send its young recruits to British universities to Track B officers as well, which also meant that they were sent not only to Oxford and Cambridge but also to other universities. By this time, it was often the case that there were one or two female officers sent to British universities.

H.I.H. The Crown Princess 594

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Owada Masako, class of 1986, and the daughter of Owada Hisashi, went to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1988–1990 to read for an MPhil in international relations. She had graduated magna cum laude with a degree in economics from Harvard and had attended the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Law before passing the diplomatic service examination. In 1993, she married H.I.H. The Crown Prince, who was at Merton College, Oxford from 1983 to 1986, and became H.I.H. The Crown Princess.

Oku Katsuhiko

Like Kato¯ Tadao, who distinguished himself at Cambridge by being the first Japanese Blue in soccer in 1940–1941, Oku Katsuhiko, class of 1980, is remembered for his prowess in rugby, which he had played since his Waseda University days. While at Hertford College, Oxford, he became the first Japanese national to play for the Blues XV. He was also a long-standing member of the Japan RFU International Committee and worked actively to support exchange between Japan and rugby unions of countries throughout the world. He was posted to the Japanese Embassy in London as counsellor in 2001. While on temporary assignment to Iraq to help the reconstruction work there, on the 29 November 2003, he was fatally shot in the southern area when his car was ambushed by unknown assailants. He was posthumously promoted to ambassador. In his memory, the Oku Memorial Trophy is contested each year by London Japanese RFC (of which ambassador Oku (Katsu to his friends) was a founder); Kew Occasionals RFC, a London based team of mostly Oxbridge graduates; Hertford College and Vincent’s Club.10 From the 1980s to the first decade of the 2000s, six to seven young officers were sent every year for studies at Oxford, Cambridge and other British universities, although from 1987 to 1992 the number was down to five. There has been a discernible trend at both Oxford and Cambridge for more young Japanese diplomats to do postgraduate degrees, such as the special diploma in social studies, MPhil in international relations and Japanese Studies at Oxford and diploma in law, LLM and MPhil in international relations or oriental studies at Cambridge. In recent years, very few, if any, seem to have opted to

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do undergraduate work such as P.P.E. at Oxford or S.P.S. (Social and Political Sciences, which seemed to be preferred to economics in the 1990s) at Cambridge. The graduate degrees that can be obtained in one year apparently have more appeal than B.A. or M.A. Another trend has been for young diplomats to be sent to a much wider variety of universities, such as LSE, SOAS, King’s College London, University College London, Warwick, Sussex, Durham, St. Andrews, Glasgow, Bradford and Oxford Brookes than in the past. There have also been a number of cases where they have obtained two graduate degrees, sometimes at two universities, for example, diploma in Law and LLM at Cambridge or MPhil at Oxford and MA at Sussex. PERSONAL ASSESSMENT

In my class of 1965, twenty-three new recruits were sent to foreign universities; six to the Unites States, four to Britain, six to France, two to Germany, two to Russia via Britain and the United States, two to Taiwan and one to Spain. Although the breakdown of the countries to which the young officers have been sent has varied with changing times, those sent to American universities have been more numerous than those sent to British universities. The practice of sending them to foreign universities not just for language study but also for wider studies has not only provided an attraction for aspiring diplomats but has also proved to be a valuable means of cross-cultural training. I fondly recall my days at Oxford, where, although there were the pressures of the tutorial, I was free to do what I wanted. I appreciated in particular the intellectual and cultural stimulus in the highly cosmopolitan atmosphere. I have also enjoyed my association with Oxonians and Cantabridgians not only in London but also in my other overseas postings such as Canberra, Islamabad and Ottawa. The fact that the foreign ministry has kept this practice of sending four to five young diplomats to British universities every year since the late 1950s means that there are about 300 to 400 people like me with similar memories and connections. This constitutes a valuable asset not only for Japan-Britain relations but also Japan’s relations with many other parts of the world. GENERAL SOURCES 1.

Bunkan Koutoushiken Goukakusha Ichiran (Bunkan Koutoushiken Gaikouka) (List of candidates who passed the higher diplomatic service examination) http://homepage1.nifty.com/kitabatake/ rekishi25.2.html 2. Gaimusho Hyakunenshi Hensan Iinkai, Gaimusho no Hyakunen Joukan (100 Years of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Volume I), Hara Shobo, 1969, pp. 717–757.

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3.

Ms Atsuta Miruko of the ministry’s diplomatic archives gave me valuable assistance as did Shimada Kenji, assistant director, personnel division, minister’s secretariat of the Foreign Ministry 4. Some data are drawn from the Second Minutes book of the Cambridge & Oxford Society, Tokyo, and Nihon Kingendai Jinbutsu Rireki Jiten (Biographical Encyclopedia of Modern and Contemporary Personalities in Japan), edited by Ikuhiko Hata, Tokyo University Press, 2002 ENDNOTES 1

2

3 4

5

See the Mutsu family by Ian Mutsu in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume II, ed. Ian Nish, Japan Library, 1997. See biographical portrait by Ian Nish in Japanese Envoys in Britain 1862– 1964, ed. Ian Nish, Global Oriental, 2007. Ibid. It read ‘Equality of nations being a basic principle of the League of Nations, the High Contracting Parties agree to accord as soon as possible to all alien nationals of states, members of the League, equal and just treatment in every respect making no distinction, either in law or in fact, on account of their race or nationality.’ Because he knew that Britain was critical to the decision, President Wilson, as conference chairman, ruled that a unanimous vote was required. The Australians had lobbied the British to defend Australia’s White Australia policy. On 11 April 1919 the commission on the League of Nations held a final session and the proposal received a majority of votes, but Great Britain and Australia opposed it. At the plenary on 28 April, when the Covenant was finally adopted, Baron Makino, regretting that the Japanese proposal had not been included, put on record his statement that Japan would continue its efforts toward the adoption of its proposal in the League of Nations. Japan also made its territorial claims with respect to former German colonies, namely Shantung (including Kiaochow) and the Pacific islands north of the Equator (the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, the Mariana Islands, and the Carolines). The claim on Shantung was opposed by the Chinese delegation led by Lou Tseng-Tsiang, assisted by Wellington Koo. Bent on using the conference as a means of restoring their national prestige, the Chinese delegates, especially Wellington Koo, mounted a vigorous campaign to win the sympathy of the United States and other powers, posing a serious obstacle to the endorsement of the Japanese claim. Despite American support and the ostensible spirit of self-determination, the Western powers refused China’s claims, transferring the German concessions to Japan instead. http://www.oku-inoue-fund.com/oku/, http://www.hertford.ox.ac.uk/ news/hertford-rugby-and-the-oku-memorial-trophy.

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sBUSINESS, TRADE AND BANKING s 53

Saba Sho¯ichi (1919–2012): Japanese Industrialist and Friend of Britain HUGH CORTAZZI

INTRODUCTION

Saba Sho¯ichi was one of the pioneers of post-war Japanese manufacturing. From May 1972 to July 1987 he was managing director, president and then chairman of the Toshiba Corporation. Following the ‘COCOM affair’ in 1987 when an affiliate of Toshiba was revealed to have sold submarine components to the Soviet Union, Saba resigned his executive position and became adviser to the board at Toshiba, where in view of his wide experience and international contacts he continued to exert considerable 599

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influence both inside and outside the company. The consensus of opinion of colleagues in Japanese industry was that Saba’s voluntary resignation during the COCOM scandal was a characteristically honourable gesture on his part, not an obligatory response to Toshiba’s involvement. In Britain, Saba’s reputation as a quietly charming unofficial ambassador for Japanese industry, led the chairman of a major British company to describe him as representing ‘the best of Japanese management’. Saba developed friendly relations with many senior British industrialists, ministers and leading figures in the arts. CAREER

Saba was born in Tokyo in 1919. He was the son and grandson of Presbyterian Ministers (his father had been pastor of the Omori Presbyterian church) and remained a practising Christian until his death in 2012. As a boy one of his hobbies was making models using mechano pieces and finding ways of using the models he had made. He was good at mathematics and science. His ability in these subjects provided a sound basis for his university studies. He was admitted to Tokyo Imperial University where, as he was fascinated by the nature of electricity, he chose to study electrical engineering, which was far less developed as a subject at that time than it is today. In July and August 1941 he did a two-month apprenticeship at the government electro-technical laboratory where he observed the ionosphere by utilizing the electro-magnetic pulse. In September that year the Japanese ministry of education sent groups of students to parts of China and Taiwan to observe the sonar eclipse taking place that summer. While in Taiwan he was summoned back to Tokyo by a letter, which told him that the university year was being shortened and that students in his year would graduate in December 1941 instead of March 1942. He had to submit quickly his graduating thesis, which was on the behaviour of the arc generated by switching. He thus received his bachelor degree in 1941. Following his graduation he joined Toshiba, where one of his uncles had worked, having been recommended to the company by his professor. He was assigned to the high voltage laboratory at the Shibaura branch of the company, which specialized in the manufacture of heavy electrical apparatus. But in February 1942 after little more than a month with Toshiba he was called up to join the Japanese Army Air Force. In the army he was employed in training cadets in wireless communication. He first had to master the subject himself and studied hard to this end. In due course he wrote a textbook for army cadets 600

¯ ICHI (1919–2012) SABA SHO

as there were no good textbooks then available. Fortunately he had access to a good library, which included books in English and other foreign languages. He spent much time in this library reading and studying foreign languages especially English in which he became proficient. When the war ended he returned to Toshiba, but the company’s plants had suffered extensive damage and at first there was nothing for them to manufacture. At the high voltage laboratory, where he was working and which was next to the sea wall, it was decided to use the electricity, which was available to them, to make salt from sea water. They did this by putting sea water into wood containers and putting carbon electrodes into the water. The salt they made was supplied to the factory managers who probably passed it on to employees or bartered it for other materials. As he had so little to do at this period Saba spent a lot of time reading and bought many English paperbacks discarded by the US army of occupation. He also had access to a library, opened by the occupation forces to Japanese, where he could consult technical magazines. He came across a magazine entitled Modern Plastics and learnt about ‘pre-heating of the tablet’ for plastic moulding involving the application of dielectric heating using a high frequency field. He wondered whether this process could be used in the vacuum tubes in Toshiba’s laboratory. Applying his knowledge of wireless engineering he built an oscillator with the remaining vacuum tubes and began experiments in dielectric heating. This paved the way in due course for Toshiba to produce microwave ovens. In these early post-war years he and his colleagues had to improvise as best they could with materials released from the US army. They built their own laboratory rooms and even did the carpentry work themselves. Saba was next involved in work on high voltage systems for the power industry. Among the major problems facing the Japanese power industry was how to keep the system stable and minimize interruptions. After reading a paper in an American technical journal on ‘Transmission Line Fault Locators’ he realized that the technology, which he had used as an undergraduate to measure the ionosphere, could be applied to solving these problems. So he built an experimental pulse generator-receiver, which helped Toshiba to develop commercial products to trace quickly where faults were occurring. Saba was then transferred to the engineering department in the head office where he worked on electric power engineering and became involved in making presentations of Toshiba’s technology to their clients. 601

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In 1956–7 he was sent to represent Toshiba with General Electric (GE) in Schenectady in New York at a time when Toshiba had a wide-range licensing arrangement with GE. He was the first engineer to be sent to GE from Toshiba after the war.1 He found that the use of computers in utility industries was just beginning. He became particularly interested in the application of computers to power control systems and he concentrated on GE’s process computing seeking to apply the process to power dispatching. Saba became a manager in the power-engineering department and was quickly promoted to chief engineer and then division manager. In 1970 he became head of the heavy apparatus division of Toshiba where he worked to improve the competiveness of Toshiba’s products in the international market. One of his first experiences in exporting was the sale of transformers to India. He found that the writing of clear specifications and instructions, which foreign clients could understand, was a real problem for Japanese companies. Another was to ensure that Toshiba’s products conformed to the official standards applying in the markets to which Toshiba products were being exported. Toshiba started by exporting sub-station equipment and went on to export hydroelectric power plants, water-wheel turbines and generators, and control equipment. In due course they also exported thermal power station and railway equipment. Toshiba’s main export markets during this period were in Asia. They also had some success in Australia, Canada and the USA but found European markets at that time particularly difficult because of strong protectionist walls. When Saba was appointed president of Toshiba in 1980 he assumed responsibility for other sides of Toshiba’s business. Based on the company’s strengthening technology he transformed the business portfolio and put resources into other sides of Toshiba’s business including home appliances such as television, microwave ovens and computers. One of the many challenges he had to deal with as president was investment in semi-conductors. At that time the development of Toshiba memory chips and semi-conductors was behind that of other companies and there was speculation that Toshiba might have to withdraw from this field altogether. Saba, however, decided to increase recruitment of engineers in semiconductors and Toshiba became one of the top ranking firms in this field. He also decided, however, to withdraw from mainframe computer manufacture, as he did not think that the huge investment required would be justified by the likely returns. As president he backed Toshiba’s long-standing policy of investing in research and development and putting the emphasis on produc602

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tivity and quality. He believed that Toshiba’s success lay in manufacturing and did not want to see the company go down the route followed by General Electric under Jack Welch. Saba once said to Welch: ‘Your company is now General Equity Company, not General Electric!’ During Saba’s stint as president and later as chairman of Toshiba between 1980 and 1987 the company’s focus was on the electronics side and on technologies to improve power generation and reduce environmental pollution. Home appliance sales, which faced tough competition from developing economies, were allowed to decline. Overseas manufacture, which started in 1975, was based on the premise that it was best to produce products close to their markets. Some R&D was also started in the US and in the UK. Saba took Toshiba into joint ventures with Siemens of Germany and Motorola of the US. He accepted that developing electronics businesses needed the freedom to invest in and market emerging technologies without prior permission from head office. Unfortunately one offshoot, Toshiba Machine, was exposed as having falsified papers in order to ship milling equipment to the Soviet Union, which could be used to damp the noise of submarine propellers. This was a clear breach of COCOM rules. There was much anger in the US Congress and the threat of a boycott of Toshiba products developed. Saba had known nothing about this sale, but felt that in order to rebuild Toshiba’s reputation he had to resign in 1987 from his executive positions at Toshiba and take responsibility for this breach of the rules. He was, however, able to remain a senior and trusted adviser to Toshiba well into his eighties. He became the company’s ‘elder statesman’. A cosmopolitan with an appetite for travel, Saba held several important positions outside Japan, including a fellowship at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in the US and membership of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. In Japan, he was vice-chairman of the Federation of Economic Organizations (KEIDANREN); the equivalent of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) in the UK. Saba, who spoke English well, travelled widely as president and was seen by foreign businessmen and diplomats with whom he came into contact as one of the most internationally-minded Japanese industrialists. As British ambassador in Tokyo (1980–84) I got to know Saba quite well, not least because of Toshiba’s investments in Britain at Plymouth. Among other subjects we discussed was the need to promote Japan’s international image and I encouraged him to do as much as he could to help in developing the training of British engineers. I accordingly welcomed his proposal to establish a scheme to bring foreign engineers to study and work in Japan. We also spoke 603

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about the cultural dimension of Japan’s foreign relations. Our talks were relevant to the later establishment of the Toshiba International Foundation. The late Sir John Harvey Jones, then chairman of ICI, wanted a leading Japanese industrialist with international experience to join the board as a non-executive director of the board and I encouraged him to approach Saba who accepted. He was appointed a nonexecutive director of ICI in 1985 and remained on the board until 1991. He was then special adviser to the chairman until 1993. Such an appointment of a senior Japanese businessman to a British board was unprecedented at that time. One British politician, who liked and respected him, was the late Sir Edward Heath. They were both on an Arthur Andersen Public Review Board. They both enjoyed classical music and soon became friends. Saba made a special journey from Tokyo to London to attend Heath’s eightieth birthday party in 1996. Saba’s interest in the arts led to the sponsorship of the Toshiba Gallery of Japanese Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum. This was opened by Princess Alexandra in December 1986 and has retained the continuing support of Toshiba. In 2009 the museum recognized his contributions over the years by awarding him the Museum’s prestigious Robinson Medal. Saba’s wide contacts and cultural interests made him the obvious choice as chairman of the Japanese organizing committee for the Japan Festival in the United Kingdom in 1991. The Festival, which marked the centenary of the Japan Society in London, was a British initiative. The British chairman of the organizing committee was the late Sir Peter Parker. He and Saba developed a close relationship, which ensured the outstanding success of the Festival, attracting large British audiences to a wide variety of manifestations of Japanese culture from theatre and exhibitions to the Kyoto garden in Holland Park. The generosity of Japanese funding, despite the serious downturn in the Japanese economy at that time, was largely due to the influence and efforts of Saba who was appointed an honorary KBE in 1993 in recognition of his services to Anglo-Japanese relations. Saba’s interest in Britain did not end with the Japan Festival or his time as non-executive director of ICI. He continued his visits despite increasing age. He was delighted to see and visit the Sainsbury Centre for the Arts at the University of East Anglia and the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC) at Norwich. Both had been established as a result of the generosity of Sir Robert and Lady Sainsbury. His translation into Japanese of A Life of Discovery, Michael Faraday, Giant of the Scientific Revolution by James Hamilton showed his scholarship and dedication to science. In his introduction to his translation 604

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Saba drew particular attention to Faraday’s religious beliefs and his interest in the arts especially drawing, painting and photography. Saba was chairman of the board of the International Christian University in Tokyo from 1998–2004. He was a keen supporter of the Scout movement and from 1994 to 2006 was chairman of the board of governors of the Japanese Association of Boy Scouts. CONCLUSION

Born in 1919, Saba was one of the older generation of modern Japan’s business leaders; he was an engineer rather than an accountant or a lawyer. In appearance and manner, speaking quietly confident English, Saba cut an elegant figure. He struck his British friends as the epitome of the old-style Japanese gentleman, ever courteous, attentive to detail and pursuing a wide range of international friendships, which often crossed the narrow barrier between his personal and business contacts. He was intellectually curious, well versed in English and Japanese literature and arts and keen to foster the reputation of his own company as a patron of enterprise. His unusual profession of Christianity in Japan, where Christians are only a small percentage of the population, gave him a keen interest in the Church, as well as in European culture in general. However, his manner of suaviter in modo, fortiter in re concealed strong determination and shrewdness and unending activity on behalf of Toshiba. He ran the company as chairman by contributing intellectually to strategic planning but also playing a determining role as chief ‘front man’ internationally. Even after his deep disappointment when he felt it proper to resign as chairman of the company, he wielded an authority symbolized, for example, by the dignified grandeur of his office at Toshiba headquarters in Tokyo. Despite his gentle, unassuming manner, he was outspoken, not least in his friendly and constructive criticism of British industry, which he felt needed to adopt a more robust and progressive attitude towards the imperatives of change. He combined a characteristically Japanese attention to detail – no letter went unanswered, or opportunity missed – with a long-term business philosophy, which reconciled company and national interest – with a sincere belief in the virtues of international collaboration. He emphasized the historical importance of Japan’s rapid adaptation to a new economic climate since the Second World War, and sought to encourage a capacity for constant change in his employees. Saba will be remembered in the European and American business communities for the powerful influence he exerted over Toshiba during an important period of the company’s development into a diverse global corporation. 605

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Sources: Personal knowledge and acquaintance with Saba Sho¯ichi, obituaries in The Times of 26 September 2012, in the Financial Times of 6/7 October 2012, to both of which I contributed, information from Toshiba Corporation, and oral history interview conducted in 1994 by William Aspray, IEEE History Center, Hoboken, NJ, USA. ENDNOTE 1

Before the war many Toshiba engineers had been sent to GE.

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Shijuro Ogata (1927–2014): Internationalist Japanese Banker HUGH CORTAZZI

INTRODUCTION

Shijuro Ogata was an active and articulate internationalist Japanese who made many British and American friends through his role at the Bank of Japan. He was the husband of Sadako Ogata, UN High Commissioner for Refugees from 1991 to 2000 and President of the Japanese Agency for International Cooperation (JICA) from 2003 to 2012. She was more famous than her husband but responsible for international affairs at the Bank of Japan he had greater influence than most of his Japanese contemporaries in international finance. During an era when Japanese financial policies came under increasing criticism Ogata’s frank and clear exposition of the issues and friendly approach helped to promote ways of mitigating if not solving the problems faced by Japan’s foreign partners. UPBRINGING

Shijuro Ogata was born in Tokyo in 1927. He was the third son of Ogata Taketora (1888–1956), who in 1934 became editor-in-chief 607

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of the Asahi Shimbun, one of the giants of the Japanese daily press, and later played significant political roles. The Ogatas were descendants of Ogata Koan who had become proficient in Western medicine through his studies of Dutch texts and who had established the Tekijuku in Osaka, the forerunner of Osaka University. Shijujro’s father had studied in London from 1920 to 1922. Internationalism was thus in the family’s genes. Shijuro was brought up in a relatively wealthy family. Before the war they often visited the mountains and the seaside and he learnt to ride with his father. But his health was delicate and having little interest in sport he devoted himself to study. The day school that he attended in Tokyo was strict and Spartan. He records in his memoir Haruka naru Showa (A Far Off Era) (2005) that the pockets of their trousers were sewn up so that however cold it was they could not put their hands in their pockets. It was quite a walk from the station to the school but they were not allowed to take the bus unless they had specific written permission from a parent. As war approached life became increasingly tough. In the war years lessons were frequently interrupted and the boys including Shijuro were sent to workshops and farms to perform manual labour. Despite the devastation caused by Allied bombing and the destruction of his home, he managed one day in 1945 to get to a performance of Beethoven’s choral symphony, which has always been a favourite of Japanese music-lovers. In the war his father had become increasingly involved in politics and as a cabinet minister and head of the information bureau had taken part in negotiations with representatives of the Chinese nationalists about the possibility of concluding a separate peace with the Chiang Kai-shek’s government. This led under the Allied occupation after the war’s end to Ogata Taketora being ‘purged’ and barred from public activities for a time. With the dire shortage of food in post-war Japan, Shijuro had to go into the countryside to scavenge for food. The family’s capital and savings had either disappeared or were frozen. Shijuro nevertheless managed to complete high school where he worked hard on German and English. He won a scholarship in 1947 to the law faculty of Tokyo University. This was the key to entry to the higher civil service and the upper echelons of most prestigious Japanese companies. In 1950 he took the exams for the Asahi Shimbun and the Bank of Japan. He was offered a place by both and despite his father’s close relationship with the Asahi he opted for the Bank of Japan where he sought to work on the international side. He recalled in his memoir that the main question at his interview was about his name Shijuro, which may be translated as ‘fortieth son’.

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He explained that he got his name because he was born when his father was forty years old. He had chosen to be examined in German rather than in English, but in the Bank he decided to concentrate on English. Japan was short of foreign currency and at that stage only a few outstanding young men were able to study abroad. Shijuro however won a Fulbright scholarship and was sent to study at the Fletcher School of law and diplomacy at Tuft University on the outskirts of Boston. Ogata enjoyed his two years in the USA and travelled around whenever he could. He followed his father’s advice by mixing with Americans and other foreign students rather than with fellow Japanese. He was urged to write his diary in English and his father even wrote to him in English. As a result he mastered the English language and was at ease with his foreign friends. His father having been exonerated from suspicion of involvement in war crimes had been elected to the diet in 1952 and served as deputy prime minister in the governments of Yoshida Shigeru between 1952 and 1954. He had hoped that his son might follow him into politics, but this was not to be. His father died from a heart attack in 1956 while Shijuro was still abroad. Japanese politics did not attract Shijuro. He had seen enough of Japanese politicians who sought his father’s support. CAREER

Shijuro’s career in the Bank of Japan included stints in London (1962–1964) and New York as well as within Japan in Osaka and Okayama, but he was primarily employed on international business. In his younger days he acted as interpreter and record keeper for Governors of the Bank of Japan on their foreign trips and at international conferences. He was appointed director for international affairs (deputy governor) in the Bank of Japan at the end of 1984 and took part in the Plaza accord of 1985, which helped to bring greater stability to the volatile foreign exchange market. As Jurek Martin for the Financial Times pointed out in a blog shortly after Shijuro’s death was announced, one of his achievements had been the opening up of the Bank of Japan to the Western media who had hitherto been excluded from briefings by the Bank and other Japanese government bodies including the Ministry of Finance. Their briefings had been solely for members of the exclusively Japanese journalists in the Kisha Clubs. Shijuro began a series of Thursday afternoon tea parties for foreign correspondents resident in Tokyo ‘at which he would expand on the Bank of Japan’s thinking on monetary and economic policy. He never made great news but he did make good copy and what the Bank thought began to appear in the 609

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Western press.’ The Ministry of Finance did not like this but felt that they had to do something similar. Other Japanese ministries then began to see the merits of keeping Western media better informed of Japanese policies. His frankness and warm character as well as his command of English ensured that foreign bankers and diplomats found him a good and friendly interlocutor. While he was in no way a typical Bank of Japan bureaucrat he usually stuck faithfully to the officially agreed line while he was serving in the Bank. ‘Suddenly’ in 1986, as he records in his memoir, he was transferred to the Japan Development Bank. He does not explain why. Perhaps his ability to communicate effectively in English and his many foreign friends aroused the jealousy of inward-looking colleagues. He found his four years in the Japan Development Bank interesting, but his talents could have been better used in the international sphere. Japan needed people like Ogata to explain and defend Japanese policies to English speaking audiences. Fortunately his abilities were not entirely wasted. He took part in meetings at Davos and was an active member of the Trilateral Commission and the Group of Thirty. After his retirement his advice was much sought by Japanese and British companies, such as Barclays Bank and Swire Group. He was also appointed to the advisory council on education, but he was frustrated by the way in which so-called education experts dominated discussions and he resigned halfway through his term. Apart from his memoir in Japanese Ogata in 1989 wrote with Richard Cooper and Horst Schulmann International Finance Integration: The Policy Challenges. His book Yen and the Bank of Japan was published in 1996. He also contributed numerous articles about finance and other international issues to Japanese and foreign journals. In later life he attended regularly the meetings of the Foreign Correspondents Club and of the Yomiuri International Economic Society observing quizzically and sardonically the comings and goings of Japanese politicians for whom he had little respect. David Pilling, then correspondent of the Financial Times reported a remark by an unnamed Japanese commentator as saying after Hatoyama was elected as Japanese Prime Minister for the Democratic Party of Japan: ‘At last, Japan has caught up with Korea and Taiwan and had a change of government after an election’ Shijuro proudly claimed to Sir David Warren that he had been the author of this remark. SHIJURO AND BRITAIN

Ogata had become fluent in English while living and studying in the USA but he spoke British English rather than American English 610

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and although perhaps most of his foreign friends were American he retained to the end of his life an affection for and affinity with Britain. As a boy his father introduced him to Andre Maurois’s History of England. At Tokyo University the works of Walter Bagehot were on his reading list and at one seminar he chose to speak about the relationship between Asquith and Lloyd George. In 1954 his father took him to a black-tie dinner given by the Japan-British Society in Tokyo for the Crown Prince (now the Emperor of Japan) who had attended the coronation of the Queen in 1953. Ogata served twice as honorary secretary of the Society. In London he had been an active member of the Wakatakekai (young bamboos society) a group of young British and Japanese who found the Japan Society of London a bit too fusty for them. One of the leading members of the group was Minoru Makihara who later became president of Mitsubishi. At the Bank of Japan Ogata did his best to keep an open door for British journalists who tended to be frozen out by the closed shop of the Kisha Club system operating in Japan (exclusive groups of journalists dealing with particular organizations). CONCLUSION

Ogata never became pompous or arrogant. He was happy to introduce himself as ‘Sadako’s husband’ recognizing that of the two Sadako was the more famous. He had an English sense of humour, often ironic and understated and a ready wit, a rare quality for a Japanese of his generation. He was a loyal Japanese but he was frank in his criticisms of his countrymen. The right-wing former governor of Tokyo Ishihara (literally stone field) should really, he said, have been called Ishiatama (literally stone head) because the nationalist policies he advocated were stupid. He often declared that Japan produced good foot soldiers but poor commanders. While he generally welcomed the economic policies of the present administration of Prime Minister Abe, he was concerned by Abe’s apparent right-wing nationalism, which he feared would jeopardize Japan’s national interests. His memoir ends with the hope that young Japanese will not only have more intellectual curiosity and be more ready to ask questions but will also demonstrate their capacity to think through the issues of the modern world and be willing and able to express their opinions clearly in English.

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The Japanese Chamber of Commerce in the UK, 1959–2015 PATRICK MACARTNEY A serious Japanese business presence in London started in the late-nineteenth century with the establishment of individual Japanese company offices, including trading companies. For example, Mitsui & Co.’s office was set up in 1880 initially to export surplus Japanese rice to Europe.1 Mitsubishi Corporation’s London office came later in 1915. The Yokohama Specie Bank (the precursor of the Bank of Tokyo, now Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ) sent a representative to London in 1881.2 Tokio Marine, the insurance firm, opened a London office in 1880. The small Japanese business community, with about sixteen offices in London before the First World War, grew to thirty-seven companies (twenty-seven of them trading companies) by 1919 because of the increase in Anglo-Japanese trade during the war.3 4 The first formal organisation of Japanese businesses in London seems to have been the Japanese Businessmen’s Association (London Sho¯ gyo¯ Konwa-Kai), which operated in the 1920s and 1930s to discuss common problems and issues among Japanese businessmen. Another indication of Japanese interest in collective business organisation was the appointment in 1932 of Hotta Naomichi, a prominent member of the Japanese business community in London, as Secretary to the Japan Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), a position, which kept him in contact with managers of the major Japanese firms, in the inter-war period. However, the Nihonjin-Kai (predecessor of the Nippon Club5), the general social club for the Japanese community, continued as the main collective focus for Japanese businessmen, with many playing an active role in it. The Japanese business presence in the UK, which had grown to 400 or 500 business people in the inter-war period, was then disrupted by

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the outbreak of war between Britain and Japan with Anglo-Japanese business declining as war loomed and then being extinguished by internment and repatriation of Japanese expatriates. After the Second World War, relations between Britain and Japan gradually developed again. The San Francisco Peace Treaty between Japan and the Allied Powers, signed in 1951, came into force in 1952 and the Japanese Embassy was established again in London. Japanese businesses, especially trading, shipping, insurance companies and banks, started to set up offices anew in the UK in the early 1950s. Hotta resumed his work for the ICC’s Japan Committee and re-launched the Palmerston Kai, a monthly luncheon meeting of the general managers of Japanese companies. A key development in normalising UK-Japan business relations was the UK-Japan Commercial Treaty of November 1962, negotiated over many years and concluded against a background of phenomenal growth in the Japanese economy, with British understanding of the need to have access to its markets and mutual agreement on the need to remove trade discrimination. The Japanese Chamber of Commerce in London was incorporated on 14 July 1959 as a company limited by guarantee and not having a share capital. Seven Japanese businessmen were listed as subscribers: Miwa Kinji, Takuma Michio, Matsudaira Ichiro¯, Nakamura Mototaka, Miwa Hiroshi, Homma Jiro and Hanai Takao. We have a few glimpses of these men. The most prominent was Matsudaira Ichiro¯. Born in London, he was the son of Matsudaira Tsuneo, the longest serving Japanese ambassador in the UK. He was the brother of Matsudaira Setsuko who had married Prince Chichibu in 1928. He had married into the Tokugawa family. He represented the Bank of Tokyo in London and, in 1960 shortly after the establishment of the Japanese Chamber, became the first Chairman of the newly re-established Nippon Club, which was set up by about fifty companies and 250 individuals. Thirty-four companies joined at the beginning, predominantly trading companies, banks and shipping and insurance companies, paying an annual subscription of £50. Membership grew slowly at first to sixty-five members at the beginning of 1970, accelerating to 181 ten years later and to 355 in early 1990 as the wave of Japanese investment in the UK grew. Membership reached its peak of 418 in 1995 and then, as the ‘lost decade’ for the Japanese economy took its grip, gradually contracted over the next ten years, hitting a low at 301 in 2005 (banking membership alone fell from forty-five in 1995 to ten ten years later through closure of offices in the UK, mergers and the like); membership then stabilised and started a slow increase to stand at about 330 in 2015. There has been little detailed analysis of Chamber membership data. However, a simple analysis in 2000 comparing Japanese expatri-

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ate staff numbers in the years 1996 (close to the membership peak) and 1999 highlighted the sharp decline. Those employed in banking went down from 678 to 482, in securities from 307 to 124 and even traders from 410 to 322. Declines were less marked in other sectors and automotive, which has had a steady growing presence, rose from 268 to 385. (A, 1996, 1999). The Chamber is independent both of government and of the main Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Tokyo and its income derives solely from its members through their annual subscriptions. It is governed by its Council of thirty-four elected members, with representatives from all sectors of Japanese business operating in the UK. In the early days of the Chamber it received some support from the main Japan Chamber of Commerce but the then annual subsidy of £350 was ended in 1969 (B 17.6.69) and not resumed although the Council did explore the possibility of requesting its reinstatement (B 29.5.1973). The need to increase subscriptions prompted a change from the previous flat rate to a sliding scale based on the number of Japanese expatriate staff. (B, 13.10.1969). The Chamber changed its name as of 21 June 1974 to the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the United Kingdom (JCCI) to reflect the fact that its membership and Japanese companies generally had expanded outside London and the first factories were being built. SECRETARIAT

As JCCI grew, so did its administration. For the first seven years from its establishment, the chamber was effectively run by the presidents with support from their own company. In 1966, the first member of staff was appointed. Charles Bird, an ex-naval officer, was appointed as the chamber’s first permanent secretary from 1 January 1966 but his was a relatively short period in office as he retired the same November. Bird’s successor was Joseph Hart, CMG, OBE. Hart was a retired career diplomat and had served as first secretary in the British embassy in Tokyo in the late 1950s and so had a good knowledge of Japan and Japanese business. He served as permanent secretary to the Chamber from February 1967 to July 1970. With the appointment of staff specifically for JCCI, the pattern was set of housing the Chamber secretariat in the office of the then president. So for a period of twenty years till 1987, the Chamber would move every year between the offices of Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsui and Co, who alternated then (and still do) in the presidency. It was decided that the Chamber should start paying rent to the host 614

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company in 1967 (B, 2.8.67). The question of where the secretariat should be based was occasionally considered during this period without resulting in change. For example, the permanent secretary was asked to look for offices, which the Chamber and the Nippon Club might share (B, 18.1.72), and the idea of a Japanese centre to include the Nippon Club, the Chamber and a medical clinic was floated early in 1974 (B, 15.1.1974). In 1988, the council finally sanctioned a move by the secretariat into its own offices in Chronicle House in Fleet Street at an annual rent of £16,000. As the staff grew (to four), the Secretariat moved again to Salisbury House in Finsbury Circus in the City in 1990, close to the offices of both presidents, and has remained there, with a single internal move in 2003 to better, smaller, cheaper offices, very satisfactorily induced to do so by the landlord who wanted the old offices to accommodate a major tenant. Reginald (‘Peter’) Milward succeeded Hart in September 1970 and had a long period of service, retiring in April 1982 but continuing as part-time adviser till the end of June 1987. Peter was also a British career diplomat, having served as HM consul in Osaka. His knowledge of Japan had developed when he taught English in Nagoya from 1935 to 1940. His post was re-designated as general manager at a council meeting in September 1974 on legal advice to avoid the confusion of too many ‘secretaries’ in the Chamber administration (B, 5.9.74). Milward raised the profile of the Chamber higher. As an author he wrote Japan: The Past in the Present in 1979 and then a very useful business guide to Japan Japan: What Every Businessman Should Know published in 1986. Peter, not to be confused with his namesake a Jesuit priest and academic in Japan, was a committed Christian who wrote a number of religious publications and was a familiar sight in the Chamber offices as he worked on these even after his retirement. He died in 2003 at the age of ninety-two. He was succeeded by James Henry Callan MVO OBE, who had previously served in the British diplomatic service and who had knowledge of Japan, having been appointed HM consul at Osaka in 1961. He served as general manager for five years from May 1982 to the end of May 1987 and for a further six months as adviser to the Chamber and the new general manager. The new general manager was the first Japanese to take on the role. Wakasugi Akira had a good knowledge of international business, having worked at Standard Chartered Bank from 1974 to 1987, when he was appointed JCCI general manager. His previous career from 1953 was with Japan Airlines. His job title was re-designated as secretary general in 1991 and he served the Chamber until his retirement in October 2001 and for a further six months as executive adviser. He died in 2005. 615

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Mr Akira Wakasugi The first Japanese head of secretariat

Takahashi Masaki, after a full career with Mitsubishi Corporation, replaced Wakasugi as secretary general in October 2001 and served till the end of May 2009. The highlight of his period of office was the major reform of the structures of the JCCI and re-establishment of its sound finances in 2003–2004. A thorough Anglophile, Takahashi started in June 2009 a period of three months as adviser to the Chamber but almost immediately fell ill and died in November that year. The current secretary general Hanaoka Takaaki started his period in office in June 2009. Like Takahashi, his previous career was spent chiefly with Mitsubishi Corporation with assignments in London and Hong Kong in addition to service in Japan. TRADE TENSIONS

The early 1970s saw the start of efforts to counter the growing criticism of Japanese trading practices, such as alleged dumping, hidden barriers to imports to Japan, high tariffs and restrictions. The council considered the issue and JCCI started arranging press events for British journalists in 1972 (B, 18.1.72). The first such lunch was held on 22 March 1972. These continued, with a mix of speakers such as Japanese ambassadors, British officials, leaders of Japanese missions such as those of the Keidanren, British directors of both major Japanese companies investing in the UK and of British companies doing business with Japan twice yearly till 1995, by which time criticism had subsided largely because of the growing Japanese investment in the UK. In 1972 JCCI joined a new PR committee chaired by the Japanese embassy, with the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO), the Japan National Tourist Organisation (JNTO) and Japan Airlines as other members, with the aim of taking missions of European busi616

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nessmen to Japan to introduce them to the Japanese market. The Chamber’s council continued to discuss periodically how to deal with criticism of Japanese business and to engage with efforts to promote British exports to Japan. JCCI had representatives on the Japan Task Force set up by the UK Government in the late 1970s to tackle the trade imbalance between the two countries. In 1978–1979 the Chamber gave its support to a City University/JCCI course for British businessmen. In the early 1980s, the Embassy was concerned about deterioration in UK-Japan public relations and urged JCCI to boost its membership and to provide information about Japanese business contributions to the British economy. Lunches with MPs were organised to get the message across. The Chamber was closely involved in the successive campaigns, Opportunity Japan, Priority Japan and Action Japan, running through the late 1980s and 1990s to encourage British companies to export to and invest in Japan and to do business with Japanese companies in the UK and worldwide By 1988, Japanese investment in the UK was growing together with increasing interest in the new manufacturing techniques being pioneered by Japanese companies. Enquiries to the Chamber office about these developments increased exponentially and the decision was taken to appoint a British information officer. CHAMBER REVIEW

The decline of membership in the second half of the 1990s and early twenty-first century put an increasing strain on the Chamber’s finances and annual deficits steadily increased, eating into the reserves. Takahashi and the Council launched a major review in 2003 and 2004 of the Chamber’s structures and operations and this resulted in a number of important changes, which broadly continue to the present day. Six committees were set up in July 2003 to examine the following areas: annual fees and voting rights; Chamber mission and articles of association; new members and networking; organisation; new projects; and website. It was decided that annual subscriptions for full member companies would continue to be based on the number of Japanese staff but were simplified to six bands from the previous eleven. ‘Japanese staff’ was defined as Japanese expatriate staff except for those companies established in the UK where the relevant number is of full-time Japanese staff at manager level or above. Voting rights at general meetings were to be weighted on the basis of the same six bands. The category of associate membership was activated for companies without Japanese staff and membership of the Chamber was opened up to companies which were not Japanese owned (the previous requirement had been that a company 617

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should be at least 50% Japanese owned). This finally resolved an issue that had been debated often since at least 1966. A Chamber website was established. The number of vice-presidents was increased from three to five to reflect better the then current Japanese business presence in the UK, in particular manufacturing; two new vice presidents were appointed from the automotive and electric/electronic sectional committees. Four permanent committees were set up dealing with the Palmerston Kai luncheon programme, new membership, new projects and public relations and the Chamber website, whose chairmen were also ex-officio Council members. The number of Council members was reduced from forty-four to thirty-three, more accurately reflecting the sectors in which Japanese business was operating in the UK (C, 12.10.04). The Chamber’s finances were put on a firmer footing with a substantial increase in subscriptions. REPRESENTING JAPANESE BUSINESS

A key role of the Chamber over the years has been as the channel for representing the views of the Japanese business community to the British government and parliament, often coordinating with the Japanese embassy, and, conversely, to be the focal point for the government to communicate with Japanese companies. The Chamber raised issues with the UK government a number of times over the years. For example in 1974, the Chamber lobbied the then chancellor of the exchequer Denis Healey on his proposals for taxing foreigners resident in the UK on their worldwide income. In 1984, the president wrote to the chancellor opposing rather similar proposals for removal of expatriate tax reliefs. In early 1989, the Chamber produced a report for the British authorities on complaints by Japanese businessmen resident in the UK of their harsh treatment by HM Customs officers at UK airports. The Chamber was one of many voices that expressed concern about security in London following the April 1992 bombing of the Baltic Exchange and the Bishopsgate bomb on 24 April 1993, part of the then IRA campaign. The Chamber’s President, Mr T. Kaku, wrote to Kenneth Clarke, the home secretary, on 26 April 1993 calling for tighter security, in the absence of which Japanese business might have to relocate.6 The government responded energetically to these calls and established a security cordon (‘the ring of steel’) for the City.

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In 1996, the Chamber expressed concerns to the Home Office about cases where visas had been refused to the dependants aged over eighteen of their Japanese expatriate staff; this was successfully resolved. In 1998, the Select Committee on Trade and Industry of the House of Commons undertook an inquiry into the UK’s trade and industrial relations with Japan. The Chamber and JETRO London were the only Japanese organisations called to give oral evidence to the Select Committee. The Chamber submitted a memorandum before giving oral evidence to a session of the Select Committee on 25 February. The JCCI’s team was President Y. Onuki (of Mitsui), Wakasugi and representatives of the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd and Toshiba. Both the Select Committee and the UK government (in its response) took a positive view of the state of UK-Japan trade relations.7 Wakasugi and JCCI members had important input into the process that concluded with the signing of the UK-Japan Social Security Agreement in February 2000. In March 2004, the President, Shoji Norio, wrote to Prime Minister Tony Blair and other UK government ministers and officials to call for further action to counter the intimidatory tactics used by animal rights protesters against (among others) representatives of Japanese pharmaceutical companies in the UK. The government responded positively and informed Japanese representatives about the development of policy to deal with the protests; and gradually got a grip on the situation. (B, 15.4.2004). The JCCI has engaged actively with the UK government, both the coalition government of 2010–2015 and the new Conservative government, on its attempt to restrict immigration, particularly that of non-EU economic migrants. The government has been generally sensitive to the concerns of Japanese business, which worries about the impact of the immigration system on its ability to do business (and invest) efficiently in the UK but it has been a protracted process. A small group of major Japanese investors in the UK, including the Chamber presidents and vice presidents, was invited to No. 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office in February 2014 for a Round Table, together with Ambassador Hayashi, which was attended by Prime Minister David Cameron. The Japanese investors were encouraged to speak freely about their objectives and concerns relating to the business and investment environment in the UK.

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Japanese investors meet the Prime Minister in 2014 (Photo: Embassy of Japan)

EVENTS

The JCCI organizes, often with partners, or supports a huge variety of events of interest to its members. The Chamber is one of the four Japan Matsuri partners, the others being the Japan Association in the UK, the Japan Society and the Nippon Club, which together organize Japan Matsuri, London’s own festival of Japanese culture. Japan Matsuri has been held annually in the autumn, currently in Trafalgar Square, since 2009. The Chamber has been chiefly responsible for fund raising. The Chamber’s main regular event is its New Year Reception. In the 1980s JCCI held Christmas Lunches to which it invited members of the Japan Association but it was then decided that a New Year reception would better reflect the importance of the New Year in the Japanese calendar. The first JCCI New Year Reception was held in January 1994 and has been held annually since. Since 2009 they have been held at Drapers’ Hall. In recent years a guest speaker has been invited, including the Lord Mayor of London on two occasions and leading politicians. Attendance has grown from the low 100s in early years to nearly 400 in 2015. Secretaries general Takahashi and Hanaoka were the key figures in growing this event. Other receptions that the Chamber organizes include the receptions it holds with the Nippon Club to bid farewell to the outgoing Japanese ambassador and to welcome the new one. Receptions organised with other organisations have included special receptions for JCCI members and for the Japanese business community with the mayor of London at City Hall in 2003; at the head office of the Football Association in London in 2004; at the House of Commons hosted by the British-Japanese Parliamentary Group in July 2008; and several with Australian Business. In 2010, the Chamber took part in a reception hosted by the mayor of London Boris Johnson at City Hall for the Council of Foreign Chambers of Commerce (CFCC – to which the 620

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Chamber belongs); the Chamber is active in the CFCC, a useful forum for sharing experience and co-organising events of interest to the membership of all chambers. The Palmerston Kai is an informal group of leading Japanese community figures in the UK including the Japanese ambassador for the exchange of business, economic and political information. It was set up in the early 1920s when it met for lunches at the Palmerston Restaurant in Palmerston Buildings in Old Broad Street. After the Second World War, it was restarted in 1953 (see above) at Pimm’s Restaurant at 3–5 Poultry in the City, when the name Palmerston Kai was first used. Later venues have included Drapers Hall at the end of the last century and beginning of this and, currently, Ironmongers Hall, both livery halls in the City. JCCI members have traditionally had the right to join Palmerston Kai and have formed the bulk of its membership. It now holds regular lunches with a guest speaker, normally Japanese or speaking in Japanese. In 2004, JCCI took over administration of the lunches, which are organised by a permanent committee (of the JCCI’s governing council). The chairman of the committee is normally a leading Japanese businessman in London (in recent years the Japan Airlines representatives). Speakers are ambassadors, leading business people, senior Japanese officials, academics and journalists but also figures from the arts such as Miyako Yoshida, the ballet dancer, and Kansai Yamamoto, the fashion designer. The Chamber has also held lunches jointly first since the 1960s with the Japan Association and then with the Japan Society (with whom it cooperates in other activities) from the early 2000s. It has also organised other lunches on its own and with other organisations such as foreign chambers of commerce. One of the Chamber’s roles has been to facilitate projects, which required collective action by Japanese companies in the UK. The projects often have a cultural content and typically involve the celebration of an anniversary. Perhaps the outstanding example during the Chamber’s lifetime was the Japan Festival 1991. The Japan Festival marked the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Japan Society. It consisted of a very wide range of activities, including exhibitions, lectures, symposia, music, theatre, cinema, dance, education programme and many other events including, memorably, a sumo tournament held at the Royal Albert Hall. JCCI played a useful role in coordinating some of the very substantial fund-raising required (total Japanese corporate sponsorship estimated at £15,000,000) and disseminating information about the Festival. Nodojiman, the long-running Japanese NHK Amateur Singing Contest television programme produced by NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, was broadcast live by NHK and JSTV from Alexandra 621

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Palace in north London on Saturday 24 July 2004 – the first to be held in Europe. The Chamber was among the supporting organizations and hosted the Nodojiman committee in its office in London for the four months of the build-up to the programme. Other events are organized outside the Japanese community but with significant Japanese content. If the Chamber believes the event of sufficient importance, it may cooperate with the organizers. One example is the City of London Festival. The theme of the 2006 City of London Festival, held over three weeks, was: ‘Trading Places: London-Tokyo’ and the main emphasis was on its many Japan-related events. Over fifty events had some Japanese connection. The then Lord Mayor, Sir David Brewer, had strong links with Japan and supported the Festival strongly. JCCI’s contribution was as a conduit to its member companies, in particular in coordinating fund-raising. Other services the Chamber provides for its members include regular seminars often co-organized with member companies and other organizations. Thames, its quarterly Japanese-language newsletter has been published since 1992 and its quarterly English-language newsletter, JCCI Review (also made available to non-members) started in January 1996 (its predecessor newssheet in English, the JCCI Circular, having been produced for members only since the 1960s). The Chamber has also produced since 1986 a quarterly publication in Japanese entitled British Economic Trends edited by JETRO and now available on the JCCI website. The 11 March 2011 Tohoku-Pacific Ocean major earthquake and tsunami inspired the Chamber as it did many other organisations to respond. Initially the Chamber arranged a charity concert by violinist Hakase Taro at Stationers’ Hall on 16 March. Activities since have included JCCI funding for a team of high school students from Tohoku who had survived the earthquake to play a football match at Wembley Stadium on 24 November 2011, at the invitation of the English Football Association, and annual charity dinners in London to mark the subsequent anniversaries of the tsunami. Similarly, the Chamber and the Nippon Club set up a relief fund for those who suffered as a result of the Great Hanshin earthquake on 17 January 1995. Another notable charitable initiative was the Chamber’s coordination in 1984/5 of donations by about a hundred of its members for famine relief for Ethiopia. The Chamber itself organizes many events on a lighter note: chocolate [2010], English tea [2012] and wine tasting [2011] and, in a more energetic vein, tennis coaching [2010], regular visits to Lord’s to tour the ground and to watch 20/20 cricket matches with members accompanied in small groups by cricket ‘experts’ to explain the game, sushi-making classes and a tour of the Olympic Park before the London Olympics. 622

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The Chamber participates in and supports many other events seen to be of benefit to the Japanese business community and UK-Japan relations, such as the Sir Peter Parker Awards for Spoken Business Japanese, which was set up in 1990, to promote the study and use of Japanese in business. In the 1990s (and up till 2001), the Chamber paid some of the expenses of UK participants on the annual International Educators to Japan Programme which took British (and other countries’) teachers of Japanese expatriate children to Japan to learn more about Japan and Japan’s education system. The Chamber arranged a visit by a party of members to the 2005 World Exposition in Aichi. The Chamber frequently meets incoming visitors from Japan. This can range from individuals coming to explore the possibility of doing business in the UK to major missions from Japanese business associations. The Chamber has played a part in the programmes for visiting members of the Japanese royal family, including the state visits of the Emperor Hirohito and the Empress Nagako in October 1971, and the Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko in May 1998, when over 1000 people attended the reception at the Grosvenor House Hotel hosted by the Japan Society, JCCI, Nippon Club and the Japan Association. In the 1960s through to the 1980s, the JCCI itself regularly organized Chamber delegations to different parts of the UK with a view to promoting business and possible investment. These have happened occasionally since. Golf has been an important part of the Chamber’s activities. Since early in the Chamber’s existence, in the 1960s, a series of annual golf matches has been held with, and at the invitation of, the Japan Association, the organisation for UK-based companies doing business with Japan, which was absorbed into the Japan Society in the early 2000s. The series still continues annually. The sides compete for the Collar Cup named after the Secretary of the Japan Association who donated the original cup in 1971. The Chamber also took its own golf initiatives. In the early 1970s, the JCCI council discussed the purchase, with the Nippon Club, of an interest in a golf club. Council minutes record that negotiations in 1973 to buy West Hill Golf Club were unsuccessful (B, 7.9.1973) and there is no record of later success. The JCCI became involved with a major golf competition when they partnered Japan Airlines in organising the first annual JCCI/JAL Japanese Corporate Golf Tournament in 1988 at the Old Thorns Golf Course (then Japanese-owned). This rapidly became a very large event, at one time billed as the largest Japanese golf event held outside Japan, with participant numbers peaking at 318 in 1992. Num623

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bers thereafter decreased gradually. JCCI took over sole organization of the tournament in 2010 (D, 50). REFS

A B C D

JCCI Membership Directory JCCI Council Minutes JCCI AGM Minutes JCCI Review

ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Oba, Sadao, ‘Mitsui in London’ in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume V, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental 2005, pp. 225–232. Itoh, Keiko ‘The Yokohama Specie Bank in London’ in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume V, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2005 pp. 233–246. Oba, Sadao, ‘Japanese businessmen in the UK’ in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume II, ed. Ian Nish, Japan Library 1997, pp. 260– 272. Itoh, Keiko The Japanese Community in Pre-War Britain: from integration to disintegration, Routledge, 2001, pp. 30–52. Kato Setsuo ‘The Nippon Club, 1881–2014’ in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015, pp. 54–65. Newall, Sir Paul Japan and the City of London, Athlone Press, 1996, pp. 83–84. Trade and Industrial Relations with Japan, Eleventh Report of the Trade and Industry Select Committee, Session 1997–98, HC 568, published 6 August 1998, ISBN 0 10 554797.

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56

Yasui Tetsu (1870–1945): Promoter of Women’s Higher Education HIROKO TOMIDA

INTRODUCTION

Yasui Tetsu was an educationalist, who contributed significantly to the promotion of women’s higher education, especially Christian education, in Meiji, Taisho¯ and Sho¯wa Japan. She studied at the Cambridge Training College for Women Teachers (hereafter CTC), where she was deeply influenced by Elizabeth Phillips Hughes. After her three years’ study in England, she took up a full-time teaching post in Tokyo and became a Christian. However, in 1904 she was posted to Thailand. This interlude was followed by a further year’s study in Wales. On her return to Japan, she helped Nitobe Inazo¯ establish Tokyo Joshi Daigaku (Tokyo Women’s Christian University), to which she devoted the rest of her life. She died in 1945. Although her life in Japan is well documented by the biography written by her former student, Aoyama Nao (1900–1985), who 625

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later taught at her old university, Yasui’s life in Britain has scarcely been researched.1 This article focuses on her studies in Britain and the impact, which they had on her later life and career, as a leading Christian educationalist in Japan. EARLY LIFE IN JAPAN

Yasui Tetsu was born in Tokyo on 23 February 1870, the eldest child of Yasui Tsumori and his wife Chiyo.2 The couple had six further children, so her paternal grandparents brought up Tetsu.3 The Yasui family had been samurai for many generations, serving the Doi family, the former feudal lords of the Furukawa domain. Both her parents and grandparents lived on the large estate of the Doi family home. Her grandfather, a spear (yari) master, had a strong samurai spirit, which Tetsu inherited despite being a woman.4 In 1876 she entered Gyo¯ko¯ Elementary School in Tokyo, but moved to Hongo¯ Seino Elementary School in 1879. At the age of twelve, she was admitted to the fifth-year class of a preparatory course for Tokyo Women’s Teachers’ Training College (Tokyo Joshi Shihan Gakko¯) in 1881.5 Three years later, she went on to the college, which eventually became Ochanomizu Women’s University and whose main objective was to train female secondary school teachers.6 Immediately after her graduation, she was appointed as a teaching assistant at the college.7 In 1892 on the advice of its deputy head Nakagawa Kenjiro¯ (1850–1928), she left Tokyo to start a new job at Iwate Prefectural Normal Teachers’ Training School (Jinjo¯ Shihan Gakko¯), where she remained for two years. In Iwate Yasui, who was strongly opposed to Christianity at this time, became involved in a controversy over Christian beliefs with Hani Motoko (1873–1957), a devoted Christian who was working for Morioka Girls’ High School (Morioka Jogakko¯).8 Yasui’s provincial career was followed by her promotion to an official teaching post in Tokyo Women’s Teachers’ Training College. On her return to Tokyo, she developed an interest in Japanese literature and became a follower of Higuchi Ichiyo¯ (1872–1896), Japan’s first prominent female writer after the Meiji Restoration.9 SENT TO BRITAIN

In December 1896 the Ministry of Education sent Yasui to Britain for three years as a state-funded student to study domestic science and pedagogy. She had not expected such an offer,10 which she gladly accepted but soon realised that she would need to improve her English before travelling to Britain. Although the level of Yasui’s English at this time is unclear, she confessed that she had hardly studied English after graduating. She approached Tsuda Umeko (1864–1929), who agreed to tutor her in English, and then became 626

YASUI TETSU (1870–1945)

a temporary lodger at Tsuda’s house.11 Tsuda spoke English like a native speaker and had a deep understanding of Western cultures since she had been sent to America with the Iwakura Mission in 1871 at the age of six, and received both school and university education there. She had also had much teaching experience at Kazoku Jogakko¯ (the Peeresses’ School). As Tsuda wanted Yasui to engage in her academic work in Britain without undue difficulties, she found her another teacher, Miss Ballard, a British missionary who had lived in Japan for some four years.12 Tsuda, a speaker of American English, was fully aware of the differences between British and American English, and felt that it was vital for Yasui to familiarise herself with British English. Yasui continued to receive Tsuda’s advice, and later in1898 they met in Britain.13 They collaborated in promoting women’s higher education in Japan and their friendship lasted until Tsuda’s death in 1929. On 16 January 1897 Yasui left Yokohama, accompanied by Miss Ballard who was on her way home. They arrived in London on 7 March 1897 and went to Rochester where Miss Ballard’s mother and sister lived.14 They were kind-hearted devout Christians, and under their influence Yasui began to attend morning and evening services every Sunday at their church. She also studied domestic science teaching methods at Rochester High School. Yasui moved to Cambridge and registered at the CTC in September 1897.15 In response to the pressing need to prepare women graduates for teaching careers, the CTC had been founded in 1885 with the aim of training university women to teach in girls’ secondary schools.16 By the time of Yasui’s arrival, the CTC had earned a reputation as the best women’s teacher training college in Britain, and attracted female graduates from higher education colleges in Britain.17 Graduates of the CTC, which also received international students, were in great demand in Britain as well as abroad.18 Shimoda Utako (1854–1936), who had been sent to England from 1893 to 1895 by the Empress to find an appropriate educational programme for imperial princesses,19 did much to promote the reputation of the CTC in Japan. During her stay Shimoda developed an interest in British women’s higher education and visited many girls’ schools and colleges including Newnham College (the second residential college for women in Cambridge founded in 1871) and Cheltenham Ladies’ College (an independent boarding and day school for girls founded in 1854), where she met the principal, Dorothea Beale (1831–1906), who was an educational reformer and the founder of St Hilda’s College in Oxford.20 Although there is no documentary record to prove that Shimoda visited the CTC, her abundant Japanese notes contain details from the CTC’s prospectus for 1891.21 It is generally believed that Shimoda recommended that the Ministry of Education should 627

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send a female teacher to the CTC. She probably believed that training for female teachers in Japan needed to be greatly improved, and to achieve this, she urged further detailed investigation of the CTC.22 Yasui was the first Japanese student at the CTC.23 She was placed under the supervision of Elizabeth Phillips Hughes (1851–1925) who was a pioneer of women’s higher education in Britain, with teaching experience at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, where she worked with Dorothea Beale. She had also achieved excellent academic results at Newnham College.24 In 1885 Hughes had been appointed as the first principal of the CTC, which was ‘a new venture and its great success was attributable in the main to her pioneering efforts’.25 Yasui could not possibly have had a better mentor than Hughes, a wellestablished teacher and administrator, who was well connected with leading female educationalists and women’s higher education institutions in Britain. Following Hughes’ advice, Yasui soon abandoned the idea of studying domestic science because in Britain it was not regarded as an academic subject. Instead she decided to concentrate on studying more academic subjects such as pedagogy, the history of education and psychology, which interested her and enabled her to use her intellect.26 Hughes devised her whole programme of study.27 Owing to Hughes’ constant support and encouragement, Yasui immediately settled down to college life, immersed herself in her studies, and was able to experience British people’s lives and culture. In ‘The Influence of My College Days’, she recorded that Hughes gave her ideal opportunities to meet a wide range of people, visit many schools, experience Christmas with the Hughes family, and undertake tours in Britain and Europe.28 Yasui, who developed a deep trust in Hughes, was greatly inspired by her, and Hughes became her lifetime mentor. In her Cambridge days she came to realise the significant role which Christian education played in school, college and home, and abandoned her preconceived notions about Christianity. Her meeting in 1899 with Miss Hughes’ elder brother, Hugh Price Hughes (1847–1902), an eminent Methodist religious reformer had an important impact on her, and she seriously considered being baptised in Britain.29 However, both Mr and Miss Hughes advised her to choose the most suitable Christian denomination for her, and then to be baptised on her return to her own country. After spending some two years at the CTC she moved in October 1899 to Oxford, where she studied psychology under the supervision of George Frederick Stout (1860–1944), a Cambridge graduate and a leading English philosopher and psychologist, who had been appointed a reader in philosophy at the University of Oxford in 1898.30 She must have had a private tutorial arrangement with him because there is no record of her registration at any women’s 628

YASUI TETSU (1870–1945)

college at the university. As she wanted to pursue her academic studies at Oxford, she sent a letter to the Japanese Ministry of Education, requesting an extension of her stay for another year.31 However, her request was not granted, and in April 1900 she left London for Paris to visit the Exposition Universelle, where she met Nitobe Inazo¯ (1862–1933).32 This accidental meeting made a strong impression on Nitobe, and later led to their collaboration in the establishment of a Christian women’s university in Japan. From France she travelled home via the United States and arrived in Japan in July 1900. TEACHING CAREER IN JAPAN AND THAILAND

In September 1900 Yasui was offered a professorship by her old college, the Tokyo Women’s Teachers’ Training College, and she also became a housemistress.33 On Christmas Day that year she was baptized into the Christian faith by Ebina Danjo¯ (1856–1937), an eminent Christian scholar and clergyman, at the Hongo¯ Church. Yasui continued to correspond regularly with Hughes who had retired from the CTC in 1899. After an eight-month stay in America, Hughes, apparently under instructions from the British government,34 arrived in Japan on 28 August 1901 to view Japanese education. Her interest in Japan had been stimulated by Yasui. During her stay, which was extended to fifteen months, Yasui reciprocated Hughes’ many kindnesses in Britain. She offered her accommodation and acted as her interpreter.35 Hughes visited many educational institutions in Tokyo, as well as in the To¯kai, Hokuriku, Kansai and Sanin regions. She gave numerous public lectures on teaching methods. Hughes also lectured on English poetry at the Women’s Institute for English Studies (Joshi Eigaku-juku), which had been founded in 1900 by Tsuda Umeko.36 The Japan Women’s University (Nihon Joshi Daigaku), which had been established in 1901 by Naruse Jinzo¯ (1858–1919), Japan’s foremost advocate of women’s higher education, gave Hughes a visiting professorship, and she taught English literature there.37 She helped to raise the standard of English as a foreign language, and offered advice to the leaders of women’s higher education in Japan. Although her visit to Japan is not well documented, it contributed significantly to the development of women’s higher education institutions. Yasui’s teaching career appeared to progress smoothly for several years after her return to Japan, but it suffered a major setback when her college authorities feared that her Christian faith might be harmful to her female students, and pressurized her to abandon Christianity. As she refused to do this, her college authorities in 1904 transferred her to a lower status job, which involved founding the Bangkok Prefectural Empress’ Girls’ High School in Thailand and 629

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working there as the head of education.38 Prior to this appointment, the Tokyo Women’s Teachers’ Training College had started to have educational links with Thailand and invited several Thai girls to Tokyo. Yasui fulfilled her duties in Thailand and contributed to women’s education there. FURTHER STUDY IN BRITAIN

When her term in Thailand expired in 1907, an exhausted thirtyeight-year-old Yasui left Bangkok for Britain. She first stayed with Miss Hughes, who lived in Wales, to recuperate, and decided to pursue further academic study.39 She enrolled in October 1907 at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire for the academic year 1907/8.40 She chose the university college on Hughes’ recommendation, and stayed at Aberdare Hall, an all-female hall of residence in Cardiff.41 She studied philosophy, logic, ethics and psychology at the Philosophy Department, and was taught by John Stuart MacKenzie (1860–1935), a Cambridge graduate and an eminent philosopher.42 His wife, Hettie Millicent MacKenzie (née Hughes: 1863–1942), who was teaching education at the university college and later became the first female professor in Britain, had once studied at the CTC under Hughes’ guidance.43 It was through Hughes’ connection with Mrs MacKenzie that Yasui’s study at the university college was arranged. Yasui also attended lectures on English literature given by Arthur Cyril Adair Brett (1882–1936), an Oxford graduate, who had joined the university college staff in 1907, and became a Professor of English there in 1921.44 FURTHER TEACHING CAREER IN JAPAN

In August 1908 Yasui returned to Japan, and took up a part-time lectureship at the Gakusho¯in (Peers’ School).45 In the following year she assisted at Tsuda’s Women’s Institute for English Studies, and also became the chief editor of Shin Jokai (New Women’s World), a Christian women’s magazine launched by Ebina Danjo¯, who had baptised her and was a clergyman at Hongo¯ Church where Yasui was an active member.46 Following the death in 1910 of Takamine Hideo (1854–1910), the principal of the Tokyo Women’s Teachers’ Training College, who was hostile to Christianity, Nakagawa Kenjiro¯, became the next principal. Consequently Yasui was asked to return to the college to work as a part-time lecturer, and in the following year was promoted to professor.47 When Nakagawa resigned his post in 1917, Yasui also left the college as Nitobe Inazo¯, the educator, diplomat and prolific writer, asked her to help him to establish Tokyo Women’s Christian University, of which he became the first president in 1918.48 Nitobe, who exerted a powerful influ630

YASUI TETSU (1870–1945)

ence on Japanese intellectuals and students, became involved in this new venture because he was a champion of women’s rights in Japan, and his Quaker faith convinced him that Japanese women should be provided with educational opportunities, to compensate for Japan’s late start in the education of women.49 He stated that ‘perfect equal opportunity, if given, will develop women’s hidden and unsuspected power of intellect’, and his slogan for the university, ‘service and sacrifice’, referred to ‘helping other people’, and represented the spirit of Christianity.50 The new university was funded by donations made by seven Protestant denominations in North America, and its main objectives were to provide female students with an education in the liberal arts, to promote internationalism and to advance Christian principles.51 After Nitobe was appointed the first Under-Secretary General of the League of Nations, he resigned from his university’s position. Yasui became its second president in 1923.52 In the same year she visited the United States to strengthen academic ties, and to observe women’s higher educational institutions. She was awarded an honorary PhD in literature by Mount Holyoke College, a liberal arts college for women, founded in 1837 in Massachusetts by Mary Lyon (1797–1849), a pioneer in women’s education in the United States. From 1923 Tokyo Women’s Christian University moved to a new campus in Ogikubo and new departments of mathematics and Japanese were added to the existing departments of English and sociology.53 The English department earned a reputation as a first-class institution for English teaching. Consequently in 1930 the Ministry of Education authorized the university to award a certificate to all graduates from the English department to teach English at middle school level. Yasui devoted herself to the development of Tokyo Women’s Christian University until her retirement in 1940. This coincided with her award of the Order of the Sacred Treasure (Zuiho¯sho¯) in recognition of her outstanding service for the promotion of women’s higher education. Even after her retirement, she remained as an honorary president and the chairwoman of the alumni association of the university, and continued to be an active fund-raiser until her death in 1945.54 CONCLUSION

The story of Yasui’s life reveals a liberal and determined person with a shrewd mind and a strong Christian faith, which she acquired during her first stay in England. She benefitted greatly from her academic training at the CTC, where she met Miss Hughes, her lifelong mentor and a pioneer of women’s higher education. Miss Hughes was described as ‘a clever, charismatic, determined and truly remark631

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able woman, years ahead of her time’.55 Their encounter exerted a strong influence on Yasui’s later teaching career and administrative role as the president of Tokyo Women’s Christian University. Hughes had great faith in Yasui, and continued to give her academic advice and psychological support until Hughes’ own death in 1926. Yasui followed Hughes’ footsteps and grew to be a dedicated teacher having great confidence in her students, and giving them support and encouragement. Yasui’s legacy in the provision of liberal education, Christian teaching and thorough English language teaching has survived, and has continued to be ‘an integral part of the Tokyo Women’s Christian University’s approach to education’. The university has expanded significantly with twelve academic departments, and has established ‘a nationwide reputation for its high levels of academic instruction and Christian leadership’.56 The university has maintained lasting ties with the international Christian community. It has also re-established institutional links and academic collaboration with Hughes Hall, Cambridge (which was formerly called the CTC, where Yasui had studied) in 2005.57 Yasui Tetsu’s remarkable achievements have made her one of the greatest and most eminent pioneers of women’s higher education in Japan, and she is still an inspiration to former and present staff and students of the Tokyo Women’s Christian University.58 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For their help, assistance and provision of the information about the CTC, Elizabeth Hughes and Yasui Tetsu, I thank the staff of Hughes Hall, Cambridge University, especially Ms Diana Hutchison (Librarian), Dr Mike Franklin and Dr Jean Lambert. I am particularly grateful to Dr Alison Harvey and Dr Judith Dray, the archivists of Cardiff University, for their investigations on Yasui’s further academic study at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire and for provision of valuable information about Aberdare Hall, John Stuart MacKenzie, Hettie Millicent MacKenzie and Arthur Cyril Adair Brett. I also wish to express my gratitude to Mrs Elizabeth Boardman (Archivist of St Hilda’s College, Oxford), Mrs Rachel Roberts (Archivist of Cheltenham Ladies’ College), Ms Hannah Westall (Archivist of Girton College, Cambridge) and Dr Anne Thomson (Archivist of Newnham College, Cambridge) for providing me with significant information about Yasui Tetsu, Shimoda Utako and Tsuda Umeko. I am grateful to archivists of the Japan Women’s University and Tsuda College for provision of valuable archival sources and assistance. Dr Gordon Daniels has advised me at many stages and I am most thankful for his thoughtful and probing comments. Finally, I acknowledge with gratitude the Tokyo Women’s Christian 632

YASUI TETSU (1870–1945)

University for giving me permission to use a photo of Yasui Tetsu in this article. ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4 5

6

7 8

9

10 11

12 13

14

15

16

Aoyama Nao, Yasui Tetsu Den, Tokyo: Tokyo Joshi Daigaku Do¯so¯kai, 1949. The account of Yasui’s early life is given in Aoyama, Yasui Tetsu Den, pp. 1–18. Yasui Tetsu, ‘Waga Sho¯jo no Hi’, Sho¯jo no Tomo, August 1942; Yasui Tetsu, Wakaki Hi no Ato, Tokyo: Yasui Sensei Botsugo 20-nen Kinen Shuppan Kanko¯kai, 1965. Yasui Tetsu, ‘ Seinen Jidai no Tsuikai’, Shin Jokai, October 1912. Yasui Tetsu, ‘Watashi no Uketa Kyo¯iku to Kyo¯iku no Riso¯’, Shin Jokai, June 1914. Tokyo Joshi Ko¯to¯ Shihan Gakko¯ (ed.), Tokyo Joshi Ko¯to¯ Shihan Gakko¯ 60-nen-shi, Tokyo: Tokyo Joshi Ko¯ to¯ Shihan Gakko¯ , 1934. Aoyama, Yasui Tetsu Den, pp. 19–39. Ibid., p. 34; Watari Yoshiko, ‘Hani Motoko’, in Nihon Kirisuto Kyo¯ dan (ed.), Gonin no Senseitachi, Tokyo: Nihon Kirisuto Kyo¯ dan Shuppanbu, 1960. On Higuchi Ichiyo¯ , see Kaishaku Gakkai (ed.), Higuchi Ichiyo¯ no Bungaku, Tokyo: Kyo¯ iku Shuppan Senta¯, 1973. Aoyama, Yasui Tetsu Den, p. 40. On Tsuda Umeko, see Tsudajuku Do¯so¯kai (ed.), Tsuda Umeko Den, Tokyo: Tsudajuku Daigaku, 1956; Yamazaki Takako, Tsuda Umeko, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Ko¯bunkan, 1962; Furuki Yoshiko, Tsuda Umeko, Tokyo: Shimizu Shoin, 1992; Iino So¯ko et al (eds), Tsuda Umeko o Sasaeta Hitobito, Tokyo: Yu¯kikaku, 2000; Barbara Rose, Tsuda Umeko and Women’s Education in Japan, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992; Yoshiko Furuki et al (eds), The Attic Letters: Ume Tsuda’s Correspondence to Her American Mother, Boston: Weatherhill, 1991. Aoyama, Yasui Tetsu Den, pp. 42–43. See Tsuda Umeko, ‘Journal in London’, in Tsudajuku Daigaku (ed.), Tsuda Umeko Bunsho, Tokyo: Tsudajuku Daigaku, 1980, p. 274; Shirai Atsushi & Shirai Takako, Oxford Kara, Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Hyo¯ ronsha, 1995, pp. 61–74. Yasui’s activities in England are explained in Aoyama, Yasui Tetsu Den, pp. 40–95. See also Shibanuma Akiko, ‘Eikoku Ryu¯gaku de Eta Mono: ¯ e Sumi no Baai o Hikakushite’, Keiwa Gakuen Daigaku Yasui Tetsu to O Kenkyo¯ Kiyo¯, No. 8, 1999, pp. 243–267. Hughes Hall College Archives, Box 5, College Publications and Materials, List of Students of the CTC 1885–1903. On the Cambridge Training College for Women Teachers, see ‘The Cambridge Training College for Women Teachers’, The Times, 16 November 1895, p. 5; C.N.L. Brooke, A History of the University of Cambridge, Vol. 4, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 464; Margaret Bottrall, Hughes Hall 1885–1985, Cambridge: Rutherford Publictions, 1985; Margaret Bottrall, ‘Hughes Hall 1885–1985 in 633

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17

18 19

20

21

22 23

24

25

Cambridge’, The Magazine of the Cambridge Society, No. 16, 1985, pp. 47–52; Mary V. Hughes, A London Girl of the 1880s, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1943; Ged Martin, Hughes Hall Cambridge 1885–2010, London: Third Millennium Publishing, 2011. Jean Lambert, ‘Japan and Hughes Hall’, The Magazine of Hughes Hall, Cambridge, Issue 21, Michaelmas Term 2014, pp. 26–27. Ibid., p. 26. Nagahara Kazuko, ‘Kaisetsu’, in Aoyama, Yasui Tetsu Den, pp. 1–5; ¯ zeki Keiko, ‘The “Hill Difficulty” – Women’s Higher Education in O England’, Jissen Joshi Daigaku Bungakubu Kiyo¯, No. 35, March 1993, pp. 39–45; Shirota Hideo, ‘Eikoku yori no Tegami – Shimoda Utako kara Tani Chishiro e’, Jissen Kokubungaku Kaishi Rindo¯, No. 18, July 1992, pp. 76–81. On Shimodo Utako, see Hirao Kazuko, Shimoda Utako Kaiso¯roku, Tokyo: Sanyo¯do¯, 1942; Ko Shimoda Ko¯cho¯ Sensei Denki Hensanjo ¯ zorasha, 1989. (ed.), Shimoda Utako Sensei Den, Tokyo: Tokyo: O Margaret E. Rayner, Centenary History of St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, Falmouth: Kerenza J Ltd., 1993; Amy Key Clarke, A History of Cheltenham Ladies’ College, London: Faber, 1953; Alice Gardner, A Short History of Newnham College, Cambridge, Bel Air: General Books LLC, 2012. On Dorothea Beale, see Elizabeth Raikes, Dorothea Beale of Cheltenham, London: Archibald Constable, 1908; F. Cecily Steadman, In the Days of Miss Beale: A Study of Her Work and Influence, London: Ed. J. Burrow & Co, 1931. Shimoda’s visit to Cheltenham Ladies’ College in 1895 is recorded. I obtained this information from Mrs Rachel Roberts, the college archivist. Lambert, ‘Japan and Hughes Hall’, p. 26. See also Hughes Hall College Archives, Box 5, College Publications and Materials, Prospectus, 1891. Lambert, ‘Japan and Hughes Hall’, p. 26. This was announced in the college’s newsletter Gild Leaflet of 1897, which stated that ‘one of Japan’s teachers comes to us – our first links with “the land of the Morning” and “the Empire of the Sunrise”’. Hughes Hall College Archives, Box 5, College Publications and Materials, Gild Leaflet, Summer 1897. See also Hughes Hall College Archives, Box 5, College Publications and Materials, List of Students of the CTC 1885–1903. On Elizabeth Hughes, see Pam Hirsch & Marc McBeth, Teacher Training at Cambridge: The Initiatives of Oscar Browning and Elizabeth Hughes, London: Woburn Press, 2004; Martin, Hughes Hall Cambridge 1885–2010, pp. 41–44; G. H. L. Le May, ‘Elizabeth Phillips Hughes (1851–1925)’, in C.S. Nicholls (ed.), The Dictionary of National Biography: Missing Persons, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 335–336; Megan Lewis, ‘Elizabeth Phillips Hughes’, in The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (ed.), Dictionary of Welsh Biography Down to 1940, London: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1959; Hughes Hall College Archives, Box 6, Miscellaneous, ‘Testimonial to Miss Hughes’, Autographs of Student Roll 1885– 1899 Illus. ‘Presented to Miss E P Hughes on Her Retirement from the Principalship of the Cambridge Training College by her Grateful Old Students as a Token of Their Deep Appreciation and Regard.’ 24 June 1899. May, ‘Elizabeth Phillips Hughes (1851–1925)’, p. 336. 634

YASUI TETSU (1870–1945)

26 27 28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35 36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

Aoyama, Yasui Tetsu Den, p. 49. Lambert, ‘Japan and Hughes Hall’, p. 27. Ibid., pp. 26–27; Yasui Tetsu, ‘Arupusu Tozan no Tsuikai’, Shinjokai, 1:5, 1 August 1909. On Hugh Price Hughes, see The Dictionary of National Biography: The Concise Dictionary, Part II, 1901–1970, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 344. On George Frederick Stout, see C.A. Mace, Obituary of George Frederick Stout (1860–1944): Offprint Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. 31, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1944. Her letter is kept in the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (Gaiko¯ Shiryo¯kan), Tokyo. A biographical portrait of Nitobe Inazo¯ by Ian Nish is contained in Hugh Cortazzi (ed.), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume VI, Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2007. The account of Yasui’s teaching career after her return to Japan is given in Aoyama, Yasui Tetsu Den, pp. 96–116. ¯ no Nobutane, ‘E.P. For details of Miss Hughes’s visit to Japan, see O Hughes in Japan (1901–1902)’, Gakushu¯in Daigaku Bungakubu Kenkyo¯ Nenpo¯, No. 36, 1989, pp. 323–346. Shirai, Oxford Kara, pp. 94–111. On Joshi Eigaku-juku, see Tsuda Juku Daigaku 100-nen-shi Hensan Iinkai (ed.), Tsuda Juku Daigaku 100-nen-shi, Tokyo: Tsuda Juku Daigaku, 2003. Miss Hughes’s letters addressed to Naruse Jinzo¯ on 5 & 6 November, 1901 and 11& 27 September, 1902 are kept in Naruse Kinenkan, The Japan Women’s University. See also Shirai Takako, ‘Elizabeth P. Hughes – Naruse Jinzo¯ o Tasuketa Eikoku Joshi Kyo¯iku no Paionia’, Nihon Joshi Daigaku Naruse Kinenkan 1993, No. 9, 15 December 1993, pp. 46–57. Yasui’s activities in Thailand are described in Aoyama, Yasui Tetsu Den, pp. 117–140. The details of Yasui’s study in Wales are given in Aoyama, Yasui Tetsu Den, pp. 141–152. Cardiff University Institutional Archive, UCC/R/Stu/Reg/1, Registration Book of the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, 1906–1910. On Aberdare Hall, see http://wearecardiff.files.wordpress. com/2013/03/20613117.jpg. See also Cardiff University Institutional Archive, UCC/R/Pub/Cal/22, The University College of South Wales Calendar, 1907–1908. Cardiff University Institutional Archive, UCC/CL/M/3, The Minutes of the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, 1890–95. On John Stuart MacKenzie, see Millicent MacKenzie (ed.), John Stuart MacKenzie, London: Williams and Norgate, 1936. On Hettie Millicent MacKenzie, see Judith Dray, ‘The UK’s First Female Professor: Millicent MacKenzie’, in http://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/ cuarm/2015/03/17/millicent-mackenzie/,17 March 2015; ‘International Women’s Day: A Guest Post by Kelly Page at Cardiff University’, in http://wearecardiff.co.uk/2013/03/08/international-womens-day-a-guestpost-bu-kelly-page/, 8 March 2013. See also Cardiff University Institu635

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44

45 46

47 48

49

50

51

52 53

54

55 56

57

58

tional Archive, USS/SN/M/4, The Minutes of the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Senate. On Arthur Cyril Adair Brett, see Cardiff University Information Services, ‘Cyril Brett Archives’, http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/insrv/libraries/ scolar/special/brett.html. On the courses of philosophy and English literature at the college, see Cardiff University Institutional Archive, UCC/R/Pub/Pro/5, The University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Prospectus, 1907–1908. Aoyama, Yasui Tetsu Den, pp. 153–170. On Ebina Danjo¯, see Ooshimo Aya, Chichi Ebina Danjo¯, Tokyo: Shufu no Tomosha, 1975. Aoyama, Yasui Tetsu Den,, pp. 171–214. Ibid., pp. 215–234; Aoyama Nao, Yasui Tetsu to Tokyo Joshi Daigaku, Tokyo: Keio¯ Tsu¯shin, 1982, pp. 37–77. See also the website of Tokyo Women’s Christian University, ‘Kengaku no Seishin’, http://office. twcu.ac.jp/aboutus/spirit/spirit.html. On Nitobe Inazo¯, see Tokyo Joshi Daigaku Do¯so¯kai, Nitobe Inazo¯ Tsuito¯roku, Tokyo: Tokyo Joshi Daigaku Do¯so¯kai, 1934; Tokyo Joshi Daigaku Nitobe Inazo¯ Kenkyo¯kai (ed.), Nitobe Inazo¯ Kenkyo¯, Tokyo: Shunju¯sha, 1969; Matsukuma Toshiko, Nitobe Inazo¯, Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo¯, 1981. See the website of Tokyo Women’s Christian University, ‘So¯ritsuki no Hitobito’, http://office.twcu.ac.jp/aboutus/spirit/founder.html. On the history of Tokyo Joshi Daigaku, see Tokyo Joshi Daigaku 50-nen-shi Hensan Iinkai (ed.), Tokyo Joshi Daigaku 50-nen-shi, Tokyo: Tokyo Joshi Daigaku, 1968. Yasui Tetsu, ‘Joshidai Zengo’, Fujin Ko¯ron, November 1941. Yasui Tetsu, ‘Ogikubo Yawa’, Tokyo Joshi Daigaku Do¯so¯kai Geppo¯, February 1937. Yasui’s retirement life is recorded in Aoyama, Yasui Tetsu Den, pp. 373– 400. May, ‘Elizabeth Phillips Hughes (1851–1925)’, p. 336. See the website of Tokyo Women’s Christian University, ‘Kyo¯iku Ho¯shin’, http://office.twcu.ac.jp/aboutus/policy.html. & ‘Rekishi Nenpyo¯’, http://office.twcu.ac.jp/aboutus/history.html. See the website of Tokyo Women’s Christian University, ‘Exchange Programs’, http://office.twcu.ac.jp/o-board/twcu-e/text/twcu_e_ exchangeprogram.html. Aoyama Nao (ed.), Yasui Tetsu Tsuiso¯roku, Tokyo: Yasui Tetsu Sensei Kinen Shuppan Kanko¯kai, 1966.

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Tanaka Hozumi (1876–1944): Enlightened Educationalist at Waseda NORIMASA MORITA

EARLY LIFE

Tanaka Hozumi was born on the 17 February 1876, as the eldest son of Shu¯nosuke and Yu¯ in Senryu¯ village, now part of Nagano city. Shu¯nosuke was the village headman, as his forebears had been, and a large landowner; Yu¯ was a daughter of a samurai patriarch whose residence had served as an inn for feudal lords, government officials and high-ranking messengers, aristocrats and head priests of the royal temples when travelling. The birth of Hozumi was especially welcomed because Shu¯nosuke and Yu¯’s first three children had been girls. The Tanakas were well-off, with a manor house employing farmhands, boy servants, maidservants and a nursemaid, but Shu¯nosuke, in contrast to Hozumi’s grandfather, Onoemon, who wasted some of the family fortune through bad investments, was a more dependable realist, re-solidifying the financial foundations of the family’s fortune. Hozumi is said to have inherited his father’s realist character, but was a sickly child, so that his mother had to make regular visits to a shrine

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to pray for her son’s recovery from various forms of illness, as well as frequently to send for a doctor for treatment. At the age of thirteen, Tanaka entered middle school in Matsumoto, about 50 kilometres west of his hometown, because that was the only middle school in the prefecture at that time. He started living on his own in a house as a boarder. However, three years later, his lung-disease forced him to leave school and left him with no choice but to recuperate at home. He was eventually diagnosed as suffering from a parasitic infection caused by a local form of lung fluke and this disease afflicted him during his entire life.1 Being unable to continue his formal education, he had to live with his family away from school, and it was only when his condition improved that he began to hunt as a form of physical exercise, and to help in his father’s business. During his convalescence Tanaka began the correspondence course offered by Waseda University. He subscribed to the collections of lectures published by Waseda University Press2 and completed the course in a few years as an extramural student. Those who completed the programme could be admitted to the first year class at Waseda without examinations, but instead he took a transfer admission test for the second year class and passed it in November 1895, the year the Sino-Japanese War ended. However, one month after this success, he took another transfer admission test for the third year class and passed this, too. He began his university life as a third year student from April 1896, and therefore stayed in university just for one year. Graduating from the department of political sciences and economics in 1896, Tanaka first worked for the Tokyo Nichi-Nichi newspaper as a staff writer in the economic affairs section, and was soon invited to lecture at his alma mater, while continuing to work as a journalist. In 1889 at the age of twenty-two his first book, Zaisei Ron (A Study on Public Finance), was published with the assistance and guidance of Amano Tameyuki, a journalist and economist like Tanaka, but sixteen years his senior. It was about this time that his desire to study economics in the West became irresistible and he seized the opportunity to be sent to the USA and the UK as a university fellow. Like every other Japanese university lecturer who was sent to Western countries to absorb more advanced scholarship, Tanaka was treated as if he were a local hero in his hometown. When he returned to his home to bid farewell to his relatives and friends, twenty-eight of them gathered for a farewell banquet. The party started at lunchtime and lasted well into the night. Sixty-nine villagers are said to have seen him off at the local station3 and he was also accompanied by some of his relatives all the way to Tokyo.

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TANAKA HOZUMI (1876–1944)

STUDYING ABROAD

Tanaka left for San Francisco by sea on 22 June 1901, and some ten days later reached Honolulu, the first port of call after it left Japan. On the ship to San Francisco, he wrote an essay on Hawaii. This was his only published work over the next two years when he was in the USA and the UK. Other Meiji scholars, teachers, bureaucrats, and intellectuals who had a chance to live abroad usually recorded in detail their experiences, impressions, thoughts and reactions through essays and diaries, but Tanaka oddly published nothing about his two years except his essay on Hawaii. He did not even mention his personal experiences in the USA and the UK in his published works or public speeches. Even this piece, entitled ‘A Glance at Hawaii’4 is completely devoid of personal episodes or reflections and instead concentrates on a politico-economic analysis of the islands as American territories. In the same year when Tanaka was sent to Columbia University by Waseda to study economics, Saito¯ Takao,5 another Waseda alumni and journalist, was sent to Yale to study at its law school. Saito¯ later became a member of the House of Representatives and became famous for the courageous ninety-minute anti-war speech, which he gave in the general assembly of the Japanese Diet just before Japan entered the war in 1941. Once or twice he visited Tanaka’s wellappointed lodging, which was not very far away from the university, because they had known each other well since they had made a lecture trip with other Waseda professors, such as Tsubouchi Sho¯yo¯ and Takata Sanae. They could have met more often if they had been living in the same city and Saito¯ had not been confined to hospitals in New Haven for many months, where he had to undergo several operations for pleurisy. Later in their lives, they stood for separate political positions when Saito¯ as a liberal and pacifist member of the House of Representatives took a firm stand against runaway militarism and endless colonialist expansion, while, as an economist, Tanaka argued for the maintenance of a stable financial situation backed by healthy colonial management. Waseda Gakuho¯ (a university bulletin) briefly reported that Tanaka had been awarded the degree of Master of Arts in economics by Columbia University in 1902. Tanaka’s field of specialization was public finance. He must have chosen Columbia because Edwin Seligman, best remembered for his pioneering work on public finance and taxation, was a professor there. Seligman’s academic position also suited the academic policies of the faculty of political science and economics at Waseda University. Traditionally in Japanese universities, political science was taught in law faculties, because legislation and the administration of justice were closely interrelated, 639

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but in Waseda politics and economics were taught in the same faculty, because it was thought, as Seligman argued, that politics and economics determined each other’s form. At Columbia, Seligman taught mainly in the fields of political economy and the history of economic doctrines. Abe Ken’ichi, one of Tanaka’s students, who later became an economist and professor at Waseda, remembers the similarity in lecture contents and teaching style between his teacher and Seligman. ‘I took Prof. Tanaka’s lectures on public finance for two years in a row, when I was an undergraduate student … many years later I attended Prof. Seligman’s lectures to discover that their teaching methods, classroom behaviour, and even lecture contents had many things in common. Their methodologies were historical and their academic positions and stances were neutral and moderate.’6 Waseda Gakuho¯ reported, ‘… on July 2nd, 1902, Tanaka left the USA for the UK … in order to further study public finance under the tutelage of a distinguished economist and then make a grand tour of the European continent.’7 Unfortunately the bulletin mentions neither who this distinguished economist was, nor where he was based for his research. According to his former student, Tanaka repeatedly mentioned in his lectures the name of Charles Bastable, a barrister and a public finance specialist, but he was an Irish economist and Whately professor at Trinity College, Dublin, so it is unlikely that he was his mentor. Shimamura Ho¯getsu, a drama critic and a founder of Japan’s modern theatre, was Tanaka’s colleague at university and was sent to the UK and Europe one year after Tanaka. The latter, however, arrived in London two months after the former’s arrival.8 Ho¯getsu’s stay in the UK therefore overlapped by thirteen months that of Tanaka and their not infrequent meetings were mentioned in the Ho¯getsu’s very detailed and accurate diaries. When he learnt that Tanaka had arrived in London, Ho¯getsu visited his lodging on 20 July. Tanaka returned his call on 26 July without giving any prenotification. As a result Ho¯getsu had to cancel a visit with his landlord’s family to an exhibition on Paris and spend the whole Saturday with Tanaka. Two days later Ho¯getsu went to Fenchurch Street Station to meet Shiozawa Masasada, an economist and Waseda graduate, who arrived that day from Germany after finishing his studies of finance, economics and statistics at Halle University and the University of Berlin. Shiozawa was to become the second president of Waseda University in 1921 before Tanaka was elected as the fourth president in 1931. Shiozawa and Tanaka visited Ho¯getsu on the following afternoon and went to see the night landscape of London after they had had tea. The following day Ho¯getsu went to Tanaka’s and they took Shiozawa for a half a day of sightseeing.9 640

TANAKA HOZUMI (1876–1944)

We do not know where Tanaka’s lodgings were, because Ho¯getsu never mentioned his address and the contact address that he gave to the university was only c/o the Japanese Consulate General in London. Tanaka did not belong to any institution while he was in London and there is little evidence to show what he was working on. He probably enjoyed a comfortable life in London as he came from a wealthy family and the funds the university gave him were no doubt amply topped up from his family fortune. Natsume So¯seki, a Ministry of Education fellow, who left England eight months before Tanaka’s arrival, never stopped complaining of a shortage of money, and Ho¯getsu, who came from an extremely poor family and had a wife and child in Japan, had to record his daily expenses.10 When Kaneko Umaji, a philosopher and Waseda graduate, fell into financial trouble towards the end of October that year and asked for a loan of ¥100, Tanaka and Ho¯getsu immediately wired the money to him in Germany.11 After the summer of 1902, Ho¯getsu left London for Oxford to study at Manchester College. Tanaka visited him there in the following May. During this visit, Tanaka stayed at The King’s Arms opposite the New Bodleian Library building, and was shown around Christ Church, Christ Church Meadow, and the Isis by Ho¯getsu.12 WASEDA – ACADEMIA, POLITICS AND JOURNALISM

Tanaka returned to Japan on 6 October 1903. Less than a week later he married his fiancée, Matsuko, who was a daughter of the chief retainer family of the former Matsushiro clan and to whom he had become engaged before he left for the USA. In the following year he was appointed as a lecturer at Waseda and taught economics and public finance at the school of political science and economics and the school of law. Many colleagues and students were greatly impressed with his lectures supported by his deep understanding of the most recent economic theories developed in the USA and the UK. His lecture style consisted of reading from a well-prepared script together with improvised comments. He appeared in the lecture theatre wearing smart Western suits or elegant kimono. Tanaka is now best remembered as a great educationalist and responsible university administrator, who made a huge contribution to the modernization of Waseda University and at the same time steered it through the most difficult time in its history until almost the end of the Second World War. As an academic, his major publications appeared during the few years after he returned to Japan. These included Advanced Principles of Taxation (1903), Theory of Public Debt (1904), and Particular Theories of Taxation (1906). The career path strongly desired by his generation of Waseda graduates was to work first in journalism and then move on to politics. 641

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He specialized in taxation and public finance more as an aspiring politician than as an academic. A letter he wrote to his fiancée, Matsuko, just before going back to his family home in Nagano for their wedding, describes his aspirations: It is too early for me to be received as if I were a triumphant hero, because I have merely been overseas for studying. My true triumphant return will be in twenty or thirty years’ time, when I make a true success. Now, I have made up my mind to go into politics … We will have to wait and see whether I will be received by the general public with applause or sneers, whether with cheers or boos, when I appear on the political stage as a player. However, I will set sail as a young politician within one or two years.

His ambition to be a politician never came to fruition at least until he became a member of the House of Peers at the end of his life. This membership of the House of Peers was, however, merely honorary. His connection with journalism continued even after he became ¯ kuma Shigenobu invited Tanaka to join the a lecturer at Waseda. O Tokyo Mainichi Shinbun as executive vice-president and chief editor when he bought it and tried to make it into a quality newspaper like the London Times.13 Tanaka virtually ran the newspaper but his management was short-lived because of the internal feuding between the ¯ kuma journalists who supported the pragmatist policies of the party O had established and the journalists who demanded strict adherence to the principles the party originally represented. Tanaka resigned only a year and a half after he assumed the position, taking responsibility for the troubles. Senior writers and young journalists left the newspaper, out of sympathy or loyalty to him. The list of those who quit the paper with Tanaka included a fledgling journalist, Ishibashi Tanzan,14 who was to become Prime Minister after the Second World War. Tanaka resumed full-time work for the university and in 1911 he was awarded a doctorate in law for his academic achievements. In the following year he was appointed Dean of the School of Commerce. From this time on, he became more and more involved in university administration, while continuing to teach and publish, although he spent less time on these activities. He proved to be a competent university administrator. As vice-president, first, and then president from 1931 to his death in 1944, he oversaw the construction of one of the largest university libraries in Japan and the university hall, which in 2007 was designated an Important National Cultural ¯ kuma Shigenobu, Property. He erected the new bronze statue of O now one of the best known public statues in Japan, constructed new school buildings for the schools of literature and arts, commerce, law and political science and economics and founded the departments of 642

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engineering. The department of applied chemistry was the first to open. Establishing the engineering departments involved some risks as it involved significant costs for a private university without a strong financial foundation. Tanaka was initially reluctant to set up the four departments of mechanical, electrical, architectural, and civil engineering, despite persistent petitioning from influential professors and alumni, but in the end he took the plunge, when the Sino-Japanese War escalated and he came to be convinced that Japan would need to develop engineering sciences quickly. His advancement from vice-president to president was, however, not smooth. In 1921 he competed for the post of university president with the previously mentioned Shiozawa Masasada, an economist and professor in economics like Tanaka, but three years younger, but he did not succeed. Shiozawa was a good linguist, being fluent in English and German, and more affable and popular than Tanaka. However, he was in office for only two years, while Tanaka was president for thirteen years. With the election of Shiozawa as president, Tanaka stepped down as vice-president and was sent in September 1921 on an eight-month tour of American and European universities. Tanaka kept regular diaries, but they were lost when his house was burnt down by an air raid during the Second World War. The diaries of Hidaka Tadaichi, who was a disciple of Tsubouchi Sho¯yo¯ and was sent to the USA and the UK to study English literature between 1921 and 1923, have, however, survived. These minutely describe his life in New York and London and his companionship with Tanaka. Hidaka went to Grand Central Station to see Tanaka on the latter’s arrival and took him to his hotel on 20 October. It was almost exactly twenty years after Tanaka had first visited New York to study at Columbia University. He stayed in New York for four weeks, revisiting Columbia, making a short excursion to Sagamore Hill in Long Island, where the late Theodore Roosevelt had lived till his death, attending alumni meetings, seeing plays in Broadway theatres, and taking regular walks in Central Park. Although officially Tanaka was sent to the USA to tour around its universities, there is little evidence that he made visits to them or met any university people. Tanaka took a boat for England on 15 November with Hidaka. He travelled first class and Hidaka second class; they reached Southampton on 21 November. They stayed in separate lodgings in Hampstead and visited each other almost daily until Tanaka left London. Hidaka’s diaries contain little description of Tanaka’s academic activities or visits to universities or libraries. His stay in London this time did not seem to have had any pressing agenda and simply served to give him moments of reprieve from university politics and the feuds between the factions of senior professors. At 643

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the same time, this was a valuable opportunity for him, because his experiences in London became one of the bases for his numerous non-academic essays and speeches as university president. Tanaka and Hidaka were among the crowd waiting for the arrival of the king on the day of the state opening of parliament and they managed to glimpse not only King George V, but also the Prime Minister, Lloyd George. They made frequent visits to theatres, visited various sights of interest, were invited to Christmas and New Year’s dinner by Tanaka’s landlady, and attended the morning service on New Year’s Day.15 The symptoms of the paragonimiasis that he had contracted at the age of thirteen and afflicted him through his entire life recurred while he was in London. On 16 February Hidaka was woken by a phone call from Tanaka and asked to come to see him immediately. Tanaka had spat blood the night before and was in bed when Hidaka arrived.16 A Japanese doctor who worked for the Imperial Household and had made the acquaintance of Tanaka on the boat from New York was called and ordered him to stay in bed for one week or so.17 Hemoptysis did not happen again but he never completely recovered from the fit, so that he had to cancel his European trip and return to Japan directly from London. On his return to Japan, he disembarked at Kobe on 6 May and arrived back in Tokyo by train. At Tokyo Station a party of senior university staff and students headed by President Shiozawa received him and according to the school bulletin he was welcomed back with a spontaneous rendition of the school song.18 Two years later Tanaka who had become the loyal and trusted right-hand man of the new president Takata Sanae was appointed to be a provost. In 1931 he took over from Takata as Waseda’s fourth president. 1931 was an inauspicious year as the Manchurian Incident broke out and Tanaka’s thirteen years as president were marked by constant battles between inner and outer forces. As president he had to protect the interests of the university, particularly the independence of scholarship and freedom of faith and speech, against surging militarist and fascist tendencies, whereas as a patriotic citizen he felt a strong obligation to have the university contribute to the strengthening of the nation and the success of the war effort. He desired to make sure that scholarship survived all forms of repression and to protect the welfare of staff and students, but at the same time he felt it his duty to ask for sacrifices from his staff and students on behalf of his beloved nation. He was torn between satisfying the wartime demands on universities from the ministry of education and listening to the voices of his staff and students calling for academic freedom; and between appeasing overzealous collaborationists and restraining unyielding liberals. 644

TANAKA HOZUMI (1876–1944)

While he was president, the university started officially celebrating the major events in the Imperial Calendar such as Foundation Day, the Emperor’s birthday, and the Emperor Meiji’s birthday. Tanaka himself gave speeches to students on various occasions with bellicose messages and inspired them to prepare to fight. The university staged massive celebrations in its baseball stadium for the fall of Nanjing, of Hankou and of Singapore. The members of the sports faculty were ordered to wear military uniforms; military training became a compulsory subject for all students and a committee was formed to implement the National Spirit Mobilization Movement Law. Tsuda So¯kichi, a renowned history professor who doubted the existence of some emperors in ancient Japan and denied the claim that the Emperors had reigned in an unbroken line, was sacked on the recommendation of the Ministry of Education. Three books by Nishimura Shinji, a history professor, were banned because of his liberal views. Bowing was replaced by the military salute. On orders from the Ministry of Education Korean and Taiwanese students who did not volunteer as soldiers were expelled. At the same time, great efforts were made to maintain the original identity and the founding principles of the university – independence of scholarship, a progressive spirit and good citizenship. Under Tanaka’s leadership, regulations were changed so that female students could be accepted and the first four students were admitted in 1939. School sports and fair play were promoted and encouraged, and students and alumni won medals in the Los Angeles Olympic Games, including Nanbu Chu¯hei who won a gold in the triple jump. George Bernard Shaw19 was invited to visit the newly opened Theatre Museum. The gates were dismantled so that the university became open to everybody at any time. The third series of the literary journal, Waseda Bungaku, began to be published in 1934. Four new engineering departments were established. Despite the general ban on using English words, the English language continued to be taught. The pressure for a reduction in the term of study was resisted to the end, although with limited success. Tanaka submitted to the Ministry of Education a report opposing the plan of concentrating graduate schools in the state universities, and the two private universities, Waseda and Keio, were allowed to maintain their graduate schools. He wrote various articles as an economist mildly criticizing military spending going out of control. Tanaka found his room for manoeuvre more and more restricted and he found it ever more difficult to adopt positive policies for his university, staff and students as Japan became ever more deeply involved in war. In 1943, the Japanese government began to call up for military service students in humanities and social science courses who were over twenty years old. A farewell assembly was held for the 645

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drafted students on 15 October and a baseball game was held between Waseda and Keio. No more such matches were played until November 1945. Koizumi Shinzo¯, the president of Keio University, proposed to Waseda’s baseball team one last game between the two universities for the sake of the students who would go to war. Tanaka did not give his university team permission, because he sensed it would be a scandal to hold a baseball game when the war situation was badly deteriorating and he felt his university had enough problems with the Ministry of Education and the War Ministry. The game went ahead as an unofficial event in Waseda’s baseball stadium which was packed with spectators. All the Keio students who participated in the game returned safely from the war but four of Waseda’s players died in action or of diseases contracted at the front, including a left field player who died in a kamikaze attack in Okinawa. Tanaka did not attend the game, which he had not authorized, but he did attend the farewell assembly in the same baseball stadium the day before. Nakamura Muneo, a law professor, was among the crowd in the day of the farewell assembly and described what he saw on that day: My unforgettable, last strong memory of my professor was him standing on the podium in the baseball stadium with a field cap on his head and a small national flag in his hand. Thousands of students formed in ranks and solemnly marched under him towards the exit gate. It must not only have been me who noticed the tears in his eyes, when he was seeing off his students who kept to themselves the determination never to return alive, as if they were his true children.20

Tanaka’s feelings at the time must have been mixed. They no doubt included joy and pride in sending off brave and selfless fighters, but also regret and remorse for his inability to save them from death. (His own eldest son died in Borneo.) That autumn, bronchitis, his old complaint, returned in a worse form than before, with an accompanying fever, and he needed constant medical attention, but he continued to work until April of the following year. Towards the end he ceded his responsibilities to his deputy, Nakano Tomio, who succeeded Tanaka as president after his death, and in April he retired to convalesce at home. His condition did not improve and in May he was admitted to the Imperial Hospital, where he died. ENDNOTES 1

Hidaka Tadaichi, ‘Kaigai ni okeru Tanaka Hakase no Omoide,’ in Tanaka So¯cho¯ Tsuiso¯ Roku, Tokyo: Ko Tanaka So¯cho¯ Tsuisou Roku Narabini Denki Henshu¯ Shitsu, 1946, pp. 205–206. 646

TANAKA HOZUMI (1876–1944)

2

3

4 5 6 7 8

9

10

11

12 13

14

15 16

17 18 19

20

The transcripts were first published in 1887 by the university press of Tokyo Senmon Gakko¯, the predecessor of Waseda University. Sekimoto Hitoshi, ‘Waseda Daigaku Ko¯giroku: Ko¯to¯ Kokumin Kyo¯iku ni Kansuru Ichi Ko¯satsu,’ Waseda Daigaku Kyo¯iku Kenkyu¯ka Kiyo¯, No. 15 – 1, 2007. The diary of Chu¯emon, Tanaka’s brother in law. Quoted by Kitazawa Shinjiro¯ in his Tanaka Hozumi: Denki & Bunshu¯, Tokyo: Tanaka Hozumi Sensei Denki Kanto¯ Kai, 1948, p. 72. ‘Hawaii no Ichibetsu,’ Waseda Gakuho¯, No. 57, August 1901. Saito¯ Takao, Yo¯ko¯ no Kika, Tokyo: Keinan Shoin, 1907. ‘Tanaka Sensei no Omoide,’ Tanaka So¯cho¯ Tsuiso¯ Roku, 1946, p. 2. Waseda Gakuho¯, No. 72, 1902, p. 461. For Ho¯getsu Shimamura, see my article, ‘Shimamura Ho¯getsu,’ Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, vol. IX, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015. Shimamura Ho¯getsu, Toei Taiei Nikki, in Meiji Bungaku Zenshu¯, vol. 43, Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo¯, 1967, p. 97. Iwamachi Isao, the author of the two-volume biography of Shimamura Ho¯getsu, calculates the size of the fellowship that the average scholar from Waseda received and concludes that it was about 1,500 yen a year, while the average scholar sent by the Ministry of Education for study abroad such as Natsume So¯seki and Haga Yaichi must have been getting about 1,800 yen a year. So¯seki received more funds than Ho¯getsu, but he constantly complained of the shortage of money because he probably spent too much money on books, whereas Ho¯getsu never mentioned it because though he bought an enormous number of books, they were paid for by the Waseda Library and professors. Iwamachi Isao, Hyo¯den Shimamura Ho¯getsu, Hamada: Iwami Bunka Kenkyu¯jo, 2004. Iwasa So¯jiro, Ho¯getsu no Belle-epoque, Tokyo: Taishu¯kan Shoten, 1998, p. 49. Shimamura Ho¯getsu, Toei Taiei Nikki, op. cit., p. 113. Kojima Naoki, Kigai no Hito Ishibashi Tanzan, Tokyo: Toyo¯ Keizai Shinbunsha, 2004. Shimamura Ho¯getsu, who knew Ishibashi as one of his students and had got him the job at the newspaper, had recommended Ishibashi to Tanaka. However, quitting the job was a big blow for him, as he had no other means to support himself and his family. See Kitazawa, Tanaka Ozumi, op. cit., pp. 195–211. Hidaka Tadaichi, ‘Kaigai ni okeru Tanaka Hakase no Omoide,’ Tanaka So¯cho¯ Tsuiso¯ Roku, op. cit., p. 205. Ibid., pp. 206–207. Waseda Gakuho¯, November, No. 333, 1922. For an account of George Bernard Shaw’s visit to Japan in 1934 see article by Bernard F. Dukore in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2010. Nakamura Muneo, ‘Tanaka Sensei no Omoide.’ Tanaka So¯cho¯ Tsuiso¯ Roku, op. cit., pp. 169–170.

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58

Hagihara Nobutoshi (1926–2001): Internationalist GORDON DANIELS

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

In the years following the Second World War Hagihara Nobutoshi, an individual largely separate from formal university life, made a remarkable contribution to scholarly and cultural relations between Japan and Britain. Hagihara Nobutoshi was born in the Asakusa (now Taito¯) ward of Tokyo on 7 March 1926.1 His family was scarcely academic. His father had completed eight years of military service and later became a wholesale supplier of Japanese pickles. In Nobutoshi’s early years the family moved twice within Tokyo as his father began to process pickles and ultimately to supply them to the Japanese army. In contrast Nobutoshi’s mother had been a junior school teacher, and it was she who showed particular interest in her five children’s education. Nobutoshi’s early enthusiasms were for competitive swimming and baseball, although he later developed wider interests in reading and music. These interests were to continue throughout his adult life. After studying at two public junior schools, in 1938 he entered the newly founded Tokyo Metropolitan Aeronautical Industry School, 648

HAGIHARA NOBUTOSHI (1926–2001)

an institution, which reflected the military priorities of the time. Apparently Nobutoshi’s father assumed that his eldest son would follow a military career. Nobutoshi completed four years study at this technical school before his parents encouraged him to take the entrance examinations for the prestigious Third Higher School in Kyoto. In 1942, he took these examinations but was unsuccessful. After two further years of study at a private middle school he gained entrance to the Science Section of the Third Higher School. In 1945, like vast numbers of high-school students, Nobutoshi was conscripted to carry out factory work for the war effort. In July the Osaka factory where he worked was destroyed by American bombing; fortunately none of the Kyoto Higher School students were injured. When the war finally ended on 15 August Nobutoshi was deeply relieved, but he felt no sense of happiness or emancipation. In this changed atmosphere he transferred to the Cultural Section of the Higher School, and in a complex mood of uncertainty believed that works of classical literature were now necessities of life. With three friends he jointly purchased ten volumes of Goethe’s collected writings from a second-hand bookshop. At this stage Nobutoshi’s main interests were in German literature and culture, and he showed no particular interest in Britain or its history. He joined the Higher School’s Germania Society and in November1946 took part in a student production of Schiller’s drama Die Räuber. Four months later he graduated from the Higher School, and in 1948 entered the Politics Section of the Law Faculty of Tokyo University. In these times of national scarcity Nobutoshi partly supported himself by teaching at local middle schools, and rarely appeared at university lectures and seminars. Apparently he could only devote one day each week to private study or research. Despite these financial and academic obstacles he successfully graduated in March 1951. Soon after he entered the postgraduate section of Tokyo University where he studied under the Anglophile liberal Professor Oka Yoshitake.2 Initially he began to study the German Communist Rosa Luxemburg but soon turned his attention to the nineteenth-century politician and diplomat Mutsu Munemitsu. Mutsu had studied constitutional law under Lorenz von Stein in Imperial Austria, served as Japan’s Minister in Washington and been Foreign Minister during the Sino-Japanese war. These diverse facets of Mutsu’s career attracted Hagihara’s interest, and Mutsu remained an important focus of his research over many years. During his research at the National Diet Library and Tokyo University’s Meiji Newspaper and Magazine Library he met Nishida Taketoshi who became an important and creative influence. In particular Nishida introduced Hagihara to the career of Baba Tatsui, the nineteenth century liberal.3 Baba had stud649

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ied in England in the 1870s and had died in exile in Philadelphia in 1888. Baba became another historical figure who fascinated Hagihara throughout his later life. Baba’s liberal ideas and overseas experience resembled aspects of Hagihara’s own subsequent career. The 1950s were also a time when Hagihara formed his first significant links with English-speaking scholars. THE USA, OXFORD AND LONDON

To help finance his own research he gave academic assistance to two foreign historians who were active in Tokyo; Eric Klestadt from Australia and Hilary Conroy from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.4 Both were to give Hagihara crucial support in his academic development. Klestadt knew of Hagihara’s growing interest in nineteenth-century Anglo–Japanese relations and encouraged him to seek a scholarship to study at Oxford. Hagihara responded enthusiastically to this idea and Klestadt wrote a persuasive letter of recommendation to his friend Richard Storry5 of St Antony’s College. Much to Hagihara’s surprise he soon received an offer of a scholarship, without even a request for a photograph or curriculum vitae.6 Unfortunately, the scholarship made no provision for travelling expenses and Hagihara was urged to delay his departure for a further year. By this time he occupied a post at the National Diet Library, but in 1957 he was temporarily released, and received a Fulbright travel award to visit the United States. During his stay he was to send reports on the Library of Congress to the Diet Library in Tokyo. In September he crossed the Pacific by ship, reflecting that Baba Tatsui had followed the same route some seventy years earlier. After meeting the American Japanologist Marius Jansen in Seattle, Hagihara crossed the American continent by rail and arrived in Philadelphia on 14 September. During his stay he lodged part of the time with the Conroy family and continued the relationship that had begun in Tokyo. On his first full day in Philadelphia he made a pilgrimage to the grave of Baba Tatsui in the Woodland Cemetery. During his year in the city he had other significant experiences. He attended concerts given by the renowned Philadelphia Orchestra, attended seminars on the international politics of the Far East, and on modern European history, and visited New York and Washington DC. At the Library of Congress he met librarians specialising in diplomatic materials, and at the National Archives consulted numerous archivists. On the basis of those contacts he compiled reports, which were published in the National Diet Library’s magazine.7 During his time in Philadelphia Hagihara found little new material relating to Baba Tatsui but he never abandoned his plan 650

HAGIHARA NOBUTOSHI (1926–2001)

to write a significant study of his thinker’s life and ideas. By the time he left the United States he had drafted forty-seven pages of manuscript, which constituted the first two chapters of his projected work. Hagihara’s broad interest in Anglo-Japanese relations in the late Victorian era provided a powerful motive for his planned visit to Britain, but Baba’s links with London probably provided another incentive. A further experience in Philadelphia also deepened his interest in a British academic studying Japan. While in the University of Pennsylvania Library he came across Ronald Dore’s translation in Pacific Affairs of Maruyama Masao’s appreciation of E.H. Norman, the Canadian scholar-diplomat who had died in Egypt some months before. For Hagihara, Dore’s translation rendered Maruyama’s original so movingly that he copied it onto cards, and treated these as treasured possessions.8 During his time in Philadelphia, Hagihara was very concerned to accumulate funds for his transatlantic passage to England. Consequently in July 1958 he responded to an advertisement seeking an ‘oriental boy’ able to do gardening work, and provide advice on the care of Japanese miniature trees (bonsai). The successful applicant would be accommodated in the house of the bachelor dentist who was the bonsai enthusiast. Hagihara’s application was successful but he had little knowledge of miniature trees. He overcame this deficiency by having his father send him books on the subject.9 The contents of these were deployed to ‘coach’ his employer. The resulting earnings helped fund Hagihara’s third class ticket to travel on the Queen Elizabeth from New York to Southampton. He arrived in Oxford on 8 October 1958 to be met at the station by the bursar of St Antony’s College Peter Hailey. Apparently, Hagihara’s scholarship was for two years and he registered for a DPhil on Anglo-Japanese relations in the final decade of the nineteenth century. He found life in Oxford very different from that in Philadelphia. His tense first meeting with the College Warden, Sir William Deakin, was lubricated by a surprising glass of sherry.10 Hagihara’s first months in Oxford were enjoyable and stimulating. His spoken English was far from perfect but he entered enthusiastically into College and University life.11 He played darts and tennis and participated in G.F. Hudson’s seminar on the Far East. Hudson was also Hagihara’s academic supervisor and, at first, provided him with tutorials on academic English. In 1959 Hagihara was also a member of Sir Isaiah Berlin’s seminar on central concepts of History. He also received important intellectual stimulus from visits to London where he studied in the Public Record Office.12 On one of these visits, almost by chance, he received an important suggestion from an archivist. This official drew Hagihara’s attention to the historical 651

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value of the Ernest Satow papers, which had been little used up to that time. This suggestion led ultimately to a research endeavour, which lasted some forty years. For Hagihara, Oxford provided numerous social opportunities, which had not existed in Philadelphia. When the Japanese ambassador Ono Katsumi visited St Antony’s Hagihara was able to converse with him and in May 1960 he met the leader of the Labour Party Hugh Gaitskell at a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament meeting. On a later occasion he was impressed by Gaitskell’s apparent modesty and sincerity when the politician visited St Antony’s and conversed informally in the College bar.13 Unfortunately, by late 1960 Hagihara’s situation had drastically worsened. His scholarship had expired and he experienced acute financial difficulties. He was compelled to reside in a basement room, could not afford to eat college meals and ran up considerable college debts. It was said that he earned some money by preparing subtitles for Japanese films. Yet despite his multiple difficulties he made a remarkable contribution to G.F. Hudson’s Far East seminar. Shortly before leaving the College for a lengthy stay in London he delivered a highly original paper entitled ‘Baba Tatsui, an early Japanese liberal’. This was published three years later in St Antony’s Papers and was Hagihara’s first significant historical publication in either English or Japanese. At the time most British interest in Japan was focussed on the Second World War, Tokyo’s expansionist policies and Japanese ultra-nationalism.14 In contrast, Hagihara’s paper introduced a Japanese thinker who was a liberal and whose ideas reflected a period when Britain was the dominant power in the Anglo-Japanese relationship. Baba had arrived in England in 1870, and after a stay in rural Wiltshire had begun to study physics at University College, London. After a time his intellectual perspective changed dramatically and he came to believe that ‘the study of political and legal ideas was more important for a new Japan’.15 In 1872, ‘full of admiration for the foundation of English common law and the elaborate system of training lawyers,’ he began legal studies in London. At the same time he read widely on current political and social ideas and attended parliamentary debates. Yet, as Hagihara explained, Baba was not a simple Westerniser. When the Japanese statesman Mori Arinori suggested that the Japanese language should be replaced by English to achieve national progress Baba was furious. He quickly published a riposte entitled An Elementary Grammar of the Japanese Language, to demonstrate that Japanese was appropriate ‘for the use of common education of a modern nation’.16 In 1874, Baba returned to Japan and raised a new issue, the condition of Japanese women. He criticized their traditional servile behaviour and suggested that they be encouraged to read translations of appropriate Western works. Baba also 652

HAGIHARA NOBUTOSHI (1926–2001)

attacked the custom of arranged marriage, particularly for teenage girls.17 On his return to Britain he adopted a more nationalistic stance and published a pamphlet entitled The English in Japan, what a Japanese thought and thinks about them. In this he attacked the hypocritical behaviour of British merchants and missionaries. He also criticized ‘the legal basis which was enabling some English (men) to make undue profits’. In other words he attacked the unequal character of existing Anglo–Japanese treaties. In effect Baba was pioneering the demand for treaty revision negotiations. Hagihara’s essay concluded ‘unable to reconcile his consciousness of Japan with his appraisal of England he had lost his sense of direction and power of decision, the rest of his life bears out this melancholy sense of enlightenment and failure’.18 As these final words suggest Hagihara’s concern was not simply to make a historical statement, but also to achieve a nuanced and near poetic effect. This concern with the careful shaping of language was apparent in much of his later writing in both English and Japanese. Hagihara spent much of the years 1961 to 1962 in London gathering materials for his historical and biographical projects, but his life in these months was hardly comfortable. He no longer had any scholarship, and enjoyed no university links. In this time of difficulty, he was employed as a part-time research assistant by the distinguished sociologist Ronald Dore.19 More specifically Dore commissioned Hagihara to compile a list of little known Confucian scholars of the Edo period, with brief biographical notes. In the summer of 1962 Hagihara finally made preparations to return to Japan, but not before meeting the distinguished political scientist Maruyama Masao who was in London while spending several months at St Antony’s College.20 RETURN TO JAPAN

Hagihara left England in August and arrived in Yokohama on 21 September. In the following year he became a frequent contributor to the major intellectual journal Chuo¯ Ko¯ ron. His first article drew upon his experiences in Oxford and was entitled ‘On the Death of Hugh Gaitskell’.21 In this he wrote nostalgically of conversing with the Labour Party leader in the setting of an English spring. At a time when Japanese politics was still overshadowed by memories of the violent Security Treaty riots the British Labour party with its Oxford-educated leaders, probably appeared emotionally and intellectually attractive to numerous Japanese intellectuals. In September 1963, Hagihara wrote a commentary on the position of the new Labour leader Harold Wilson. In this Hagihara depicted Wilson as the fortunate beneficiary of the re-unification of the party 653

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brought about by Gaitskell.22 Hagihara appears to have revisited England during the autumn of 1964, when Wilson was elected as Labour Prime Minister. Soon after this he wrote on the theme of ‘The British Labour party and International Politics’ in the journal Gendai Riron.23 In this he noted the strong element of continuity in British diplomacy, stemming from a concept of national interest, which transcended party rivalries. Nevertheless, Hagihara hoped that the Labour Government might pursue an active policy seeking peaceful co-existence across the world. In 1964 Hagihara had also entered a new medium – television. His reputation as a commentator of moderate reformist views led the Japanese national broadcasting corporation (NHK) to select him to appear in a wide variety of discussion programmes. The first of these, in May, was a panel discussion of ‘the Diet and the Cabinet’; but soon afterwards he acted as chairman in a large number of programmes devoted to political issues. In these, there were significant appearances by academics from British institutions. In July the Canadian, Professor Robert McKenzie of the London School of Economics was questioned on the workings of political parties and later Ronald Dore was invited to discuss ‘Japan’s Political Culture’. Dore was not only a distinguished sociologist and fluent speaker of Japanese, but in London he had supported Hagihara in a time of difficulty. Hagihara’s considerable reputation as a serious television broadcaster was clear in September 1965 when he appeared on NHK’s General Channel interviewing ex-Prime Minister Yoshida at his Oiso residence, on the theme of Japanese diplomacy. The significance of this broadcast is suggested by its re-broadcast in 1967 on the occasion of Yoshida’s funeral.24 Hagihara’s own interest in British domestic politics was again evident at the time of the 1966 general election when he chaired a discussion of the Wilson government’s policies with three politicians and political experts. At the close of the following year he was also able to acknowledge the help he had received from his Oxford tutor, G.F. Hudson, when Hudson was invited by NHK to participate in a programme entitled ‘Japan and China – a Historian’s View of the Modern Period’. Hagihara was one of the two Japanese discussants. He continued to appear in numerous NHK broadcasts, and gave advice on significant historical productions, but his own research and writing dominated much of his later activity. More specifically his biographical research on Mutsu Munemitsu and Baba Tatsui led to publications in various forms. Perhaps his first substantial work on Mutsu appeared in Kamishima Jiro¯’s edited volume Kenryoku no Shiso¯, which appeared in 1965.25 This essay demonstrated Hagihara’s very personal approach to the writing of history. He clearly avoided the nationalistic and Marxist approaches which 654

HAGIHARA NOBUTOSHI (1926–2001)

had shaped much Japanese historical writing. A further positive element in his work was the use of materials in English and Japanese, which were scattered across Britain, the United States and Japan. Perhaps equally significant were Hagihara’s literary sensitivities, which led him to quote extensively from Mutsu’s poetic, yet political writings. Hagihara’s construction of his essay was also highly personal, using the meetings of individuals, rather than traditional chronology as the basis of his narrative. Above all Hagihara’s interpretation of Mutsu’s character was strikingly original. Where other historians had dwelt, often pejoratively, on Mutsu’s changing allegiances – from critic of the Meiji Government to service as a minister – Hagihara found overarching consistencies in his political behaviour. Hagihara was clearly in tune with Mutsu’s notion of politics as an art, not a simple struggle for power. In 1965 and 1966 Hagihara continued his journalist activities, contributing to the Asahi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, Chuo¯ Ko¯ ron and Tenbo¯; nevertheless he concentrated much of his attention on completing his projected study of Baba Tatsui. At times this necessitated isolated concentrated work. At times his publisher Chuo¯ Ko¯ronsha placed him in a hotel Kanzume (literally can or tin) to prevent his being distracted by other projects. The first section of Baba Tatsui appeared in the June 1966 issue of Chuo¯ Ko¯ron. The remainder followed in a series of seven monthly parts. Finally, in December 1967 the hard cover volume appeared and was warmly received by many readers. The success of this volume gave Hagihara greatly enhanced prestige as an author. His new status was confirmed in April 1968 when he was awarded the Yoshino Sakuzo¯ Prize.26 At that time Baba Tatsui was hailed as opening a new field of historical research. Indeed for some readers Baba Tatsui represented a new style of historical writing. In a later interview Yokoyama Toshio¯ suggested that Hagihara’s work had a distinct group of admirers, representing a Kansai, rather than a Tokyo view of history. It appears that Baba Tatsui’s great critical success led to Hagihara being offered an academic position in Kyoto.27 He rejected this, nominally on account of family responsibilities in Tokyo. It is more likely that Hagihara preferred the independent life of a freelance scholar, reviewer and writer. By this time Hagihara had also embarked upon a large-scale biography of Mutsu Munemitsu to be published in serial form. Episodes of this new study appeared in the evening edition of the Mainichi Shimbun from June 1967 to August 1968. By now a well-established writer Hagihara had married in May 1968. The wedding took place at the Mitsui Club in Tokyo and was attended by 150 guests. According to the Mainichi Shimbun the go-between had been the wife of Emeritus Professor Oka Yoshitake, Hagihara’s one-time tutor at Tokyo University. The newly-married 655

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Mrs Hagihara (Utako – née Tomida) had graduated from the music department of Tokyo Arts University and had carried out postgraduate study in West Germany. A British friend wrote of her as ‘a charming and highly sophisticated musicologist with a good grasp, of German and English’.28 Both Nobutoshi and his wife shared a deep love of Western classical music. OXFORD AND EUROPE AGAIN

By 1969, Hagihara had become something of a freelance intellectual celebrity, and was invited as a visiting fellow to St Antony’s college for a period of two years. Nominally he was re–instated as a doctoral student but in the spring of 1970 his supervisor G.F. Hudson wrote, ‘it is doubtful whether he will submit his thesis owing to the pressure of work for a Japanese publisher ... he has become to some extent a prisoner of his own literary fame’.29 One of Hagihara’s main objectives during this stay in England was to begin serious work on the diaries of Sir Ernest Satow to which he had been introduced in 1959. Another continuing theme of his research was the career of Mutsu Munemitsu, and during his St Antony’s fellowship he and his wife travelled to the continent, in pursuit of documents. In Austria they visited the house of Lorenz von Stein who had been Mutsu’s tutor in constitutional law. In times of relaxation Hagihara spoke of his liking for European locations where concerts and operas could be easily enjoyed; the site of the von Stein residence, on the outskirts of Vienna, was clearly such a place. Between August and December 1970 the Hagiharas appear to have resided for much of the time in Hampstead, in the home of Hugh Gaitskell’s widow, indicating that the friendship which had begun in 1960 was still significant. JAPAN – RECOGNITION AS A SCHOLAR AND INTERNATIONALIST

Hagihara returned, to Japan in 1971, and continued to write frequently on historical, literary, and social themes for both newspapers and magazines. However, in 1973 he was drawn into a completely new field of cultural activity. Formerly he had acted as an individual proponent of international cooperation, now he entered the world of government supported cultural diplomacy. Following an invitation from the Japanese Foreign Ministry he joined the management advisory council of the newly-created Japan Foundation.30 Equally significant, he served as an editor of the Foundation’s most significant Japanese language journal Kokusai K¯oryo¯. In both these roles he was able to demonstrate his support for British scholars and scholarship, and provide platforms for prominent British academics. Within a year 656

HAGIHARA NOBUTOSHI (1926–2001)

of the Foundation’s establishment it provided funds for a series of special seminars at St Antony’s College and for the creation of a visiting professorship. In 1977, Hagihara helped arrange the visit of Sir Isaiah and Lady Berlin to Japan as guests of the Foundation. Two years later he helped arrange Sir William and Lady Deakin’s visit to Japan, which was also supported by the Foundation. Some months later Kokusai K o¯ ryo¯ published the text of a lengthy discussion between Hagihara and Sir William. This analysed the origins of St Antony’s College and Deakin’s aim of creating a ‘neutral zone’ where scholars of many nationalities could freely study and debate international problems.31 Shortly after the Deakins’ visit to Japan Hagihara became Japan Foundation visiting fellow at St Antony’s and participated in another significant event in Anglo–Japanese academic relations; the AngloJapanese conference on the history of the Second World War, held at the Imperial War Museum. This was the first conference of British and Japanese scholars to discuss the origins, events and aftermath of the Pacific War in considerable depth. The conference and the publication of its papers both received Foundation support. Hagihara’s contribution to the Conference was brief, a postscript to a paper on Japanese views of Britain, 1937–1941, but it made a significant impact. He highlighted the reputation of nineteenth-century Japanese statesmen for realism and shrewdness, and contrasted this with the distrust evoked by Foreign Minister Matsuoka in the pre-war years.32 He concluded: There are many reasons for this decline in ... political realism but it seems that one stands out .... It is the fact that Japan did not really have direct experience of the First World War ... Indeed, one might say that for Japan, the Second World War was the First World War.33

By this time Hagihara’s work on the diaries of Sir Ernest Satow was progressing significantly, and one aspect of its preparation illustrates Hagihara’s impressive research technique. In seeking material relating to Satow’s colleague William Willis34 he closely examined Northern Irish telephone directories and by locating Willis’ descendants gathered a significant number of relevant documents. In the precomputer era this demonstrated Hagihara’s remarkable persistence and resolve. Initially, his work on Satow’s diaries was serialised in the Asahi Shimbun, but by December 1980 the first volume had been issued in hard cover by the same publisher. Up to this time Hagihara’s major research projects had been largely focussed upon on figures with whom he felt some intellectual and political affinity; Baba, Mutsu and Sir Ernest Satow. But by the 1980s he had been commissioned to write a study of To¯ go¯ Shigenori, diplomat and Foreign, Minister, for whom he had much less personal sympathy. Despite the political and emotional gap, which separated Hagihara and To¯go¯, 657

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Hagihara was suitably qualified for this commission. In their younger days both Hagihara and To¯go¯ had been attracted to German literature and To¯go¯’s postings had included Berne and Berlin. Both Hagihara and his wife, had an effective knowledge of German and experience of life in German-speaking cities. Although Hagihara may have felt cool towards To¯go¯’s personality, as a deeply professional historian he travelled widely on the continent in pursuit of documents and eyewitness accounts of To¯go¯’s pre-war career. He even discovered a Swiss lady who in her youth had known To¯go¯ in Berne. The result of Hagihara’s prolonged endeavours To¯go¯ Shigenori, Denki to Kaisetsu35 was published in 1985, and was awarded the Yoshida prize in the following year. By this time Hagihara’s position in the Japan Foundation, including membership of the translation and publication assistance committee, was such that he could play a major role in the celebration of the Foundation’s first ten years of activity.36 In September 1983, an international symposium was held at Karuizawa to discuss the theme ‘Experiencing The Twentieth Century’. Besides distinguished Japanese and American participants Hagihara, invited long-standing British friends from his days at St Antony’s to attend. These included James Joll and Philip Windsor. The symposium took place several years before the fall of Communism and the end of the Cold War so it is understandable that peace was a major concern in Hagihara’s own contribution to the meeting. In a paper entitled ‘What Japan means to the Twentieth Century’ he reiterated his belief that Japan had escaped most of the social and intellectual results of the First World War. This in turn led to Japanese miscalculations and the outbreak of the Pacific War. Hagihara’s second major preoccupation was the post-war constitution, more specifically article nine, which renounced war and the maintenance of war potential. For Hagihara article nine had the potential to provide the basis for a peace-based foreign policy. He recognised that, historically, article nine was an American implant but he sought to give it firmer support by holding a national referendum. Assuming that this produced a favourable result, article nine could be the foundation of a creative twenty-first century diplomacy.37 Throughout the 1980s Hagihara’s sphere of activity continued to broaden. In 1985, he was invited to join the UK-Japan 2000 group,38 an organisation of political, business and cultural leaders from the two countries, which met annually to discuss major problems in AngloJapanese relations. At a time when Japan’s overwhelming economic success overshadowed relations between London and Tokyo Hagihara, at times, injected a somewhat sceptical note into discussions. On one occasion he suggested that should Japan face more difficult circumstances she could learn from Britain’s skill in managing impe658

HAGIHARA NOBUTOSHI (1926–2001)

rial decline.39 Hagihara’s increasing proximity to the political world was also indicated by his appointment to Prime Minister Kaifu’s private advisory group on international cooperation. In 1987, Hagihara was re-appointed to the management committee of the Japan Foundation, a position which he held for a further seven years. In this capacity he had a major role in organising a large-scale conference in 1993 to celebrate the Foundation’s twenty years of activity. This five-day meeting at the Yatsugatake Ko¯gen Lodge addressed the theme ‘The End of the Century, the Future in the past’. Its thirty Japanese, American and European participants included Ronald Dore and Philip Windsor. In the new post-Communist situation several sessions were devoted to the fall of the Soviet Union and its aftermath. However, Hagihara’s own contribution recalled his presentation at the Karuizawa meeting ten years earlier. He remained pre-occupied with article nine of the post-war constitution, but suggested that the article be revised to give legal recognition to the SelfDefence Forces. Hagihara wanted their future role to be strictly limited to self-defence, disaster relief and United Nations peace keeping. In the discussion following his own paper he concluded ‘in the final analysis we must endeavour to change Japan into a more open country, cease merely to be a beneficiary of the international community, and strive to make Japan a more positive contributor in a non-military way to international society’.40 Alongside these international cultural and political activities Hagihara remained a successful writer and literary celebrity. He was awarded the Meiji Mura prize by the Meiji Village Museum. He also served as a member of the panel of judges for the Osaragi Jiro¯ Prize. On 25 December 1990, he finally completed the 1,947-part serialization of To¯i Kage, his epic work based on the Sir Ernest Satow diaries. These were praised for the ‘pellucid style of their composition’.41 Despite Hagihara’s demanding and exhausting life in Japan he retained his affection for Britain and his loyalty to the community of St Antony’s College. Richard Storry died in 1982 and Hagihara and a group of Japanese friends responded by raising money for a series memorial lectures, on ‘Japanese History and Culture’.42 James Joll inaugurated the series in 1986 and Hagihara travelled from Japan to attend. The final lecture, in 1997, was given by Tsuzuki Chushichi who Hagihara had first met at St Antony’s almost forty years before. Hagihara was to have spoken on this occasion but was too ill to attend. FINAL YEARS

Hagihara’s life in the new millennium was darkened by bereavement and terminal illness. In 2000, his mother, Takeyo, died. In 659

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August 2001, Utako died. Shortly before, Nobutoshi had entered a hospital suffering from lung cancer. On the 4 October, in hospital, he received the final, fourteenth volume of To¯i Kage. He died twenty days later.43 At the time of his death the ‘restrained’ England, for which Hagihara had deep affection had largely passed away; but in years when the United States increasingly dominated the study of Japan, Hagihara did much to strengthen and deepen British engagement with Japan and its culture. ENDNOTES 1

2 3

4 5

6

7 8 9

10 11

12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

The most detailed information on Hagihara’s life is to be found in Hagihara Nobutoshi Chojutsu Mokuroku to Nenpu (Hibaihin) issued by Hagihara Nobutoshi Teimai Ichido¯ on 24 October 2002. The accounts of his childhood and student years appear in pp 75–76 and pp 100–109. Op. Cit. p. 77. Ibid. p. 77 - and N.Hagihara ‘Baba Tatsui: An Early Japanese Liberal’ in St Antony’s Papers, Number 14 Far Eastern Affairs. Number 3, Chatto and Windus, London. 1963 p. 142. Hagihara Nobutoshi Chojutsu Mokuroku to Nenpu p. 77 A biographical portrait of Richard Storry by Ian Nish is in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume V, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2004. William Deakin and Hagihara Nobutoshi ‘Kokusaiteki na “Chu¯ritsu Chitai” o Motomete’ in Kokusai Ko¯ryo¯ 22, 1980. p. 12 Brian Powell and Dorothie Storry ‘Nobutoshi Hagihara (1926–2001)’ (Obituary) St Antony’s College Record 202 p 145. Baba Tatsui was the subject of a biographical portrait by Helen Ballhatchet in Britain and Japan 1859–1991: Themes and Personalities, ed. Hugh Cortazzi and Gordon Daniels, Routledge, 1991. Hagihara Nobutoshi Chojutsu Mokuroku to Nenpu pp. 78–79. Ibid. p. 79. Ibid. p. 79 and Brian Powell and Dorothie Storry ‘Nobutoshi Hagihara (1926–2001)’ (Obituary) St Antony’s Record 2002 p. 145. Ibid. p. 145. Anthony Nicholls ‘ Nobutoshi Hagihara (1926–2001)’ (Obituary) St Antony’s College Record 2002 p. 144. Hagihara Nobutoshi Chojutsu Mokuroku to Nenpu. p. 80. Ibid. p. 80. For example the writings of F. C. Jones and Richard Storry. N. Hagihara ‘Baba Tatsui: An Early Japanese Liberal’, St Antony’s Papers. Number 14 Far Eastern Affairs No. 3, London 1963. p. 127. Ibid. p. 130. Ibid. p. 133. Ibid. pp. 136 142. Hagihara Nobutoshi Chojutsu Mokuroku to Nenpu p. 81. Ibid. p. 81. 660

HAGIHARA NOBUTOSHI (1926–2001)

21 22 23 24

25

26 27

28

29

30

31

32

33 34

35

36

37 38

39

40

Hagihara Nobutoshi Chojutsuto Nenpu p. 11. Ibid. p. 11. Ibid. pp. 13–14. For Hagihara’s television appearances see ‘Ho¯so¯ Bangumi Shutsuen Ichiran’ Hagihara Chojutsu Mokuroku to Nenpu pp. 65–68. Hagihara Nobutoshi ‘Mutsu Munemitsu: A Portrait’ pp. 121–147 (a revised English Version of ‘Mutsu Munemitsu’ in Kamishima Jiro¯ (ed) Kenryoku no shisa Chikuma Shobo¯, Tokyo. 1965-) - in Sue Henny and Jean-Pierra Lehmann (eds) Themes and Theories in Modern Japanese History Athlone London 1988. Hagihara Nobutoshi Chojutsu to Nenpu p. 81. Hagihara Nobutoshi and Yokoyama Toshio, ‘Igirisu Taiken to Nihon’ in Kokusai Ko¯ryo¯ 77 (October 1997) p. 5. Antony Nicholls: ‘Nobutoshi Hagihara (1926–2001)’ ... (Obituary) St Antony’s College Record 2002 p. 145. Supervisors Progress Report on Research Student 25 April 1970 - Kindly supplied by St Antony’s College, Oxford. Hagihara Nobutoshi and Yokoyama Toshio ‘Igirisu Taiken to Nihon’ Kokusai Ko¯ryu 77 October 1977 p. 5 and Hagihara Nobutoshi Chojutsu Mokuroku to Nenpu p. 82. Information supplied by St Antony’s College and William Deakin and Hagihara Nobutoshi ‘Kokusaiteki na “Chu¯ritsu Chitai” o Motomete’ Kokusai Ko¯ryo¯ 22 1980 pp. 2–14. Ian Nish (ed) Anglo-Japanese Alienation1919–1952, Papers on the AngloJapanese Conference on the History of the Second World War. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982 for Hagihara’s contribution see pp. 97–102. His conclusions appear on p. 100. A monograph by Hugh Cortazzi Dr Willis in Japan, British Medical Pioneer 1867–79, was published by Athlone Press in 1985. In the foreword to his book Hugh Cortazzi acknowledges the ‘careful detective work’ of Dr Hagihara in finding the letters on which his book was based. Hagihara Nobutoshi Chojutsu to nenpu p 83. Hagihara’s less than enthusiastic view of To¯go¯ is evident in his article ‘ To¯go¯ as Ambassador to Berlin, 1938’ i.e. Ian Nish (ed) German-Japanese Relations in the 1930s’ (International Studies 1986/3) Suntory Toyota International Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines. London School of Economics and Political Science, London, 1986 pp. 1–9. Nobutoshi Hagihara, Akira Iriye, Georgas Nivat and Philip Windsor (eds) Experiencing the Twentieth Century University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo 1985. For Hagihara’s paper ‘What Japan Means to the Twentieth Century’ see pp. 15–29. Experiencing the Twentieth Century (1985) p. 27. See separate article by Marie Conte-Helm in this volume about the UKJapan 21st Century Group. Conversation with Sir Peter Parker. See also Hagihara Nobutoshi and Yokoyama Toshio ‘Igirisu Taiken to Nihon’ in Kokusai Ko¯ryo¯, 77. October 1977 pp. 18–19. The Japan Foundation Centre for Global Partnership: The End of the Century, The Future in the Past Kodansha International, Tokyo, New 661

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41

42

43

York, London, 1995. For Hagihara’s paper - ‘Can Japan be a Model?’ Relations on Article nine of the Constitution, see pp. 393–398, for concluding remarks see pp. 407–408. Ian Nish ‘Hagihara Nobutoshi 1926–2001’. Proceedings of the Japan Society. Summer 2002 issue 139 pp. 73–74. Richard Storry Memorial Japan Cultural Lecture Opening Prospectus (kindly supplied by St Antony’s College, Oxford. Hagihara Nobutoshi Chojutsu Mokuroku to Nenpu. p. 84.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

In the early 1970s as editor of Tsuru magazine (published quarterly by the European regional office of Japan Air Lines), I had the pleasure of commissioning three articles by Nobutoshi Hagihara – ‘Europe: An Essay from Japan’ (launch issue, June 1971), ‘Japan looks into the crystal ball’ (March 1972) and ‘Sake’ (July 1972) – all extremely well written, insightful and entertaining. As far as I know these were the only general-interest pieces in English he wrote specifically for a Western audience. PHN

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Nakaya Ukichiro (1900–1962): Snow Scientist JENNY WHITE

Nakaya in his basement laboratory in Kings College. Taken by fellow researcher ‘Das’, February 1929

INTRODUCTION ‘Yuki wa ten kara okurareta tegami de aru’ 㞷ࡣኳ࠿ࡽ㏦ࡽࢀࡓᡭ⣬࡛࠶ࡿ (Each snow crystal is a letter sent from heaven)

Nakaya ukichiro is well known as a snow scientist specialising in low-temperature sciences. He succeeded in creating the world’s first artificial snow crystals, and a museum is dedicated to him in his home town of Kaga in Ishikawa prefecture, Japan.1 However, little is known of his time at Kings College London, from 1928 to 1929. This account based on his unpublished diaries2 and published essays,3 shows how the enduring relationships he made and his holistic approach to research established him as a pioneering and experimental international scientist and artist, with qualities of compassion and understanding of other cultures and the natural world. 663

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Nakaya Ukichiro was born on 4 July 1900. As a physicist, he was unique in that he had both an artistic and scientific sensibility and was one of the earliest environmentalists, noting the effects of humanity on the natural wildernesses especially in the Polar Regions. Nakaya was inspired to study physics, which at that time included astronomy, at high school. However Nakaya had first trained at an early age as an apprentice to a potter and his first scientific paper in 1924, for Tokyo Imperial University Physics Department was actually on Kutani porcelain. In 1925, he graduated in experimental physics under the guidance of Terada Torahiko at Tokyo Imperial University and after graduation became Terada’s research assistant at RIKEN (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research)4 working on electrostatic discharge. IN LONDON

For a brief period from 1928 to 1929, Nakaya travelled to London to take up research at Kings College London,5 leaving Aya-san, his new wife of three months, at a time when there were no opportunities to make a quick dash home and when a requirement for an unwavering commitment to the unknown was required. Nakaya’s adviser Terada, was an accomplished painter and writer of scientific essays and had studied under the famous Japanese writer Natsume So¯seki. Natsume had spent two years at University College, London, from 1901 to 1903.6 Terada was a model for many of Natsume’s characters in his novels and had also visited London in 1911. Even though, by all accounts, Natsume did not enjoy London, he may have in some way influenced Nakaya’s decision to choose Britain rather than France or Germany, the popular destinations for a Japanese scientist at that time. London in 1928 was enjoying a period of relative stability after the General Strike of 1926. Women had been granted voting rights, John Logie Baird had demonstrated the first television transmission, and Alexander Fleming had rediscovered penicillin. There were well established links between Britain and Japan in shipbuilding, the influence of ‘Japonisme’ could still be seen,7 the Japan Society,8 established in 1891, encouraged these links, and a new mail route from Tokyo to London opened in 1926, reduced delivery time for letters from one month to twenty-three days.9 Despite a gradual chill in official relations since the official termination of the Anglo-Japanese alliance in 1923, it is estimated that about 882 Japanese were living in UK in 1928 rising to over a 1000 by 1930. The Japan that Nakaya was leaving, on the other hand, was tense and polarised. The long-term effects of the great Kanto quake of 1923 were still affecting the economic and political foundations of daily life: ‘The financial panic of 1927 was followed by mass arrests of 664

NAKAYA UKICHIRO (1900–1962)

communists in 1928 and 1929. Cautious, “establishment” companies such as Mitsubishi no doubt saw the need to be ultra-conservative in their behaviour.’10 This was not the ideal environment for a young and ambitious scientist. In the 1920s, the science department at Kings College, London, had an impressive international reputation. Albert Einstein visited in 1921, the year he received his Nobel Prize in Physics, and Owen Willans Richardson11 won the Nobel Prize for pioneering the study of Thermionics12 in 1928. In 1927, additional space in the university buildings in the Strand had been found for the cramped laboratories including the department of physics and, by 1929, science had been studied at King’s for a century and its staff and students could boast of many great achievements. On 12 April 1928, Nakaya aged twenty-eight, reached Dover from Calais, one of seventeen scholars selected by the Japanese government for a new School of Science at Hokkaido Imperial University to study in Europe. It was the end of a long journey from Yokohama to Marseilles by the ship Atsuta maru and through France by train. The weather was dull and overcast and Nakaya was suffering from a cold he had caught on the journey. This did not stop his excitement at the first view of England. ‘Eikoku no kaigan wa chalk!’ (The coast is indeed made of chalk!), he exclaimed. From Dover, Nakaya travelled 3rd class on the train to London, ‘better than Japanese 2nd class’, he thought. He was met at Victoria Station by a Mr Inoue from the Japanese embassy,13 who took him to Tokiwa,14 at 8 Denmark Street, one of the few Japanese restaurants in London at that time. The Tokiwa hotel at 22 Denmark Street was probably where Nakaya stayed when he first arrived. On 14 April, he woke to a late fall of spring snow, ‘…it’s not a joke, it’s really snow’ he wrote. Over the next few days Inoue helped Nakaya to find a room. He visited Golders Green, Haringey and Kew Gardens, encountering ladies who ‘wore shoes without socks and smoked cigarettes’, ‘too-thick makeup’, one lady who filled her house with oriental nick-knacks and professed to love Japan, and a seemingly respectable family where Inoue advised the food would be awful. On 16 April, Nakaya went to the Japanese embassy to receive his stipend (£166/5/- with, he noted, no money for April).15 Later that day, he visited Inoue’s lodgings for dinner at Sydenham Hill (he thought that the train fare of 6d was expensive). To his surprise, Inoue’s landlords Mr Emile Burnel, his wife Jeanne who was French and their son Maurice,16 spoke French at the dinner table. Mr Burnel was chief engineer of Otis Elevator Company17 in Britain, supplying lifts to Harrods, Selfridges and the London Underground. The food ‘Madam’ prepared was he thought ‘delicious’.18 665

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Mr and Madam Burnel apologetically offered him a small attic room on the 3rd floor of their imposing Victorian house for the sum of £2/10/- a week. Nakaya spent the rest of his time in London in this house, where, he wrote, he could see the green valley opposite from his attic window.19 A week after he arrived, he enrolled for ‘private lessons’ in English. In the afternoon he visited the British Museum. On the escalator at Tottenham Court Road Station, he was approached by a young woman, ‘if you please, I will invite you to my house’. Nakaya made his excuses ‘I am sorry I have no time...I promised to meet a friend this evening.’ When relating the incident to Inoue, Nakaya was warned that this was a well-known scam by certain ladies and he’d had a lucky escape! Nakaya was settling into London. On 4 May he met Marquis Maeda,20 Military attaché at the Embassy, and noted the ease of conversing with him free from the constraints that would have existed if they had met in Japan. However, on 7 May Nakaya received a telegram with the devastating news that his new wife, Aya, had died of diphtheria in Japan two days earlier. Nakaya realised that her death had occurred while he was attending a performance of Handel’s Messiah conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham at the Crystal Palace and that, in taking a bath later that day he had felt a sudden chilling pain in his back. Throughout May Nakaya, mourning the sudden death of his wife felt a pain in his side that ‘will never be better’. Having given lengthy instructions to their families in Japan, on how his wife was to be buried, he had to throw himself into London life. On 9 May Nakaya met Professor A.W. Porter21 at University College at the suggestion of Kitagawa, a fellow scholar with whom he had travelled to Europe on the ship Atsuta maru. After an inspiring discussion on thunder, Porter recommended that he should work under Professor Owen Richardson at Kings College. Nakaya wrote to Richardson who had been professor of physics at Princeton University from 1906 to 1913. Later that month Nakaya met Professor George Simpson22 and spent two hours in enthusiastic conversation sharing ideas on ‘meandering lightning’ and ‘spark leakage’. On 21 May, as he was still waiting for a reply from Richardson, he called at Kings College in the hope that he might be able to meet the professor, who was still absent. Later that day, when he returned, he was left a paper on ‘Soft X-Rays’23 by Richardson and told to study this for one to two weeks and come back. People rallied round to support him after the tragic loss of his wife. In his free moments he took to painting, often with Inoue, as a way of observing nature and natural phenomena, as Professor Terada had advised. On Sunday 27 May, he went painting in Longton Avenue 666

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opposite his house ‘in strong sunlight…lots of people came to have a look at what I was doing but I didn’t mind’. In the afternoon, his landlord invited him to the Royal Automobile Club24 in the Surrey countryside at Woodcote Park. He was impressed by the way that the suburban landscape changed into the ‘astonishing green of the countryside…I guess Madam suggested this as a way to cheer me up, which I really appreciate,’ he wrote. In June 1928, things started to improve with a succession of fruitful meetings. On 7 June, he visited Porter at UCL and was invited at the Royal Society where he saw the Chairman, Ernest Rutherford,25 with in discussion with scientists L Richardson26 and Fowler. On 8 June, introduced by Porter, he attended a Friday meeting of the Royal Institution and was surprised to see that many participants were in formal dress which led Nakaya to conclude that to be a scholar of science in Britain; you would have to be very wealthy. On 15 June, he spent three hours in conversation with Donnan,27 a chemistry professor in his ‘well equipped laboratory’ at University College in the company of fellow Japanese Yamaguchi from Tokyo Imperial University. Later that month, on 22 June, Richardson invited Nakaya to his house for tea. This meeting, Nakaya recorded in his essay in 1936,28 enabled him to understand the character of Richardson as a uniquely British Scientist: When I reached the house, Professor Richardson was sitting in a deck-chair in the garden smoking a pipe. A lawnmower lay abandoned nearby. His wife called us into the house where we were joined by his children for a magnificent spread. His wife was chatty and friendly and I was asked many questions about Japan including if a man was allowed many wives. I said no but I didn’t know what certain rich ill-behaved men did. Richardson replied that was the same the world over. After tea, Professor Richardson suggested to continue to talk in his office, which was separate from the house but joined by a corridor upstairs. It was a huge space, quite messy, more like a workshop with several tables pushed together. From our conversation and being in this space, I realised that Richardson had achieved his success, not by a genius leap of discovery but by a steady, step by step disciplined and methodical approach.

They discussed Nakaya’s research and finally on 27 June Richardson agreed to work with Nakaya saying his proposal was ‘very good’. That month Nakaya received letters from his younger brother, his mother, and Aya’s mother who told him that Aya had died before she could receive his letters from London. His life was revolving around letters but there were to be no more letters from Aya. 667

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In July he wrote excitedly of his preliminary test with Richardson to create vacuum tubes for his experiments. Although Richardson was never there for more than a few hours and always headed home for tea, he was unusual, Nakaya noted, in conscientiously reading every paper, being interested in its organisational structure, and quick to encourage if he thought the researcher was moving in the right direction. However, Nakaya was making slow progress with his vacuum experiments, and so, frustrated, he went shopping instead for a quartz lens from Adam Hilger29 for his old teacher Terada, and a frame for an Ukiyoe print for Porter. In that first summer in Britain Nakaya enjoyed a variety of cultural activities, perhaps to take his mind off losing his wife. He visited Royal Albert Hall, the Science Museum, the RAF air show at Hendon and saw a fighter plane with wings ‘like a bat’, He looked forward to the many drives in the English countryside with Mr Burnel, Eldin, a fellow lodger, and Inoue who took him on a search to purchase a new car to ship to Japan. The modulated and precise Japanese script of Nakaya’s diary is occasionally punctuated by new English words and phrases he had learnt and the names of new people he had met. In July, his landlord’s family invited him to holiday with them in France. Thinking of his deceased wife he hesitated before accepting, but also felt the necessity of forgetting, even briefly, ‘otherwise I can’t survive’. From France he extended his travel to the Niesen Mountain near Lake Thun in Switzerland as a guest of Porter. This gave him a chance to read The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, lent to him by a British couple; the Maudes, long-term residents at the hotel. Later Maude sent Nakaya a book Kings English, noting that no English gentleman says ‘I will…’. In September 1928, Nakaya went by train to Glasgow to attend the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science30 under its then President William Henry Bragg.31 There he met again with Porter, in debate with the famous physicist Oliver Lodge, and researchers Suzuki, Ogura, Takagi from the Japanese Navy, and the Cambridge scientist C.T.R.Wilson.32 He spotted Richardson but hesitated to talk to him as his experiments were not going very well. He visited Loch Lomond and Edinburgh. The cost of all this activity and the equipment needed for his research was beginning to worry him. Following his return from Glasgow he undertook an intense period of research to create a perfect vacuum and felt the frustration of breaking many tubes and pumps in the process. Richardson’s few words ‘just unlucky’ encouraged him. On 19 October, he received a visit at his laboratory from Japanese physicist Nagaoka Hantaro33 who Nakaya recorded as saying ‘You should study in Germany! Why are you wasting your time in this ridiculous place?’ Despite such 668

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pressure, Nakaya was determined to continue his research in London. His experimental technique gradually improved and he was able to collect valuable data. He invited fellow Indian researchers Das and Rao to Tokiwa to show appreciation for their support. In October he met up again with Maeda, and on 5 November he saw his first fog in London. He was saddened by the departure of his fellow lodgers, Eldin in October and Inoue in December, and threw himself into his work, including working on Saturdays, often emerging from his basement laboratory at King College at 11 pm, oblivious to the winter weather outside. He wrote of an enjoyable respite on 6 December at a gathering of London University students at a Chinese restaurant on the Strand, where he met Honma Hisao, from Waseda University, a famous specialist of Oscar Wilde, and spent a few enjoyable hours hearing of the life of Oscar Wilde and the influence of Japanese art and philosophy on British artists such as Rossetti, Whistler, and Beardsley. The same month, he visited the National Physics Laboratory34 and the Radio Research Centre.35 He purchased scientific equipment for his University and visited Mitsui’s office in the City several times to try to clarify discrepancies in pricing. Nakaya’s visits to the theatre and cinema36 seemed to become more frequent towards the end of 1928, perhaps as Nakaya felt a sense of loneliness of being away from home for so long with memories of his late wife… At the end of 1928 he bought presents for Richardson, Porter and for his landlord’s family from Yamanaka Antiques in London. He recorded the pleasure of chatting and opening presents in front of an open fire on Christmas Day and seeing snow falling on 30 December. At the beginning of 1929, the pace of research intensified and he was at Kings College almost every day working until late in the evening. However, on 18 January, he enjoyed the experience of visiting the Indian Students Union with his fellow researchers.37 On 7 February he attended a packed Royal Society meeting to hear Rutherford summarise the previous fifteen years of nuclear research. ‘Porter, Watt, Rayner, Simpson, all were there…’ he wrote. He noted that Rutherford was using a similar explanation as Nagaoka, to describe his theory. Richardson was also one of the speakers ‘on the evidence for the rotation of the nuclei’.38 On 1 March, he wrote ‘it is one year since I left Japan…and I feel rejuvenated. Data collection is going well…and I am delighted.’ For the rest of March 1929, Nakaya was busy writing his paper, Asundi lent him a typewriter and Rao helped check his English. He submitted his manuscript and was delighted with Richardson’s response; ‘…very glad that you have found so many new facts in such a short time…’. A great weight lifted from his shoulders. He took a trip to Cambridge and visited Rutherford’s Cavendish Laboratory to meet the 669

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scientist James Chadwick39 and noted with surprise that he saw ‘no Asian Researchers’. While in Cambridge he visited C.T.R. Wilson and spent a few happy hours in the company of Wilson, his wife, daughter and cats in their cottage just outside Cambridge. He met Eldin, still living in London, and enjoyed his last few days in London buying presents and thinking how different Japan would be on his return from when he left. He just had time for tea with Richardson, a last outing to Tokiwa, and some pleasant outings with his landlord’s family before he left from Gravesend to Rotterdam on 4 April 1929. On 1 July 1929, Nakaya’s paper ‘On the Emission of Soft X-Rays by Different Elements, with Reference to the Effect of Adsorbed Gas’ was published in the proceedings of the Royal Society40 with him as a ‘Research Scholar of the Government of Japan, King’s College London (Communicated by O.W. Richardson, FRS)’. He had achieved a significant and important milestone for a Japanese scientist of that time; to be officially recognised in mainstream science by publication in a respected journal with recommendation by Richardson a Nobel Prize winner. Nakaya with the support of Wilson published further articles with the Royal Society. An article entitled ‘Application of the Wilson41 Chamber to the Study of Spark Discharge’ was published in 1935 with him as professor of experimental physics at Hokkaido Imperial University, together with fellow scientist Yamazaki. A further article appeared in 1936, also with Yamazaki.42 On 5 April 1929 Nakaya arrived in Holland en route for a long stay in France with his brother Nakaya Jujiro, an anthropologist studying stone-age culture in Japan. In December 1929, after meeting up with other Japanese scientists, Nakaya left from Hamburg for his journey home to Japan via the USA. He did not visit the UK again until 1958 on his way to attend a conference on ice movement in Chamonix in France,43 with his daughter Fujiko, but he kept in touch with the UK for the rest of his life. DISCOVERIES FOLLOWING HIS RETURN TO JAPAN

In 1930, Nakaya took up a post as assistant professor of physics at Hokkaido Imperial University.44 In 1931, he received his Doctor of Science degree from Kyoto Imperial University. Later that year he remarried and from then on, he spent most of his time in the cold northern climes of Hokkaido and furthering his research in Greenland. Although his new laboratory at the University was poorly equipped, if there was one thing in abundance in the northern island of Hokkaido, it was snow. It was during the 1930s, working with his 670

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students that he succeeded in creating the first-ever artificial snow crystal, after experimenting with cotton, wool, and many other materials, and then finally finding the ideal site for ice nucleation almost by chance, on a ‘rabbit hair’ from a jacket in a cold chamber he built in his laboratory. This was in 1936. Nakaya had admired the snow crystal photographs of Wilson Bentley45 and took more than 3,000 photographs46 himself of natural snow crystals in the mountainous area of Hokkaido. He classified the snow crystals in about forty categories and succeeded in producing almost all these crystals in his laboratory. He summarised his results in the Nakaya diagram, revealing how snow crystals different forms, such as six sided dendritic flakes or hexagonal prisms, depended on climatic conditions or mainly temperature and the degree of saturation of water vapour in the air. These findings enabled one to ‘read’ the meteorological information ‘written’ on a snow crystal. In this sense, Nakaya was often quoted referring to the snow crystal as ‘a letter sent from heaven’. Scientists are still building on Nakaya’s work to look at how temperature and humidity affect the snow-making and how to give more accurate weather forecasting.47 In early 1936, Nakaya received a letter from his old friend C.T.R. Wilson requesting his assistance to a group of scientists travelling to Hokkaido to view the total eclipse of the sun, due on 19 June 1936. Nakaya was delighted to ‘smell the style of British scientific research’ again, providing equipment including ’10 parasols’. Professor F.J.M. Stratton, University of Cambridge, wrote in the Royal Astronomical Society Notices48 ‘owing to the kindness of Professor Nakaya of the Imperial University of Sapporo (sic) the workshop of his physical laboratory was made available for any instrumental repairs that might prove necessary, and advantage was taken of this…’. The party was joined by Tom Bromley49 of the British embassy, and ‘Nakaya had charge of the instrument for the eclipse’. A spell of illness later that year and the Second World War did not deter him from contributing to international research. Unable to participate in international conferences he turned to film and media in pioneering science documentaries to convey his message to the world. In 1952, he was elected vice president of the Commission on Snow and Ice of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics50 reflecting his influence as a leading international researcher in snow crystals and low-temperature science. He moved to USA where he also studied the beautiful and mysterious ‘Tyndall figures’, the internal melting of a single crystal of ice causing a cavity shaped like a flower of six petals, His work on Snow Crystals was published as a book by Harvard University Press in 1954.51 From 1957 to 1960, Nakaya visited Greenland every summer to work on ice-cores which contain important clues to global climate 671

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change. He wrote about the potential for anthropogenic global warming as early as 1957.52 British poet Stephen Spender recalled his excitement at meeting Nakaya in an otherwise tiring visit to Hokkaido in 1958:53 Nakaya [is] a great expert on snow. He goes to Greenland and takes segments of snow at a depth of 1,500 metres and 10,000 years old. He said that the temperature of the world has risen by 1 degree [centigrade] in the present century, and if this continues, within 150 years the North and South Poles will have melted. CRYSTALS VERSUS FLAKES

Nakaya inspired quite a heated debate in Nature magazine (28 August 1937), affecting the terminology we use today. British scientist Gerald Seligman, founder of the International Glaciological Society54 and the Journal of Glaciology wrote: He [Prof. Nakaya] proposes to continue to call a particle of falling snow a snow crystal in preference to my snowflake. As all snow, whether falling or having lain on the ground for months, is crystalline, the word snow crystal is likely to lead to ambiguity…’

Two months later, George C. Simpson (whom Nakaya had met in London in 1928),55 responded in a letter to the Editor (23 October 1937) entitled Snow Crystal or Snowflake: I regret to have to disagree with Mr. Seligman, who is doing so much to revive the study of snow and glaciology in Great Britain, but I cannot accept his use of the word snowflake to describe the single ice crystals of which snow is composed….

However the term ‘snow flakes’ stuck in popular imagination, and both terms are used in popular literature. CONCLUSION

On 11 April, 1962 Nakaya died at the young age of sixty-two, leaving a creative legacy that captures the minds of scientists and artists alike. He retained a passionate interest in art, culture and humanity all his life and his research was motivated by a desire to help people understand the natural world around us and live more efficiently and wisely On 23 September 1960, the UK’s Antarctic Place-names Committee (APC), named a small group of Islands ‘Nakaya Islands’ in appropriately named Crystal Sound in the Antarctic peninsula.56 and in 1994, Japanese Astronomer Otomo Satoru, named his discovery 672

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of an asteroid ‘10152 Ukichiro (1994RJ11)’57 ensuring a permanent legacy to Nakaya’s dedication and commitment to science, in the heavens above us, and the earth below. In 2000, Nakaya’s centenary was commemorated by the issuing of a postage stamp and international artists such as Bill Viola celebrated in a gathering at the Nakaya Ukichiro¯ Museum of Snow and Ice.58 In 2005, the exhibition ‘Conversations with Snow and Ice — observation/imagination in art and science’59 at the Natural History Museum, in Latvia brought together scientists and contemporary artists such as Takatani Shiro;60 Carsten Nicolai; Sone Yutaka, Dainis Ozolins, poets Shiraishi Kazuko and Takahashi Mutsuo, and Nakaya’s artist daughter Nakaya Fujiko, who works in the transient process from vapour to liquid to create her fog installations, to acknowledge natural sciences and contemporary art as complementary human activities. This occasion attracted record crowds, giving expression to Nakaya’s words ‘Science is collaboration between humans and nature’. On 4 July 2015, the Nakaya Ukichiro Foundation61 was established to support collaboration between science, art, and research into global environmental challenges. The natural world with its weather extremes is still a mystery. Nakaya’s pioneering research in predicting different kinds of snow by looking for ‘letters sent from heaven’ has the potential for managing and averting disasters and saving lives. The Canadian scientist James A. Bender recalled the affection with which Nakaya was held by all who met him:62 He will long be remembered in the professional world through his classic research papers and through his inspiration to his students and colleagues. His many friends will remember him as a wonderful, interesting, and much beloved person who often wrote in his books and paintings, ‘snow crystals are the hieroglyphs sent from the sky’.

His creative intuition in the process of observation to hypothesis, shaped by his scientific and personal experiences in London, is as relevant today as it was then, inspiring a timeless sense of wonder at the exquisite and complex snow crystals as they fall into the palm of our hand; tiny letters sent from heaven. ENDNOTES 1

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Nakaya Ukichiro Museum of Snow and Ice designed by Architect Arata Isosaki established in his home Town, Katayamazu, Kaga City 1994. http://kagashi-ss.co.jp/yuki-mus/yuki_home/ I am deeply grateful for the trust and inspiration that Nakaya Fujiko, a well-known international artist has shown to open and share her father’s diaries from his time in London, to bring us closer to her father, I would 673

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like to thank Fujiko-san and Nakaya’s daughter, Dr Sakiko Olsen for her scientific insight and advice. I would also like to thank Shimada Sayaka, Tamai Sachiko, and Nara Chiko for her family recollections, and the authors of texts below, invaluable for contextualising Nakaya’s time in London. I am especially grateful to Harada Michio who has worked through the handwritten script of the diaries and essays and interpreted and confirmed details and insights, and Michael Barrett, Susan Gamble and Brendan Griggs for suggestions on the text. This short essay is only a glimpse of one aspect of the life and work of Nakaya Ukichiro and there is much to explore, perhaps in an extended study in the future. Any errors or erroneous assumptions are mine. Nakaya wrote many popular essays and produced documentaries and radio programmes from the scientist’s view of the world for the ‘layman’. A select bibliography is available on the Nakaya Museum website above. He played a central role in the founding of the documentary and educational film company Iwanami Productions in 1950. (Films are available from Hitachi Media Productions in digital form as the Iwanami Film Library.) RIKEN, Founded in 1917. Japan’s largest scientific research institution. www.riken.jp Kings College. Thanks to Lianne Smith, Archives Services Manager and Mr Julian Greenberg, www.kcl.ac.uk Okazaki, Kenjiro The Lucid, Unclouded Fog – the Movement of Bright and Swinging Water Particles, FOG, Anarchive 5, Paris/Fujiko Nakaya, Tokyo, 2012. ISBN: 978-2-9518132-1-2 Forgotten japonisme www.transnational.org.uk/projects/17-forgottenjaponisme Japan Society Proceedings and Minutes of meetings 1928–1929 www. japansociety.org.uk Rudlin, Pernille, The London Japanese community in the 1920s The History of Mitsubishi Corporation in London: 1915 to Present Day Routledge, 2000. ISBN: 978-0415228725 https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138976047 Ibid. Owen Willans Richardson (1879–1959) British physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1928 for his work on thermionic emission, which led to Richardson’s Law. Thermionics is the emission of electrons from very hot solids or liquids, used for producing electrons in valves, electron microscopes, and X-rays ‘Mr Inoue’ is recorded as ‘Inoue-shi’ (a term of respect) in the diaries, and no first name is given. (The Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan have a record of an Inoue Taku from Kobe b.1900, at the Japanese embassy in London in 1928). He left London in December 1928 to return to Japan, perhaps to take over responsibility for a family business after the death of his father in October 1928 Itoh, Keiko The Japanese Community in Pre-war Britain: From Integration to Disintegration Routledge, 2001. ISBN: 978-0700714871 p. 68: reference 674

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to Japanese restaurant Tokiwa – the branch at 8 Denmark Street, opened by Iwasaki Ikuine 1918, (now a music shop). Iwasaki also opened the Tokiwa hotel at 22 Denmark Street in 1927 (now also a music shop), and this was probably where Nakaya stayed when he first arrived. Nakaya’s stipend was in instalments. He received further instalments in August and November 1928. The landlord’s older son, René, a Reuters Journalist had moved to Shanghai from 1925. Thanks to Steve Grindlay, Sydenham Society for details of the family Burnel. http://sydenhamforesthillhistory.blogspot.co.uk Otis Elevator Company www.otis.com/site/gb/Pages/default.aspx Examples exist today e.g. the 1927 trellis gated lift in the Walpole Hotel in Margate. Thanks to Donna Holdsworth HR Manager, Otis UK ‘Salad no nazo’ (the mystery of salad). Essay written by Nakaya. January 1960. ‘Madam’ treated him to rather more delicious food than would otherwise be the case in late 1920s Britain. ‘Every day in London I ate French style salad…fresh lettuce without worrying about parasites…was like landing on a different planet’. On return to Hokkaido, Nakaya and his new family grew lettuce and experimented with wine vinegar and olive oil to recreate this Western taste. Thirty years later, his daughter Fujiko on return from Paris, announced her discovery. Those ‘soap fragments’ he’d seen his landlady rubbing on old bread, in London were garlic fragments! The mystery was solved! ‘It was worth it to send you to Europe’ he said to his daughter in jest. He wrote how much he enjoyed recreating the London taste on his dinner table in Hokkaido with crisp lettuce straight from the fridge and this new secret ingredient. In March and December 2015, we visited Sydenham with Nakaya’s daughter Fujiko, to find her father’s house in London. The house was on Westwood Hill (formerly West Hill) and retained its imposing features although the green valley that Nakaya saw from his room at the top of the house was now a housing estate. We spent some time in quiet contemplation in front of the house that Fujiko was seeing for the first time. With many thanks to the current residents of Westwood Hill; Pawel, Gaba and Julian, Iza and Simon, Paula and Melinda. As we retraced our steps to the station, we passed the 1880s boyhood home of the polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. Nakaya may have seen the blue plaque, erected in 1928 by London County Council. https://sydenham.org.uk/sir-ernest-shackleton/ It would be wonderful to think that one day there might be a blue plaque on the house where Nakaya, whose work had taken him to the Polar Regions, had stayed in Westwood Hill. Marquis Maeda Toshinari (Maeda Toshinari Ko¯shaku) (1885–1942), Military Attaché in London, (July 1927-August 1930). Nakaya met possibly through a family connection to Kaga, home of the Maeda clan and where Nakaya was born. On hearing news of Aya’s death, Maeda commented ‘in some ways better to die suddenly’ Maeda himself was to meet his own death in a plane crash in Malaysia in 1942 A.W. Porter (1863–1939) a specialist in Thermodynamics and Professor Emeritus at University College from 1928. He was a kind and generous friend and advisor to Nakaya. 675

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Sir George Clarke Simpson (1878–1965), British meteorologist, member of Robert Falcon Scott’s Antarctic Terra Nova expedition of 1910– 1913, defended Nakaya’s use of ‘snow crystal’ see note 55. ‘Soft X-Rays emission spectroscopy’ is an experimental technique for exploring the electronic structure of individual biological cells, which have different optical properties than visible light and therefore experiments must be in ultra high vacuum, where the photon beam is manipulated using special mirrors and diffraction gratings to split the light beams in different colours. Nakaya’s diaries are full of references to creating this vacuum to enable experiments to take place. Royal Automobile Club. Thanks to Trevor Dunmore, Club Librarian and Jane Holmes, Heritage Manager, Woodcote Park. http://discover. royalautomobileclub.co.uk Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM, FRS (1871– 1937) New Zealand-born British physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics. Royal Society Lecture, 7 February 1929 ‘Discussion on the Structure of Atomic Nuclei’ (Rutherford et al. 1929). Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character, Vol. 123, No. 792 (6 April 1929), pp. 373–390 Published by: Royal Society www.jstor.org/ stable/95202 This was a different Richardson, Lewis Fry Richardson, FRS (1881– 1953), an English mathematician, physicist, meteorologist, psychologist and pacifist who pioneered modern mathematical techniques of weather forecasting, and the application of similar techniques to studying the causes of wars and how to prevent them. Frederick G. Donnan (1870–1956), Founder member of the Faraday Society. Known for ‘Donnan equilibrium’. Friend of Japanese chemist Sakurai Joji (Kikuchi Yoshiyuki, Sakurai Joji (1858–1939) Britain and Japan Biographical Portraits, volume IX 2015) ‘Richardson’ Essay written by Nakaya. 1936 Adam Hilger Limited. Makers of optical instruments. Later Cambridge Instrument Co. Ltd. (1937–1945). The quartz lens was £115, a huge sum and shocked Nakaya who tried to negotiate the price. British Association for the Advancement of Science 96th meeting in Glasgow 5–12 September 1928 www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ item/96054#page/39/mode/1up William Henry Bragg (1862–1942) invented X-ray spectrometer and new science of X-ray crystallography with his son, William Lawrence Bragg. In 1915, Father and son were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. It is said that Nakaya’s advisor Terada, had arrived at the same discovery at the same time but owing to delays in communications, was not able to submit to the Nature Journal in time. W.H. Bragg was President of the Royal Society 1935–1940 when Nakaya’s research was published. Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, CH, FRS (1869–1959) Scottish physicist, meteorologist and Cambridge University Professor. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the cloud chamber. See note 36 676

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Nagaoka Hantaro (1865–1950), Japanese physicist and a pioneer of Japanese physics during the Meiji period and advisor to Terada Torahiko who was advisor to Nakaya. National Physical Laboratory, Teddington. www.npl.co.uk Nakaya meets Dr E. Rayner and observes their equipment is better than at RIKEN Radio Research Station in Slough. Nakaya meets Mr Watt. Became Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in 1979. Nakaya saw Vagabond King (New Theatre); Bird in Hand twice, (Laurence Olivier, Royalty Theatre), with fellow researchers Das and Rao; Shakespeare’s As you Like it (John Gielgud, Old Vic.), ‘it must be wonderful if I could understand it...’, and child star Jackie Coogan (London Palladium). He visited newly reopened Piccadilly Theatre; Stoll Picture Theatre (now Peacock Theatre); and Lewisham Hippodrome. He saw films Sorrell and Son (1927) and Simba (1928), and, in December, attended a farewell dinner for Inoue at the Trocadero and an ‘awful’ ‘talkie’ picture with a drunken orchestra. Indian Students’ Union and Hostel 106–112 Gower Street founded 1920 by Indian National Council of YMCAs. Nakaya’s fellow Indian researchers are R.K. Asundi, Das, Banerji and Rao (this may be the distinguished scientist Dr K. Rangadhama Rao who was to have an award named after him by the National Institute of Sciences of India for outstanding contributions in the subject of Spectroscopy in Physics). Mehra, J. and Rechenberg, H., ‘The Probability Interpretation and the Statistical Transformation Theory from The Historical Development of Quantum Theory’ Part 1. Springer 2000 Sir James Chadwick, CH, FRS was an English physicist who was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the neutron in 1932. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character, vol.124, No.795 (1 July 1929), pp. 616–641 https://royalsociety.org See note 33 Nakaya U. and Yamazaki F. Investigations on the Preliminary Stages of Spark Formation in various Gases by the use of the Wilson Chamber, Communicated by C.T.R. Wilson. Proceedings of the Royal Society February 1936 Volume: 153 Issue: 880 Reason to use Wilson’s Cloud Chamber Spark Investigation by the Wilson Chamber by Nakaya and Yamazaki: www.nature.com/nature/journal/v134/n3387/abs/134496a0.html Nakaya, Ukichiro (1958): Visco-elastic Properties of Snow and Ice in Greenland Ice Cap. Symposium de Chamonix. Publ. A.I.H.S. 47. In 1958 Nakaya visited UK with daughter Fujiko and they met up with Seligman at his house in Kent. Hokkaido University www.lowtem.hokudai.ac.jp Bentley, Wilson (1865–1931), Snow Crystals (1931). American farmer and scientist. Snow Crystal: Stellar Glass dry plate photographed 22 December 1933 at first observation of snow in Hakugin-so cottage, halfway up Mt. Tokachi, 677

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https://www.sapporo-internationalartfestival.jp/2014/en/artists/ukichiro-nakaya Economist (19 December 2006) Fake Flakes, work of Dr John Hallett, Professor Ken Libbrecht and Jon Nelson. www.economist.com/ node/8447593 Stratton, F.J.M. (1881–1960), Total Solar Eclipse, 1936 June 19: Report of the expedition to Kamishari Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Vol.97 No.9. Supplementary Number ‘Mr T.E. Bromley, Vice Consul’, had a distinguished career in the British Consular Service, joining in 1935 and Japan his first posting from 1936. A photograph by Walter Bird (1961) is in the National Portrait Gallery www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp81227/thomaseardley-bromley International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) established 1919. One of thirty-two scientific Unions within the International Council for Science (ICSU). www.iugg.org/about/ Nakaya, Ukichiro Snow Crystals: Natural and Artificial. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1954. Research: Properties of Single Crystals of ice, revealed by Internal Melting 1956. John Tyndall (1820–1893) Irish Physicist, Royal Society Fellow and Physics Professor (1853–1887) at the Royal Institution. ‘Because of the global increase in atmospheric temperature since beginning of 20th century, glaciers in many places in the world are shrinking or retreating. The cause for this is an increase of CO2 due to the automobile-dominated society and cutting down of forests. Warming of the climate will melt the ice in Antarctic and Greenland leading to a sea-level rise and lowlands all over the world will be in danger of being submerged’- Moon World in White, Nakaya Ukichiro, 1957 Spender, Stephen, Journals 1939–1983 Edited by John Goldsmith. Faber and Faber ISBN: 978-05711361791985 1986. International Glaciological Society founded 1936 by British Scientist Gerald Seligman (1886–1973), www.igsoc.org and the Journal of Glaciology. See Nakaya’s Obituary by Higashi Akira go to www.igsoc.org and search ‘Nakaya Ukichiro’. Simpson, G.C. (1878–1965) Snow Crystal or Snowflake Nature140 23 October 1937 response to Seligman, G., August 1937. See note 22 www.nature.com/nature/journal/v140/n3547/abs/140729b0.html ‘Nakaya Islands’ in Crystal Sound off Darbel Bay, Loubet Coast, photographed from the air by FIDASE, 1956–57, and surveyed from the ground by FIDS from ‘Detaille Island’ September 1958; named after Ukichiro Nakaya (1900–62), for his ‘classic investigations of the structure and properties of single ice crystals and snow-flakes’ (APC, 1960, p.6; BA chart 3571, 14.vii.1961). UK Antarctic Place-names Committee (APC) http://apc.antarctica.ac.uk/ Main-belt asteroid is a region of interplanetary space between Mars and Jupiter where most asteroids are found. 10152 Ukichiro (1994 RJ11) was discovered on 11 September 1994 by Japanese Astronomer Otomo Satoru at Kiyosato, Yamanashi Prefecture.

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⛉Ꮫࡢᚰ࡜ⱁ⾡ (Heart of Science and Art). A celebration of the centenary of Nakaya’s birth in 1900, coordinated by Yuji Morioka. Seminar, talk and performances at museum with artist Bill Viola. 2000–2001. Background papers 2000. Conversations with Snow and Ice observation/imagination in art and science 10 November 2005–8 January 2006, Natural History Museum of Latvia, Riga, 2005. ISBN: 9984-9704-2-6 Scientists including Watanabe Okitsugu, and many artists and poets from Japan and Latvia participated. A tea ceremony was held at the time of the exhibition Camera Lucida/Snow Crystal by Takatani Shiro, a founder member of dumb-type performing arts collective http://shiro.dumbtype.com/ works/snowcrystal Nakaya Ukichiro Foundation http://nakayafoundation.or.jp The Arctic Institute of North America http://arctic.journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic

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Takakusu Junjiro¯ (1866–1945): Buddhist Idealist, Scholar and Educator 1

IWAGAMI KAZUNORI AND PARIDE STORTIN

INTRODUCTION

The Meiji Restoration in Japan (1868) had a profound impact on the development of cultural exchanges between Japan and Western countries. Following the path opened by the Iwakura Mission (1871–1873), many Japanese students and young scholars were sent to European and American universities to engage with Western academic disciplines in order to foster the modernization of Japan. The field of Buddhist studies, with its long tradition within sectarian institutions, was deeply influenced and reshaped by historical and philological approaches acquired in these intellectual exchanges, to the extent that Japanese scholars would come to make significant scholarly contributions and gain international recognition for their efforts. It is in this context that we can best understand the key role played by Takakusu Junjiro¯.

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At the age of twenty-five, Takakusu Junjiro¯ began his studies in Indology and Buddhist Studies at Oxford University under the direction of the great philologist and scholar of religion Friedrich Max Müller2 (1823–1900) and of a distinguished handful of renowned European orientalists. After his return to Japan, Takakusu played an essential role in the establishment of modern Indology and Buddhist studies in the Japanese academy. Alongside other Japanese pioneers in the field, his contributions gained international recognition. Takakusu was far more than a philologist. He edited a significant variety of works in related disciplines, translated a great many canonical texts and put considerable effort into the organisation, establishment and management of educational institutions. Takakusu was a man of his time, well-acquainted with contemporary socio-political élites and, in an astonishingly energetic and productive life, left a rich and varied legacy. ACADEMIC CAREEER

Takakusu Junjiro¯ was born Sawai Umetaro¯, in 1866, shortly before the start of the Meiji Restoration, in a mountain village in Hiroshima Prefecture. He changed his family name from Sawai to Takakusu following his marriage to Takakusu Shimoko. Junjiro¯ was born in the last years of the Edo Period, an era of huge systemic and social change in Japan and one in which Japan’s relations with the West underwent a sea-change that continues to this day. Takakusu began to study kanbun – Classical Chinese and its Japanese reading and use – at the age of five, under his grandfather’s guidance. This skill would become valuable in his later studies of Buddhism. Takakusu’s precociousness was such that he earned a teaching position in his home-town primary school when he was just fifteen. At the age of twenty, Takakusu moved to Kyoto in order to attend Futsu¯ Kyo¯ko¯ (normal school, today Ryo¯koku University), recently established by the Nishi Honganji branch of Jo¯do Shinshu¯ Buddhism. There he had the chance to improve his English, a study encouraged by the presence in the school of teachers from Western countries. Together with a group of ambitious students, Takakusu led the ‘Hanseikai’ (reflection group) movement, whose aim was to elevate the Japanese way of life by, for example, advocating abstinence from alcohol. The group published a periodical journal, Chu¯¯ok¯oron, still one of Japan’s most influential monthly publications, to which Takakusu was an active contributor. In 1890, Takakusu set off for England, where he became a student of Max Müller, at a time when Indology was flourishing in European academia. He earned a B.A. degree from Oxford University in 1894 681

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and a Master’s degree in 1896 (see below). During his years as a student in Europe, Takakusu also visited Germany and France and established relations with oriental scholars in both countries. Takakusu’s international experience was not limited to the period of his study in Europe (1890–97). In 1902–1903 he visited Hanoi in Vietnam, at that time under French colonial rule, and, in 1912, Greece, on both occasions for meetings of the Universal Oriental Society. In 1912–1913, during his return journey from Europe, he stopped in India and Nepal, paying homage to places that had witnessed the birth of Buddhism.3 Takakusu was again in Europe between 1904 and 1906, in the suite of Suematsu Kencho¯,4 and in 1919 to participate in the Union Académique Internationale meeting in Paris. Finally, in 1938–1939, he took up a position as a visiting professor at the University of Hawai’i.5 Upon his return to Japan after the conclusion of his foreign studies in 1897 Takakusu was hired as instructor in Sanskrit at the Liberal Arts College of Tokyo Imperial University. The following year he was appointed secretary to the minister of communications, Suematsu Kencho¯ (1855–1920). At the age of thirty-four Takakusu became professor and from 1901 he held the chair of Sanskrit studies at Tokyo Imperial University an association that continued until his retirement at the age of sixty-two. While teaching at Tokyo Imperial University, Takakusu was also active in a number of fields within and outside the university. In 1900 he took up the role of headmaster at the Tokyo School of Foreign Studies (today Tokyo University of Foreign Studies), and in 1902 founded the Central School of Commerce in Kyo¯bashi. In 1924 he established within the precincts of the Tsukiji Honganji temple in Tokyo, Musashino Women’s School (today Musashino University) and became its first director. Finally, after retiring from Tokyo Imperial University in 1931, he became headmaster at To¯yo¯ University. Takakusu’s academic achievements were acknowledged when he became a member of the Imperial Academy at the age of forty-seven, and again in 1944, when, just one year before he passed away, he was awarded the Order of Culture. Takakusu’s scholarly output was massive and wide-ranging. There were three main scholarly projects that could not have been realized without his participation and effort. The first was the editing of the eighty-five volumes of the complete Chinese Buddhist canon, the Taisho¯ Shinshu¯ Daizo¯kyo¯. The second was the complete translation in nine volumes of the Upanis¸ ads, the sacred texts of ancient Indian Brahmanism. Finally, he worked on and organized the Japanese translation of the Theravada Buddhist texts from the original Pali language, known as the Nanden Daizo¯kyo¯, which was published in sixty-five volumes. These three extremely demanding and detailed 682

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enterprises were accomplished with the active and earnest commitment of Takakusu in collaboration with many scholars in the field of Buddhist studies. Takakusu’s life was marked by academic accomplishments. His domestic life, however, was marred by considerable and repeated loss: of the eight children Shimoko bore him, only one son survived. These losses helped to shape Takakusu’s drive and persistence in scholarship and his desire to see young minds thrive and flourish, hence his lifelong commitment to education and the founding of educational establishments. IN BRITAIN AND OXFORD (1890–1897)

In 1889 Takakusu graduated with high grades from Futsu¯ Kyo¯ko¯ and in the following year set off for Britain. His initial intention was to study economics and business, but he abruptly changed course following a meeting with Max Müller, to whom he gave Nanjo¯ Bun’yu’s letter of recommendation to be admitted at Oxford. On Müller’s advice, he chose to focus on Indology and Buddhist studies. In this and many other ways Nanjo¯ Bun’yu (1849–1927),6 can be considered both Takakusu’s scholastic predecessor and his mentor. Nanjo¯ was a monk belonging to one of the most important Buddhist sects in Japan, the Higashi Honganji branch of Jo¯do Shinshu¯ Buddhism. In 1876, alongside Kasahara Kenju (1852–1883), Nanjo¯ was sent to study Sanskrit in England under Max Müller, beginning in 1879. He returned to Japan in 1884. Thanks to the collaboration with Nanjo¯ and Kasahara, Müller came to a fuller realization of the importance of Mahayana Buddhism and of Mahayana Buddhist texts. One significant result result of the combined scholarship of the German scholar and his two Japanese disciples was the publication of a rich literature on Mahayana texts. Among these, the most important and essential to later Buddhology was the key text of the East Asian Pure Land tradition, the Amidakyo¯ (Chinese: Amituo-jing, Sanskrit: Sukhavativyuha) whose only extant Sanskrit manuscripts were preserved in Japan. Thanks to the collaboration with Nanjo¯ and Kasahara, Müller acquired such old Japanese manuscripts and was able to compile a critical edition7 based on the approaches of European Sanskrit studies. The product of Nanjo¯’s own researches developed during his stay in England was the complete catalogue of Chinese Buddhist texts, the so-called ‘Nanjo¯ Catalogue’ – A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka, the Sacred Canon of the Buddhist in China and Japan (1883). This earned Nanjo¯ an M.A. from Oxford University (1884), signalling Western recognition of Nanjo¯’s study. Other works, such as The Short History of Twelve Japanese Buddhist Sects (1886), in which Nanjo¯ outlined the 683

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history of the main Buddhist sects in Japan, and his critical edition of the Sanskrit version of the Lotus Sutra, Saddharmapundarika (1912), the most influential Mahayana text in East Asia, constituted significant accomplishments and contributions to the fields of Indology and Buddhist Studies. Such was the legacy of Max Müller’s teaching. Max Müller’s decision to accept Takakusu as his pupil was probably due to his experience with such brilliant Japanese students as Nanjo¯ and Kasahara. In addition to studying with the German scholar at Oxford University, Takakusu also studied with luminaries such as Arthur Anthony Macdonell (1854–1930) and Moriz Winternitz (1863–1937). The former, also a professor at Oxford, taught Takakusu Sanskrit, and contributed to his knowledge of Brahmanism, as Macdonnell stressed the need to study the formal Sanskrit language and the content of the Upanis¸ ads in order to better understand the irregular language of the Mahayana sutra.8 Meanwhile, Winternitz encouraged Takakusu’s research on Mahayana Buddhism. Here, Takakusu’s special expertise in Classical Chinese gave his research a considerable advantage over that of his European colleagues.9 Through his exchanges with Thomas William Rhys Davids (1843–1922), Takakusu acknowledged the need to study the Theravada Buddhist traditions of South Asia. In order to read the canon of these traditions, the Pali language had to be mastered.10 In his years at Oxford, Takakusu studied Sanskrit literature, Indology, linguistics and comparative religion, even venturing into Latin and Greek, which, according to his correspondence, was something of a struggle. The outstanding academic results achieved by Takakusu as a student were acknowledged when he was awarded the Sir John Davies prize scholarship (1892), named after the British ambassador to China.11 Takakusu’s circle of friends at Oxford was not limited to his appointed teachers. He was, for example, a frequent guest of the renowned sinologist James Legge (1815–1897).12 Among his friends were his fellow student Marcel Mauss (1872–1950), a disciple of the influential sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917). Mauss was charmed by Takakusu’s personality and his interest in Japan is said to have begun with this friendship.13 Takakusu’s time at Oxford earned him a B.A. degree in 1894. The following year he moved to Germany, where he pursued his study of the Veda texts and Pali under the direction of Herman Oldenberg (1854–1920) at Kiel University.14 There he also improved his knowledge of the Upanis¸ ads and Western classical philosophy with Paul Deussen (1845–1919).15 Takakusu then moved to Berlin University where, from the autumn of 1895, he studied Tibetan and Mongolian with Georg Huth (1867–1906), an experience that made him aware of the need to master Tibetan in order to further his research in Buddhism.16 In March 1896, Takakusu left Berlin for Leipzig, where 684

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he devoted his time to learning Indo-Germanic languages and the history of philosophy, and where four months later he received his Magister Artium and Doctor of Philosophy degrees.17 His years in Germany allowed Takakusu to compare British and German education systems and draw some useful observations. Generally speaking, he saw the teaching methods of British universities as generous and scrupulous, but somewhat rigid, whereas the German model seemed to him to be characterized by a freer spirit, but one in which the relative lack of direction risked the reliability of the achievement, however independent.18 After Germany, Takakusu travelled to France, where he met at the Collège de France the orientalists Édouard Chavannes and Sylvain Lévy. With the latter he started a life-long friendship and intellectual exchange,19 which led in due course to the French dictionary of Buddhism, ‘Ho¯bo¯girin’. In September 1896, Takakusu returned to Oxford to receive his Master of Arts degree and set out on a trip through Europe, taking in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. He finally arrived back in Japan in January 1897. This was clearly a productive scholarly period for Takakusu.20 In 1894 he published in the collection ‘Sacred Books of the East’ the English translation from the Chinese version of the Amitayurdhyana Sutra (Guan-Woliangshou-jing), an essential Mahayana Buddhist text of the Pure Land tradition. Then, he completed the English translation of the Chinese monk I-Tsing (635–713)’s records of pilgrimage to India and South-East Asia, A Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practised in India and the Malay Archipelago (A.D. 671–695) by I-Tsing (1896). Part of this project had been started by his predecessor as Müller’s student, Kasahara, but left unfinished because of Kasahara’s deteriorating health. These two works, being the first English translations of texts whose only extant version was in Chinese, constitute a good example of the way Takakusu’s work showed the way forward, giving Western orientalists a crucial awareness of the importance of studying the Buddhist texts of the East Asian Chinese canon, not only those from the South-Asian Sanskrit and Pali traditions. It should be noted that, after his return to Japan, most of Takakusu’s work in Western languages was based on the comparison of originals in Indian languages and Chinese Buddhist texts, which constituted his own peculiar contribution, as classical Chinese was still a hard language to handle for Western orientalists. Takakusu’s was one of the first scholars to spread awareness in the Western academic world of both the practical and theoretical aspects of East Asian Buddhist traditions, which are centred on texts in classical Chinese. Thanks to Takakusu, Max Müller’s 12,000-volume 685

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library was acquired by the Tokyo Imperial University Library after his death, although it was subsequently destroyed by a fire.21 IN BRITAIN WITH THE SUEMATSU MISSION

Takakusu’s experiences in England were not limited to his academic work. From February 1904 to February 1906, together with Tomoeda Takahiko (1876–1957) he accompanied Suematsu Kencho¯ on his European mission (for more details on Suematsu Kencho¯, please refer to Noboru Koyama’s ‘Cultural Exchange’).22 Like Takakusu, Suematsu had travelled to England as a young student (1878–1886) graduating from Cambridge University in 1884. Following his return to Japan, Suematsu married the daughter of Ito¯ Hirobumi (1841–1909), first prime minister of Japan, became a member of the House of Representatives and held several positions, among them minister of communications. During his studies in England, Suematsu became a friend of Nanjo¯ Bun’yu, who was then studying in Oxford. Nanjo¯ Bun’yu recommended Takakusu as Suematsu’s secretary when Suematsu became Minister of Communications.23 Although Suematsu probably took up Nanjo¯ Bun’yu’s recommendation because Takakusu had already gained official experience, the fact that Takakusu moved in the same circles as Suematsu meant that they already knew one another and were therefore congenial company in pursuit of Suematsu’s vital ‘hearts and minds’ mission in Europe, undertaken in an age when propaganda was essentially run as a series of personal missions rather than an institutional activity, as it became after the establishment of the Gaimusho¯ Jo¯ho¯bu (Bureau of Information) under Hara Kei’s administration in 1921.24 The aim of Suematsu’s mission was to explain and prepare Britain and other European nations for the Japanese position in the RussoJapanese War, which broke out in February 1904, and to create international goodwill for Japan’s cause. Establishing himself in London, Suematsu’s efforts were manifold. He published much material in Western languages and intervened in many public conferences in order to explain the Japanese viewpoint, while at the same time he had to deal with mounting fears of a ‘Yellow Peril’ and to reassure European public opinion that Japanese military activities in the war were in no way a manifestation of this ‘Peril’. Suematsu, and, at his side, Takakusu, took great pains to encourage a sympathetic attitude to Japan’s stunning victories in these hostilities, and, notwithstanding Japan’s position as Britain’s alliance partner since 1902, they were largely successful. During his stay in London, Takakusu was awarded a Doctor of Civil Law degree from Oxford University25 and was invited to take part as coordinator in the meeting of the Tokyo Imperial Univer686

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sity alumni who had graduated from London institutions (1904).26 Finally, in the same period he and Suematsu developed two very significant friendships: first with Max Müller’s widow Georgina, then with Elizabeth Anna Gordon,27 a friend of Takakusu from their time as students under Müller’s direction. This friendship set up the conditions for the realization of the ‘Books for Japan’ project, which brought thousands of used books in Western languages into the public realm in Japan. SCHOLASTIC ACHIEVEMENTS28

Takakusu had a uniquely versatile combination of education and expertise in both the Western and the Eastern scholastic traditions. He was steeped both in the practice of and scholarly research on East Asian Buddhism, based on the Chinese texts. At the same time, he learnt and brought to the Japanese academic world the modern approaches to Buddhist studies focused on the Sanskrit texts that he had studied under his European mentors, such as Max Müller. In so doing, he laid the foundation and deeply influenced the directions that Indology and Buddhist studies would later take in Japan. Takakusu assimilated to a an extraordinary degree both the long tradition of East Asian Buddhist studies, which dominated his own Japanese culture, and modern research approaches that were being established in European scholarly circles. His scholarly achievements constituted a unique fusion between his special expertise and his intercultural experiences. Takakusu’s prolific output is exemplified in the ten volumes of the Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ (Collected works of Takakusu Junjiro¯). He was also, with Watanabe Kaigyoku (1872–1933), Chief Editor of what would become a mammoth undertaking: the compilation and editing of the Taisho¯ Shinshu¯ Daizo¯kyo¯, the complete collection of the Buddhist canon transmitted in Chinese and Japanese. The Taisho¯ Shinshu¯ Daizo¯kyo¯ represents a comprehensive collection of Buddhist scriptures, as each text constitutes a critical edition by virtue of close comparison with all extant manuscripts, where available for study, and printed versions. Each volume contains about one thousand pages. Thus these eighty-five volumes, which would later become a hundred, represent the most complete collection of the massive Chinese Buddhist canon available to date. The first volume was published in 1924; the last in 1932. The compilation and editing of the Taisho¯ canon was an eight-year-long enterprise whose realization was seriously threatened but not prevented by the Great Kanto¯ Earthquake of 1923. Two Europeans played a role in the decision to undertake this laborious enterprise.29 One was Sir Charles Eliot, British ambassador 687

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to Japan between 1919 and 1925.30 The other was the German ambassador Wilhelm Heinrich Solf (1862–1936). As a well-known scholar of Buddhism,31 Eliot stressed the necessity and importance of an authoritative and scrupulous critical edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon, and encouraged Takakusu in this endeavour, which involved comparing ancient handwritten manuscripts (the oldest dating back to the eighth century) preserved in the old Japanese temples with printed versions published in China, Korea and elsewhere. Encouraged, Takakusu followed Eliot’s suggestions scrupulously and made them his guiding principles in editing the Taisho¯ canon, closely comparing the differing versions and editions wherever possible. This is why the Taisho¯ Shinshu¯ Daizo¯kyo¯ was and is still considered by most scholars the authoritative and most reliably complete collection of the Buddhist scriptures. This accomplishment was recognized as early as 1929, when Takakusu became the first Japanese to be awarded the Prix Stanislas-Julien.32 In collaboration with twenty other researchers, Takakusu completed another hugely significant project, the translation into Japanese of the 130 Upanis¸ ads, in a collection of nine volumes. Inspiration for the enterprise probably came from Takakusu’s studies in Europe, where research on Brahmanism and its texts, such as the Vedas and the Upanis¸ ads, was flourishing, and where he had numerous opportunities to work on such texts under the direction of European scholars such as Max Müller, Macdonell, and Deussen. It was not only his interest in Brahmanism that led Takakusu to pursue these translation projects, but also his growing awareness of the deep connections between such texts and Buddhism. Takakusu’s achievements in editing and translating also include his Japanese translation of the complete Pali canon used in South and Southeast Asian Theravada traditions, the ‘Nanden Daizo¯kyo¯’, published in sixty-five volumes with the collaboration of over fifty researchers. Theravada Buddhism is commonly known in East Asia as ‘Hinayana,’ a slightly pejorative term meaning ‘minor vehicle’, in contrast to the ‘major vehicle’, the Mahayana, which had spread from China to Japan. Takakusu was trained in such an environment, but during his studies in Europe he saw that Western academia set a greater value on the Pali textual bases of Theravada i than the Chinese canon and he recognized very early on in his scholastic career the importance of the Buddhist traditions of South and Southeast Asia. The publication of the Nanden Daizo¯kyo¯ brought to Japanes Buddhist studies a deeper awareness of Theravada Buddhist traditions of South and Southeast Asia and of the need to know and enquire into them. In this sense, Takakusu’s scholarly projects were themselves vehicles for the transmission of understanding between Eastern and Western Buddhist scholarship and awarenes, and vice-versa. Similarly, he also 688

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backed the Buddhist journal known in English as the Young East, first published in 1924 and still distributed quarterly. THE ADVANCEMENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

As professor of Indology and Buddhist Studies at Tokyo Imperial University Takakusu played a leading role in the foundation of these fields of study, but he should also be remembered for founding Musashino Joshi Gakuin (Musashino Women’s School, today Musashino University),33 which adopted Buddhism as the basis of its educational principles. In Buddhist thought, the spirit that animated the establishment of an educational institution for women is a practical consequence of the association of women’s maternal love with the Buddhist principle of compassion. Setting up the school addressed the clear need to set a higher standard in women’s education, which was lagging behind in Japan. There were then only a few schools for women of any real standing, and even fewer inspired by the Buddhist ethos. Musashino school valued the study of English, and in its initial period was characterized by a liberal education spirit wherein no formal examinations were imposed on the students. Takakusu was clearly a practical spirit. He founded in 1902 Chu¯o¯ Sho¯gyo¯ Gakko¯ (The Central School of Commerce in Nihonbashi, today Chu¯o¯ Gakuin University),34 whose system was modelled on British-style business education.35 He urged Japanese travellers to Britain to visit the technical schools in London, which had, he thought, supported British industrial development.36 The name of the school contains the word Chu¯¯o (central), which became a favourite of Takakusu’s after his return from Europe. The term was chosen to show that the school was focused on reaching the ‘centre’ of education, culture and society. Takakusu Junjiro¯ played an extraordinarily influential role in Japanese academia, education and religion. His studies at Oxford and his travels and general experiences in Europe were all fundamental to his achievements. Takakusu was deeply conscious of the crucial importance of contacts between Europe and Japan, and of the West and the East. He operated at both ends of the East-West continuum. At one end, he contributed to the development of modern Buddhist Studies and Indology in Japan, importing Western academia’s historical and philological approaches. At the other, his translation and editing work represents an essential contribution to the study of East Asian Buddhist traditions in the West. That we still rely on the Taisho¯ canon almost one century after the publication of its first volume is proof of the debt modern Buddhist studies owe to the scholarship of Takakusu Junjiro¯. In his educational work, he was a pioneer, 689

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founding, among other important institutions, Musashino Women’s School, today’s Musashino University. ENDNOTES 1

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This article is mainly based on Tankage Shushi, Takakusu Junjiro¯ Sensei Den [The Life of Master Takakusu Junjiro¯], Mustachio Joshi Gachupin, 1957; Mustachio Joshi Gachupin Gou¯nen-shi [50 years of the History of Musashino Women’s College], edited and published by Musashino Joshi Gakuin, 1974; Seccho¯ Takakusu Junjiro¯ no Kenkyo¯ [The research of Takakusu Junjiro¯ Seccho¯], ed. Musashino Women’s College, Daito Shuppan-sha, 1979. Note that in the references that follow, the Japanese titles of the works cited have been translated by the authors and translator of this Portrait and given in square brackets. Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘Max Müller Hakase’ [Dr Max Müller ], Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ [The collected works of Takakusu Junjiro¯] vol.10, pp. 280–295, 2008; Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘To¯yo¯ Gakusha Hyo¯den’ [Critical Biographies of the Orientalists], Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯, vol.8, pp. 504–511, 2008. Ogawara Masamichi (ed.) ‘Takakusu Junjiro¯’, Kindai Nihon no Bukkyo¯sha [The Buddhists of Modern Japan], Keio University Press, 2010. A biographical portrait of Suematsu Kencho¯ by Ian Ruxton is contained in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume V, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2004. Takakusu’s lectures at the University of Hawaii were compiled in the volume Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy, Univ. of Hawaii, 1947. See Nanjo¯’s autobiography, Nanjo¯ Bun’yu, Kai-kyo¯-roku [Record of memories], Heibonsha, 1979. F. Max Müller and B. Nanjo¯ (eds.) Sukhavativyuha, Description of Sukhavati, the Land of Bliss, in Anecdota Oxoniensia, Aryan Series, Vol. 1, Part II, Oxford, 1883. Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘To¯yo¯ Gakusha Hyo¯den’, Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯, vol.8, pp. 514–517, 2008. Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘To¯yo¯ Gakusha Hyo¯den’, Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ vol.8, pp. 511–512, 2008. Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘Seiyo¯ no Bukkyo¯ Gakusha’ [The Western scholars of Buddhism], Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯, vol.10, pp.269–271, 2008. Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘Igirisu Tsu¯shin’ [Letters from England], Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ vol.8, p. 489, 2008; Takagai Shunshi, op. cit., p. 209. Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘Berlin Tsu¯shin’ [Letters from Berlin], Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ vol.8, p. 491, 2008; Maejima Shinji, ‘Shiden Takakusu Junjiro¯ (2)’, Dai-ho¯-rin 18–8, p. 113, 1951. Kida Minoru, ‘Mauss kyo¯ju, Ho¯ryo¯-ji and Kinkaku-ji’ [Professor Mauss, the Ho¯ryo¯-ji temple and the Kinkaku-ji temple], Tosho 7, pp. 5–6, Iwanami-shoten, 1950. Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘Berlin Tsu¯shin’, Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ vol.8, pp. 492–493, 2008; Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘Seiyo¯ no Bukkyo¯ Gakusha’, Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ vol.10, pp. 273–274, 2008. Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘Berlin Tsu¯shin’, Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ vol.8, p. 492, 2008; Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘Seiyo¯ no Bukkyo¯ Gakusha’, Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ vol.10, pp .272–273, 2008. 690

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20 21

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25 26

27

28 29

30

31

Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘Berlin Tsu¯shin’, Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ vol.8, p. 496–498, 2008; Seccho¯ Takakusu Junjiro¯ no Kenkyo¯, p. 31. Hanai Kiyoshi, ‘Takakusu Junjiro¯’, Bruchenbauer: Pionier des japanischdeutchen Kulturaustausche [Pioneers of German-Japanese cultural relations], p.91, Japanische-Deutsches Zentrum, Berlin & Tokyo, 2005. The dissertation is: An Introduction to I-Tsing’s Record of the Buddhist Religion as practised in India and the Malay Archipelago, Oxford, 1896. (Rudolf Hartmann, Japanische Studenten an deutschen Universitaten und Hochschulen 1868–1914, p. 185, Berlin, 2005). Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘Berlin Tsu¯shin’, Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ vol.8, pp. 493–494, 2008. Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘Seiyo¯ no Bukkyo¯ Gakusha’, Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ vol.10, pp. 274–276, 2008; See also Ibid., pp. 309–312. Seccho¯ Takakusu Junjiro¯ no Kenkyo¯ , pp. 32–35. More details on this and other interesting aspects of the Anglo-Japanese relations in which Takakusu played a role can be found in two essays contributed by Noboru Koyama: ‘Cultural exchange at the time of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance’ in Philips O’Brien (ed.) The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–1922 (London and New York, Routledge), and ‘Elizabeth Anna Gordon’ in Hugh Cortazzi (ed.) Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VIII (Folkestone, Global Oriental, 2012). In addition to the works cited in Koyama Noboru’s contributions, see Tamae Hikotaro¯, Wakaki Hi no Suematsu Kencho¯ [The young Suematsu Kencho¯], Kaicho¯-sha, 1992. Nanjo¯ Bun’yu, Kai-kyo¯-roku, p. 169. For more on the nature of Suematu and Takakusu’s mission in Britain and Europe, see Matsumura Masayoshi’s scholarly introduction to Suematsu Kencho¯, The Risen Sun in Volume 3 of O’Connor, Peter (ed.): Japanese Propaganda: Selected Readings, Series 1: Books, 1872–1943 (2004 Global Oriental, Folkestone, UK, Brill Publishers, Leiden, Netherlands & Edition Synapse, Tokyo, Japan). Asahi Shimbun, 26 August 1905, p. 7. Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘Rondon Gakushi-kai Ho¯koku’ [Report from the London meeting], Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ vol.8, pp. 478–481, 2008. A biographical portrait Of Elizabeth Anna Gordon by Noboru Koyama is in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2013. Seccho¯ Takakusu Junjiro¯ no Kenkyo¯, pp. 65–94. Takakusu Junjiro¯, ‘Gaimusho¯ Bunka-jigyo¯-bu ni okeru Ko¯en, 1927’ [Speech to the Cultural office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1927], Takakusu Junjiro¯ Zenshu¯ vol.1, p. 21, 1977; Kawasaki Shinjo¯, ‘Takakusu Sengaku ni Taisho¯ -Daizo¯kyo¯ hakkan wo ketsui saseta kotogoto’ [The reasons for Takakusu’s decision to publish the Taisho¯ canon], Buzan Kyo¯ gaku Taikai Kiyo¯ 40, pp. 14–16, 2012. See Dennis Smith’s essay on Sir Charles Eliot in Ian Nish (ed.) Britain and Japan: Themes and Personalities (Folkestone, Global Oriental, 2004); also in Hugh Cortazzi (ed.) British Envoys in Japan, 1859–1972 (Folkestone, Global Oriental / Japan Society, 2004). See Ibid, Dennis Smith in Nish (2004) and Cortazzi (ed.) 2004. 691

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32

33

34

35 36

Seccho¯ Takakusu Junjiro¯ no Kenkyo¯, p.85; Asahi Shimbun, 25 May 1929, p. 2. Today, the reading and navigating of such an extensive work is facilitated by its complete digitalization, which can be found at http://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/index_en.html. (Cited September 2015). Musashino Joshi Gakuin Goju¯ nen-shi, edited and published by Musashino Joshi Gakuin, 1974. Chu¯¯o Gakuin Hachiju¯nen-shi [80 years of history of Chu¯¯o Gakuin University], edited and published by Chu¯o¯ Gakuin, 1982. Asahi Shimbun, 23 April 1902, p. 3. Asahi Shimbun, 14 January 1908, p. 3.

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sCULTURE AND COLLABORATION s 61

Ito¯ Michio (1892–1961): Dancer and Producer NORIMASA MORITA

EARLY LIFE

Ito¯ Michio was born on 13 April 1892 as the third of nine children born to Ito¯ Tamekichi and Kimi’e in Kanda, central Tokyo. His father was an inventor and architect, who manufactured a mechanized coach at the age of sixteen, although it failed to run as fast as he hoped. He opened Japan’s first dry-cleaner, produced pioneering modern furniture, designed some of Tokyo’s landmark buildings, became the first Japanese engineer who constructed a seismic building, and presented as a gift to an arctic expedition team a set of materials from which a prefabricated house could be reassembled within three hours.1 His mother was a descendant of the chief retainers of the Hamamatsu clan and a society lady who frequented the balls, garden parties and bazaars held at the Rokumeikan in Tokyo. Tamekichi had three more children by a mistress and all his nine sons grew up to be artists except for two of them who died young. 693

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Michio’s younger brother, Kanae, was an architect like his father, Yu¯ji, a musician and stage designer, Kisaku, a set designer, Kunio, better known as Senda Koreya, one of the greatest actors and produc¯ suke, a ers in the modern Japanese theatre, Teiryo¯, an architect, and O composer and guitarist. Tamekichi’s eldest daughter married an army general,and his second oldest daughter, although she was not an artist herself, married one of the most renowned modernist painters, Nakagawa Kazumasa, and her half-sister became a musician.2 Their parents, however, never expected or wanted their children to become artists but rather had a clear vision of the elite career path that they should follow, that is, to go to the First Higher School and then the Imperial University of Tokyo to qualify as engineers. Michio showed a strong interest in music for the first time when he purchased a harmonica and then a violin. His mother who was a puritanical believer in discipline and asceticism, although she herself was a lover of the theatre and dancing, and had been a society woman, disapproved of Michio playing his harmonica at home. His harmonica was quickly confiscated, but he saved more pocket money to purchase another one. The several harmonicas that he bought in this way all ended up in the back of a drawer of his mother’s cabinet. Then he purchased in instalments a violin from a junk shop and paid for it with the money he saved by not taking a tram to school.3 His mother flew into a fury when she heard Michio playing a pop tune with it, so she snatched it away and threw it into the kitchen furnace. Michio then rebelled and became a delinquent. According to his unpublished autobiography, he and his best friend, a son of the president of a large bank, played truant and learned ‘jo¯ruri singing’ from an old geisha at a teahouse. They went to horse races accompanied by teahouse hostesses. Michio stole gold from his family warehouse to settle the teahouse bills, while his friend pinched a gold smoking pipe from home, but his parents reported the missing pipe to the police; this led to inspectors turning up at Michio’s home to carry out an investigation.4 He might have become an unruly adolescent because of his mother’s Spartan harshness, but his father’s unfaithfulness and neglect of his family certainly contributed to this. Michio had to change middle school four times: after being expelled from Keio, he went to Ko¯gyokusha High School, but he was soon sent far away to Nagoya, and in the end entered Aoyama Gakuin High School. His younger brother, Senda Koreya, thought that it was around Christmas 1911 that Michio’s musical talent was discovered by a local clergyman,and it was he who encouraged Michio to study music. Till then his mother had utterly opposed her son being involved in music, because ‘she did not want her children to be like art or music school students, who wore long hair and baggy corduroy trousers’.5 It is not entirely clear why in the end she agreed to her son study694

¯ MICHIO (1892–1961) ITO

ing music, but the clergyman seems to have succeeded in persuading her. She sent Ito¯ to Miura Tamaki, an opera singer and a legendary Cho¯-Cho¯ San in Madam Butterfly, for music training as part of his preparations for entering the Tokyo Academy of Music, purchased a piano for him and invited a music teacher and his wife, as well as a German language teacher, to reside at her residence and give him private lessons. He made his musical debut as a chorus singer in Werkmeister’s opera Buddha in 1912. In the end he chose not to go to the Academy of Music and instead went to Germany to study singing. He was twenty years old. GERMANY

Ito¯ set off for Europe in November, 1912, and arrived in Berlin via Marseille just before Christmas. Captain Furusho¯, his brother-inlaw, who was in the Japanese Embassy in Berlin, requested Japanese musicians there to help him in studying music. Yamada Ko¯saku, a young musician, who later became a well known composer in Japan, was one of these. He and Ito¯ got on very well and Ito moved into a lodging near the Kosaku in Charlottenberg. Yamada found Ito¯ a good baritone, but he repeatedly told him that he would succeed as a dancer rather than a singer.6 In the summer of the following year, Ito¯ went to Leipzig to study the proper pronunciation and vocalization of the German language from the opera singer, Margarete Lehmann, who was an acquaintance of his brother-in-law. He was deeply moved by a performance of Gluck’s Orpheo ed Euridice that he saw at a festival of the Dalcroze School. He immediately became a student at the school which was renowned for its unique teaching method, Dalcroze Eurhythmics, developed by its founder, Émile Jacques-Dalcroze. In this the students were taught to indicate note values by movements of the feet and body and time values by movements of the arms. Ito¯ later described Dalcroze School as a paradise and his one year there as the most enjoyable and unforgettable time in his life, because for the first time he was able to devote himself to music and dance with extremely innovative teachers and liberal international students. When the Great War broke out in the summer of 1914, the international students, who came from eighteen different countries, started leaving Germany and although Ito wanted to stay on, his Dutch and Polish friends repeatedly urged him to relocate to the UK as soon as possible. Arriving in Berlin, he was surprised to see many Japanese citizens at the embassy asking for visas for the UK and he then realized the urgency of the situation. He travelled together with Mr and Mrs Soganoya Goro¯, a famous comedian, Ikuta Kizan, a writer and good friend of the famous Japanese novelist Nagai Kafu¯, and Marquis 695

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Maeda Toshitame, later an army general. They crossed the German and Dutch border thirty minutes before Japan declared war against Germany. In London he heard that his brother-in-law with other embassy staff had reached The Hague safely. ENGLAND

Finding lodgings in Camden Town, Ito¯ frequented the Café Royal in Regent Street, a meeting place for national and international writers, artists and celebrities. It was here that he became acquainted with compatriots such as Fujita Tsuguji, Yamgata Kanae, a print-maker, Shimazaki To¯ son, writer, Ko¯ ri Torahiko, a playwright, and Kume Tamiju¯ro¯, a modernist painter, many of whom had come to London to escape from the war-torn continent. Ito¯’s wealthy father,who had been financially supporting him, suddenly went bankrupt after taking over a firm which invested in oil and other speculative commodities. The fifty pounds that he received soon after his arrival in London was probably the last cheque sent from Japan and he quickly spent it all.7 Helen Caldwell, Ito¯’s former American student, reconstructed from his various autobiographical writings a legendary anecdote about his being down and out in London.8 Ito¯ first consulted Augustus John, whom he had befriended at the Café Royal, about how he should cope and was recommended to use pawn shops. However, in no time he had pawned every valuable he owned. He exchanged his remaining twenty neckties for sixpence and with this money bought a loaf of bread, fed the gas meter and made a soup of bread and water. Being now literally penniless, he decided to become a street cleaner because he thought even people like him, who did not speak much English, could do this job, and more importantly that there was no risk that he would be discovered by his friends sweeping streets if he worked on the night shift. Then, quite out of the blue a friend invited him to a party held by Lady Ottoline Morrell and in her living room he danced the piece he had composed at Dalcroze School to the piano accompaniment of Henry Wood. The Turkish trousers and the Spanish jacket that he wore for his dance were borrowed from Lady Ottoline’s wardrobe. W.B. Yeats, T. Surge Moore, George Bernard Shaw, and Lady Emerald Cunard were among the guests that night and Ito¯ was invited to dinner at the Cunards’ house the following day. About a hundred guests were said to have been present at the dinner party where Ito¯ was made to dance the same short dance that he had performed at Lady Ottoline’s the day before. During the dinner, he was seated next to an elderly gentleman with grey hair: when the gentleman initiated a conversation, he begged to speak in a language that he could understand. So they talked to each other in 696

¯ MICHIO (1892–1961) ITO

German for two hours. A letter complimenting his accomplishment and refinement with twenty pounds came from the gentleman who turned out to be Herbert Asquith,the Prime Minister.9 This anecdote was turned into a haiku by Ezra Pound. So Miscio sat in the dark lacking the gasometer penny But then said: ‘Do you speak German?’ To Asquith in 1914 …

Ito¯ became a regular visitor on Thursday evenings to Lady Ottoline and Philip Morrell’s London house.10 London’s Coliseum Theatre at that time specialized in-variety programmes featuring one-act plays, dramatic sketches, singing, and dancing. Ito¯ got a contract to appear as a dancer at the Coliseum for two weeks. His show was advertised in newspapers and on hoardings as ‘harmonized Europe-Japanese dances that enthralled society’. His public engagements as well as his private appearances in the drawing rooms of society women brought him to the attention of Ezra Pound, a poet who had a knack for networking. He was invited by Pound to a meeting on the night before his first performance at the Coliseum.11 Pound was living with W.B. Yeats in Sussex, almost as his secretary, and working on a translation of No¯ plays using the manuscripts left by Ernest Fenollosa, while Yeats was contemplating writing a No¯-inspired play. Returning to London from a two-week break at the Morrell’s house in Oxford, Ito¯ discovered that Ezra Pound was looking for him. It turned out that Pound and Yeats wanted Ito¯ to dance a No¯ dance for them.12 However, he did not know much about it and moreover he found it exceedingly boring. In the end he agreed to do a No¯ dance for the two poets, but he needed assistants; so he brought his friends who were more familiar with the No¯ than he was. At Pound’s flat, Ito¯ danced while Ko¯ri Torahiko and Kume Tamiju¯ro¯ sang and recited.13 Although the No¯ dance that Yeats saw on that occasion was far from authentic, he found in it an alternative to the traditional realist theatre and came to write At the Hawk’s Well, a poetic dance play, having in mind Ito¯ playing the role of the Hawk, the Guardian of the Well. The costume was designed by Edmund Dulac reflecting both Ito¯’s obsession with Egyptian art and his own interest in classical Japanese theatre. Choreography was entrusted to Ito¯, but instead of studying the performing style of No¯ dancing, he daily went to London Zoo: ‘flapping and prancing as he imitated the movements of hawks, with Yeats watching him in rapt admiration ...’14 Ito¯ had a far-reaching impact on writers and artists in London. Gustav Holst, who was then a fledgling composer teaching music at St Pauls’ Girls’ School in London, developed a strong interest in oriental music and arts and was fascinated by Ito¯’s performance. He 697

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probably saw Ito¯ performing at the Coliseum, as he wrote down in his notebook the dances which he saw there, and met Ito¯ on another occasion. Being inspired by Ito¯, Holst interrupted the composition of The Planets and wrote some orchestral music, Japanese Suite, which is made up of four short pieces of dance music with a prelude and an interlude. All four, except the second, ‘Dance of Marionette,’ were based on a Japanese tune provided by Ito¯. By the time the suite was performed in March, 1919, however, Ito¯ had long gone to the USA.15 In October, 1915, he danced more traditional No¯ dances in a small studio in Kensington, wearing Japanese costume, and in January 1916, he performed in the Margaret Morris Theatre in the King’s Road, Chelsea, founded by Margaret Morris, the first proponent of modern dance in the UK. His performing style and costume at Margaret Morris Theatre were similar to those at the Kensington studio. By this time, Ito¯ had changed his attitude towards the traditional Japanese theatre and tried hard to integrate it into his performance. Charles Ricketts was an English artist, illustrator, and set and costume designer and a collector of Japanese wood prints, best known for the costumes and sets he designed for the first performance of Oscar Wilde’s Salome. Edmund Dulac was a Frenchborn, British illustrator and painter and also very much interested in Oriental arts and music. He was learning kanji characters and the technique of traditional Japanese painting from the Japanese painter, Makino Yoshio. He painted portraits of Arthur Waley and Ito¯, also that of Queen Elizabeth II for the 1953 coronation stamp. Ricketts and Dulac, who were great fans of Ito¯’s dance, designed the No¯ costume that Ito¯ wore when playing the role of a daimyo for his appearance in the Kensington studio.16 This costume was reused at the Margaret Morris Theatre. For that occasion Dulac created a kimono for his fox dance and Ricketts made an elaborate grey costume for his female demon dance with images of a skull on either sleeve and red frills on the obi. The first performance of At the Hawk’s Well was given to a small invited audience in the drawing room of Lady Cunard on 2 April 1916, but it was more like a dress rehearsal, because there was no stage lighting and no scenery. The second performance was given two days later at Lady Islington’s drawing room; three hundred spectators, including Queen Alexandra, attended. This was a resounding success as the audience were captivated by the poetry of Yeats’ script and enthralled by Ito¯’s dancing. Ito¯ won great artistic fame in London and was now offered a stage contract by a New York company. Yeats urged him to take up the offer as England was not the best place to be while the war continued. He wanted to write more dance plays similar to At the Hawk’s 698

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Well, but in the end he did not do so, mainly because Ito¯ was no longer in London. He wrote: Perhaps, I shall turn to something else now that our Japanese dancer, Mr Itow, whose minute intensity of movement in the dance of the hawk so well suited our small room and private art, has been hired by a New York theatre, or perhaps I shall find another dancer. I am certain, however, that whether I grow tired or not – and one does grow tired of always quarrying the stone for one’s statue – I have found out the only way the subtler forms of literature can find dramatic expression.17 AMERICA

Ito¯ arrived in New York in the autumn of 1916 to discover that he was contracted to appear in a musical ‘sex comedy’ about wife-swapping couples. He had no interest in such a commercial engagement, so he cancelled the contract with Oliver Morosco, a theatre impresario.18 But soon he was invited to supervise the production and design of Bushido, based on a classic Kabuki and Jo¯ruri play,and won critical acclaim. Now he was engaged not only in dancing and choreography, but also in designing and producing which were his speciality. As a dancer, choreographer, designer and producer, he introduced to American audiences classic No¯, Jo¯ruri and Kabuki plays such as Tamura, Echigo Jishi (Lion of Echigo), and Do¯jo¯ji (Do¯jo¯ji Temple). Tamura was based on the translation by Fenollosa and Pound and followed the original narrative, but his performance style was unlike the original, mixing both No¯ and Western theatrical conventions. It requires years of training to be able to perform as a professional No¯ or Kabuki actor and Ito¯ had principally trained as a modern dancer. Japanese classics were now his primary repertoire, but his performing style was a fusion of Eastern and Western dance. He also revived Yeats’ At the Hawk’s Well, but Dulac’s original music was replaced by Yamada Ko¯saku’s score. Yamada, who had befriended Ito¯ in Berlin, was now living in New York and as a poor young musician he was trying to make ends meet by giving concerts, composing music for the theatre and serving as an accompanist. He and Ito¯ shared a room above a Japanese restaurant, as neither of them could afford to rent a room on his own. Although Ito¯ was desperate for money, part of the profits that he got from At the Hawk’s Well was donated to the ‘Free Milk for France’ fund. Based in New York during this period, Ito¯ gave many dance recitals in the city and along the East Coast. There were niches for noncommercial dance and exotic dance, such as Cossack dance, and the fusion of Oriental and Occidental music. Dance such as performed by Ito¯ was popular among more artistically adventurous audiences. His recitals were made up of adaptations of No¯ and Kyo¯ gen dance, 699

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Pizzicati, in which only the upper half of the body moved, sword dances, and pantomime. They were attended mainly by coterie audiences. So in order to top up his income, he had little choice but to appear in revues which were patronized by larger audiences. In both dance recitals and revues, Ito¯ played the multiple roles of director, choreographer, and dancer. One of the most common responses to Ito¯’s artistic performance in reviews was ‘strange but fascinating’. His dance and staging were certainly exotic and arcane, but at the same time refreshing and exciting as they were completely new. In 1918 he established Michio Itow’s School at East 59th Street with the help of Yamada. Ito¯ was a socially conscious and dreamy artist. He sent a letter to Warren Harding, who was hosting the Washington Naval Conference of 1921, asking for the convocation of a conference of prominent artists, so that world peace could be achieved through the power of the arts. When Yeats visited New York, Ito¯ entertained him with Yone Noguchi at a Japanese restaurant and told him about his dream of establishing an artists’ colony in a small island in the Inland Sea of Japan.19 By the mid-1920s, his reputation as a dancer and producer had been so well established that he was entrusted with large productions of major operas and operettas such as Madam Butterfly, Turandot, and the Mikado, and had sufficient resources to set up a large dance studio near the Hudson River. Ito¯ was very popular with women and had many affairs. He was good-looking with long, pitch-black straight hair, huge black eyes, and sensuous lips, and his body was thin but sinewy: he was after all a romantic and exotic dancer and artist. In 1929 he married one of his dancers, Hazel Wright. They had two boys, Donald and Gerald. Ito¯ and Hazel toured around the country with his company and pupils; the tour ended in Los Angeles in April that year. He was so deeply impressed with the openness and energy of the local artistic community, musicians, dancers and artists, and the better established Japanese community in Los Angeles that he decided not to return to New York. He started teaching at the Edith Jane School of Dancing and giving dance recitals, which were similar to his programmes in New York. Soon he began to teach many more pupils and his programmes came to involve a large number of dancers and audiences. The studio that he set up in Hollywood had two classes; one for those aiming to be professionals and the other for those who simply liked and enjoyed dancing. In the outdoor pageant he organized at the Pasadena Rose Bowl, he choreographed nearly 200 dancers and the dances were accompanied by symphony music such as Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite and Dvorak’s From the New World played by the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra. Five thousand people watched Ito¯’s solo performance 700

¯ MICHIO (1892–1961) ITO

and large group dancing and the event was a triumphant success. It took place on the night of 20 October. Four days later the New York Stock Market crashed and the Great Depression began. In spite of the depression and the economic turmoil, Ito¯ employed all his resourcefulness to organize even larger pageants. In the next twelve years, he managed to stage several large scale dance events accompanied by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in the Hollywood Bowl with capacity audiences of some twenty thousand. The Los Angeles Examiner described the spectacles as a triumph of luxuriousness, acclaiming the harmony of music and dance under the direction of Ito¯.20 His father, Tamekichi, and his younger brother, Kisaku, happened to be in Los Angeles at that time and Kisaku designed colourful costumes so that even the audience sitting at the very top of the balcony could see the movement down on the stage.21 Although these pageants were critical successes, he was left with financial losses rather than profits and he found it more and more difficult to run a dance school and stage performances. Partly hoping to raise money, Ito¯ took his wife, two sons and company to Japan in their performance tour in 1931. Their programmes did not include Japanese dances, but instead Hazel’s bucolic dance and Ito¯’s tango were the centre pieces. Although Japanese audiences were not accustomed to modern dance, his company’s performances were warmly received. The Japanese tour, however, did not bring him as much profit as he had expected and even the small profits that he received were the result of Kisaku’s bearing some of the cost. His major work after returning to the USA included choreographing and producing Spring Dances staged as part of the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games and his company’s tour to Mexico. Throughout his life in London, New York and Los Angeles, Ito¯ had never been financially comfortable. The main reason was that he wasted a large amount of his income on drinks and women. He was an old-style Japanese patriarch, leaving all the housework and child-rearing to his wife, and having incessant love affairs with other women. He often did not return home from his work and instead stayed at his mistress’s. The couple were perpetually quarrelling and wrangling and when Hazel’s suffering reached its limits, they separated and divorced. Ito¯ remarried, this time to a woman named Tsuya, who was running a small restaurant-bar in Little Tokyo. She took custody of his two children, as they never felt at home in the new household to which they were taken after their mother’s remarriage. During a brief trip to Japan he successfully restaged At the Hawk’s Well with his brothers. Ito¯ produced; Yu¯ji composed the music and designed the costumes; Kisaku designed the sets and the masks; Ito¯ 701

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played the role of the Old Man; Senda Koreya the Young Man and Teiko, the wife of Yo¯uji, the Hawk. On his return to California he found life very difficult because of the growing racism and the escalating political tension between his native country and his adopted country. The day after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor he and his wife were arrested at their home by FBI agents for suspected espionage and taken away handcuffed to a camp in Missoula, Montana, and then to that at Livingstone in the same state. As there was very little to do in the camps, he recorded in his notebooks the books he read and the poems that he wrote. His notebooks mention the death of his beautiful mother in the entry for 26 December 1942 and that of his father on 9 May 1943. Negotiations about an exchange of prisoners between the USA and Japan had been in progress for some time and after much delay Ito¯ and Tsuya were repatriated on 19 October 1943. They had been in camps for nearly two years. Their trip was tortuously long, going via Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Maputo to Goa, where the exchange took place, and the boat carrying 1,299 Japanese and Japanese-American ‘ex-prisoners’ finally docked at Yokohama on 14 November. It had been a two and a half month journey. During the remaining twenty months of the Second World War, Ito¯ devoted himself to his long-time dream of establishing the ‘Sun Theatre’, an artists colony on an island in the Inland Sea, which he had explained to Yeats in New York. For this project, he set up the Greater East Asia Institute for Performing Arts with friends, sympathizers, and supporters and submitted the grand plan to the Ministry of Greater East Asia. Ito¯ may have been politically naive or the submitted plan may have been drafted or corrected by his colleagues, but it was full of jingoistic and colonialist slogans and messages entirely fitting to the war-time militarist ideology. It envisioned, for example, an Art Olympiad in Manila, but this never took place as American forces recaptured the city in March, 1945. His Greater East Asia Institute was dismantled when its Aoyama headquarters were ordered to relocate and all major theatres were burned down in the Great Tokyo Air Raid of 10 March 1945. The institute managed to stage only one performance in its existence. The programme was a hodgepodge of East Asian, Chinese and Japanese music and dance. Despite his war-time activities, he was not included in the twenty-one thousand people who were purged from public service. Fujita Tsuguharu and Yamada Ko¯ saku, who spent their young days in London or New York with Ito¯ were also not removed from public office, in spite of their collaboration with the war effort. Ito¯ was even hired by the US General Headquarters as chief producer of the Ernie Pyle Theatre which was installed in 702

¯ MICHIO (1892–1961) ITO

the venerable Tokyo Takarazuka Theatre in Ginza as part of the recreation facilities for the occupation forces. He trained dancers, choreographed dances, and produced the show named Fantasy Japonica for three thousand GIs. In the defeated Japan, they saw a grand spectacle such as they had never experienced in their own country.22 Fantasy Japonica was followed by his productions of Festival, Jungle Dram and the Mikado. The last one was performed entirely by an American cast. In the post-war period, he ran a performing arts school, occupied the position of chairman for the Japanese Association for Dance Art, served as a fashion adviser, taught at a vocational college, trained fashion models, organized beauty contests, led a dance company which consisted of his former students, ventured into the Shimpa drama, regularly contributed essays to fashion and women’s magazines, and created a spectacle for NBC television.23 When Tokyo was selected to host the Olympic Games in 1964, Ito¯ was commissioned to produce the opening and closing ceremonies and he announced that they were going to be his last major undertakings. However, before he could even launch the project, he suddenly died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on 6 November 1961. ENDNOTES 1

2

3 4

5

6

7

8 9

10

11

Muramatsu Teijiro¯, Yawakai Mono heno Shiten: Itan no Kenchikuka Ito¯ Tamekichi, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1994. Ito¯ Geijutsu Yon Kyo¯dai, Tokyo, Ko¯ryu¯sha, 1997 and ‘Ito¯ Geijutsuka Kyo¯dai: Ju¯nin no Kodomotachi’, Chapter 7, Muramatsu, Yawakai Mono heno Shiten, op. cit. Ito¯ Michio, ‘Sekai ni Odoru,’ Geijutsu Shincho¯, July 1955. Quoted by his brother, Kunio, alias Senda Koreya, in his afterword for the Japanese translation of Helen Caldwell’s Michio Ito: The Dancer and His Dances, Ito¯ Michio: Hoto to Geijutsu, Tokyo: Hayakawa Shobo¯, 1985. Kimie’s interview quoted by Senda Koreya in his Mou Hitotsu no Shingeki Shi, Chikuma Shobo¯, 1975, p. 17. Yamada Ko¯saku, ‘Michio Itow no Profile,’ Ito¯ Michio, Utsukushiku naru Kyo¯shitsu, Tokyo; Ho¯bunsha, 1956. In the postcard dated September 11, 1914 Ito¯ thanks his father for the money. Quoted by Senda Koreya in ‘Afterword’, Ito¯ Michio: Hito to Geijutsu, op. cit. pp. 184–185. Helen Caldwell, Michio Ito¯, op. cit. pp. 39–40. This anecdote is entirely based on Ito¯’s somewhat unreliable momoirs. For example, see ‘Omoide wo Kataru,’ Hikaku Bunka, Ottoline Morrell, Ottoline at Garsington: Memoirs of Lady Ottoline Morrell, 1915–18, New York: Knopf, 1975. The letter by Ito¯ Michio for Ezra Pound, Sanehide Kodama, ed., Ezra Pound and Japan: Letters & Essays, Redding Ridge, CT: Black Swan Books, 1987, p. 8.

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12

13

14

15

16

17 18 19

20

21 22 23

Norimasa Morita, ‘The Toils of Ko¯ri Torahiko,’ Hugh Cortazzi, ed., Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, vol. VII Folkstone, Kent: Global Oriental, 2010. ‘Pound to Kume Tamiju¯ro¯ no Ko¯yu¯,’ Fukuda Rikutaro¯ and Yasukawa Akira, Kyoto: Yamaguchi Shoten, 1986, Humphrey Carpenter, A Serious Character: The Life of Ezra Pound, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1988, p. 224. Takeishi Midori, ‘Ito¯ Michio no Nihonteki Buyo¯,’ Tokyo Ongaku Daigaku Kenkyu¯ Kiyo¯, 24, 2000. The letter of Ezra Pound addressed to James Joyce. Forrest Read, ed., Pound-Joyce: The Letters of Ezra Pound to James Joyce, with Pound’s Essays on Joyce, London: Faber and Faber, 1968, p. 58. W.B. Yeats, Four Plays for Dancers, New York: Macmillan, 1921, p. 88. Helen Caldwell, Michio Ito, op. cit., p. 166. Fujita Fujio, Ito¯ Michio Sekai wo Mau: Taiyo¯ no Gekijo¯ wo Mezashite, Musashino Shobo¯, 1992, pp. 80–81. Petterson Green, The review of the Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles Examiner, August, 16, 1930. Fujita Fujio, Ito¯ Michio Sekai wo Mau, op. cit., pp. 91–92. Saito¯ Ren, Maboroshi no Gekijo¯ Arnie Pyle, Tokyo: Shincho¯ Sha, 1986. Fujita Fujio, Ito¯ Michio Sekai wo Mau, op. cit.

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Bonsai in Britain COLIN ELLIS

.

Boehmer & Co, Yokohama, catalogue of 1904

INTRODUCTION

The Nippon Bonsai Association declares that a bonsai is ‘a wondrous thing: in less space than a man can encompass with his arms, it can suggest a whole world of venerable old trees’.1 It has also been described as an ‘artistic pot plant’2 or ‘a tree or shrub trained and pruned in such a way as to resemble a full-size tree, grown in a shallow container for artistic effect and as an impression of nature’.3 705

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The word bonsai is an approximation in English to the Japanese reading of two Chinese ideographs: ┅᱂ where the first character is read as ‘bon’ meaning a tray, container or pot and the second character read as ‘sai’ meaning a plant or planting. In Chinese the characters were read as ‘punchai’ until China adopted the modern system of romanization and were read as ‘penjing’. The term bonsai covers a number of allied art forms and subdivisions but was not adopted as the descriptive noun in English until the beginning of the twentieth century. Towards the end of the twentieth century many of the cheap bonsai on sale in supermarkets and garden centres in Europe came from southern China and thus were penjing. HISTORY

It is probable that the concept of bonsai – a potted plant (or plants) trained and cultivated, to some degree at least, so as to give the object added artistic and metaphysical significance originated in China at least 2,000 years ago.4 It is not clear precisely when the concept of growing dwarfed trees in containers arrived in Japan. The earliest reference in Japanese literature is said to be in the Utsubo Monogatari (The Tale of the Hollow Tree) in the late tenth century – ‘A tree that is left growing in its natural state is a crude thing. It is only when it is kept close to human beings, who fashion it with loving care, that its shape and style acquire the ability to move one.’ But was it in a pot? The earliest pictorial evidence in Japan is from the thirteenth century. But it is generally accepted that what would now be called bonsai arrived in Japan during the Heian period.5 However, the term bonsai does not appear in Japanese literature until the seventeenth century. Until then what are now called bonsai were referred to as hachi-no-ichi (potted plants). It is used to describe plants in pots in general, but the context may suggest that an ‘artistic’ or ‘metaphysical’ element is present. The Noh play Hachi-no-ichi of c.1383 involves three such dwarf trees as very important props. These were no ‘mere pot plants’ and play a very significant role in this moral tale. Various approaches to cultivation and appreciation of bonsai are mentioned in Japanese literature. Over the centuries two main forms of appreciation seem to have developed. These are variously described as: ‘visual’ and ‘abstract’, ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’, ‘physical’ and ‘metaphysical’. Visual appreciation places emphasis on the objective appearance of the potted plant: on the style, the design, the attention to detail. Appreciation of bonsai is not limited to their physical appearance; the bonsai is seen as a means of gaining admission to a landscape of the mind. This is the method of 706

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appreciation envisaged in Taoist philosophy, Confucianism and Zen Buddhism. These approaches are not mutually exclusive. There is a Japanese saying, ‘A poem is a picture with a voice: a picture is a voiceless poem.’ From time to time in Japan since the thirteenth century, there have been periods when collecting unusually or bizarrely shaped trees and training trees into strange ‘unnatural’ shapes have been popular. This is also true in China; a penjing may be highly regarded when trained into the shape of an animal or of an auspicious Chinese ideograph – superficially more akin to topiary. But doing that to a bonsai seems to have become regarded as ‘undesirable’ in Japan during the latter part of the nineteenth century. What then were seen as ‘stylish’ bonsai in Japan remain so to this day, and it is this ‘stylish’ part of the Japanese bonsai tradition that has generally been followed outside East Asia. But just as the best wine is often drunk near its own vineyard, so the best bonsai rarely leave their native shores. BONSAI IN EUROPE

The horticultural techniques used to cultivate dwarfed trees in East Asia were all practised in cultivation in Europe well before the seventeenth century: feeding, watering (or not), pruning for fruit and flower, coppicing, root pruning, grafting were all understood as ‘dwarfing’ techniques by European horticulturalists. Trees were grown in relatively small pots: there were 1,200 trees in pots in the gardens at Versailles at the end of seventeenth century and their successors are still there today. In Europe knowledge about and references to what would now be called bonsai expanded slowly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.6 In 1820 John Livingstone provided the first thorough account in English of the Chinese method of developing miniature trees. He was living in China and his paper on the subject was read for him at the meeting of the Horticultural Society of London on 20 June 1820.7 The Horticultural Society of London sent Robert Fortune on a plant collecting expedition to China (1843–1846). On 21 November 1846 an article appeared in The Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette entitled ‘Chinese method of dwarfing trees’.8 Whilst in Japan in 1860 he saw plant nurseries as far apart as Nagasaki and Edo (Tokyo) and reported on the ‘much superior’ skills of the Japanese in dwarfing trees.9 The first recorded showing in Britain of what might even have been a few locally designed and grown dwarfed trees was staged in 1872 at a banquet held by the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce in 707

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honour of the Japanese Embassy (the Iwakura Mission). ‘A dozen Japanese flower vases from the collection of James L. Bowes had been “...filled with bouquets and dwarfed trees...” arranged under the supervision of George A. Audsley to decorate the dinner tables.’10 In 1888 Bowes was appointed honorary Japanese consul at Liverpool, the first in Britain; in 1891 he was a member of the organizing council that set up the Japan Society of London and was then a founder member. Audsley became one of Britain’s first significant authorities on Japanese art. Mrs Anna Brassey visited a dwarfed tree nursery near Yokohama on Friday, 2 February 1877. Her diary records:11 From the market we went...over the bluffs, in the teeth of a bitterly cold wind, to a nursery garden, to examine the results of the Japanese art of dwarfing and distorting trees. Some of the specimens were very curious and some beautiful, but most were simply hideous. We saw tiny old gnarled fruit-trees, covered with blossom, and Scotch firs and other forest trees, eight inches high, besides diminutive ferns and creepers.

Bonsai that were also ‘curious’ and ‘hideous’ to some Japanese eyes were then beginning to go out of fashion. But to this day a significant proportion of people, both inside and outside Japan, still describe bonsai as ‘simply hideous’! The first major public display of imported Japanese dwarfed trees in Europe seems to have been held six years after the dinner in Liverpool at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1878. In 1882 a German, Louis Boehmer, who had been sent to Japan by the American Government to advise on agriculture and forestry, on completing that mission decided to stay in Japan. He opened a nursery in Yokohama dealing in dwarfed trees and other aspects of horticulture with a view to exporting his wares. He subsequently employed father and son, Suzuki Uhei and Hamakichi, to help him. They in turn encouraged other Japanese horticulturalists in and around Yokohama to form a ‘co-operative’. This in due course spawned the Yokohama Nursery Company which, following in the footsteps of Boehmer, established offices overseas, including in London. By the end of the nineteenth century ‘Japanese dwarf trees and miniature gardens’ were being exported in quantity to the USA and to Europe. Very high quality annual catalogues became available in English and other western languages. But some brought their purchases back with them.12 Mail order was available to those who did not go to Japan13. By the beginning of twentieth century information about the practical aspects of growing bonsai was generally available in Britain. But 708

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the aesthetic and metaphysical importance was still not well understood outside East Asia. That is still true. BONSAI IN BRITAIN

The two organizations, which significantly influenced the growth of interest in bonsai in Britain, were the Japan Society and the Royal Horticultural Society. The Japan Society was formed in London in 1891 and its first general meeting was held on 28 January 1892.14 Bonsai did not feature much in the affairs of the Society until the 1950s, but they were not ignored. At the 54th Ordinary Meeting of the Society on 13 November 1901 Mr Tsumura Toichi, a Japanese member on a visit to London, delivered a paper entitled ‘Dwarf Trees’ which was carried in full in the Society’s Transactions.15 Mrs Hugh Fraser, widow of Hugh Fraser who had been British Minister to Japan from 1889 to 1894, described16 the entertainment for Prince Arthur of Connaught, who by order of the King (Edward VII, who had bonsai at Sandringham) visited Japan in 1906 to vest the Meiji Emperor with the Order of the Garter: In the beautifully wooded Hibiya park a banqueting pavilion had been erected in the purist style of ancient Japanese architecture, severely harmonious in outline and detail. The interior contained, among other decorations, a great collection of rare Japanese flowers, shrubs, and dwarf trees – pines and maples hundreds of years old, and, from hoary trunk to new-born feathery branch tip, perfect miniatures of their spreading, towering brethren of the forest...

Miss Eliza R. Scidmore gave an illustrated talk entitled ‘Ume No Hana, the Plum-blossom of Japan’ to the 203rd Ordinary Meeting on 24 May 1924 and dealt at some length with the topic of dwarf potted ‘plum’ trees.17 Bonsai as living sculptures created and maintained by using horticultural techniques had attracted the attention of the Horticultural Society of London (from 1861 the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS)) in the mid-nineteenth century. Among the functions of the RHS is providing an interface between amateur and professional horticulture. One way to achieve this is through flower shows where high standards in horticulture can be promoted by awards for excellence decided by expert judges. The RHS Committee with responsibility for assessing plants other than fruit and vegetables was the Floral Committee. Committees met at the Society’s ‘fortnightly’ shows in London. On 24 April 1900 Messrs. Barr exhibited ‘a small collection of Dwarfed Japanese Trees’ 709

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but did not receive an award. This was the first such exhibit recorded at an RHS show. There were three exhibits at the Temple show in May that year each receiving an RHS award. The Gardeners’ Chronicle reported that Mrs Hart of Totteridge ‘Contributed an interesting collection of Japanese dwarf trees’; Mr John Russell of Richmond showed a large range of trees and shrubs, including a collection of miniature Japanese trees, ‘which seem to have become so popular during the past two or three years’; and Mr S. Eida of 5 Conduit Street showed ‘Japanese trees’. No similar exhibits are recorded for 1901. There are exhibits recorded for 1902, but none for 1903 nor 1905. However, there were exhibits at Holland House in 1904 and at the Temple and Holland House shows from 1906 to 1911. Most of these exhibits received RHS awards.

Larch exhibited by Mrs. Hart

A pamphlet by Monsieur Albert Maumené, first published in French in Paris in 1902, was translated and an abstract reproduced in the RHS Proceedings in 1908.18 The title was ‘The Japanese Dwarf Trees: their cultivation in Japan and their use and treatment in Europe’. In this M. Maumené commented on the high level of interest in bonsai in England. The Japan-British Exhibition at White City in 1910 was not an RHS event per se, but many RHS Fellows were involved in the organizing committees. On 30 June RHS experts judged some 710

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exhibits. The Yokohama Nursery Company was awarded an RHS Silver Cup ‘for a collection of dwarf trees in pots’ (about 200 of them) and another ‘for a specimen dwarf tree (Thuya obtusa, golden variety, said to be 125 years old)’. The two Japanese gardens received RHS Gold Medals. The Royal International Horticultural Exhibition was held in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, 22–30 May 1912, where Japanese dwarfed trees were exhibited by the Yokohama Nursery Co. On 22–23 May 1913 the RHS mounted its first ‘Great Spring Show’ in the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea (previously it had been at the Temple). No ‘bonsai’ are recorded as being exhibited. But on 7 October Messrs Piper of Bayswater exhibited ‘Dahlias and miniature Japanese gardens’ – the first ‘Japanese tray landscapes’ recorded as being shown at a ‘fortnightly’ RHS show. There were no ‘bonsai’ exhibits at RHS shows in 1914 but in 1915 Messrs. Piper of Bayswater exhibited at Chelsea ‘Azaleas, flowering trees and Japanese trees’. At the ‘fortnightly’ show on 8 June Messrs. Felton, the famous florists of Hanover Square, exhibited ‘Japanese gardens and dwarf trees’; then Messrs. Barr exhibited ’Japanese trees’ at the Holland House Show. Barr put on a similar exhibit at the fortnightly show on 8 February 1916. At Chelsea in 1916 Messrs. J. Piper exhibited ‘topiary work and Japanese trees and shrubs’. At the same show the Yokohama Nursery Co. exhibited ‘Japanese trees and miniature gardens’ (their first at Chelsea) and Messrs. Liberty of Regent Street ‘Japanese trees and garden ornaments’. The Yokohama Nursery Co, exhibited at every Chelsea from 1916 to 1939. In 1931 Messrs. Central Garden Supplies of Kenton exhibited dwarf Japanese trees at three of the fortnightly shows; on two occasions they were awarded an RHS medal. Messrs. T. Yano of Portman Square exhibited ‘Japanese dwarf trees/dwarf conifers’ at the 21 June, 22 November and 13 December shows in 1932 being awarded RHS medals at the latter two shows. This gained them access to the Chelsea shows 1933–1939, where they won various medal awards. The first British gardener to exhibit ‘bonsai’ at Chelsea was Mrs Gwendolyn Anley FRHS, of Woking, who was awarded a Flora Medal for her exhibit in 1939. She was subsequently active in the RHS, writing and talking about bonsai, but, despite having visited Japan in 1937 and corresponding with contacts in Japan after the war, she does not seem to have been a member of the Japan Society. A significant number of British gardeners owned imported bonsai in the first forty years of the twentieth century, possibly more than a thousand given the probable level of imports.19 711

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The Japan Society of London was resuscitated in 1949. At the 332nd Ordinary Meeting of the Society on 11 November 1952 Ian Melville Clark gave an illustrated lecture on ‘Bonsai – Japanese Potted Plants’.20 He was the fifth generation in a family firm of Patent Agents. In 1940 he started to study and grow bonsai as a hobby on a roof-top in Hampstead. He taught himself some Japanese and built up a library of bonsai publications in both Japanese and English. He contributed at least one article to the monthly periodical Bonsai published in Japan. There must have been many others in Britain with similar enthusiasm but Gwendolyn Anley is the only other bonsai hobbyist from the 1930s/40s who has so far been positively identified. In 1955 Gwendolyn Anley contributed a chapter ‘Bonsai – An Introduction to the Japanese Art of Dwarfing’ to an Amateur Gardening Handbook.21 On 17 September 1958 the Executive Committee of the Japan Society discussed the remit of the (newly created) Garden Committee (Lady Roberts, I. Melville Clark, R. Soame Jenyns, Mrs Masaki, Mrs Orme) in the light of the great success of German and French exhibits at the 1958 Chelsea Flower Show. Major-General Piggott (Chairman of Council) expressed the view that a Japanese garden, with accessories, might prove of great value in Anglo-Japanese relations but the remit of the Committee should include not only ‘gardens’ but also ikebana and bonsai. Lady Roberts who was invited to examine this deputed Mr Melville Clark in January 1959 to act as Chairman in her absence abroad. Negotiations started with the RHS and with Ikebana International. It quickly became apparent that it was unlikely that anything could be arranged for Chelsea that year. It appeared that a garden might well be too difficult and too expensive but a joint exhibit of ikebana and bonsai might be arranged. Unfortunately this did not prove possible and in consequence no space was allocated to the Japan Society at Chelsea in 1960. By that stage a Japanese gardener had been identified and Ian Melville Clark had started to explore the possibility of importing bonsai from Japan with a view to exhibiting and then selling them within the Society to defray the costs of the exhibit, but there were budgetary constraints.22 The RHS were very keen to have a Japanese garden at Chelsea but also encouraged the alternative of a bonsai exhibit by offering free space in the marquee in 1961. The Japanese Ambassador oiled the wheels and Japan Airlines were persuaded to bring in the bonsai. In March 1961 six bonsai arrived from Japan and two British-grown trees completed an exhibit of eight bonsai at the Chelsea Show in May.23

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Three of the exhibits in 1961

The total cost of importing six bonsai and mounting the exhibit seems to have been less than £1,000. The two British-grown trees had ‘cost’ nothing save the loving care and attention of their hobbyist owner over the previous twenty years.

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Great bonsai are works of art that have been developed over more than one human lifetime and do command commensurate value when they change hands. They are exceptional and thus form a very small proportion of the bonsai alive at any one time and outlive the vast majority of their companions, in some cases by hundreds of years. In that sense none of the bonsai exhibited at Chelsea in 1961 were exceptional but they created great interest. The Japan Society had anticipated this and invited people to attend a meeting to find out more. Records of precisely how many attended that meeting no longer exist but a total of over sixty new members of the Society, which then had about 800 members in total, are recorded as joining the Bonsai Group by 4 October 1961.24 It must be assumed that a number of existing members of the Society also attended the meetings of the Group. From time to time minutes refer to difficulties in finding suitable accommodation for meetings and at one point Ian Melville Clark reported that ‘the Group had nearly 150 members’.25 The RHS published Ian Melville Clark’s report of the exhibit under the title ‘Dwarf Trees at Chelsea Show, 1961.26 In 1962 the Bonsai Group of the Japan Society of London exhibited at Chelsea. Six trees were imported and these were supplemented with British grown bonsai. Thereafter no further bonsai were imported by the Society but it exhibited bonsai belonging to its members at Chelsea, through its Bonsai Group, every year until 1967. In February 1968, at the suggestion of Sir Norman Brain, then chairman of the council of the Japan Society of London, the Bonsai Group was renamed Bonsai Kai, which continued to exhibit at Chelsea on behalf of the Society until 1986. It was awarded a much-prized RHS Gold Medal for the first time in 1972 and six more thereafter. There were twenty-six Japan Society exhibits in total. From 1962 to 1986 bonsai members were involved in other public exhibitions of bonsai and instigated and organized bonsai competitions each spring and autumn at RHS public flower shows in the RHS London Halls. Monthly meetings were held consisting of formal lectures, informal talks, demonstrations and competitions. Until the end of 1986 a Bonsai bulletin was published by the Society – three times in most years. The Japan Society of London had made a major contribution to reintroducing bonsai to British horticulture and inspired and then formed the first bonsai club in Europe. Both acts were exceptional and contributed to the creation of commercial bonsai nurseries in the British horticultural trade, the formation of other bonsai clubs and, in 1982, the formation of a Federation of British Bonsai Societies. 714

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In early 1987 the Bonsai Kai Members of the Japan Society of London left the Society by mutual and amicable agreement and formed an independent club, Bonsai Kai of London, in order to be ‘masters of their own affairs’. To the outside world nothing appeared to have changed: meetings, exhibits at flower shows, a Bulletin, etc., continued under the guidance of its Committee but elected by and answerable to its own members. On average there were five bonsai/penjing exhibitors at Chelsea each year from 1961 to 2015; only one in 1961, ten in 1986 and three in 2015. Thirty different exhibitors had displayed over a period of fifty-five years 288 bonsai/penjing exhibits. There are more than 150,000 visitors to the show each year; plus a large television audience. The RHS also mounts other shows in London and around the country every year. Other major (non-RHS) annual flower shows in this period included those at Ayr, Edinburgh, Harrogate, Shrewsbury and Southport. There are also many county and local shows at most of which bonsai will have been exhibited and for sale. Bonsai shops have appeared and disappeared – one in Inverness Railway Station, for example. Supermarkets and garden centres have had phases of selling bonsai/penjing. For the hobbyist, specialist bonsai nurseries sprang up throughout the UK; some continue, others have disappeared. There are no reliable statistics covering the level of imports of bonsai, pots, tools, etc., from East Asia since the 1890s. But the fact that more than one Japanese ‘bonsai’ business had offices in London from 1900 to 1940 means that the return on investment in those overheads was worthwhile. Bonsai that were ‘good enough’ for the Western market have generally not been very expensive nor very difficult to produce in Japan. Certainly in the 1890s and early 1900s bonsai that were not well regarded in Japan are recorded as being exported in quantity to Europe (and to the USA)! CONCLUSION

The first bonsai club in Europe was formed in London in 1961. By 1982, the year in which the Federation of British Bonsai Societies (FoBBS) was formed with twelve member clubs, there were more than fifty bonsai clubs in the UK. In 2015 FoBBS has fifty-four member clubs from about ninety bonsai clubs in the UK. It is not possible to say with any precision how many serious bonsai/penjing hobbyists there are in the UK; some enthusiasts are members of more than one club, others are members of none. However, more than ten thousand may not be an exaggeration. To support them fifty-six bonsai traders were recorded by FoBBS in the UK in 2015. 715

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There are permanent collections of bonsai on display at RHS Wisley and at the Royal Botanical gardens at Kew. The English national collection is at Birmingham Botanical Gardens and the Scottish at Binnie Plants in West Lothian. There are bonsai clubs in every country in Europe and a European Bonsai Association (EBA) has been in existence since 1984. Local, area, national and international exhibitions are held every year throughout Europe. In Japan there are family bonsai nurseries with histories stretching back many generations. Bonsai form ‘art collections’ for rich men but the ‘bonsai masters’ are nearly all commercial growers. In Britain the first generation of local ‘bonsai masters’ was born after 1930. The first bonsai/penjing nurseries were set up in the 1960s and there was at least one second generation owner in 2015. Some British ‘bonsai masters’ have achieved worldwide recognition. Probably more quality bonsai are being created in Britain in the twenty-first century than are being imported. Bonsai in Britain is becoming a mature art form and is beginning to demonstrate some of our national characteristics. ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4

5

6

7 8 9 10 11 12

13

Nippon Bonsai Association, Classic Bonsai of Japan, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1989, p. 9. Wu, Yee-sun. Man Lung Garden Artistic Pot Plants. Wing Lung Bank Ltd., Hong Kong, 1969. Tomlinson, Harry The Complete Book of Bonsai, Dorling Kindersley, London, 1990. http://www.chinatravelrus.com/chinaattractions/qianling-mausoleum. asp;http://www.cntravel.biz/china_tour_destinations/xian/tomb_ zhanghuai.shtml Nippon Bonsai Association, Classic Bonsai of Japan, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1989, p. 140. 1727 - Engelbert Kaempfer describes dwarfed trees in pots in his History of Japan. Hort. Soc. of London, Transactions IV, London, 1821, pp. 224–231. Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, London, 1846, pp. 771–772. Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, London, 1861, pp. 120–121. Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, London, 1872, pp. 1386. A Voyage in the Sunbeam. Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1879. Elsie M. Hodgson wrote from Baldon, Shipley Kirkfield on 1 June 1901: ‘The dwarfed trees which we bought from you and brought to England on board ’S.S. Princes Irene” arrived safely at their destination and in good condition considering the variation of climate they were exposed to on the voyage. They appear to be doing well...’ Edward Stapleton, M.D. wrote from 37, Fitzwilliam Place Dublin on 26 April 1902: ‘Last week 5 cases arrived from your Nursery, with dwarf trees, Maples, Bulbs, etc., and I would wish when acknowledging their

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14

15 16 17

18 19

20 21

22

23

receipt to express to you the admiration of both myself and my friends of the truly admirable manner in which the plants were packed and the excellent condition in which we found them on arrival. See The Japan Society A History 1891–2000, by Sir Hugh Cortazzi, edited by Anne Kaneko, Japan Society 2001. J. Soc. London Transactions and Proceedings Vol VI -1902–04 - pp. 2–15. J. Soc. London Transactions and Proceedings Vol 28 p. xv. J. Soc. London Transactions and Proceedings Vols 20 & 21 -1922–4 - pp. 84–105. Proceedings of the RHS, Vol XXXIII - 1908, pp. 53–70. In due course, more research in local papers, nursery and local show catalogues, etc., may disclose some of these but a lot of paper records were destroyed in Britain and Japan during and after the 1939–1945 war. Many bonsai were also certainly casualties in the conflict. J. Soc. Bulletin No. 9 - February 1953 pp. 11–13. Amateur Gardening Handbook No. 13 - Miniature Gardens. By C F Walker. Collingridge. 1955. Page7 Finance Committee minutes no longer exist, but reading between the lines of the extant minutes of the council and its executive committee and the brief reports of the garden committee to those committees, money was tight. J. Soc. Bulletin 34 - June 1961 p. 28 recorded: Japan Society at the Chelsea Flower Show The garden committee of the Society, under the energetic guidance of Mr Melville Clark, had an exhibit of bonsai at the May show. These had been specially flown in from Japan at considerable cost. Great interest was shown in the trees, which were noticed on Radio and Television programmes and in the Press. Visitors to the show showed great interest and were helped by leaflets which were provided by the Society. Thanks are due to those members who very kindly gave their time to act as stewards at the exhibit, which received the award of a Silver-gilt Banksian medal.

The Times commented: An innovation is an exhibit of trees from Japan, some as much as 40 years old, not more than a foot or two high. These are shown by the Japan Society of London. These examples of the Japanese bonsai art, translated as ‘planted in a tray or pot’, are fascinating. They are, of course, extremely valuable and may cost anything from £50 to £1,000. An ancient wisteria, a 25-year-old specimen of Malus micromalus and a 40-year-old dwarf tree of Zelkova serrata are particularly interesting. 24 25 26

J. Soc. Council Minute Book 4 October 1961. J. Soc. Council Minute 6. of 15 May 1962. RHS Proceedings Vol. 86 - 1961 pp. 392–395 with illustrations opposite p. 399.

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The Royal Academy of Arts and Japan: 140 Years of Exhibitions, Education and Debate MAYU KAMIDE

INTRODUCTION

The Royal Academy of Arts was founded in 1768, and is an independent, privately funded institution, led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpose is to promote art and artists through exhibitions, education and debate. This essay explores the ways in which the academy has engaged with Japan over the last 140 years, from the first unveiling of an oil painting by a Japanese artist at the Summer Exhibition, to the recently completed touring exhibition of the Royal Academy’s own collections in Japan. PIONEERING STUDENTS OF ‘BARBARIAN ART’

Japanese-British exchanges in art began in the 1860s. The earliest contact between Japan and the Royal Academy was in 1876, when 718

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an oil painting by Hyakutake Kaneyuki (1842–1884) was exhibited at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition. Hyakutake was the first Japanese to have exhibited at the Summer Exhibition, but also the first ever Japanese to have had an oil painting displayed at an overseas exhibition.1 But Hyakutake was not an artist by profession. He was a close companion and aide to the last head of the Saga domain in Kyushu, Nabeshima Naohiro. Through the powerful clan’s networks, Hyakutake had the opportunity to study what would have then been called ‘barbarian painting’ techniques and was initially said to have been taught the use of oil with Gottfried Wagener, a technical adviser to the Saga clan in 1870.2 In an effort to spur Japan to modernize and catch up with the West, the Meiji government had dispatched hundreds of students to Europe and America. The fifth and last article of the Charter Oath of 1868 declared that ‘Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the foundations of Imperial rule’.3 The Meiji government fully expected the students to grasp and introduce elements of Western civilization to Japan. Having been selected to depart on a tour of Europe with Nabeshima Naohiro, Hyakutake left with the Iwakura4 Mission and eventually reached London in 1872. He studied English together with Nabeshima, and then went on to read economics at Oxford University as one of the first Japanese students to have been accepted there. When Nabeshima’s wife, Taneko, took up painting with Thomas Miles Richardson Jr in 1875, Hyakutake accompanied her to the lessons where he continued to study Western-style oil techniques. Although it is not known how Hyakutake’s painting, ‘View from Yokohama Japan’ came to be submitted to the RA, the records show a ‘Hiaktake Y.’ as an exhibitor in the Summer Exhibition of 1876.5 Owing perhaps to the novelty factor, Hyakutake’s painting caught the eye of an art critic at The Times: … A Japanese ‘View from Yokohama’ (903) by a native Japanese painter, Y. Hiaktake, is another example of that strange people’s ready power of adaptation. This picture looks less like Japanese than English work. But how much the Japanese artist will lose in exchanging his own art, in its own way and in so many ways inimitable, for a secondrate copy of ours!6

The review overlooked the importance of the occasion but even in the 1800s, the work would have only been judged and shortlisted on merit alone. Hyakutake went on to become a diplomat and ultimately an official at the Ministry and Agriculture and Trade, but his experiences and achievements in London, and in particular, the break he had enjoyed 719

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at the RA would have contributed to building the foundations of Western art education in Japan. Artists such as Okada Saburo¯suke have singled out Hyakutake as their inspiration to become a Western-style painter. However, the enthusiastic embracing of Western art in Japan proved divisive. A generation of eager art students had flocked to Paris and London, and there was now a sense of contempt for the best that Eastern civilization had to offer. Observers, even critics in the American Magazine of Art,7 had commented on the ‘destruction of the old arts of Japan’ of that period, and ‘forgetting or neglecting the transcendent beauties of their own art’. However, another Japanese artist who had a very clear, different mission and who was already highly accomplished in the old Japanese school of painting was to leave a substantial mark on the RA starting in 1905. Born in the year Hyakutake’s work was exhibited at the RA, Ishibashi Kazunori (also known as Wakun, 1876–1928) was another remarkable pioneer to make his mark on the Academy and Britain. This was the period after the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902, when the main wave of Japanese students had taken advantage of the political climate and travelled overseas for studies in their respective fields. Ishibashi had attended the academy’s art school from 1905 to 1910, and he was to become the first ever Japanese student to have graduated from the RA Schools.8 He was the eldest son of a farming family from Shimane Prefecture. His artistic talents had been recognized early on in childhood, and he was encouraged to pursue Nihonga. Under the tutelage of Taki Katei (1830–1901), the president of the Imperial Court of Artists, the apprentice Ishibashi was coached in decorative painting, and was also given a thorough training in the many styles of Japanese historical painting such as in kara-e of the Chinese school, and ko¯rai-e from the Korean school. Master Taki was of the old guard, ‘who watched with pain the debasement of old Japanese art and the growth of the many other false elements in the national life’,9 and was greatly opposed to the modern methods of teaching in a pseudo Japanese-European style. Ishibashi had gone on to study Western painting with Honda Kinkichiro¯ in Tokyo, but not content with what he had seen in his compatriot’s attempts at Western painting at exhibitions in Japan, he set sail for London to see for himself whether this hybrid style of Japanese-European painting was worth developing. He arrived in London in 1904, and judging from the letters he sent home, he had set his sights on studying at the RA early on, even before he had been accepted at the schools.10 The Royal Academy Schools,11 founded in 1769 was the first art school set up in Britain. Fortunately for Ishibashi, his wish to study at the schools was granted on 5 January 1905. The Council Minutes 720

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state that, ‘…nine were admitted in Painting, two in Sculpture, and four in Architecture. It was also resolved to admit as a Probationer a Japanese student who was allowed to submit works other than the prescribed ones.’12 Under normal circumstances, students would have been formally introduced to the schools through mutual contacts, and such details were meticulously recorded in the registers. The RA at this point however, had not even passed a special resolution to allow the admission of Colonial students to the Schools without formal examinations – this only came into effect almost a year later. So the decision to admit Ishibashi, recommended by no one and essentially a walk-in, was extraordinary. Pushing thirty, he was the oldest in his class. Having passed his three-month trial as a probationer, he undertook intensive training in the principles of artistic anatomy, sketching in charcoal, still life, and continued to hone his skills in fundamental techniques such as in life drawing. Ishibashi had mastered oil painting within a year, to the extent that an early portrait, called ‘Bijin dokushi (a beautiful lady reading poetry)’ was sent back to Japan and selected for exhibition at the prestigious Bunten, the art exhibition organized by the Ministry of Education. ‘Bijin Dokushi’ won third prize, and is considered a key work from his student days at the RA. The loose brushwork technique on the dark dress and the contrasting brightness of her skin is said to have the telltale signs of the Royal Academician, John Singer Sargent, known as the greatest portrait painter of his generation. Sargent was a visiting tutor at the Schools, and according to previous biographies of Ishibashi, the diplomat Suematsu Kencho¯13 introduced them prior to Ishibashi’s acceptance at the Schools. Perhaps this was one of the key moments that had helped him to specialize in portraiture. Ishibashi enjoyed further successes during his student days, when two paintings, ‘L.S. Merrifield Esq.’ and ‘Colonel Ota Hiki Higashi M.V.O.’ were shown at Burlington House in 1908 and 1910.14 Although he had initially set out to see whether a blend of Japanese-European painting could be workable, his latter days at the Academy had convinced him that this was not to be. He chose to pursue the different schools separately, while many of his countrymen continued to flounder with their hybrid strategy. After graduating the Schools in 1910, he remained active as a prolific portrait artist, both in the British art world, as well as in Japan where he became an influential figure at the Imperial Fine Arts Academy. In total, he spent nineteen years in Britain, having settled down with an English wife and two children. As he worked from his studio in southwest London, he carried on submitting works and they continued to be chosen at the Summer Exhibitions almost every year 721

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until 1927, a year before his untimely death from pneumonia, aged forty-eight, in Japan. On 5 May 1928, The Times published an obituary in the days following Ishibashi’s death, saying he was ‘known as a portrait artist of exceptional gifts’,15 and writing of his many triumphs at the Summer Exhibitions and his many admirers both in England, France and Japan. The obituary also noted that Ishibashi was ‘also a master of the ancient Japanese art of painting studies of flowers and fruit on silk. The medium used is water-colours mixed with gelatine and certain vegetable juices according to secret formulas.’ Ishibashi’s mastery of his craft could be seen as a reflection of the teachings from both Master Taki and the Royal Academy: in imprinting the importance of purpose over temporary fads. THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF CHINESE ART – ART AND NATIONALISM

After Ishibashi, other Japanese students followed in his footsteps at the RA Schools, such as Saito¯ Sogan (sculpture 1915–1920) and Ko¯zu Minato (painting 1921–1926). As Japan expanded her colonial ambitions during the interwar years, the next significant contact with the RA was made when Japanese assistance was sought during the preparations for the International Exhibition of Chinese Art, due to open in November 1935. A group of British collectors led by Sir Percival David had negotiated the loan of some 780 works from the Chinese government, and the organizers were also attempting to gather pieces belonging to collections held in other countries including Japan. The Chinese government had high hopes and expectations during this politically charged period, seeking to win points through cultural diplomacy. Documents from the National Archives in Taiwan on the upcoming exhibition illustrate how senior officials from the Central Antiquities Preservation Committee, an arm of the government, clearly had an eye on the Japanese angle. Referring to previous successes Japan had enjoyed at showcases on the world stage, the document states that: When Japan had organized exhibitions in Europe in the past, they had sent over droves of scholars. The purpose was to gain sympathy from the vast numbers of visitors. We must not lose out on this current opportunity, and we must get the British to become more knowledgeable about our culture and history.16

This was going to be no ordinary art exhibition. It was to be held officially under the joint auspices of the British and Chinese 722

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governments, and symbolically – a British warship, HMS Suffolk was involved in the shipping of the artifacts. ‘Soft power’ was going to be the order of the day, and was to help garner sympathy for Chinese resistance against encroaching Japanese interests in Manchuria and other territories. Perhaps it was not entirely surprising when the organizers of the China exhibition hit a wall when negotiating loans from Japan. Aware of the potential difficulties, Sir Percival David had contacted the Foreign Office in advance of a key meeting in order to try and pave a smooth way forward.17 However, Sir Walter Lamb, the Secretary of the RA and Oscar Raphael, a collector and a curator of oriental ceramics, were unable to secure either the interest or participation of the Japanese government. The British press added further fuel to the growing diplomatic crisis, by reporting that there were to be ‘No Loans from Japan’, that the British team had pointedly, failed ‘to obtain a single piece from Japan’, and that ‘Japan (is) the only country which has refused to take part’.18 Records from the National Archives, Kew, go further into the details of the impasse: … You will see from the enclosed copy of a letter to Raphael the attitude of the Gaimusho. The opposition mainly comes from Dr Taki19 of the Imperial University, who seems to be extending the spirit of nationalism to the domain of art.20

There were further exchanges between the organizers in London and the British embassy in Tokyo, seeking to explain the reticence of the Japanese authorities. Sir Robert Clive, the British ambassador wrote to Oscar Raphael:21 …I could not believe that the Japanese would in any way be influenced by the fact that Lord Lytton was Chairman of the Exhibition Committee. That seemed to me altogether too petty…

Petty it may have been, but the Foreign Office archives in Japan also indicate that indeed this had been an issue.22 Victor Bulwer-Lytton’s involvement as the chairman of the organizing committee had set alarm bells ringing. Lytton23 was the chairman of the Lytton Commission dispatched by the League of Nations after the Manchurian Incident. Clive tried his best to help reporting: A few days ago, old Baron Hayashi (ex-Ambassador at London) called here and I had a talk with him on the subject. I hinted, in very guarded terms, that if the Japanese refused to help at all in the Exhibition it would make an unfortunate impression, especially in view of the 723

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experience of previous exhibitions when so many foreign countries had been generous in lending their art treasures.24

Ultimately, the Japanese authorities made the loans available, and by the end of August 1935, news of their official participation was telegraphed from Japan to David. The International Exhibition of Chinese Art closed in March 1936, and was a phenomenally successful event, attracting over 420,000 visitors. Not only did it provide a stimulus for the study of Chinese art and art history, but for China, it proved to be a great public relations success. Critics at the Illustrated London News were bowled over: …it will finally dissipate the barbarous heresy, inherited by us from our eighteenth century ancestors, that the Chinese people were a quaint people whose normal mode of artistic expression was merely curious and odd, and not to be taken seriously by the people of the West’.25 This sea change in attitude was even evident from the direct impact it made on ladies’ fashions – China had arrived on the scene.

The tremendous success of this Chinese exhibition was not lost on Japan. A month after the exhibition, the Japanese embassy sent a letter to the RA. The original no longer exists in the archives, but the response to Mr Fujii, the acting ambassador, made it clear that the Academy was enthusiastic:26 I have laid your letter of the 24th April before the President and Council of the Royal Academy, and they are very interested to know that the question of holding an exhibition of Japanese art is being considered by the Japanese Government. They have no doubt that if your Government gives the necessary support it will prove to be a most important and successful Exhibition. The President and Council think that a suitable date, giving a proper interval between it and the recent Exhibition of Chinese Art, would be December 1939-March 1940; and they are prepared to give your Government an option on this date until the end of the year.

According to the RA’s Council Minutes, the Japanese did not give a formal response until January 1937,27 and deteriorating relations between Britain and Japan meant that such projects were no longer viable. In fact, an exhibition celebrating Japanese art would not materialize at the RA until four decades later. THE GREAT JAPAN EXHIBITION, 1981–1982

Having witnessed the success and power of the Chinese Exhibition at the RA first-hand, Baron Dan, a Japanese industrialist and 724

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politician, had already floated the idea of holding an exhibition of Japanese art in London as far back as December 1935.28 According to a conversation between Lieutenant Colonel Charles Bridge – who went on to become the first Secretary General of the British Council – the Baron had pointed out that the current Chinese exhibition at the RA ‘had been comparatively easy’, but a Japanese exhibition would prove to be more of a logistical challenge, as most of the exhibits would need to be collected from private owners in Japan. Further, the Baron suggested that ‘due to the personal jealousies and differences of opinion among those interested in art in Japan… the selection should be made by an Englishman who, for this purpose, should be prepared to go to Japan and live there, perhaps for a year’. He singled out Sir Percival David as the most suitable candidate. But by the time of ‘The Great Japan Exhibition 1981–1982’ the names had changed although the same problems remained. A detailed account of ‘The Great Japan Exhibition 1981–1982’ by Nicolas Maclean forms chapter 1 of Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume IX (ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Renaissance Books, 2015). According to recently released documents from the National Archives, the Japanese embassy, the foreign office and a Conservative backbencher expressed dismay at the broadcast of the wartime brutality scenes shown in the British/Australian coproduction of Tenko on the BBC – a drama series which attracted fifteen million viewers.29 The first episode had been broadcast a day after the opening of the exhibition. Minutes from the RA’s publicity committee note their concern.30 However, the superlative Great Japan exhibition was a resounding success, attracting over 523,000 paying visitors. It had enjoyed substantial media coverage, and echoed the effects of the China exhibition in the 1930s – a frenzy of Japanomania swept across London and beyond, from education and further into the sphere of business. Records on visitor numbers indicate that the Great Japan Exhibition still remains in the top ten in the RA’s exhibition history. Sir Hugh Casson, who was then president of the Royal Academy and who had given the exhibition his personal backing, was invited by the Japan Foundation to visit Japan with his wife Rita in 1983. Some of the sketches, which he made on this visit, were reproduced in a little book Japan Observed, photographs by Margaret Macdonald (Laddy Casson text by Hugh Cortazzi (Bellew Publishing), 1984.31 1990s AND BEYOND: FROM FEUDAL TO DIGITAL, AND ONWARDS TO JAPAN

A decade later, at the tail end of the Japanese asset price bubble, the RA held an exhibition dedicated to the most distinguished Japanese woodblock designer, Hokusai. The Hokusai show was part of the 725

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1991 Japan Festival, another remarkable exercise in cultural diplomacy. In the spirit of cultivating better understanding between Britain and Japan, it was billed as the most comprehensive celebration of another country to be staged in the UK. The finest impressions of Hokusai, painstakingly gathered from around the world, had London captivated, reminding the public that Hokusai’s prints were among the first to reach Europe from Japan in the mid-nineteenth century, making a strong mark on the French Impressionists. Monographic shows from the masters of the Japanese woodcut continued at the RA with exhibitions celebrating the work of Hiroshige on the bicentenary of his birth in 1997, and in 2009, a retrospective of Kuniyoshi, an artist considered a relative unknown outside of Japan. Both these exhibitions drew over 85,000 visitors to Burlington House – supposedly the highest recorded for a Japanese print event in Europe at that time.32 The Edo period had been the common theme running through the RA’s exhibition history on Japan, but now it skipped forward centuries to feature a living artist in the ‘Rebirth’ exhibition of 2012, which showcased the contemporary works of Mori Mariko, the first Japanese woman and the first solo artist to exhibit at its Burlington Gardens premises. In the 2014 ‘Sensing Spaces’ exhibition – said to be London’s biggest architectural exhibition in recent times – the acclaimed architect Kuma Kengo was one of seven practices that were invited to take part. High-profile exhibitions aside, it is worth noting that even as recently as 2011, works by UK-based Japanese artists were being shown during the Summer Exhibitions – a recent example being ‘Tokyo Retails Series 2010’ by the architect Yamazaki Kazuya. On the Schools front, ten-week international exchange programmes have seen Japanese students visit the RA Schools, and in turn during 2012/13, RA students were sent over to Japan. The RA’s relationship with Japan continues to evolve even further. In the wake of the 400-year anniversary of diplomatic, trade, cultural and scientific relations between Japan and Britain, a major international tour of the RA collections took place in 2014/15, which involved its first ever trip to Japan. Four years in the planning, the British Council, the foremost British organization involved in cultural relations and educational opportunities, supported the project. The RA’s independent charitable status has meant that it receives no funding from the government. As such, Japanese individuals and corporations have also played an integral part in supporting and developing activities at the RA – whether as Friends, corporate members or patrons in the Japanese Committee of Honour. Moreover, there have been two Japanese trustees – the late Seiji Tsutsumi of the Saison Foundation and since 1999 Mrs Yoshiko Mori, chair of 726

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the Mori Art Museum. Both contributed greatly to the promotion of international cultural exchange. The recently completed RA touring exhibition, ‘Genius and Ambition: The Royal Academy of Arts, London 1768–1918’, featured ninetysix works by Royal Academicians such as Constable, Millais and Sargent. Royal Academicians – the select group of leading global artists and architects who govern and steer the RA – are no strangers to Japan. Sir Alfred East R.A.33 was one of a number of British artists who travelled to Japan extensively in the late nineteenth century. The most recently elected architect academician Farsshid Moussavi designed the Yokohama International Cruise Terminal. Representing the breadth of the RA’s own collection of British art and artists, the RA touring exhibition included paintings, drawings, sculpture, prints, photographs, and historic books, and was billed as the most significant touring exhibition since the establishment of the RA. Some of the most important works in its collection toured venues in Ishikawa, Tokyo, Shizuoka and Nagoya to high praise and acclaim from hundreds of thousands of visitors. Several works had previously never left the UK and the exhibition introduced the RA to an audience who would otherwise not have had the chance to visit Britain, let alone Burlington House. One critic noted that the British aesthetic revealed through the exhibition was ‘a rejection of parochialism, and a readiness to look far beyond one’s native land’.34 However, the scope of comment and discussions nowadays are no longer just confined to trained critics of traditional worlds of print and broadcast. The rise of digital media, through blogs and social networking sites, has added an extra dimension for discussion and thought, where influencers are capable of reaching millions. Bringing into focus the visitor’s perspectives – searches indicate that the digitally savvy tended to hone in on the beauty of Reynold’s ‘Theory’ and Millais’ ‘Souvenir of Velasquez’ in particular.35 Waterhouse’s ‘A Mermaid’ was another work that had captured the visitors’ attention – a painting that Natsume So¯seki referred to in his novel, ‘Sanshiro¯’, giving it local appeal. CONCLUSION

Although the RA’s first high-profile exhibition on Japan dates back only to 1981, its relationship with Japan has spanned some 140 years through its many roles. In its mission to promote the visual arts through exhibitions and education, it has managed to display some of the finest examples of Japanese art in the UK – from the Edo period through to the cyberage. Further, the RA has left its mark on Japanese artists who have studied at the Schools, as well as through participation in the RA’s diverse range of exhibitions. The timeline 727

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of the RA’s relationship with Japanese art discussed here provides a glimpse into wider Anglo-Japanese history, and can be seen as a part of a story in soft power and international cooperation. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I should like to express my sincere gratitude to Mark Pomeroy, archivist of the Royal Academy of Arts, for his kind cooperation and assistance. I would also like to thank Dr Antony Best at the LSE for his valuable input regarding materials from the 1930s. ENDNOTES AND REFERENCES 1

2

3

4

5

6 7

8

9

10

11

12

Nakamura, S. (2006) A Study of Kaneyuki Hyakutake, Introduction of Western Culture and The Meaning of Oil painting for Hyakutake. Bijutsu Kyoiku; ISSN: 1343–4918; No.289; pp. 44–50. Clark, J. (1989) ‘Japanese-British Exchanges in Art 1850s-1930s: Papers and Research Materials’ [Clark, John (ed.)], typescript, Canberra, ACT. McLaren, p. 8, quoted in De Bary, William; and Arthur Tiedemann (eds.) (2005) [1958]. Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol. II: 1600 to 2000 (2nd ed.). New York: Columbia p. 672. See biographical portrait of Iwakura Tomomi by Andrew Cobbing in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2013. Royal Academy Archives, Graves, ‘Royal Academy of Arts Exhibitors 1769–1904’ vol. 2, p. 93. “The Royal Academy” The Times, 31 May 1886, p. 5. Finch, A. (1917) Panels by Mr. Kazunori Ishibashi, An Artist of the Old Japanese School, The American Magazine of Art, Vol. 8, No. 9 (July, 1917), pp. 344–350. The first Japanese student to have been accepted at the RA Schools was Tatsuno Kingo, architect of Tokyo Station and other notable landmarks. He was admitted in July 1881 but did not stay beyond the probationary stage, having returned to Japan in 1883. Finch, A. (1917) Panels by Mr Kazunori Ishibashi, ‘An Artist of the Old Japanese School’ The American Magazine of Art, Vol. 8, No. 9, July, pp. 344–350. According to a letter dated 21 July 1904, he wrote of his plans to study at the Royal Academy, and went on describe how ‘the Royal Academy is a school of a calibre where graduates can go on to live most splendidly in Britain. Not one Japanese has graduated as yet.’ Masumi, T. (2008) ‘Ishibashi Kazunori no Igirisu Jidai’, Shimane Kenritsu Iwami Bijyutsukan kenkyu kiyo, no. 2 pp. 19–44 (my translation). Illustrious alumni include J.M.W. Turner and William Blake. The Royal Academy Schools had the tradition of taking in ambitious students from a variety of ages and backgrounds, aided by the practice of not charging tuition fees. It is a tradition that continues to this day. Royal Academy Archives, Council Minutes, C1900–1906 XXI p. 386. 728

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13

14

15 16

17

18 19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

See biographical portrait by Ian Ruxton in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume V, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2004. Royal Academy Archives, ‘The Royal Academy Exhibitors 1905–1970’ vol II, p. 117. ‘Mr K. Ishibashi’, The Times, 5 May 1928. ‘NHK Special: Kokyuu Hakubutsuin’ NHK, Dir. Koyama Yasushi, 28 June 2014, from Academica Historica, Taiwan. ⱥ೔ᩔ୰ᅜⱁ⾡ᒎぴ఍ ᚩ㞟ฟရ(my translation). National Archives, Kew, FO370–452 pp. 448, 449 28 December 1934. Letter from Percival David to Stephen Gaselee - Raphael and Lamb are going to see the Japanese Minister on January 7th to ask for his Government’s participation and his personal interest in the forthcoming exhibition. A word from you backing them up would, I am sure, go a long way. National Archives, Kew, FO370–477 The Times 23 May 1935. Professor Taki was the son of Master Taki Katei who had taught the RA Schools alumnus, Ishibashi Kazunori. National Archives, Kew, FO370–477 14 May 1935 British Embassy Tokyo to FO Stephen Gaselee. National Archives, Kew, FO370–477 5 April 1935 British Ambassador RH Clive to Oscar Raphael. “NHK Special: Kokyuu Hakubutsuin” NHK, Dir. Koyama Yasushi, 28 June 2014. See separate essay in this volume ‘Lord Lytton (1876–1941) and AngloJapanese Relations in the 1930s’ by Antony Best. National Archives, Kew, FO370–477 14 May 35 British Embassy Tokyo – FO Stephen Gaselee. Davis, F. ‘The Royal Academy Exhibition of Chinese Art’ Illustrated London News, November 1935. Royal Academy of Arts Archives, RAA-SEC-9–1–51 6 May1936 RA to Mr Fuji, Japanese Embassy. Royal Academy of Arts Archives, Council Minutes, 1930–37 XXVI 19 January 1937 p. 538. National Archives, Kew, FO395/536 10 December 1935 pp. 179–182 Colonel Bridge to Lord Riverdale. Ryall, J. ‘Japan complained over “Tenko”, BBC Television series’, The Daily Telegraph, 16 July 2014. Royal Academy of Arts Archives, RAA/SEC/24/150 Minutes of the Publicity Committee for the Great Japan Exhibition. 13 October 1981. With photographs by Margaret Macdonald (Lady Casson) and text by Hugh Cortazzi, Bellew Publishing, 1984. Leggatt, P. ‘Israel Goldman on popular Japanese prints’. Financial Times, 11 October 2013. See A British Artist in Meiji Japan Sir Alfred East, edited by Sir Hugh Cortazzi, In Print, 1991. Liddell, C.B. ‘The Royal Academy gazed beyond its shores’. Japan Times, 25 September 2014.

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35

Examples include (2014) “Bijyutsusansaku no Kyuujitsu” The Royal Academy Exhibition. Available: http://blog.livedoor.jp/horizonblue21art/archives/1009836107.html. Last accessed 22 April 2015. ‘Tabi Nikki wo tsukeru’ Went to the Royal Academy Exhibition Available: http://mari0713el.blog.jp/archives/21023362.html. Last accessed 22 April 2015. ‘Watashi no ichioshi’ The Royal Academy Exhibition Available: http://ameblo.jp/kaigalin/entry-11986467430.html. Last accessed 22 April 2015.

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Mackintosh and the Glasgow Style: Japonisme LIBBY HORNER

Charles Rennie Mackintosh INTRODUCTION

They were known as ‘The Four’, the ‘Mac’ group. Voysey, whose work they admired, named them the ‘Spook School’. The critics, who were mainly English, mistrusted them and derided their work as being hopelessly Art Nouveau. Writers referred to the style as ‘hooliganism’ and ‘a blasphemy against art’, it was Symbolist, Celtic Revival, it was almost Arts and Crafts, it was Art Deco, it was linked to the Vienna Secessionists, it was influenced by Japonisme and, by a huge stretch of the imagination, the Egyptian Court at the British Museum. The group confidently referred to themselves as ‘The Immortals’. Who were they? The main protagonists, ‘The Four’, were Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Herbert MacNair and the sisters Margaret and Frances Macdonald (who married the two men). Katherine Cameron, Janet Aitken, Agnes Raeburn, John Keppie and his sister Jessie (at one stage engaged to Mackintosh), Talwin Morris, George Walton, Ernest Archibald Taylor, John Ednie, George Logan and Jessie King were associated with the Glasgow Style and their mentors were Francis ‘Fra’ Newbery and his wife Jessie. Their motto was a quote from J.D. Sedding: ‘there is hope in honest error: none in the icy perfection of the mere stylist’. 731

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A QUESTION OF STYLE

In the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century there was a proliferation of art and design magazines across Europe, for example The Studio in Britain, Jugend and Dekorative Kunst in Germany and Ver Sacrum in Austria which resulted in a cross-fertilisation of ideas and a blurring of specific identifications. There are elements of the Glasgow Style, which can be regarded as Art Nouveau, and Mackintosh, MacNair and Margaret Macdonald all exhibited at Siegfried Bing’s Galeries l’Art Nouveau, but in general their designs are more tightly contained than the exaggerated ‘squirms’ of their European counterparts.1 Alfred Gilbert termed Art Nouveau an ‘absolute nonsense … [a] mud mountain of rubbish daily and yearly heaped up by the incompetent, social, amateur ass’, a description one would hesitate to apply to the Glasgow Style.2 Celtic ornamentation involves similar whiplash and rounded shapes as Art Nouveau and the fact that the group were initially based in Glasgow (although many were in fact English) probably led to this attribution although Glaswegians associated Celtic design with the Catholic Irish immigrants and preferred to play down the influence. An article on Japanese flower painting in The Studio may have led to a brief flirtation with Symbolism and it is also noteworthy that the Belgian Symbolist, Jean Delville, was on the staff of the Glasgow School of Art. Mackintosh painted a series of symbolist style botanical watercolour washes over pencil with stylised plant forms. Harvest Moon (1892), his earliest extant drawing, is reminiscent of a greetings card designed by the Japanese artist craftsman Urushibara Yoshijiro, indicating that Mackintosh had captured the essence.3 A poster by the Macdonald sisters and MacNair for the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts dated 1898 shows the influence of the Dutch-Indonesian Symbolist Jan Toorop, specifically The Three Brides, which was illustrated in the first issue of The Studio. The clean lines and simplicity of Mackintosh’s work could easily be attributed to C.F.A. Voysey and there are architectural and design elements which remind one of Baillie Scott, especially the White House at Helensburgh which Mackintosh would have seen when designing the nearby Hill House. Mackintosh did not openly acknowledge the influence of Japan but it can be seen in photographs of his home 120 Mains Street, Glasgow, which was decorated with Japanese woodcuts and sparse arrangements of twigs and branches. He drew similar plant forms on his perspective drawings, which are also like the rose emblem, whilst the tall trees take on the shape of the willowy ladies in the interior friezes. As an architectural student he would have come across important publications such as Christopher Dresser’s Japan, 732

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its Architecture, Art and Art Manufacturers (1882) and E.S. Morse’s Japanese Houses and their Surroundings (1886). His interiors were in general open plan, uncluttered spaces with simple furnishing, sparing use of colour and plain walls with Japanese influenced motifs which produced a feeling of calm. Unfortunately, although his furniture designs were striking and ‘oriental’ in their refinement, they were structurally ill designed and he did not demand craftsmanship in the production of his furniture, much of which was extremely shoddy. White paint enabled him to hide the structural faults. In 1880 Thomas Cutler noted that ‘a Japanese house exhibited in its simple apartments, a refinement and simplicity in marked contrast to that discordant style which is so offensive to the eye in most of our European rooms’.4 The appreciation of an interior as an integrated, coordinated whole became, in Europe, a Gesamtkunstwerk, an ideal the group followed. This was also a tenet of the Arts and Crafts designers who felt that the architect should be responsible for all details. ‘The Four’ designed everything – furniture, friezes, cutlery, silverware, light fixtures, hall chimes, clocks and carpets – nothing was left to chance. Mackintosh took the theory to extremes and Hermann Muthesius noted that ‘even a book in an unsuitable binding would disturb the atmosphere simply by lying on a table’.5 The Blackie girls recalled that their mother placed some yellow flowers in the hall at Hill House. Mackintosh arrived and declared they completely destroyed his colour scheme and Mrs Blackie, the owner of the house, was forced to remove them. In their home the Mackintoshes had two grey cushions either side of the fireplace for their two grey Persian cats! GLASGOW

The labelling confusion may perhaps have arisen because, as Juliet Kinchin points out, the Glasgow Style was ‘related to the distinctive institutional, commercial and industrial formations of the city, its geographic location and racial profile, and the specific character of the bourgeoisie’.6 Glasgow was a large thriving industrial city, ‘the Workshop of the World’, noted for its shipbuilding yards and heavy industry, a city of contrasts with squalid tenements and wealthy industrialists. Glaswegians had, and still have, a strong sense of identity. They believed their city to be exceptional, unique, in its industrial creativity, entrepreneurial strength, and civic institutions. Even the Tea Room was a peculiarly Glaswegian phenomenon, ‘a very Tokyo for tea Rooms’. The city’s industrial wealth depended on iron and ‘The Immortals’ had a heightened perception of its value in architectural situations and for embellishment on furniture. It could be bent, welded and 733

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moulded and provided streamlined, fluid forms for interiors. Mackintosh in particular used the material to advantage in his designs for the Glasgow School of Art. Even the colours of the surrounding countryside, heathery purples, misty greys, muted pinks and greens became the artists’ palette. There was a small but sophisticated group of dealers and decorators in the city who had fostered an appreciation of ‘oriental work’, including Alexander Reid who was a friend of Whistler and Van Gogh and helped the Glasgow shipping magnate, Sir William Burrell, build up his French collection of paintings. Reid exhibited controversial poster designs by the Macdonald sisters in 1895 alongside the work of Toulouse-Lautrec and Aubrey Beardsley. In 1893 Reid and Burrell financed two of ‘The Glasgow Boys’, George Henry and Edward Atkinson Hornel, to travel to Japan.7 Hornel gave a lecture in the Corporation Art Galleries, Glasgow on 9 February 1895 in which he stated: Japanese art, rivalling in splendour the greatest art in Europe, the influence of which is now fortunately being felt in all the new movement in Europe, engenders in the artist the desire to see and study the environment out of which this great art sprung, to become personally in touch with the people, to live their life, and discover the source of their information.8

The Glasgow Boys, roughly ten years older than ‘The Immortals’, must have been an influence on the younger group, especially since one of their number Edward Walton was the elder brother of George Walton. Although some of the ‘Boys’ had attended classes at the Glasgow School of Art they had gained little from the experience because it was prior to the arrival of Newbery. Francis Newbery was responsible for the great flowering of talent in Glasgow between 1890 and 1910. He was English, had ‘unusual powers as an organiser’ and taught at the South Kensington Schools before being appointed principal of the Glasgow School of Art in 1885 and in 1892 set up the influential Technical Art Studios which were open to graduates in Design and Decorative Art. The Technical Art Studios were mainly populated by women who went on to have professional lives and economic independence. Newbery instigated regular lectures at the School and invited Walter Crane’s open letter which stated: There is room for the highest qualities in the pattern of a carpet, the design of a wallpaper, a bit of repoussé or wrought iron or wood carving. The sincere designer and craftsman … with his invention and skill applied to the accessories of everyday life may do more to keep alive the sense of beauty than the greatest painter that ever lived.9 734

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It was Newbery who noticed that the work of Mackintosh and MacNair was very similar to that of the Macdonald sisters and did not hesitate to introduce the four who were working together by 1893. ALUMNI

Apart from being like-minded in their approach to design, many of the group studied at the Glasgow School of Art and met regularly to discuss ideas with the result that one finds design echoes throughout their work. Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928), nicknamed ‘Tosh’ or ‘Toshie’, was the son of a policeman and was apprenticed to the architectural firm of John Hutchison in 1884, aged sixteen, at which stage he also enrolled in evening classes at the School of Art. He was greatly influenced by the writings of John Ruskin and William Morris who stressed the moral responsibility of art and handicrafts. He felt that the three fundamental elements of architecture were ‘usefulness’, ‘strength’ and ‘beauty’. It was probably through Newbery that Mackintosh was awarded the Glasgow Institute of Architects’ Alexander Thomson travel scholarship in 1890, worth £60 (a considerable amount of money in those days) and the young man had a formative trip round Italy the following year. In 1889 he joined Honeyman and Keppie as a draughtsman and became a partner in 1901 following Honeyman’s retirement. When the idea of a Hall of Remembrance was mooted after The First World War, Mackintosh was described as an ‘outré designer and architect [who] would set out a room or exhibition in a striking and original manner that might be useful’.10 Unfortunately Mackintosh was not the easiest architect to work with. He was a perfectionist, which is not in itself a bad trait, but he also changed his plans continuously and projects generally came in way over budget. He was also arrogant, proud, could be remote and was liable to fits of rage. By 1914 he was neglected, disillusioned and near alcoholic. He and Margaret Macdonald, whom he had married in 1900, moved to Suffolk, then London and in 1923 they went to live in France. Mackintosh died of cancer in London in 1928. Herbert MacNair (1868–1955) was also a draughtsman at Honeyman and Keppie and a fellow student at the School of Art. He married Frances Macdonald in 1899, the year after they moved to Liverpool where he took up a position in the School of Architecture and Applied Art at Liverpool University. The couple designed furniture, enamel jewellery and silverwork and took part in ‘Art Sheds’ teaching. Both MacNair and Mackintosh were interested in graphic 735

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representation and letterforms. The Japanese habit of blending illustration and calligraphy, whether a poem or advertisement for tea shops, was taken up by western artists who learnt to integrate design and lettering in a way only seen previously in William Blake’s books and medieval manuscripts. In Europe the concept was popularized by poster artists but its adoption in Britain was limited, designers preferring to produce a drawing and leave the script to the typesetter or printer. Margaret (1865–1933) and Frances Macdonald (1874–1921) were born in England but in the late 1880s moved from Staffordshire to Glasgow with their father who was a consulting engineer. They began attending the School of Art in 1891 and after graduation opened their own studio, specialising in Symbolist looking repoussé metal and painted gesso panels, textile design and embroidery and Margaret also made refined wirework-and-linen vases of flowers. In 1896 the sisters exhibited work at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition and The Studio critic questioned, ‘can it be that the bogiest of bogie books by Hokusai has influenced their weird travesties of humanity?’11 The designs of ‘The Four’ were almost indistinguishable and even after the MacNairs moved to Liverpool they continued to work together on beaten metalwork, stained glass, embroidery, gesso, drawing and illustration. The Newberys and ‘the Four’ also flirted with theosophy, seeking enlightenment and salvation. Jessie Rowat (1864–1948) was born in Paisley, the daughter of a shawl manufacturer. In 1884 she became a student at the School of Art and, with her interest in textiles, established the Department of Embroidery of which she was appointed Head in 1894. She also taught dress design and was a great believer in rational dress, which was considered rather avant-garde at the time. The iconic Glasgow Style rose was in fact her creation, used in appliqué work. Gleeson White suggested an ‘oriental’ influence on her designs. Asked about her theories she explained, ‘I especially aim at beautifully shaped spaces and try to make them as important as the patterns’ which might have influenced Mackintosh’s understanding of spatial elements.12 She was known as an enthusiastic teacher and influenced many of her students to take embroidery seriously, including the Macdonald sisters. Jessie married Francis Newbery in 1889 and on retirement the Newberys retired to Corfe Castle, Dorset. George Walton (1867–1933) began his working life as a bank clerk but attended evening classes at the School of Art. In 1888 he set himself up as an ‘ecclesiastical and house decorator’ at 152 Wellington Street, Glasgow. He moved to London in 1898 whilst maintaining his cabinet workshop in Glasgow, and furnished the new Kodak 736

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showrooms in London, Glasgow, Dublin, Milan, Brussels, Vienna and Moscow for George Eastman. Ernest Archibald Taylor (1874–1951), John Ednie and George Logan were the chief designers of Wylie and Lochhead which made furniture for Walton, Miss Cranston and ‘The Four’ and made the Glasgow Style available to a large market. Taylor was also a teacher at the School of Art from 1903 to 1905. He left Wylie and Lochhead in 1908, moved to Manchester and married Jessie King. Three years later they moved to Paris where they ran The Shealing Atelier of Oil and Watercolour Painting, Design and the Applied Arts and he became the Paris based correspondent for The Studio. Muthesius was a great admirer of his work. They returned to Scotland at the outbreak of war and lived on Arran. Jessie King (1875–1949) was a Minister’s daughter who was in touch with ‘Little People’ and designed book covers and illustrations, wallpaper, textiles and jewellery. She was both student and lecturer at the School of Art teaching book decoration. Talwin Morris (1865–1911) was born in Winchester and worked for Cassell & Co. under M.H. Spielmann before moving to Glasgow in 1893 to become art director for Blackie and Son. He was noted for his exquisite book bindings, metalwork, stained glass, jewellery and furniture. His design work for the publishers ensured a global audience for the Glasgow Style, which extended beyond the usual confines of artistic and wealthy clientele. He wrote an anonymous appreciation of ‘The Four’ for The Studio in 1897, which led to Gleeson White visiting Glasgow and writing a number of articles about the group. Morris died of a cardiac embolism in 1911 and his friend Mackintosh designed his gravestone. GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART

In 1896 a competition was held to design a new Glasgow School of Art and the choice of winner was probably due to the bold decisionmaking of Newbery. Although the firm of Honeyman and Keppie was attributed with the success, the design was purely that of the twenty-seven-year-old Mackintosh. The first part of the building was completed in 1899. The railings on the north façade are punctuated by iron stalks from which rise pierced metal circles reminiscent of Japanese mon (family crests), and the main frontage has asymmetrical elements introduced into a basically symmetrical design, with bold fenestration. Although the bareness and verticality owes much to the Scottish vernacular of castles and manor houses, there is something very Japanese about the large shoji-like studio windows, which contrast with the delicate ironwork decoration. Most of the finishes are very plain with exposed steel and timber beams, brick737

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work and plain rendering. The interior planning provides a feeling of light and space orchestrated by verticals, horizontals, squares and oblongs. The stairwell posts link with beams, which look very like Japanese structural elements. Pevsner described this phase of the building as ‘distinguished by a combination of the long drawnout, nostalgic curves and the silvery-grey, lilac and rose shades of Art Nouveau with a straight, erect and resilient, uncompromisingly angular framework’.13 The second stage incorporating the famous library, known affectionately by students as ‘the Mac’, was designed in 1907 and the fire of 2014 revealed that the supposedly solid oak columns were in fact veneer on cheap Kauri pine brought back from New Zealand as ballast and readily available at the shipyards. The posts also gave the appearance of supporting the roof but in fact the ceiling is the floor of the storeroom suspended from metal hangers dropped from cast-iron beams. Honesty of construction, a by-line of Pugin and his successors, was not part of Mackintosh’s vocabulary. The original Japanese looking horizontal casements were replaced in 1947 with the better-known vertical windows. Ironically one of the rare books to survive the fire was entitled Sights and Scenes in Fair Japan.14 GERMANY, AUSTRIA AND ITALY

Muthesius, returning to Berlin after seven years with the German Embassy in London, wrote the highly influential and classic tome Das Englische Haus (1904–1905) in which he described Mackintosh’s rooms as ‘refined to a degree which even the artistically educated are still a long way from matching. The delicacy and austerity of their artistic atmosphere would tolerate no admixture of the ordinariness, which fills our lives’ and his interiors as ‘milestones, placed by a genius far ahead of us to mark the way to excellence for mankind in the future.’15 The two became great friends and Muthesius used to send Mackintosh boxes of liqueur chocolates. Muthesius was not the only German to appreciate Mackintosh. Pevsner noted that it was Le Corbusier’s expressed aim to create poetry in building, and that Mackintosh had achieved a similar goal, ‘building in his hands becomes an abstract art, both musical and mathematical’.16 The Glasgow School of Art building had a considerable influence outside Britain, especially in Munich and Vienna. The exhibits of ‘The Four’ at the Vienna Secession in 1900 were a revelation and Friedrich Ahler-Hestermann recalled the Viennese designers being enthralled by:

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… spaces containing nothing but two straight chairs on a white carpet, looking silently and spectrally at each other across a little table, and by rooms like dreams, narrow panels, grey silk, very very slender wooden shafts – verticals everywhere.17

The entire 1901 issue of Ver Sacrum was dedicated to their work and Josef Hoffman (one of the founders of the Secession) and Mackintosh became good friends, the Austrian visiting Glasgow in 1902 in company with the financier Fritz Wärndorfer (for whom Mackintosh designed a music salon). A large Scottish contingent including Wylie and Lochhead and ‘The Four’ exhibited at the Turin International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art in 1902. Mackintosh’s banner-like stenciled panels at the entrance to the Scottish section (painted in situ) remind one of the ability of Japanese artists to encapsulate varied daily activities in confined formats, for example in the vertical strip calendars and hashira-e (pillar-pictures). The ‘Rose Boudoir’ by Mackintosh and Margaret once again displayed their excellent articulation of elements, uncluttered and with decoration kept strictly within parameters. This time the critics declared the work Symbolist and ‘the most charming thing at the International Exhibition. The general public will not, cannot even, understand it.’18 Jessie King gained a gold medal for her exhibits. OTHER MAJOR WORKS

Mackintosh was fortunate in finding a private patron in Catherine (Kate) Cranston, the daughter of a Glasgow tea importer and hotelier. Miss Cranston was married in 1892, widowed in 1917, but preferred to be known as Miss Cranston, and wore mid-Victorian crinoline dresses all her life. She opened her first tearoom in her father’s Aitkin’s Hotel in Argyle Street in 1884. She renamed the venue the Crown Lunch and Tea Rooms but they were always known as the Argyle Street Tea Rooms. In 1888 George Walton was commissioned to refurbish the rooms. In 1897 Mackintosh designed furniture and light fittings for the redeveloped Argyle Street premises, with Walton in charge of decoration and in overall control. Walton was in charge of the Buchanan Street Tea Rooms refurbishment but the stencilled murals were a collaboration by Mackintosh and his wife, featuring the tall slim figures which predate those of Gustav Klimt and his followers. Lionel Lambourne discerned a similarity between the décor of the rooms and Whistler’s infamous peacock doors for F.R. Leyland (1876) which were in turn inspired by a book by G.A. Ashley and J.L. Bowes, The Keramic Art of Japan, 1875.19 In this context it is interesting to note the resemblance between

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Whistler’s Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Mrs Leyland (1871–74) with the long flowing white dress (designed by Whistler), sprinkled with pink rosettes, and the semi-abstracted females depicted by the group. Lutyens visited the Buchanan Street Tea Rooms in 1897 and described them as ‘all very elaborately simple on very new school High Art Lines. The result is gorgeous! and a wee bit vulgar!’20 The Ingram Street Tea Rooms followed in 1901–1902 and the Cloister and Chinese Rooms at the same site in 1910–1911. Mackintosh employed the square screen motif everywhere in the latter room with a stepped Chinese style decoration on the doorway, which harked back to the west façade entrance of the Glasgow School of Art and forward to the fireplace at 78 Derngate, Northampton. Mackintosh designed both exterior and interiors for The Willow Tea Rooms in Sauchiehall Street, 1903–1904. Sauchie means ‘the place of the willows’ and Margaret Macdonald designed leaded glass panels showing wood nymphs viewed through trailing willow branches. The form of the leadwork in the stained glass doors at the entrance to the Room de Luxe takes on the shape of a kimono (as do many of Mackintosh’s writing desks when opened out). In the Willow Tea Rooms Mackintosh created fascinating vistas emanating from his spatial awareness. He used the space around and within his structures, the light, which fell on them and passed through them, as compositional features, the interpenetration of spaces. Comparing him to Auguste Perret, Pevsner observed that ‘Mackintosh alone of all European architects had a spatial imagination of comparable brilliance.’21 The Czech artist and writer Emil Orlik visited Japan and observed that: Horizontal lines always stand in an interesting relation to the verticals … Japanese painters … have even developed a grille-motif of posts or trees in the foreground, middle distance, or background to specify artistic effect.22

Mackintosh’s semi-circular settle for the Willow Tea Rooms executed in ebonized oak with a back composed of verticals and a diminishing number of horizontals forming a triangular effect follows this concept. Mackintosh was also commissioned to furnish Miss Cranston’s home Hous’hill at Nitshill in 1903–1904. The Music Room contained an interesting curved screen consisting of simple vertical slats, which divided the room yet enticed one in. Mackintosh was introduced to the publisher Walter W. Blackie in 1903 through the good auspices of Talwin Morris. Blackie wanted a house with grey roughcast walls, slates and an architectural form which mirrored the function, and the result was Hill House (1902– 740

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04) at Upper Helensburgh which owes something to seventeenth and eightenth century Scottish tower houses, with minimalist sheer walls punctuated by asymmetrical fenestration. A belief in vernacular architecture was of course at the heart of the Arts and Crafts Movement whose designers were however mistrustful of their Scottish neighbours. Mackintosh gave a lecture to the Glasgow Architectural Association in February 1891 where he stated that Scottish Baronial architecture was ‘the architecture of our own country, just as much Scotch [sic] as we are ourselves – as indigenous to our country as our wild flowers, our family homes, our customs or our political constitution’.23 As with the School of Art the beams in the hallway were exposed. The unifying decorative theme of simple squares is found in the carpet, the lighting, furniture and doorways where it reminds one of sho¯ji screens. Colours were kept to a minimum, black and white with the anticipated pink roses, greatly abstracted by this stage. The only significant architectural work Mackintosh undertook post Glasgow was for the Northampton model manufacturer, W.J. Bassett-Lowke, a man well informed about technological and design developments in Germany and Austria. 78 Derngate, Northampton was furnished between 1916 and 1920 by which time Mackintosh had moved to more geometric forms not unlike those of Piet Mondrian and pre-dating Art Deco. A black lacquered settee was oriental in flavour with a squared back motif and scrollwork. The furniture here was well constructed since Bassett-Lowke employed immigrant German craftsmen. Black was the dominant colour with splashes of yellow, the only colour Bassett-Lowke could recognise, being colour blind. POSTSCRIPT

The Glasgow Style lay forgotten for decades and the current interest in the work may be as a result of the designation of Glasgow as a City of Culture in 1990. The Willow Tea Rooms and 78 Derngate, Northampton have both been refurbished and opened to the public. Mackintosh’s ‘House for an Art Lover’ was built in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park in 1996 and the interior of a terraced house has been rebuilt and furnished with the Mackintoshes’ work in the Hunterian Museum. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York held a major retrospective of Mackintosh’s work from November 1996 to February 1997 and Mackintosh was commemorated on a series of banknotes issued by the Clydesdale Bank in 2009. It is a shame that in the public perception his is the only name, which appears to have survived from such a period of fruitful and inventive design significantly influenced by elements from Japan. 741

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C.R. Mackintosh, poster design, from The Studio, July 1897

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Glasgow School of Art Main entrance, photo by Jaqueline Bannerjee, Victorian web.org

ENDNOTES 1

2 3

4

5

6

7

Siegfried Bing published a luxury magazine Le Japon Artistique between 1888 and 1891 in French. Bing was a prominent Parisian dealer in Japanese art and a leading light in the promotion of Japonisme in Europe. An English edition of the magazine was edited by Marcus Huish of The Fine Art Society in New Bond Street which in 1889–1890 lent their second floor to Bing who exhibited there some of his Japanese works of art. See biographical portrait of Marcus Huish by Hideko Numata in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IV, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2005. Quoted by Binstead Herbert E. in The Furniture Styles, 1929. A biographical portrait of Urushibara Yoshijiro by Libby Horner is in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental 2010. Cutler Thomas, The Grammar of Japanese Ornament, London, 1989 (1880), p. 37. Quoted in Tinniswood Adrian, The Arts & Crafts House, London: Mitchell Beazley, 1999, p153 Kinchin Juliet, ‘Glasgow: The Dark Daughter of the North’ in Greenhalgh Paul, art nouveau 1890–1914, London: V&A Publications, 2000, p. 311. See Ono Ayako, ‘George Henry (1854–1934) and E.A. Hornel (1864– 1933)’ in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2013.

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8

9 10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

Quoted in Ono Ayako, ‘George Henry (1854–1934) and E.A. Hornel (1864–1933)’ in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2013, p. 220. Quoted in Bonsall David, The Glasgow Style, London, 1999, p. 3. Quoted in Willsdon Clare A P, Mural Painting in Britain 1840–1940, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 122. ‘The Arts and Crafts Exhibition, 1896 (Third Notice)’, The Studio, Volume IX, No 45, December 1896, p. 202. Quoted in Gleeson White, ‘Some Glasgow Designers and their Work. III’, The Studio, Vol XII, No 55, October 1897, p. 47. Pevsner Nikolaus, An Outline of European Architecture, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd, 1968 (1943), p. 395. Photographs by Ogawa Kazumasa, published by Imperial Japanese Railways, 1910. Cooper Jeremy, Victorian & Edwardian Furniture & Interiors. From the Gothic Revival to Art Nouveau, London: Thames and Hudson, 1998 (1987), p. 212. Pevsner Nikolaus, Pioneers of Modern Design from William Morris to Walter Gropius, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd, 1975 (1936), p. 169. Quoted in Tinniswood Adrian, The Arts & Crafts House, London: Mitchell Beazley, 1999, p. 151. Quoted in Weisberg Gabriel P., Art Nouveau Bing. Paris Style 1900, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1986, p. 253. Lambourne Lionel, Japonisme. Cultural Crossings between Japan and the West, London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2007 (2005), p. 228. Quoted in Kinchin Juliet, ‘Glasgow: The Dark Daughter of the North’ in Greenhalgh Paul, art nouveau 1890–1914, London: V&A Publications, 2000, p. 315. Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design from William Morris to Walter Gropius, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd, 1975 (1936), p. 180. Quoted in Lambourne Lionel, Japonisme. Cultural Crossings between Japan and the West, London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2007 (2005), p. 104. Quoted in Wilhide Elizabeth, The Mackintosh Style. Décor & Design, London: Pavilion Books Limited, 1995, p. 17.

Illustrations:

Glasgow School of Art, main entrance, photograph by Jacqueline Banerjee, victorianweb.org C.R. Mackintosh, poster design, from The Studio, July 1897

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65

Shimaoka Tatsuzo¯ (1919–2007): Master Japanese Potter HUGH CORTAZZI

INTRODUCTION

Shimaoka Tatsuzo¯ was a Japanese master potter who in 1966 was officially designated an ‘Important Intangible Cultural Property’, more commonly known as a ‘Living National Treasure’. He was a pupil and close associate of Hamada Sho¯ji,1 one of the founders2 with Yanagi So¯ettsu3 and Bernard Leach of the Japanese Mingei (Folk Craft) movement. He lived and worked in the pottery village of Mashiko where his kiln was next door to that of Hamada. In later life he travelled widely in foreign countries visiting Britain on a number of occasions. There are fine examples of his pots in the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich. CAREER

Shimaoka was born in Tokyo in 1919. He was the son of a braid or rope-maker. A visit, which he made in 1938 to the Japanese Folk 745

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Craft Museum (Mingeikan) in Tokyo, founded by Yanagi So¯etsu, inspired him to become a potter. He chose to study ceramics at the Tokyo Institute of Technology where he enrolled in 1939 despite opposition from his father who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps as a braid maker. In the summer of 1939 he spent some time in Gifu prefecture learning how to use the potter’s wheel. He graduated in 1941 with a degree in industrial ceramics, but had to enlist in the Imperial Japanese Army. He served in Burma in an engineering supply unit and when the war ended he became a prisoner of war. On his return to Japan in 1946 his father’s business was in ruins and he determined to become a potter working initially as an apprentice to Hamada Sho¯ji who had set up in Mashiko in Tochigi prefecture in the 1920s. Shimaoka married in 1948 and worked for three years from 1949 at the Tochigi Prefecture Ceramic Research Centre before settling in 1953 in Mashiko. There he established his studio and workshop adjacent to that of Hamada. He also built his own five-chambered wood-fired climbing kiln (nobori-gama), which he fired for the first time in March 1954. His pots have much in common in shape and technique with those of other Mingei style potters. But with Hamada’s encouragement he developed his own designs and styles. These are essentially based on the impression of a rope on wet clay and derived from his father’s craft, but they owe much also to his study of the ancient Japanese Jo¯mon style of pottery which he encountered during his work at the Tochigi Pottery Research Institute. In 1950 he had been asked to produce some teaching material about Jo¯mon pottery. For this purpose he began to study archaeology and learnt from an archaeologist that the potters in the Jo¯mon era (c. 800 BC to c. 200 BC) in Japan had used pieces of rope in decorating their pots. This aroused his interest and he sought his father’s help in producing various types of ropes with which to make pots in the Jo¯mon style. He soon recognized that making Jo¯mon-style pots required greater physical strength than he possessed. So he adapted and softened the process and used ropes to decorate his own pots. His technique, put in its simplest terms, is the application of a piece of twisted rope, about six inches long, to the pot while the clay is still soft to make an incised rope pattern. A thin coating of slip of a contrasting colour is then applied over the decorated area. When the slip has partly dried, the pot is scraped to remove the slip from all parts other than those impressed by the rope. Many different designs can be produced depending on the size and type of rope used, the pressure applied and the area to be decorated. The results are highly effective and give his works a style, which is both individual and highly recognizable. 746

¯ (1919–2007) SHIMAOKA TATSUZO

In his earlier years Shimaoka’s pots were mostly made in different shades of brown, giving them a restrained or in Japanese terms a shibui effect. But pattern and colour alone do not make great or beautiful pots; shape and line are equally important. Shimaoka learnt by hard work and constant practice at the wheel how to make vases, bottles, bowls, pitchers, cups, plates and everything which can be and has been traditionally made in pottery in Japan. He studied and adapted to his own style the traditional shapes of Chinese, Korean and Japanese pots. He always had a particular liking for Korean wares, especially those described as carved Mishima. Shimaoka always paid great attention to glazes. He used among others black, white, ash, iron and earth glazes, but his specialty was salt glazes. In this he followed Hamada who in 1955 began to use household salt to form a glaze in a very hot kiln, but Shimaoka did not himself use this method of glazing until some ten years later after he had carefully studied and assessed the technique. Shimaoka knew the importance of getting and maintaining the right heat in his kiln to create beautiful pots. Inevitably some of his pots would be damaged in the firing but the fire could also add a ‘magical’ unpredictable element when the heat caused the glaze to run and the colours to take on new shades. Keeping his climbing kiln going for days and nights and keeping it fed with pinewood was a backbreaking task for Shimaoka, his workers and apprentices. As he became older and more experienced Shimaoka modified the astringent quality of his earlier pots and adopted more colourful glazes in particular shades of deep blue. He knew the many types, designs, styles and colours of Japanese traditional regional potteries and like others in the Mingei movement he was attracted by Okinawan styles. In 1964 Shimaoka was asked to lecture and exhibit his work in Canada and the USA. This year was also marked by the first of a series of major one-man annual exhibitions held at the Matsuya Department Store on the Ginza in central Tokyo. The opening in 1982 of his new noborigama in Mashiko was a high point in his career as a potter. Some of the pots produced in this first firing were among the very best he ever made. Shimaoka travelled widely not only to North America but also to Australia and New Zealand teaching the art of making ceramics and encouraging local potters. In 1987 he exhibited at Liberty’s in London jointly with Hamada Shinsaku (one of Hamada Sho¯ji’s son) and Funaki Kenji, another Mingei potter from Shimane who had worked at the St Ives pottery with Bernard Leach. He came to London on a few occasions and was well known to Bernard Leach, Janet Leach 747

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and David Leach. He also exhibited at the Galerie Besson off Bond Street in London. He had many foreign apprentices who found him a good and patient teacher. Shimaoka in due course became a leading exponent and practitioner of ceramic making in the Mingei tradition of the anonymous craftsman, which aimed to produce pots for everyday use. In 1983 he explained one of the dilemmas facing the individual artist making Mingei pottery in terms, which I have freely translated as follows: One problem for the practitioner of Mingei is to balance tradition, which means drawing on the efforts and abilities of others over the years, with personal involvement and effort. In the past potters, as for instance those in Mashiko with its favoured environment, even if they did not aim to make beautiful things, did produce naturally and unconsciously good pieces among the many traditional items, which they made. Hamada, when he began the Mingei movement, believed that the best Mingei pieces were produced by absorption into the tradition, i.e. by adapting the efforts and abilities of others: but when a potter recognizes that a piece is good he becomes conscious that his own ability is involved. He cannot then rely only on tradition and has to add his own personal dimension. To go beyond just being a producer the potter must always aim to produce beautiful things. This raises a dilemma: if someone wants to be a Mingei potter he must steep himself in the tradition, i.e. in the efforts and abilities of others; but if he wants to go beyond just being a producer of pots, that is not enough.

After the death of Hamada and the other founders of the movement Shimaoka became the unofficial doyen of the movement and worked hard to promote Mingei values and support the Mingei museum at Komaba in Tokyo, which had first inspired him to become a potter. CONCLUSION

Shimaoka had great personal charm. He had none of the arrogance, which sometimes mars an outstanding artist. Through his pots, his encouragement of British potters and his influence on their work he furthered the relationship between Japan and Britain in ceramics. The value and importance of ceramics as an art, not simply a craft, is being increasingly recognized in Britain. Dharini Parekh from India was one of his non-Japanese deshi. She briefly describes her experiences at Mashiko in appendix 1. Examples of pots by Shimaoka Tatuzo¯ are illustrated in appendix 2.

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¯ (1919–2007) SHIMAOKA TATSUZO

Appendix 1.

Learning the Craft with a Master Potter DHARINI PAREKH

As a girl I became fascinated by ceramics and wanted to learn to be a potter. The art and craft of making pots has a long history in India, but mechanization to meet mass demand had led to a decline in quality and design. We saw that in Japan where ceramics have always been regarded as among the finest artistic treasures the craft had been given new life by the Mingei movement. I was greatly attracted by modern Japanese pots which I saw in India and wanted to go to Japan to study under a master potter. My father was an Indian businessman with international connections. Fortunately, the wife of his business partner in Japan knew Shimaoka Tatsuzo¯, one of Japan’s leading potters in the Mingei movement. Through her I was introduced to the master. I was not only the first woman pottery student from India but also the first woman to become a deshi (disciple/apprentice) in Shimaoka’s studio and workshop. This was an almost revolutionary development! In Japan throwing pots was regarded as man’s work. Moreover, when I went to Japan in the 1980s Japan was still very much a male-dominated society.

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The Japanese lady, who introduced my father and mother and me to Shimaoka-san whom we all called sensei, gave me my first lessons in Japanese protocol and acted as ‘my Japanese mother’ during my stay in Japan. Shimaoaka-sensei agreed, somewhat reluctantly I think, to take me as a student. He believed that women would not make good deshi, as once they were married they would be more committed to making a home and rearing a family than making pots. Living, working and studying pottery at the Shimaoka pottery in Mashiko, a pottery village in the countryside of Ibaragi prefecture was a lesson in the Japanese way of life. The deshi had to be hard working and dedicated. I started by learning to throw yu-nomi (basic tea cups) before eventually graduating to throwing tokkuri (bottles for sake). This forced me to meditate on life and Japanese ways. I had to make a huge number of pots, all the same shape, until my hands eventually memorized the shape and they just started flowing from the hump of clay before me! It took me six-eight months of making only yunomi day in and day out before they could be blessed with Shimaoka-sensei’s ‘Ta’ (for Tatsuzo¯) stamp at the bottom. I worked from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in a separate workshop/studio (O-shingotoba). This meant that I had an independent work place away from that used by the employees, but I had access to their workshop where I could observe the potters at work for as long as I wished. I always joined them during our morning and noon tea breaks. These breaks helped me to learn to understand and speak Japanese and gave me a fair idea of when the first (bisque) firings and glazing and kiln packing would take place. Like everything Japanese, working at Shimaoka pottery (seitojo) was a joint effort. Each potter made a particular shape, did the inlay (zo¯gan), or incised the rope pattern (jo¯monshi), which characterized Shimaoka’s style. The scraping off the slip was mainly done by the wives of the highly skilled ‘throwers’. The first firing, followed by glazing, was a group effort where the pot passed through many hands before it was put near the kiln for loading/packing for the second or glaze firing. This firing was also done by chain rotation of the workers (the shokunin) who worked round the clock to ensure that the kiln reached the desired temperature after a steady stoking for two days. In addition to learning to make pottery in the Japanese style, I was able to study the Japanese tea ceremony. The tea ceremony, apart from being an art form in its own right, taught me how to appreciate pottery as the tea bowls used in the ceremony are at least as important as drinking tea. It took me a long time to get used to the flavour of powdered green tea. The subtle processes involved 750

¯ (1919–2007) SHIMAOKA TATSUZO

in making, serving and savouring the tea seemed to me comparable to yoga. It was not just a question of making the tea. The whole ceremony had to be approached in a humble spirit and with an open heart. The process was meditative and promoted introspection. The art of the tea ceremony beautifully complemented the art of pottery. My time at Shimaoka’s pottery was thus not only about learning to make pots but a holistic lesson about life itself. I cannot forget the love and acceptance offered me by all the members of the Shimaoka family during my stay there. Sensei awarded me with a trip with his wife and Kyoko-san, his second daughter, to most of the pottery centres of Japan from Bizen, Karatsu, Nabeshima, Onda and Kyoto and to historical sites such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

With Shimaoka-sensei, his wife and daughter

Appendix 2. Pots by Shimaoka Tatsuzo¯

The following are a few examples of pots by Shimaoka which belonged to us and which we have given to the British Museum and the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC):

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Some typical Shimaoka pots donated to SISJAC:

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¯ (1919–2007) SHIMAOKA TATSUZO

Plate given by Sir Hugh and Lady Cortazzi to the BM

ENDNOTES 1

2

3

Hamada Sho¯ji and his association with Bernard Leach has been the subject of various books such as Shoji Hamada: A Potter’s Way and Work by Susan Peterson, 1981, Shoji Hamada: Master Potter by Yuko Kikuchi, Julian Stair, Timothy Wilcox and Janet Leach. 1998, Bernard Leach, Hamada and Their Circle (Contemporary Ceramics) by Cornelia Wingfield Digby and Tony Birks, 1998 Other founders included the famous potters Kawai Kanjiro¯ and Tomimoto Kenkichi (see article by Hugh Cortazzi in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2013, the print artists Munakata Shiko¯ and Serizawa Keisuke See ‘Bernard Leach and the Mingei Movement’ by Hugh Cortazzi in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume I, ed. Ian Nish, Japan Library, 1994.

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Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯ (1863–1930) and Tomita Kumasaku (1872–1953): Japanese Art Dealers in London NOBORU KOYAMA

INTRODUCTION

When Japanese Art became fashionable in Britain in the latter part of the nineteenth century, at first mainly British dealers, such as Liberty & Co, sold Japanese art works and antiques in London. After the Fine Art Society’s Loan Exhibition of Japanese Art in London in 1888, Japanese native art dealers and merchants gradually started to sell Japanese art works and antiques in London. Among Japanese art dealers before the Second World War, the most prominent and well-established was probably Yamanaka & Co. (Yamanaka Sho¯kai).1 Minakata Kumagusu (1867–1941),2 a distinguished scholar of mucus fungi and also of manners and customs, lived in London for almost eight years from September 1892 to September 1900. Minakata kept a diary throughout his time in London. He became acquainted withmembers of the Japanese community in London, including those involved in the business of selling Japanese art works and antiques. Yamanaka & Co. arrived in London just before the end of Minakata’s stay in London. The years from 1890s up to the First World War were probably the most active period for Japanese native art dealers in London. Minakata’s London Diary detailed his encounters with many of the London-based Japanese art dealers, such as Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯ (1863?-1930), Tomita Kumasaku (1872–1963), Eida Saburo¯ (1858–1911), Hosoi Ogawa Tanosuke (H.O. Tanosuke), Kataoka Masayuki (Prince Kataoka) and Yamanaka & Co. His diary is one of the most 754

¯ SHO¯ZO ¯ (1863–1930) AND TOMITA KUMASAKU (1872-1953) KATO

important sources of information about these dealers and I have drawn extensively on them in these brief portraits of Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯ and Tomita Kumasaku.

Kato¯’s shop as drawn by Minakata Kumagusu

¯ SHO ¯ ZO ¯ KATO

According to Minakata Kumagusu, Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯ was a son of a principal retainer of the daimyo (Matsudaira,) of the Oshi Clan in what became Saitama Prefecture.3 He is also described as being talented in the traditional performing arts. Kato¯ was also said to have come from Osaka. The address of his shop in Japan was Takeyacho, Minami-ku, Osaka-shi’, which was registered in the Japanese directories for overseas business activities.4 When the Japanese residents of London celebrated the enthronement of the Showa Emperor on 10 November 1928, Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯sang nagauta (long ballads) and hauta (short love song) as part of the ceremonies.5 Shortly before this celebration, he had contributed a short article to Nichi-Ei Shinshi (a monthly newspaper published in London in Japanese and English), about his life as one of the earliest Japanese residents in England.6 His first visit to England had been in 1885 (forty-three years earlier), but this visit had only lasted one day before he went on to Belgium where he stayed for three years. In 1889, three years later, he returned to England and had lived there ever since. From September 1895 onwards, Kato¯’s name often appeared in Minakata’s diary (their acquaintance lasted until Minakata’s departure from London in September 1900). The main purpose of Minakata’s stay in London was to study at the British Museum, 755

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andon his way to the Museum he often dropped in at Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯’s shop in London. He also would regularly visit Kato¯’s house. Initially Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯’s shop was located at 54 Mortimer Street (North of Oxford Circus).7 In 1902 it moved to 77 New Oxford Street.8 It moved later to 203 Oxford Street9 and later still to 8 New Oxford Street.10 According to the Japanese directory for overseas business activities, he had three assistants in his shop, consisting usually of one Japanese assistant and two ‘foreigners’ (meaning English assistants).11 In the 1890s Kato¯ lived at 11 Woodstock Road, Hammersmith, London. He later moved to 38 Mazenod Avenue.12 Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯ who was then thirty-eight years old lived there with his wife Edith (thirtytwo), his son Hideo (eight) and his daughter Tama (two). There were two more Japanese (Kitamura and Suzuki) living in his house. His nephew Kato¯ Yasotaro¯ (twenty-seven) lived nearby and worked at Kato¯’s shop. According to Minakata Kumagusu’s diary, Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯ had to travel regularly to Antwerp in order to receive shipments of Japanese art works and antiques from Japan.13 Prior to 1896 NYK (the Nippon Yusen Kaisha), the major Japanese shipping company, was unable to dock in London. Kato¯ also went to auction houses to supplement his stock.14 Through his business Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯ became acquainted with many of Britain’s most important collectors, connoisseurs and scholars of Japanese art works, particularly of Japanese prints. He gave them useful advice, knowledge and insight into Japanese art works, and they frequently referred to Kato¯’s name in their publications. For example, Basil Stewart stated in his book Subjects Portrayed in Japanese ColourPrints: His thanks are due to… particularly to Mr Sho¯zo¯ Kato¯, who throughout has shown great personal interest in the preparation of this volume, by the loan of prints and in other ways materially assisting the writer by placing at this service his intimate knowledge of the art, literature, and language of Japan.15

B.W. Robinson (1912–2005) wrote: ‘He [Robinson] bought the first Kuniyoshi print for two shillings from the late Sho¯zo¯ Kato¯, of whose friendly advice and help with inscriptions he retained grateful memories.’16 He also praised Kato¯’s shop and Kato¯ himself as follows: Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯’s shop at No. 8 New Oxford Street was a favourite resort of English collectors. Kato¯ was an elderly little man of samurai family, benign and knowledgeable, and indeed welcomed the present writer 756

¯ SHO¯ZO ¯ (1863–1930) AND TOMITA KUMASAKU (1872-1953) KATO

[Robinson] (then a mere school-boy) with the greatest kindness and indulgence, showing him his stock and reading inscriptions and signatures for him by the hour, and apparently quite content in the end to sell him the occasional Kuniyoshi warrior-print for a half-acrown or five shillings. His calligraphy, incidentally, is to be seen in the poems that occasionally adorn the margins of Joly’s Legend in Japanese Art.17

Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯ died in an accident on 6 June 1930 at the age of sixtyseven.18 He was run over by a car in London on his way to a restaurant; he died in Charing Cross Hospital.19 TOMITA KUMASAKU

Tomita Kumasaku was born in Nakatani-mura (now Inagawa-cho), Kawabe-gun, Hyogo Prefecture in 1872 as the second son of Tomita Taro¯emon who was a sake brewer.20 His father’s business collapsed and at the age of twelve he had already had to start work. Soon after finishing primary school he began to work for Ikeda Go¯mei Kaishain Kobe. In 1897 at the age of twenty-five he was sent to London as a representative of Ikeda Go¯mei Kaisha.21 Ikeda Go¯meiKaisha was set up by Ikeda Seisuke (1839–1900) in Kyoto in 1895 in order to export Japanese works of art and antiques. Ikeda himself had been involved in the business of exporting Japanese works of art and antiques long before 1895. After arriving in London in 1895, Tomita set up a shop to sell Japanese art and antiques at 100 Brompton Road in London. It seems that he lived in Knightsbridge near his shop. Tomita’s name begins to appear in Minakata Kumagus’s diary from August 1899 onwards until Minakara’s departure from London in August 1900, covering a period of two years. During this period, Minakata was either working as a member of staff at, or simply as a regular reader at, the Victoria & Albert Museum in South Kensington. He started visiting the Victoria & Albert 757

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Museum instead of the British Museum, because in 1900 he had been expelled from the British Museum, after getting involved in arguments and fights with other users of the museum. On the way to the Victoria & Albert Museum, he would often drop in at Tomita’s shop and house. In April 1900, Tomita fell a victim to fraud.22 According to a newspaper article reporting on this fraud, Tomita had had some religious difficulties when asked to testify at the Westminster police court. Since they weren’t able to understand his religion, they eventually affirmed him as a person of no religion.23 Actually throughout his life Tomita was a devotee of the Jo¯ do¯ Sect of Buddhism.24 In April 1900, Muto¯ Takehiko informed Minataka that Tomita had been swindled.25 Muto¯ was visiting London for Yamanaka & Co. to study the possibility of setting up a new shop in London. Yamanaka & Co. went ahead and set up a branch in London in 1900 sending Yamanaka Rokusaburo¯ as its first manager. Tomita Kumasaku, having been swindled, returned to Japan and left Ikeda Go¯mei Kaisha. He subsequently joined Yamanaka & Co. and in 1903 returned to London as the head of Yamanaka & Co.26 In 1906, Tomita Kumasaku together with G. Ambrose Lee wrote a book entitled Japanese Treasure Tales. Published by Yamanaka & Co., the book explained the context of various Japanese art works by describing the stories which those works depict. It was designed as ‘a humble contribution towards a knowledge of Japanese art’.27 In 1915, Tomita Kumasaku made another major contribution to the promotion of Japanese art in Britain, when together with Henri Joly he prepared and arranged a significant loan exhibition of Japanese works of art and handicraft in aid of the British Red Cross in London. The illustrated record of this exhibition, Japanese Art & Handicraft was published by Yamanaka & Co. in 1916.28 Tomita was the head of London Branch of Yamanaka & Co. at least until the end of 1918. He was replaced, probably in 1919, by Okada Yu¯ji.29 Tomita returned to Japan sometime after that. In 1922, when Tomita was fifty according to the traditional Japanese reckoning (kazoe), he left Yamanaka & Co. and started to live in Kyoto as an independent art dealer.30 Alfred Baur (1865–1951), a major collector of Chinese ceramics and Japanese art, visited Tomita in Kyoto in the spring of 1924 on the recommendation of Thomas Bates Blow (1854–1941), who had advised Baur on how to develop his collection. Tomita was invited to Baur’s house in Geneva in Switzerland in 1925 and he compiled a catalogue of Japanese works of art in Baur’s collection. Bauer’s collection had mainly been purchased from T.B. Blow,31 and Tomita considered the works purchased from Blow to be second-rate.32 Baur, regarding Tomita as a knowledgeable expert, followed Tom758

¯ SHO¯ZO ¯ (1863–1930) AND TOMITA KUMASAKU (1872-1953) KATO

ita’s professional guidance and advice. From 1928 onwards Baur rapidly developed his Chinese ceramics collection and it became the greatest collection of its kind in Europe. Returning to Japan a wealthy man, Tomita built a large residence in his home town (Inagawa-cho, Hyogo Prefecture) in 1932, in the style of the mansion of a wealthy farmer. The construction took three years, but he continued to live in Kyoto and did not move into the house until 1942. This mansion has been preserved as an important museum in his home town and now it is called Seishikan. Tomita Kumasaku died in 1953 at the age of eighty-one. In the 1920s, after Tomita Kumasaku had become an independent art dealer, he came to Europe every summer in order to avoid the hot Japanese summer and regularly met Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯ in London. The two would reminiscence about the 1890s, and their times with Minakata Kumagusu. In 1926, at Tomita’s request, Kato¯ wrote to Minakata Kumagusu telling Minakata of his life in London.33 ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4

5 6 7

8

9

10

11

12 13

14

Sonoko Monden, ‘Yamanaka Sadajiro (1866–1936), Britain & Japan Biographical Portraits Vol. VIII, Leiden, Global Oriental, 2013. pp.278–292. Carmen Blacker, ‘Minakata Kumagusu, 1867–1941: a Genius now Recognized’, Britain & Japan Biographical Portraits Vol. I, Folkstone, Kent, Japan Library, 1994. pp.78–91. Minaka Kumagusu, Minakata Kumugusu Chinji Hyo¯ron, Tokyo, Heibonsha, 1995. p.209. Kaigai Nihon Jitsugyo¯sha no Cho¯sa, Vol.1, Tokyo, Fuji Shuppan, 2006. p.132. Nichi-Ei Shinshi, No. 155 (December 1928), p.3. Nichi-Ei Shinshi, No. 154 (November 1928), pp.2–4. Post Office London Directory for 1889, London, Kelly’s Directories, 1898. p.1275. Post Office London Directory for 1902, London, Kelly’s Directories, 1901. p.1302. Post Office London Directory for 1910, London, Kelly’s Directories, 1910. p.523. Post Office London Directory for 1915, London, Kelly’s Directories, 1915. p.1683. Kaigai Nihon Jitsugyo¯sha no Cho¯sa, Vols.1–5, Tokyo, Fuji Shuppan, 2006–2007. 1902 census. Minakata Kumagusu, Mikakata Kumagusu Nikki 2, Tokyo, Yasaka Shobo, 1987. p.38. Minakata Kumagusu, Mikakata Kumagusu Nikki 2, Tokyo, Yasaka Shobo, 1987. p.123.

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15

16

17

18

19 20

21

22

23 24 25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

Basil Stewart, Subjects Portrayed in Japanese Colour-Prints, London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1922. p.vii. ‘Collectiong Kuniyoshi’, Bulletion of the Japan Society of London, No.18 (February 1956). B. W. Robinson, The Bauer Collection Geneva: Japanese Sword-Fittings and Associated Metalwork, Geneva, Collections Bauer, 1980. p.14. Nichi-Ei Shinshi, No. 171 (July 1930), p.7; Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯’s Death Certificate. Western Daily Press, 7 June 1930.Gloucester Citizen, 13th June 1930. Yuba, Tadanori, ‘Baua¯ Korekushon to Tomita Kumasaku’, To¯setsu, 5000 (November 1994). Yuba, Tadanori, ‘Baua¯ Korekushon to Tomita Kumasaku’, To¯setsu, 5000 (November 1994). Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 6 May 1900. p.3; The Times, 11 May 1900. p.15. The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, 12 May 1900. p.7. Tomita-o¯ o Shinobu, Osaka, Yamanaka Chu¯ji, 1959. p.42. Minakata Kumagusu, Mikakata Kumagusu Nikki 2, Tokyo, Yasaka Shobo, 1987. p.154. ¯ bei ni Utta Kuchiko Yuriko, Hausu Obu Yamanaka: To¯yo¯ no Shiho¯ o O Bijutsusho¯, Tokyo, Shinchosha, 2011. p.103. Kumasaku Tomita & G. Ambrose Lee, Japanese Treasure Tales, London, Yamanaka & Co., 1906. ‘Introduction’. Henri L. Joly & Kumasaku Tomita, Japanese Art & Handicraft: an Illustrated Record of the Loan Exhibition Held in Aid of the British Red Cross in October-November 1915, London, Yamanaka & Co., 1916. Kaigai Nihon Jitsugyo¯sha no Cho¯sa, Vol.3, Tokyo, Fuji Shuppan, 2006. pp.142 and 273. Yuba, Tadanori, ‘Baua¯ Korekushon to Tomita Kumasaku’, To¯setsu, 5000 (November 1994). For a portrait of T.B. Blow see separte chapter by Ian Chrystie in this volume. Yuba, Tadanori, ‘Baua¯ Korekushon to Tomita Kumasaku’, To¯setsu, 5000 (November 1994). Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯’s letter for Minakata Kumasaku (24 June 1926).

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Netsuke and Inro Collectors in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries ROSEMARY BANDINI

INTRODUCTION

Collecting and cataloguing specimens and objects had been a popular diversion among the privileged classes, who amassed their cabinets of curiosities: butterflies, birds, plants, all manner of natural life. The most wealthy were also much taken with fragments from ancient civilizations and exotic objects brought back from foreign voyages. By the nineteenth century the Industrial Revolution had created a new class of self-made men with considerable fortunes and the craze for collecting took hold. It was not uncommon for a gentleman to create a private exhibition in his grand home for the enjoyment of his social circle. Such a display would attest to the scholarly sophistication of the host. Although the British Museum had been established in 1753, access had been limited to those with appointments. In an attempt to relax these constraints in 1810 the system was changed to allow access three days a week to those of ‘decent appearance’. Robert Peel as home secretary in 1822 decreed that art and culture were a beneficial influence that should be accessible to all sections of society. The Great Exhibition of 1851, organized by Henry Cole and Prince Albert was the first international exposition of manufactured objects, bringing objects from other lands to an eager audience. This was essentially a commercial enterprise of limited appeal to the aristocracy.1 At much the same time Japan was being re-opened to the world.2 This enabled eager travellers to bring back examples of Japanese culture to Europe. A craze for all things Japanese began. This was further encouraged by ‘The Japanese Village,’ in Knightsbridge from 1885 till 1887.3 By February of its final 761

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year it was estimated that it had attracted over a million visitors. Liberty’s4 opened its emporium in Regent Street in 1875, while Blairman was established in the elegant Welsh resort town of Llandudno in 1884. Both offered decorative oriental objects for sale among which netsuke were a popular curiosity. Blairman would hold auctions of goods in the summer months, when the town would be buzzing with members of high society. World Expositions in London, Paris and Vienna offered a fascinating glimpse of Japan to visitors. In 1900 the Japanese company Yamanaka and Co.5 opened its doors and five years later was granted the Royal Warrants of King George V and Queen Mary. We know from a letter dated 1924 that Queen Mary collected netsuke as she records giving ‘six more ivory masks’6 to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯ and Tomita Kumasaku, the subject of a separate essay by Noboru Koyama in this volume, were two other Japanese art dealers in London who sold Japanese art objects in the first part of the twentieth century The little netsuke carvings, worn as an anchoring toggle for tobacco pouches, inro (pill boxes) and the like in traditional Japanese attire, held a particular appeal. In part their miniature detail inspired great admiration but more pertinently they provided a microcosm of a far off land. Inro, the slender tiered lacquer containers used to carry pills also provoked wonder, but being more fragile and less easily slipped into a pocket, they took second place to the carved netsuke.7 AUGUSTUS WOOLASTON FRANKS (1826–1897)

Unquestionably the most important netsuke collector of the nineteenth century was Augustus Woolaston Franks.8 Franks was fascinated with Asia and in netsuke he saw an opportunity to illustrate ‘in a very complete manner the belief, legends, history manner and customs of Japan’9 which he states were the inspiration and the reasoning for his collecting. During his lifetime the collection was loaned to the museum. The Museum’s archives hold much documentation including invoices for netsuke, usually long lists of items, many purchased from the dealers located around Regent Street at that time.

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EDWARD GILBERTSON (1813–1904)

1896

Another eminent nineteenth-century collector was Edward Gilbertson, who first became interested in art and objects from Japan in 1873. He started out in life as an assistant to the artist Thomas Wright (1792–1849), travelling with him to Russia where Wright was commissioned to do a series of portraits of the Tsar and his family. Whilst there, Gilbertson became involve in a dispute of honour and in the ensuing duel shot dead his adversary. He was thus obliged to flee the country and abandon his position, taking up an appointment at the Ottoman Bank in Constantinople (now Istanbul). When he eventually returned to London at the age of sixty he loaned money to a friend, and took as security a group of Japanese ivories. This was to ignite his passion for Japanese art. The netsuke and inro¯ in his collection were of mixed quality, some sublime, others of little merit. In one of his many articles on the subject he declared that even ‘mistakes’ had a value, as they served to teach the collector what not to buy next time. The Japanese government encouraged the production of exportable objects for the Western market and netsuke in particular seem to have been carved both by artists and by amateurs with rudimentary skills. They all seem to have been greeted with unmitigated enthusiasm by the eager collectors of Europe. Gilbertson spent his later years writing articles about Japanese art, as well as teaching Japanese language, and his influence on the collecting scene was considerable. His collection was dispersed at Glendining & Co. in 1917. Following his demise, his family moved to New Zealand, taking their father’s archives with them. These were sadly destroyed by fire, but a recently discovered three-volume

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monograph of his collection offers an insight into the mind of a late-nineteenth century collector. OSCAR CHARLES RAPHAEL (1874–1941)

As well as benefiting from the Franks bequest, a fine addition to the British Museum’s netsuke collection was made by Oscar Charles Raphael. Biographical details for Raphael are scant. He apparently never married and, like Franks, little is known of his personal life.10 He was a collector with an investigative mind from childhood, discovering part of one of the lost speeches of Hyperiedes from the State Prosecution of Demosthenes while still a schoolboy. He had a particular passion for the arts of the East and was considered the major collector of Luristan bronzes of his day. He worked closely with the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, where he was granted the honorary title of Keeper of Oriental Ceramics in 1926, and also worked as volunteer in the Far Eastern department of the British Museum. On his death in 1941 he left his collection to be divided between the Fitzwilliam and the British Museums with the aim of strengthening the holdings of each. His netsuke show preference for early pieces and an unfailing eye for the best that was available in a very broad market. He was a member of the Karlsbeck Syndicate, travelling with them on a collecting trip to China in the company of, among others, George Eumorfopolous. He was an active member of the Oriental Ceramics Society (TOCS), where he succeeded R.L. Hobson as president in 1941, unfortunately dying shortly after his appointment. He is also known to have travelled extensively with the much younger Percival David, who seems to have considered him something of an adviser. Records show that Raphael made purchases from the London dealer Sparks in 1902 and it is likely that it was he who introduced David to them. (Sparks always acted on behalf of Percival David at auction.) 11 Raphael’s obituary in TOCS describes him as a ‘fine shot, a keen sportsman and a brilliant and charming host… He cordially disliked all forms of publicity, or his talents might have been known in wider circles.’12 The same obituary also records that he lent his treasures to exhibitions in England, Europe and America. He was awarded the Légion d’honneur by the French government and an honorary degree from the University of Cambridge in recognition of his wide learning. He also travelled to China

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and Japan to select items for the Great Exhibition of Burlington House in 1935–1936. GEORGE FREDERICK MEINERTZHAGEN (1881–1962)

Overlapping the life of Oscar Raphael, a great lexicographer of netsuke was Frederick Meinertzhagen dubbed ‘a leading British eccentric’ by W.W. Winkworth (see below). Born into a noble family, he attended Harrow school. He was a member of the National Sporting Club and a keen amateur flyweight boxer at a time when boxing might still be considered a ‘gentleman’s sport’. He studied medicine and then worked for a short time as an engineer, before accepting that his life’s passion was art. He spent his entire fortune of £30,000 on collecting and setting up a shop in London’s Eastcastle Street where he sold cigarettes, but also had a window with objects such as paperweights and netsuke. Unable to afford netsuke for his own collection, he would buy them and record them in his card index, before then offering them for sale. Winkworth’s hand-written notes record that this latter enterprise was short-lived brought to an untimely halt by the outbreak of war. He married a servant girl and became something of a social outcast, later taking up with an orange seller who reportedly fainted outside his shop, before abandoning her for another lady with a questionable reputation. Together they lived among the poor of the East End, working tirelessly to offer their help during the blitz. His meticulous records and drawings of netsuke are among the most invaluable resources available to students and amateurs to this day, his notes extensively added to by W.W. Winkworth (see below.) and Anne Hull Grundy (see below). Fearing for their safety while London was under attack,

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he entrusted them to the care of Winkworth who stored them in Glastonbury in Somerset, far from the targets of German bombers. He returned them to Meinertzhagen when the war ended. These record cards are now held in the archives of the British Museum. WILLIAM WILBERFORCE WINKWORTH (1897–1991)

W.W. (Bill) Winkworth was another great character of the netsukecollecting world, not without his own eccentricities. He served with distinction in the First World War and was awarded the Military Cross for bravery – or as he said, for ‘dodging the horrors at Passchendael (sic)’.13 A descendant of William Wilberforce, he worked for a time at the British Museum, leaving to become a marchand amateur, before taking up a cataloguing post at Sotheby’s auction house. He wrote extensively in his florid script, wherever space would allow, even in the margins and on the flyleaves of books, commenting about works of art and the characters associated with them. Among such jottings he observes that from about 1918 the popularity of Chinese art overtook that of Japanese objects and that ‘by 1929 hardly any educated collectors existed’. He persisted with his studies however, commenting that during his time at the British museum his colleagues treated him as if he had ‘become a communist’, such was their disdain for his interest in the minor arts of Japan. He was also an expert on Chinese ceramics, and was a founder member of The Oriental Ceramic Society which was created in his home in 1921. He commented that he was able to move freely within high social circles, but that intellectual snobbery was intense and that the popularity of netsuke suffered from it. He claimed – somewhat disingenuously – that he was not in a position to buy many netsuke for himself before he reached his seventies. He would help Lord Clark with cataloguing Chinese art for the Ashmolean Museum and states that Clark would often help him financially by paying him out of his own pocket.14 He also observed that the art form attracted scientific minds and medical men, rather than champions of fine art. At Sotheby’s he was responsible for cataloguing almost all Japanese works of art, always writing in longhand. His home in London’s Little Venice was reported to be immaculate, with the exception of his study, where objects were piled on shelves all around the room and a large table filled the room, an ashtray positioned at each corner for convenience. In his later years, when he lived on the Isle of Wight, many collectors made pilgrimages to see him there and admire the objects which he still treasured.

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CAPTAIN COLLINGWOOD INGRAM (1880–1981)

An important British collector, whose name is not well known among collectors today, was Captain Collingwood Ingram. Born in London, he was the grandson of Herbert Ingram, founder of The Illustrated London News. A sickly child, he was privately educated at home and from an early age developed a very keen interest in birds.15 It was a bird-watching expedition which first took him to Japan in 1902, but whilst there he also became enraptured with the flowering cherries. After the war he settled with his family at The Grange in Benenden, Kent, where his interest in horticulture dominated his life. He planted his garden with all manner of tropical plants brought back from his travels. He despised artificial garden design and set out to create what he termed ‘a succession of sylvan glades’ connected by curving paths that seemed to have no finishing point.16 Flowering cherries became his specialist subject and his knowledge was much admired in Japan. In 1926 he was invited to Japan to give an address to the Sakurakai (Cherry Society). Whilst there, he was shown a picture of a particular variety with a large white flower that had become extinct. He was later able to recognize the same blossom on a stumpy plant in Sussex, which had been brought over from France in 1899. By taking cuttings, he was able to propagate the stock and reestablish it as tai haku. He reintroduced it to Japan in 1932.17 As a result of his knowledge and enthusiasm in this area he earned the soubriquet ‘Cherry Ingram’.

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Widely travelled, he clearly felt an affinity with Japan, developing an interest in Japanese miniature arts. He formed a collection of tsuba, inro and netsuke. Trained as a Museum man, Ingram was in close contact with the Department of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum and in 1970 at the age of ninety he willed his collection to them. When he reached the age of a hundred he began to fear for the security of the objects, which were stored in his attic and began to give the pieces to the museum. The remainder was bequeathed on his death on the understanding that at least a part of the collection would be permanently on view. In spite of ill health in his childhood and being accidentally shot in the eye during a grouse shoot in 1905,18 Collingwood Ingram survived to the age of a hundred. An entertaining appreciation of him written for The British Library Magazine (1981) by Lawrence Smith paints a picture of a man full of determination and vigour who refused to be confined by rules and regulations. That he is less well known to today’s collectors may be a reflection of the fact that his collection was not dispersed at auction and that he was far better known for his bird studies and his horticultural achievements. Nonetheless, his keen eye is evident in the high quality of his bequest to the British Museum where many of his inro are decorated with bird imagery. ANNE HULL GRUNDY (1926–1984)

A fourth collector who was to bequeath her collection to the British Museum was Anne Hull-Grundy (1926–1984). She was born into a prosperous Jewish family in Nuremberg, Germany, where her father, Philip Ullmann, had a factory making metal toys. In 1933 they had the foresight to quit Germany for England, alarmed by the meteoric rise of Hitler and his National Socialists. Her father set up the Mettoy factory in Northampton, producing lithographed wind-up metal toys and went on to establish the Corgi Toys in 1956. Anne was a forceful character and would often complain bitterly that the running of this was passed to her brother, while she was overlooked because of her gender. She remained convinced she would have run it more successfully. She married the medical artist and entomologist John Hull Grundy, several years her senior, when she was twenty-one, but whilst on honeymoon in Italy developed sarcoidosis, a chronic disease mostly affecting the lungs. She became confined to a wheelchair and eventually her condition led her to be bedridden, but her passion for collecting was in no way diminished by her misfortune. Her devoted husband would buy her jewellery – such as brooches of lovebirds incrusted with turquoises – and their magnificent collection was bequeathed to the British Museum. She was notoriously outspoken 768

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and sharp-tongued. When interviewed by the BBC she declared that diamonds were only ‘for old ladies and tarts’.19 In the same interview she explained that she bought her first netsuke when she was in Harrogate with her parents and ‘dying of boredom’. (The Llandudno dealers, Blairman, had by this time moved to Harrogate and in all likelihood this was where she made her acquisition.) She reserved her most damning comments for dealers and museum curators, but nonetheless relied on them heavily. In the earlier stages of her illness she would visit the auction rooms in a chauffeur driven car, but when her mobility no longer allowed this, the auction rooms would bring whole sales to her to view. She wrote several wellresearched articles for magazines and annotated a good number of Meinertzhagen’s netsuke index cards, often contradicting a previous note by Winkworth, and occasionally directing her vitriol at another collector who might have outbid her at auction. A trusted dealer might be allowed to visit her and occasionally even buy a piece at a robust price. Each has his own story to tell, describing the bedroom that opened onto her garden, doves flying in and out as she lay in her bed surrounded by oxygen machines. She dressed in an ermine hooded cloak and lay under an ermine bedspread, paid for by the sale of some of her husband’s Martinware. Vitrines of netsuke lined the walls, which a visitor might be permitted to open. In the end she was blind in one eye and had very restricted vision in the other, but nonetheless knew the exact location of every piece. On one occasion she went so far as to accuse a museum curator of stealing one of her netsuke and smuggling it out in his trouser turn-up. But in spite of the many stories of her preposterous behavior, she also had a very generous spirit. She made it her task to buy works of art, medals and jewellery, in order to donate them to provincial museums, firmly believing that everyone should have access to beautiful objects. She might indeed demand that a visitor come armed with a home-baked Victoria sponge or Muscat grapes from Fortnum’s, but more often than not would also send him home with a thoughtful gift. When asked what made her continue to collect she replied, with a degree of exasperation at such a question, that she was building her ‘pyramid’, her ‘ticket to the life eternal’. She would, she said, like to be buried with her wood netsuke of confronting horses by Ryu¯kei, but her sense of duty to others prevented her from doing so. Her inro and netsuke, like her jewellery, are of consistently high calibre and a fine addition to the British Museum’s collection. EDWARD ADDISON WRANGHAM (1928–2009)

Perhaps the last of this breed of scholarly collector was Edward A. Wrangham. His father was Sir Geoffrey Walter Wrangham 769

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and mother Mary Winkworth, the sister of William Wilberforce Winkworth. Following his mother’s untimely death in 1933 his father struggled to cope with his loss, and ‘Ted’ and his sister were raised in Wharfedale by his aunt. From an early age he learned to manage his own affairs, arranging to pay his own fees at Eton and equip himself with the necessary uniform. His grandfather Stephen Winkworth was a collector of Chinese porcelains and the young Ted would enjoy helping him unpack his latest purchases. On one occasion a small box of netsuke was amongst the hoard. Showing the natural curiosity of a child, a netsuke of sho¯ki (devil queller) and oni (devil) was entrusted to him. An adventurous and independent boy, he would sometimes cycle to Harrogate to visit H. Blairman & Sons, where he recalled being treated very courteously, in spite of his tender years. At Eton, he found the odd Japanese pipe case in an antique shop and would always have his grandfather’s netsuke jangling in his pocket along with bits of string, sealing wax and odd coins. He was an inveterate collector of the old school, studying and recording his new acquisitions, much encouraged by his uncle. While at Cambridge his passion changed and he became very involved in mountaineering, taking part in several important expeditions. It was only after the birth of his children and the tragic death of two climbing colleagues that he decided to resume a quieter hobby. He was to concentrate on inro , building up a fine and comprehensive collection. Like his Uncle Bill, his study walls were lined with shelves and drawers, filled with his treasures, and a huge table in the centre of the room. He said that an ideal collection consisted of one or two items with room for a third.20 His own collection exceeded 1,000 items. With the assistance of Joe Earle he published The Index of Inro¯ Artists in 1995. Much of his collection has now been dispersed in a series of auctions at Bonham’s in London. CONCLUSION

The age when fortune and leisure allowed collecting to be a primary activity no longer exists. In large part it has turned to dealers to research, produce catalogues and update information on artists and subject matter, working alongside the museums. The Golden Age of collecting stretched from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries but the collecting ‘gene’ continues to flourish and the passion for Japanese miniature arts persists both in Britain and throughout the world, in no small degree inspired by the legacy of their predecessors listed here. ENDNOTES 1

Gerald Reitlinger (1900–1978) would later declare that such events simply encouraged a ‘stamp-collecting mentality’. 770

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2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10

11

12 13

14

See Britain and the ‘Re-opening’ of Japan The Treaty of Yedo of 1858 and the Elgin Mission; by Sir Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Society, 2008. This is described in some detail in Japan in late Victorian London: The Japanese Village in Knightsbridge and the Mikado, 1885 by Sir Hugh Cortazzi Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, Norwich 2009. See biographical portrait of Lazenby Liberty by Sonia Ashmore in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume IV, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Library, 2003. See portrait of Yamanaka Sadajiro by Sonoko Monden in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VIII, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2013. These were mask netsuke by Gyokuzan, probably newly carved when she acquired them. Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with the Amber Eyes, London, 2010, drew popular attention to a collection of netsuke made in Europe in the late nineteenth century. See biographical portrait of Augustus Wollaston Franks by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere in Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VI, ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2007. Caygill, Marjorie, A.W. Franks, op.cit, Appendix 1, p. 323. The Derby Daily Telegraph of 3 September 1902 announced that a marriage had been arranged between Oscar and Lydia, daughter of Edward Sassoon of Grosvenor Place, but a further announcement in the Yorkshire Evening Post of the 6 February 1903 recorded that the marriage would no longer ahead because of the ill-health of Oscar. He was the 8th child of George Charles Raphael and Charlotte Melchior. Records describe his father as a merchant foreign banker and it is clear the family were considerably wealthy. When George’s will was published in 1906 the Straits Times of Singapore10 published a report in its Stocks and Shares page entitled Asquith’s Luck, recording that the millionaire banker’s estate of £1,300,000 would be liable for death duties of £115,000.10 The article also notes that each of his surviving daughters was bequeathed £80,000 in trust, while £50,000 was bequeathed for the benefit of Oscar. It would appear that, like his brothers, he attended he attended Wellington College, as he is listed as playing cricket for them in 1891–1892. It is also recorded that he played for the teams of Marylebone Cricket Club from 1894–1906 and for Liverpool from 1897–1902. No information can be found linking him to Liverpool, but his older brother Frederick Melchior was the only Jewish officer in the 1st South Lancashire regiment and was killed in action in 1900. Pierson, Stacey, Collectors, Collections and Museums: The Field of Chinese Ceramics in Britain 1560–1960, Bern, 2007, p. 131. Transactions of the Oriental Ceramics Society, vol. 18, 1941. Lazarnick, George (ed.), MCI. The Meinertzhagen Card Index on Netsuke in the Archives of the British Museum, New York, 1986, part A., p. xxlii. Lazarnick, George (ed.), op. cit., part A., p. xxxix.

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15

16 17 18 19 20

As a young adult he worked in the ornithology department of the Natural History Museum where, it is reported, he was able to study and catalogue the bird skins which his father, Sir William Ingram, had engaged a William Stalker to collect in Australia and send to the museum in London. When he was just twenty-one he was proposed as a member of the British Ornithologists’ Union by W.R. Ogilvie Grant of the British Museum’s Bird Room and in the same year joined the British Ornithologists’ Club, where he remained a member until his death eighty years later. He was also elected as an Honorary Member of the Ornithological Society of Japan. During the Great War he served as a Compass Officer in the Royal Flying Corp, taking every opportunity while at the Front to study the birdlife of Northern France and keeping meticulous records in his sketchbook. Ingram, Collingwood, A Garden of Memories, R.F. & G. Wetherby, 1970. http://www.keele.ac.uk/cherries/taihaku/ Yorkshire Evening Post, Friday 29th September 1905, p. 3. BBC2 Collecting Now, 1983, interviewed by Harriet Crawley. Bandini, Rosemary, ‘Luck and Longevity: An interview with Ted Wrangham’, International Netsuke Society Journal, vol. 27, No. 4, Winter 2007, pp. 58–61.

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Lisa, Lady Sainsbury (1912–2014): Bringing Japanese Art to East Anglia NICOLE COOLIDGE ROUSMANIERE

Lisa Sainsbury is remembered as a remarkable woman with a quick discerning mind and broad vision. Her interests spanned from health, public service, education and botany to the arts. Her attention was always focused on the human interface in those areas. She and her husband Sir Robert were pioneers in many fields, from commissioning the then little known architect Norman Foster to building a gallery and teaching space at the new University of East Anglia, to funding a computerized system of plant management at Kew Gardens. Lady Sainsbury is deservedly well known as a patron of artists and of twentieth-century arts, but her deep interest in and strategic support for Japanese arts and the study of Japanese arts has received less attention. Lisa Ingeborg Van den Bergh was born in 1912 and brought up between London, Paris and Geneva. The original fortune of the Dutch family was made from the manufacture of margarine. Her father, Simon Van den Burgh, was at the time of her birth a professor of philosophy at the University of Paris and as a consequence, Lisa grew up speaking Dutch, French and English all 773

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equally comfortably. While she had a privileged upbringing, her original wish of becoming a doctor was thwarted by her parents who felt that it was not a suitable profession for her, a common social prejudice of the times. Instead, she pursued nursing and kept a life-long passion for the health profession and in particular for patient and end-of-life care, funding hospices such as St Christopher’s. Lisa was more fortunate in her marriage to Robert (Bob) Sainsbury (1906–2000), the heir to the grocery fortune founded by Sir Robert’s grandfather John Sainsbury (1844–1928). Bob was her second cousin and in him she found a true kindred spirit. Ever practical, they married in a London registry office in 1937. Of that marriage it could be truly said ‘they lived happily ever after’ until the death of Robert in 2000. In all things artistic, cultural and philanthropic, Bob and Lisa Sainsbury worked as a team, balancing each other and making decisions together. Soon after their marriage Lisa and Bob moved into No. 5 Smith’s Square, Westminster living there until 1994. Lisa then suggested they move away to The Grange, Dulwich Village, where they were surrounded by a magnificent garden and their most recent purchases. Lisa remained at The Grange until her death twenty years later. In a characteristic act of generosity she bequeathed The Grange and the gardens to Kew Gardens. They would often entertain Japanese scholars and students of Japanese art at The Grange. After Sir Robert’s death, Lisa continued this warm hospitality but on a smaller scale. She characteristically opened her London home to Japanese visitors who had come to Norwich to participate in the activities of Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC) (see below). Lisa and her husband shared many mutual interests. One current that ran through their lives was their passion for art in particular sculptural expression. They amassed one of the most beguiling collections of all expressions of art form from prehistory to contemporary painting by artists such cutting edge artists as Henry Moore and Francis Bacon, from the arts of Oceania to Inuit carvings and of course Japanese art. Nor was their acquisition merely that of wealthy collectors. In fact, the Sainsburys became not only patrons to many artists represented in their collections but also personal friends; Francis Bacon often dined with them at their home and Henry Moore became the Godfather to their son David, Lord Sainsbury. Lisa’s native French helped tremendously in building relationships with Alberto Giacometti and other Paris-based artists, but more so her personality, passion and sharp mind. Lisa, always discerning, build a strong relationship with such Paris-based artists and dealers perhaps aided by her French upbringing. 774

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While Bob and Lisa collected broadly across time periods and cultures, art historians and the public have often noted that there is an integral feel to the entire collection. Bob had already begun to collect before he was married, but after their marriage he and Lisa collected together relying on each other’s judgment but most of all their ‘gut; feelings. Together, the Sainsburys began to collect from 1937s onwards. Starting with a modernist agenda, they then moved on to purchase objects from divergent geographical areas such as Papua New Guinea, Africa, and the Americas, along with contemporary art and art crafts. Their shared passion for the human condition and human form perhaps guided many of their purchases. All works they acquired had to excite them, viscerally In 1969 Robert was knighted and subsequently Lisa became Lady Sainsbury. Around that same period the Sainsburys began to collect Japanese art after a chance encounter in New York City with a compelling set of negoro lacquer (urushi) ware bowls and dishes. Although Japanese objects were initially acquired at a slow but steady pace in the 1970s and 1980s, it is only really in the second half of the 1990s to 2004 that their Japanese collection increased considerably in scope and depth. Together, thinking of the future and how their collection could work to the greatest advantage, they created the Sainsbury Century for Visual Arts (SCVA) at the University of East Anglia in Norwich to house the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection. They commissioned a then young Norman Foster to design the building, one of his first major public commissions. Typically for Bob and Lisa, they worked closely with Norman Foster, who had become a friend, to ensure that integrated display and storage provision, conservation studios, public access spaces and the Art History Department (then School of World Art Studies and Museology) could all be comfortably included alongside a dynamic permanent display of their collection. The SCVA was completed in 1978 to great fanfare. Lord Foster would later come back to the building two further times to refurbish and extend his original work. For her vision, energy and commitment to the SCVA and to UEA in general, Lisa was awarded with an honorary degree at in 1990 and then an honorary fellowship in 2003. After the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts opened in 1978, all of Bob and Lisa’s purchases became destined for the Museum. They would enjoy them for a time in their home and then SCVA curators would come to pick up the works and access them into the collection. Bob and Lisa, while never having travelled to Japan, both had a rare eye that aligned with Japanese aesthetic tastes. They collected Japanese objects from Jômon dogû figurines and Buddhist sculpture to Edo-period painting. The Japanese art objects currently comprise about one tenth of the SCVA’s entire Sainsbury collection. Both Sir 775

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Robert and Lisa had an unerring eye and decided on objects that they found compelling regardless or whether it fit in their collection or its intrinsic art historical importance. The result is a wonderful grouping of very significant Japanese objects – ranging from Jômon period vessels and large grouping of negoro urushi (lacquer) wares to Buddhist and Shinto sculpture, all of high artistic quality that cannot be found together elsewhere in Europe. In 1998, in a characteristically generous decision, the Sainsburys decided to sell their ‘Portrait of Baranowski’ by Amedeo Modigliani which was the first work of art they had bought together immediately after their wedding, to endow an institute for the advanced study of Japanese art as an independent charity affiliated with the University of East Anglia and associated with SOAS, University of London and the British Museum. The Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC)’s mission is to promote the study of material and visual cultures of the Japanese archipelago, and in so doing acts as a catalyst for international research in the field. The Institute furthers its mission through engaging international scholars, postgraduate students and staff in a collaborative and active research network, and disseminating the results. It was envisioned from the start that the Institute would connect with and draw strength from the Sainsbury Centre of Visual Arts at UEA with its important and growing collection of Japanese art. To reinforce this relationship, in the first year of the Institute, the Sainsburys purchased a significant pair of early fifteenth-century red lacquer negoro heishi sake flasks and they continued to make strategic purchases of significant Japanese art. Bob and Lisa Sainsbury were intimately involved in the naming of the Institute, its charter and its mission statement. Lisa felt strongly that Japanese art historians from Japan should also be involved with the Institute, with the result that two eminent art history professors, Kawai Masatomo from Keio University and Kobayashi Tatsuo from Gakushuin University became integral members of the Management Board. Within a short period of time Dame Elizabeth Esteve-Coll, became a Trustee, a member of the Management Board and a guiding light for the Institute. The Sainsburys with Dame Elizabeth had identified a home for the Institute in the historic Cathedral Close. The large Georgian building, originally part of the twelth-century Norwich Cathedral, with its generous proportions would soon make a distinctive home for the fledgling Institute. The Sainsburys made a further financial contribution to help refurbish the building creating a flat for visiting scholars and a library with appropriate provision for the safe keeping of books and documents and for scholars and students to study. Lisa made the first scholarly donation to the Institute with a group of books on Japanese ceramics that had been owned by the potter 776

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and writer, Bernard Leach (1887–1979). Within a few months of the Institute’s new headquarters opening in October 2001, a large donation of Japanese language art books from Professor Kawai Masatomo with another generous donation of important English language historical works from Sir Hugh and Lady Cortazzi helped to kick start the library. A collection of books largely on folklore and Japanese religions collected by the eminent Cambridge scholar, the late Dr Carmen Blacker1, was given to the library by her husband Dr Michael Loewe. Donated books soon numbered in the many thousands with the result that the Institute now ranks as one of the major specialist libraries for Japanese art in Europe. In recognition of the seminal role that Lisa played, in 2003 Ambassador Orita Masaki christened the Institute’s library ‘The Lisa Sainsbury Library’. A specialist Japanese Librarian, Hirano Akira, was employed as the Lisa Sainsbury Librarian and is the current librarian. On 10 December in the same year that Ambassador Orita opened The Lisa Sainsbury Library, the Ambassador awarded on behalf of his Majesty the Emperor of Japan, The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays and Neck Ribbon to Lisa Sainsbury for her lifelong contribution to the promotion of Japanese culture in the United Kingdom and of better understanding between the peoples of the two countries. Ambassador Orita spoke on that occasion of Lady Sainsbury’s encounter in Manhattan with a piece of Japanese art, negoro-nuri, one day in the early 1960s. He characterized this encounter as ‘a blessing from the heaven’. He added that on account of her vision, Japanese

Ambassador Orita and Lady Lisa Sainsbury at her award ceremony, December 2003

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masterpieces were ‘rubbing shoulders’ with superb works from myriad other cultures in Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich.2 From the start, while the Sainsbury Institute was created with her husband, it was Lisa’s passion, ideas and active engagement that allowed the Sainsbury Institute to flourish. She attended most of the major events and gave support in various forms to the Institute and to scholars of Japan. Her vision and contribution continue to be a meaningful memorial to the East Anglian Community. Lisa died peacefully at her home on 6 February 2014 at the age of 101. The legacy of Lisa Sainsbury is vibrantly alive through the many organizations they created and supported. Among these, the Sainsbury donations to the University of East Anglia; The Sainsbury Centre of the Visual Arts, The Sainsbury Research Unit and the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures must be mentioned. Their generosity continues to introduce, shape and delight students and interested parties to the importance of visual expression in a global setting. Lisa Sainsbury’s contribution to Japanese art studies in the United Kingdom through the creation and continuing support to the Sainsbury Institute and its projects is both significant and lasting. ENDNOTES 1

2

A biographical portrait of Carmen Blacker by Peter Kornicki is contained in Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, volume VII , ed. Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, 2010. http://www.uk.emb-japan.go.jp/en/japanUK/decoration/031210_ sainsbury.html

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UK-Japan 21st Century Group MARIE CONTE-HELM

British and Japanese delegates at the UK-Japan 21st Century Group’s 30th Anniversary Conference

The UK-Japan 21st Century Group was established in 1984 as the UK-Japan 2000 Group at the joint recommendation of the British and Japanese prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher and Yasuhiro Nakasone. For over thirty years, it has been the most senior bilateral body acting in the sphere of UK-Japan relations and promoting dialogue and cooperation between the two countries. At the time of its establishment, key players in both governments recognized the need for a non-governmental ‘track two’ forum that would bring together influential figures from the world of politics, diplomacy, business, academia and the media to address practical and challenging aspects of the UK-Japan relationship and to explore areas for future cooperation. 779

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One model for the UK-Japan 2000 Group had been the Königswinter Conference that was established in 1950 with the aim of improving the troubled relationship between Germany and the UK. Its annual meetings, alternating between Germany and Britain, set a broad agenda for an uninhibited exchange of ideas. As Sir Richard Needham, a founder member of the Group would later recall: …a Japanese-UK version of Königswinter was a real possibility. Britain’s long and friendly relations with Japan had been destroyed by the War. Although there remained a residue of respect there was a much greater pool of distrust, disquiet and lack of understanding. Britain needed an ally to strengthen its industrial base and to bring fresh ideas and disciplines to the workplace. Japan needed a bridgehead for commercial expansion into the European Common Market.1

With the support of Yukio Satoh, Japan’s consul-general in London, who had established a Japan-US group of this sort and who was seeking to extend the model to the UK, the wheels were set in motion for the creation of the UK-Japan 2000 Group. The final prospectus was published on 20 January 1984 and the Group was officially launched in June 1984 on the occasion of the visit by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone to London. The prospectus set out its priorities as follows: At all levels relations between Japan and the United Kingdom are cordial but not close. The depth of personal contact and mutual understanding enjoyed by Britain in her relations with other major partners does not match good relations between the two governments. There are clear historical, geographical and cultural reasons for this unsatisfactory state of affairs. The first objective of the 2000 Group will therefore be to promote contact between the two societies in general, and in particular between prominent figures in all areas of life. It is hoped that the Forum will act as a catalyst for projects and topics where the skills and resources available to both sides will complement the other.2

The UK-Japan 2000 Group held its first conference on 4–5 January 1985 in Oiso, Japan, and its second at Heythrop Park in Oxfordshire on 10–12 January 1986. The then Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shintaro Abe, sent a message to the Group on the occasion of the inaugural conference in 1985 in which he spoke of the convergent interests and concerns of the two countries. He went on to give Japan’s perspective on the value of this new forum: 780

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…it is keenly felt that in addition to exchange at governmental level, there is more than ever a need for frank exchange of views between the people of both countries, in particular at intellectual level…It is hoped that as a private forum of discussion, the Japan-UK 2000 Group will make up for what the two countries so far lacked in their bilateral dialogue and provide an effective medium for comprehensive exchange of views.3

The participants at Oiso discussed mutual perceptions in the two countries, the economic dimensions of the UK-Japan relationship, the political-security dimensions, and possible future tasks. The aim of this first meeting was to review the current relationship, to explore opportunities for closer relations in both bilateral and multilateral frameworks, to identify obstacles to the strengthening of cooperation, and to develop a working programme for the Group. Its agreed remit, as quoted in the meeting summary, was ‘to improve understanding and promote cooperation between the two countries, and to look ahead to changes in international politics and economies and technology, which the two countries would be facing towards the year 2000’. In a letter written to Prime Minister Nakasone following the Oiso conference (29 January 1985), Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher greatly welcomed the initiative and noted the distinguished membership, both Japanese and British, ‘combining expert knowledge with practical achievement, and covering a very wide range of interests. They are well qualified to explore the territory, to identify the most promising directions for cooperation, and then to spread the word to others on the scope and the advantages of determined action.’4 Yasuhiro Nakasone stated in his reply (28 March 1985) that, ‘Our common belief in the values of freedom, democracy and the free market economy should serve as a firm foundation in seeking closer cooperation and communication at all levels, and I believe there are many areas where we should be able to develop our relationship further to our mutual benefit.’5 Along with Sir Richard Needham and Yukio Satoh, those who led in this process included the Japanese internationalist and president of the Japan Center for International Exchange in Tokyo, Tadashi Yamamoto (1936–2012) and the first two co-chairmen, James Prior (UK chairman, 1985–86) and Ambassador Tadao Kato (Japan chairman, 1985–1988). All agreed that the Group should not be just a ‘talking shop’ but should set an action-oriented agenda for moving the relationship forward. Some of the other influential figures who took part in these early conferences6 were Sir Terence Beckett, Professor Alan Budd, Professor Ron Dore, Patrick Jenkin (later Lord Jenkin of Roding, UK 781

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chairman, 1987–1990), Sir Peter Parker, Sir Michael Palliser, Sir Julian Ridsdale, Viscount Sandon, John Smith and Sir Michael Wilford, a former ambassador to Japan. The delegates on the Japanese side included Nobutoshi Hagiwara, Takashi Hosomi, Toshiki Kaifu, Masataka Kosaka, Isamu Miyazaki, Keizo Saji, Dr Takahiro Sekimoto, Motoo Shiina (Japan chairman, 1989–2001), Dr Atsushi Shimokobe and Dr Shoichiro Toyoda. From the start, the UK-Japan 2000 Group maintained a close involvement with both governments, with delegates calling on the prime minister or other senior ministers as the annual conferences alternated between the UK and Japan. The Chairmen’s Summary, agreed by the close of each conference, was and continues to be reported to the two prime ministers with specific recommendations arising from the conference discussions circulated to the relevant government departments. Both the British and Japanese embassies play supportive roles in this process. Executive directors have managed the activities of the Group from the time of its establishment.7 Separate secretariats have ensured that its work has been effectively carried out in both countries. The Japan Centre for International Exchange (JCIE) took on this role in Japan whilst in the UK the secretariat was first based at Chatham House, then Asia House, and is now at the Japan Society in London. But what was the state of the UK-Japan relationship in the early years of the UK-Japan 2000 Group? There are well-established comparisons and even clichés that are used to link the UK and Japan: two island nations, the Royal and Imperial families, the importance of tradition and ritual, codes of politeness and formality – aspects of each nation’s identity that arguably contribute to the potential for mutual understanding. However, in 1984 there were specific areas of concern that exercised both government and business and that, it was felt, could benefit from an airing outside the corridors of Whitehall and Kasumigaseki. Speakers at the Group’s first conference acknowledged that ‘Japan and the United Kingdom as advanced, democratic nations share similar interests and values…however, the relationship has too often been dominated by bilateral economic frictions, which have obscured wider common interests. Closer cooperation has been inhibited by outdated mutual perceptions.’ It was noted that: Japanese images of Britain, and of the rest of Western Europe, are of a long-term decline… (and) continue to be over-influenced by the notion of British economic malaise’. Meanwhile, ‘British images (of Japan) are over-influenced by the apparent invincibility of the Japanese economy and technology, failing to recognize that economic growth 782

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in Japan has slowed down and that Japan is now facing many of the social and economic problems common to industrialized democracies, such as a rapidly ageing population and environmental concerns.

Based on the need to ‘improve understanding of the changing dynamics of each other’s society’, both sides agreed on the desirability of producing joint studies of common problems, introducing the younger generation of each country to the other, and spreading information on contemporary social developments through the media. In subsequent years, the potential for UK-Japan cooperation gave rise to various working groups and other initiatives to consider a bilateral Working Holiday Visa Scheme; the reduction of airfares between Japan and the UK; an expansion of educational and cultural links; enhanced support for Japanese studies in the UK and the teaching of English in Japan; a Young 2000 Group; exchange activities between UK-Japan NGO leaders; a Business Advisory Council; a UK-Japan Hi-Tech Industry Forum; a UK-Japan Database; a ‘Letter from Japan’ project and the setting up of a Japan House in London. Some, though not all, of the proposals generated came to fruition but as these ideas were being discussed and developed, so too was the presence of Japan in the UK growing along with UK-Japan cultural links. In 1984, trade frictions between Japan and Europe were escalating, particularly in the areas of consumer electronics and motor vehicles, with the scale of Japan’s external trade surplus giving rise to increasing concerns. The ongoing application of export restraints to these products increased the desirability for the Japanese of establishing bases in Europe to enable manufacturers to conduct trade from within. This process began in the 1970s with the arrival of such pioneer investors in the UK as Sony at Bridgend in South Wales. The UK government’s support for Japanese investment was a central feature of UK-Japan economic relations at this time and was particularly characteristic of the Thatcher years. Through the 1980s, Britain was to attract the lion’s share of Japanese investment in Europe. The establishment in 1984 of Nissan Motor Manufacturing in the North East of England, the largest single investment by a Japanese firm in Europe, marked a watershed in UK-Japan relations and contributed to a shift in mutual perceptions. In a briefing paper written for Chatham House in 1998, Haruko Satoh recalled this dynamic of the 1980s in UK-Japan bilateral relations: While Japan was regarded as a second-class country, a political dwarf among the close-knit circle of the political heads of the G-7 powers, and bilateral trade relations were a source of continual friction, Prime 783

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Minister Margaret Thatcher’s determination to transform Britain into a modern free-enterprise economy nevertheless allowed the increasing influx of Japanese FDI to Britain…Britain’s pragmatism let Japan play pragmatically as well.8

The massive appreciation of the yen against the dollar following the Plaza Accord of September 1985 and the signing of the Single European Act in that same year gave a particular impetus to Japanese manufacturing investment in Europe. Soon after, the UK government addressed the trade imbalance with Japan by launching various export campaigns, from ‘Opportunity Japan’ in 1988 to ‘Priority Japan’ in 1991, to ‘Action Japan’ in 1994, all aimed at increasing Britain’s flow of goods into Japan and raising awareness among British business interests of the opportunities offered up by the Japanese market. In a letter sent by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to Prime Minister, Noboru Takeshita, on 1 March 1989, just prior to the fifth meeting of the UK-Japan 2000 Group in Gotemba, Japanese investment in the UK was hailed as ‘one of the most successful features of our bilateral relations’ but the case was made for reciprocity for British firms seeking to invest in Japan. Other outstanding issues of importance to British interests were addressed in this same letter: I am grateful for your continued interest in the problem of membership of the Tokyo Stock Exchange by British securities houses and hope that it will shortly be resolved. The steps you have taken to reform the Liquor Tax regime are also much appreciated.9

The political and economic relationship between the UK and Japan were themes that were repeatedly discussed in the annual conferences of the UK-Japan 2000 Group over these years. It was no coincidence that some of the leading lights in the initiatives outlined above should also become active members of the Group at this time. There was an inevitable overlap in the priorities of government, industry and the wider establishment as those senior figures at the centre of the UKJapan relationship came to share their thoughts around a conference table as colleagues and friends. Some have commented on the stiffness and formality of those early meetings. Patrick Jenkin recalled the reaction of a member who had attended the Oiso meeting in 1985 and did not come to another for four years: He remarked with astonishment that the style of that later meeting, which was far more informal and with much more give and take, made it hard for him to believe that it was the same group! Yet it was much the same; what had happened in between was that both sides 784

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had got to know each other and everybody was more willing to speak impromptu.10

The tenth anniversary conference of the UK-Japan 2000 Group was held in January 1994 at the Celtic Manor Hotel in South Wales and was closely followed by ‘Britain and Japan, the New Era’ conference in London at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre. Preliminary to the New Era conference, ‘A Review of UK-Japan Bilateral Activities’ was produced in 1993, covering all fields of engagement between the two countries. These were opportunities to review and reflect upon what had been achieved in the UKJapan bilateral relationship in the first decade since the Group’s establishment. Over this period, it was recorded that the number of Japanese visitors to the UK had risen three times; the level of UK exports to Japan had broadly doubled; and Japanese investment in the UK had risen by a factor of four.11 As Admiral Sir James Eberle, executive director of the group, wrote at the time: The last ten years have been marked by an almost explosive growth of interest by Britons in things Japanese. There has been a continuing strong interest in Britain from many Japanese. The culmination of these attitudes was the success of the two festivals, the UK90 cultural festival in Japan and the Japan Festival held in the UK in 1991/2. However, a critical mass of self-sustaining growth in mutual awareness and understanding has not yet been achieved. Very high priority must therefore be given to the encouragement and education of the younger generation, designed to give a more factual, informed and differentiated view of each others countries.12

The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the Daiwa AngloJapanese Foundation have been contributing to this process since their respective establishments in 1985 and 1988. Both Foundations had emerged out of this same climate of UK-Japan relations, referencing the need, through their various funding regimes, to increase contact and cooperation across a wide range of fields. In carrying out their aims, they have pursued an agenda that the UK-Japan 21st Century Group and other players might be said to have set in motion. The new millennium brought about the re-christening of the UK-Japan 2000 Group as the UK-Japan 21st Century Group. At a Chatham House meeting on 23 March 1999, the announcement of this new incarnation gave rise to comparisons of Britain and Japan’s economic trajectories over the previous fifteen years. Lord (David) 785

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Howell, chairman of the group from 1990 to 2001, reflected on the great shift that had taken place: The dominant theme at the time of the Group’s inception in 1984 was the need for Britain’s economic ‘adjustment’ and the lessons the UK could learn from the amazingly successful model of ‘controlled capitalism’ of which Japan was then arch-exponent. Fifteen years on and the tide has turned. It is Japan which has to go through a period of major ‘adjustment’ and the themes at the most recent UK-Japan annual meeting (at Kisarazu in Chiba, 5–7 March 1999) concerned the question of what Japan could learn from the British experience – and in particular how Japan could meet the enormous social challenges posed by economic liberalization, de-regulation and general integration into the contemporary global economic order.13

The 20th anniversary meeting of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group took place at Brocket Hall in 2004 and was marked by the publication of an anniversary booklet with reminiscences of some of the individuals most closely associated with the work of the Group. Peter Mandelson, the UK chairman at that time, rang the changes when he wrote: In the future Britain’s relationship with Japan has to be seen in a global rather than a purely bilateral context, with both countries assuming responsibilities in the emerging international system that will bring demands as well as opportunities…almost everything our governments discuss now has to be viewed in a wider context, whether global or regional… The world is a global market place in which our companies trade, invest, compete and cooperate almost everywhere. Globalization affects almost every aspect of our lives.14

This changing theme was increasingly reflected in post-millennium meetings. At the Group’s seventeenth conference, held on Awaji Island 15–18 February 2001, delegates addressed the ways in which Japan and the UK could cope with the new challenges of globalization with a particular focus on global security threats, challenges for international economic organizations and the social and economic impact of the IT revolution. Interconnectedness replaced the more strictly bilateral perspectives of earlier discussions. As the UK chairman at Awaji, Lord Howell, was to comment, with reference to the Japanese decision to send armed combat troops to Iraq to help the coalition forces: When we began, Japan saw its world role as strictly confined to aid and low profile involvement in world affairs. Today Japan has emerged a ‘normal nation’ – the word ‘normal’ now meaning that in this globalized 786

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age the major economic powers are expected and indeed obliged, to play a major and forward role in grappling with world security.15

Cooperation between UK-Japan NGOs in addressing global challenges became another important dimension of discussions at subsequent conferences. At its eighteenth meeting, held at Ditchley Park 22–24 February 2002, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Group recommended the further promotion of NGO cooperation in Afghanistan and the Middle East as well as support for the New Plan for African Development where Japan’s ODA and growing NGO participation might develop a productive partnership. At this same conference, the Group agreed to make the area of science and the environment a focus for future work, concentrating joint study and action on the areas of renewable sources of energy; nuclear waste and fusion; recycling; and nanotechnology. That cultural links between the UK and Japan remained robust over this period was acknowledged with reference to the success of the grassroots cultural festival, Japan 2001. It was noted that, by the end of March 2002, over three million people would have witnessed or participated in one of the over two thousand Japan 2001 events that had taken place throughout the UK. At the 25th conference of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, held in Odawara 20–22 February 2009, the co-chairmen, Lord Cunningham of Felling and Yasuhisa Shiozaki, issued a Joint Statement reflecting on its twenty-five-year history: In 1985, there were very few links between our two countries outside of government. Our impressions of each other were based largely on media reports that told a story of a nascent industrial superpower – Japan – and a former superpower – the United Kingdom – struggling with numerous economic and social problems. However, bilateral exchange and various cultural festivals have seen mutual understanding blossom. Thanks in large part to the work of this group, nowadays we are just as likely to talk about the role of civil society in UK-Japan ties as about government-to-government relations.16

Over the years, the UK-Japan 21st Century Group has drawn its strength from its network of influential members and their diversity of interests and experience. It has also relied on the support of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the Gaimusho (Japanese Foreign Ministry), including the serving British and Japanese ambassadors who have been regular attendees at each conference. Of key importance in this mix has been the involvement of senior corporate representatives and sponsors from both countries who have brought

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practical considerations into the policy framework and identified opportunities for the UK and Japan to work together. Following the March 2011 ‘triple disaster’ and the nuclear accident at Fukushima, the Group was instrumental in recommending that a seminar be arranged by the British embassy in Tokyo to provide guidance from UK nuclear industry experts on decommissioning and cleanup operations. Close collaboration in this sector has followed and continues to generate joint action between government and industry. Similarly, policy discussions at government level on UK-Japan defence and security cooperation have been followed up both in, and in the margins of, Group meetings, during which opportunities for collaboration in the joint development of defence equipment and in other areas of defence and security have been pursued. The roll-call of UK companies and other organizations who have been sponsors of the Group and who have been represented at its conferences is long and impressive. At the time of writing (2015), the group benefits from the support and involvement of AMEC Foster Wheeler, Barclays, Crown Agents, BAE Systems International, GSK, Rio Tinto and Rolls Royce Japan as well as the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Over the years, well over a hundred leading British companies have played their part in encouraging closer ties with Japan through participation in the Group’s annual meetings and other events. On the Japanese side, the involvement of Japanese industry in the Group’s activities and the support of the Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) and Keizai Doyukai (Japan Association of Corporate Executives) has also provided a strategic balance to its discussions. This balance has been essential to the Group’s ability to inform and influence government policy in both the UK and Japan. When the UK-Japan 2000 Group was first established in 1984, Geoffrey Howe, then Foreign Secretary, recorded the government’s strong support for this new initiative: Our relations with Japan are of increasing importance, but suffer from geographical distance and from the relative weakness of the links at all levels between British and Japanese institutions and peoples as compared for example with our relations with the United States and Europe.17

Looking back, it can be argued, that the UK-Japan 21st Century Group has played an important part in narrowing this distance and that the links at all levels between the UK and Japan have become numerous and multi-faceted over the last thirty years. Periodic reviews have considered the Group’s structure and purpose; the different frameworks and viewpoints of the UK and Japanese 788

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sides; the make-up of the membership; and the scope of its activities. Has it realized its original aims, should there be greater involvement of parliamentarians, of industrialists, of women, of young people? These questions have all been part of an evolving agenda that reflects the need to adapt to changing circumstances and times. The prime focus of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group has always been its annual conference. Conference themes have necessarily followed the thrust of current affairs, prioritizing those areas where the UK and Japan can jointly serve as a catalyst for action on matters of common interest and concern. In recent years, the Group’s discussions have addressed geopolitics and security challenges in East Asia; the future of Europe and the Eurozone; climate change and energy policy; corporate governance; gender diversity in politics and business; opportunities for defence collaboration; international development initiatives; science & technology innovation; and the promotion of UK-Japan educational exchanges. At the thirtieth conference, held at Wiston House in West Sussex 3–5 May 2013, the Co-Chairmen, Lord Howard of Lympne and Yasuhisa Shiozaki reminded delegates of the action-oriented agenda originally set for the Group by the two prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher and Yasuhiro Nakasone. This was and remains central to its purpose and is reflected in the recommendations made at the end of each conference. Since its foundation, the UK-Japan 21st Century Group has been a crucial part of the landscape of UK-Japan relations and a valuable conduit for collaborative activity between the two countries. Looking to the future, as the only non-governmental forum in this arena that reports directly to both prime ministers, the Group, with its long-term perspective and influential network, seeks to play an ongoing and significant role in the widening and deepening of the relationship between the UK and Japan. ENDNOTES 1

2

3

4

5

6

UK-Japan 21st Century Group, 1984–2004, London, February 2004, p. 12. Prospectus of the UK-Japan 2000 Group, 20 January 1984 in UK-Japan 21st Century Group Archives. Message from Shintaro Abe, 4 January 1985, UK-Japan 21st Century Group Archives. Letter from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to Prime Minister Nakasone, 29 January 1985, UK-Japan 21st Century Group Archives. Letter from Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, 28 March 1985, UK-Japan 21st Century Group Archives. The full list of participants from the 1984 to 2003 conferences can be found in UK-Japan 21st Century Group, 1984–2004, pp. 21–58.

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7

8 9

10 11 12 13

14 15 16

17

Executive directors of the Group from 1984 to the present, have included Dr Brian Bridges, Dr Peter Ferdinand, Admiral Sir James Eberle, Phillida Purvis, Anthony Loehnis, Melville Guest, Charles Humfrey and Professor Marie Conte-Helm. Over this same period, activities in Japan have been led by Tadashi Yamamoto and, more recently, by Akio Okawara, president of the Japan Center for International Exchange. Haruko Satoh, RIIA Briefing Paper, No.46, May 1998, p. 5. Letter from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, 1 March 1989, UK-Japan 21st Century Group Archives. UK-Japan 21st Century Group, 1984–2004, pp. 10–11. Sir James Eberle, Britain and Japan – The way ahead, 1994, p. 1. Ibid. Lord Howell, discussion paper, Group meeting, 23 March 1999, UKJapan 21st Century Group Archives. UK-Japan 21st Century Group, 1984–2004, p. 2. Ibid., p. 6. 25th Meeting of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, Odawara, Joint Statement, February 2009, UK-Japan 21st Century Group Archives. Letter from Geoffrey Howe to Richard Needham, 15 June 1984, UKJapan 21st Century Group Archives.

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Select bibliography of works in English on Anglo-Japanese relations Compiled by Gill Goddard Cortazzi, Hugh & Gordon Daniels (eds), Britain and Japan, 1859–1991: Themes and Personalities (London: Routledge, 1991) Nish, Ian (ed), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits. Volume I (Folkestone: Japan Library, 1994) Nish, Ian (ed), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits. Volume II (Folkestone: Japan Library, 1997) Hoare, J.E., (ed), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits. Volume III (Folkestone: Japan Library, 1999) Cortazzi, Hugh (ed), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits. Volume IV (Folkestone: Japan Library, 2002) Cortazzi, Hugh (ed), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits. Volume V (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2004) Cortazzi, Hugh (ed), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits. Volume VI (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2007) Cortazzi, Hugh (ed), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits. Volume VII (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2010) Cortazzi, Hugh (ed), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits. Volume VIII (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2013) Cortazzi, Hugh (ed), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits. Volume IX (Folkestone: Renaissance Books, 2015) Cortazzi, Hugh (ed), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits. Volume X (Folkestone: Renaissance Books, 2016) Nish, Ian and Yoichi Kibata, series eds, The History of Anglo-Japanese Relations 1600– 2000, Macmillan/Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2000–2002. v.1: The political-diplomatic dimension, 1600–1930, 2000 v.2: The political-diplomatic dimension, 1931–2000, 2000 v.3: The military dimension, 2003 v.4: Economic and business relations, 2002 v.4: Social and cultural aspects, 2002 …… The case presented by the Imperial Government to the Tribunal of Arbitration constituted under the protocol concluded at Tokyo August 28th 1902, between Japan and German, France and Great Britain, [publisher unclear], Tokyo, 1905? …… Official report of the Japan-British Exhibition, 1910, at the Great White City, Shepherds Bush, London, Unwin Brothers, London, 1911. Adam, Evelyn. Behind the screen, an Englishwoman’s impressions, Putnam, New York, 1910. _____Behind the shoji, Methuen, London, 1910. 791

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Adams, Arthur. Travels of a naturalist in Japan and Manchuria, Hurst and Blackett, London, 1870. Adams, William. Memorials of the empire of Japan, in the 16th and 17th centuries, edited by Thomas Rundall. Hakluyt Society, London, 1850. _____The log-book of William Adams, 1614–1619, Japan Society, London, 1915. _____The original letters of the English pilot, William Adams, written from Japan between A.D. 1611 and 1617: reprinted from the papers of the Hakluyt Society, Japan Gazette Office, Yokohama, 1896. Adlard, John. A biography of Arthur Diósy, founder of the Japan Society: home to Japan, Edwin Mellen Press, New York, 1990. Alcock, Sir Rutherford. The capital of the tycoon: a narrative of a three years’ residence in Japan, Longmans, Green & Co, London, 1863. Aldrich, Richard J. Intelligence and the war against Japan, Britain, America and the politics of secret service, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. Allen, George C. Appointment in Japan: memories of sixty years, Athlone Press, London, 1983. Allen, Louis. Burma, the longest war, 1941–45, J.M. Dent, London, 1984. _____War, Conflict and Security in Japan and Asia Pacific, 1922–1991. The Writings of Louis Allen, ed. Ian Nish, Global Oriental, 2011 Alt, Elizabeth. ‘Some memories’, unpublished manuscript (held by Lord Montgomery of Alamein) Arnold, Sir Edwin. Japonica, James R. Osgood, McIlvaine, & Co, London, 1891. _____Seas and lands, Longmans, Green and Co, London, 1891. Aston, William G. Nihongi: chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697, Kegan Paul, London, 1896. Atcherley, Harold. Prisoner of Japan: a personal war diary, 1941–1945. Memoirs, Cirencester, 2012. Awdrey, Frances. Daylight for Japan: the story of mission work in the land of the rising sun, Bemrose, London, 1904. Ayrton, M. Chaplin. Child-life in Japan and Japanese child-stories, Griffith, Farran, Okeden and Welsh, London, 1879. Bacon, Alice Mabel. In the land of the gods, Houghton and Mifflin, Boston, 1905. _____Japanese girls and women, Houghton and Mifflin, Boston, 1891. _____A Japanese interior, Houghton and Mifflin, Boston, 1893. Baelz, Erwin O.E. von. Awakening Japan: the diary of a German doctor, Viking Press, New York, 1932. Barr, Pat. A curious life for a lady: the story of Isabella Bird, a remarkable Victorian traveller, Macmillan, London, 1970. _____The coming of the barbarians: the opening of Japan to the West, Macmillan, London, 1967 _____The Deer Cry Pavilion: a story of westerners in Japan, 1868–1905, Macmillan, London, 1968. Bate, J. William Adams, the pilot-major of Gillingham, the first Englishman who discovered Japan, Mackays Ltd, Gillingham, 1934. Bates, Peter. Japan and the British Commonwealth Occupation Force, 1946–52, Brassey’s, London, 1993. Batchelor, Very Revd Dr John. The Ainu of Japan: the religion, superstitions and general history of the hairy aborigines of Japan, Religious Tract Society, London, 1892. _____Ainu life and lore: echoes of a departing race, Kyobunkan, Tokyo, 1900.

792

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS IN ENGLISH

_____ ‘Steps by the way’, [unpublished memoir in manuscript]. Bax, Captain B. W. The eastern seas: being a narrative of the voyage of HMS ‘Dwarf’ in China, Japan and Formosa, John Murray, London, 1875. Beasley, William G. Great Britain and the opening of Japan, 1834–1858, Luzac, London, 1951. _____Historians of China and Japan, Oxford University Press, London, 1961. _____Japan and the West in the mid nineteenth century: nationalism and the origins of the modern state. Oxford University Press, London, 1969. _____Japan encounters the barbarian: Japanese travellers in America and Europe, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1995. Bell, Major William M. Other countries, in 2 volumes, Chapman & Hall, London, 1872. Benfey, Christopher E.G. The great wave: gilded age misfits, Japanese eccentrics and the opening of old Japan, Random House, New York, 2003. Bennett, Ella M. An English girl in Japan, Hay, London, 1904. Bennett, Terry. Photography in Japan, 1853–1912, Tuttle, New York, 2006. Berkeley, Hastings, ed. Japanese letters: Eastern impressions of Western men and manners, as contained in the correspondence of Tokiwara and Yashiri, John Murray, London, 1891. Best, Antony. British intelligence and the Japanese challenge in Asia, 1914–1941,PalgraveMacmillan, Basingstoke, 2002. _____The international history of East Asia, 1900–1968: trade, ideology and the quest for order, Routledge, London, 2010. _____Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbor: avoiding war in East Asia, Routledge, London, 1995. Bickersteth, Mary J. Japan as we saw it, Sampson Low, Marston & Co, London, 1893. Bickersteth, Samuel. Life and letters of Edward Bickersteth, Bishop of South Tokyo, Sampson Low, Marston & Co, London, 1899. Bigelow, Poultney. Japan and her colonies: being extracts from a diary made whilst visiting Formosa, Manchuria, Shantung, Korea, and Saghalin [sic] in the year 1921, E. Arnold & Co, London, 1923. Binyon, Laurence. Painting in the Far East, E. Arnold & Co, London, 1908. Bird, Isabella (Isabella Bird Bishop). Unbeaten tracks in Japan, John Murray, London, 1880. Black, J.R. Young Japan: Yokohama and Yedo, 1858–79, in 2 volumes, Kelly and Walsh, Yokohama : Trubner, London, 1881. Blakeney, William. On the coasts of Cathay and Cipango forty years ago: a record of surveying service in the China, Yellow and Japan Seas, and on the seaboard of Korea and Manchuria, Elliot Stock, London, 1902. Blaker, Richard. The needle-watcher: the Will Adams story, British samurai, Tuttle, Rutland, Vt, 1973. Blakiston, Thomas Wright. Japan in Yezo: a series of papers descriptive of journeys undertaken in the island of Yezo, at intervals between 1862–1882, Japan Gazette, Yokohama, 1883. Blyth, Reginald H. Japanese humour, Japan Travel Bureau, Tokyo, 1957. _____Japanese life and character in senryu, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1960. _____ed. Senryu: Japanese satirical verses, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1949. _____Zen in English literature and oriental classics, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1942.

793

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Bodley, R.V.C. The Japanese omelette: a British writer’s impressions on the Japanese Empire, Hokuseido Press, 1933. Bond, Catherine. Goldfields and chrysanthemums: notes of travel in Australia and Japan, Simpkin, Marshall & Co, London, 1898. Borlase, William C. Niphon [sic] and its antiquities: an essay on the ethnology, mythology and religions of the Japanese, W. Brendon & Son, Plymouth, 1876. Bowes, James L. Japanese enamels, with illustrations from examples in the Bowes collection, Marple, London, 1884. _____Japanese marks and seals, Henry Sotheran, London, 1882. _____Japanese pottery, with notes describing the thoughts and subjects employed in its decoration, and illustrations from examples in the Bowes collection, E. Howell, Liverpool, 1890. Bownas, Geoffrey. Japanese journeys and reflections, Japan Library, Folkestone, 2005. Boucher, Air Vice-Marshal Sir Cecil. Spitfires in Japan, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2005. Bowers, John Z. Western medical pioneers in feudal Japan, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1970. _____When the twain meet: the rise of Western medicine in Japan, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1980. Boxer, Charles. The Christian century in Japan, 1549–1650, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1951. _____A Portuguese Embassy to Japan (1644–1647), Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner, London, 1928. Boyd, Julia. Hannah Riddell, an Englishwoman in Japan, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1966. Brassey, Lady Anna. A voyage in the Sunbeam, our home on the ocean for eleven months, Longmans, Green & Co, London, 1878. Bridge, Cyprian Arthur George, Sir. Some recollections, John Murray, London, 1918. Brinkley, Frank. Japan: described and illustrated by the Japanese: written by eminent Japanese authorities and scholars, in 10 volumes, J.B. Millet, Boston, 1897–1898. _____Japan: its history, arts and literature, in 8 volumes, Jack, Edinburgh, 1903–1904. Britten, Dorothy. Prince and Princess Chichibu, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2009. Brook, Timothy and Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi. Opium regimes: China, Britain and Japan, 1839–1952, University of California Press, Berkeley, Ca, 2000. Brunton, Richard Henry. Building Japan, 1868–1876, Japan Library, Folkestone, 1991. Buckley, V.C. With a passport and two eyes, Hutchinson, London, 1932. Bullock, Cecil. Etajima: the Dartmouth of Japan, Sampson Low, Marston, London, 1942. Burke-Gaffney, Brian. Nagasaki, the British experience, 1854–1945, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2009. Bush, Lewis W. and Kagami Yoshiyuki. Japanalia: reference book to things Japanese, J Gifford, London, 1938. _____Japanalia: a handy compendium to the old and the new Japan, Okuyama, Tokyo, 1956. Caiger, George. Japan: a pictorial interpretation, Asahi Shinbun, Tokyo, 1932. Campbell, J.F. My circular notes: extracts from journals, letters sent home, geological and other notes, written whilst travelling westwards round the world from 6 July 1874 to 6 July 1875, in 2 volumes, Macmillan, London, 1876.

794

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS IN ENGLISH

Chamberlain, Basil Hall. Things Japanese, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co, London, 1890. _____and William B Mason. Murray’s handbook for travelers in Japan, John Murray, 1891. Chang, Richard, T. The justice of the Western consular courts in nineteenth-century Japan, Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn., 1984. Chaplin, C. S. (Charlie). My autobiography, The Bodley Head, London, 1964. Chaplin, Charles, Jr. My father, Charlie Chaplin, Random House, New York, 1960. Checkland, Olive. Britain’s encounter with Meiji Japan, 1868–1912, Macmillan, London, 1989. _____Japan and Britain after 1859: creating cultural bridges, RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2003. _____Japanese whisky, Scotch blend: the story of Masataka Taketsuru, his Scottish wife, and the Japanese whisky industry, Scottish Cultural Press, Edinburgh, 1998. Chirol, Valentine. The Far Eastern question, Macmillan, London, 1896. Clark, John. Japanese exchanges in art 1850s-1930s, with Britain, continental Europe, and the USA, Power Publications, Sydney, 2001. Clarke, Edward B. Stray leaves: essays and sketches, Kenkyusha, Tokyo, 1936. Cobbing, Andrew. The Japanese discovery of Victorian Britain: early travel encounters in the Far West, Japan Library, Folkestone, 1998. _____The Satsuma students in Britain: Japan’s early search for the ‘essence of the West’, Japan Library, Folkestone, 2000. Cocks, Richard. Diary of Richard Cocks, cape-merchant in the English factory in Japan, 1615–1622, edited by Edward M. Thompson, Hakluyt Society, London, 1850. Collins, Gilbert. Far Eastern jaunts, Methuen, London, 1924. Collis, Maurice. The grand peregrination, Faber & Faber, London, 1949. Conder, Josiah. Landscape gardening in Japan (plus supplement), Kelly and Walsh, Yokohama, 1893. _____The flowers of Japan and the art of floral arrangement, Kelly and Walsh, Yokohama, 1891. Conte-Helm, Marie. Japan and the North East of England: from 1862 to the present day, Athlone Press, London, 1989. _____The Japanese and Europe: economic and cultural encounters, Athlone, London, 1996. Cook, Thomas. Letters from the sea and from foreign lands: descriptive of a tour round the world, Thomas Cook & Son, 1873. Cooper, Emmanuel. Bernard Leach: life and works, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn, 2003. Cooper, Michael. They came to Japan: am anthology of European reports in Japan, 1543– 1640, Thames & Hudson, London, 1965. _____The southern barbarians: the first Europeans in Japan, Kodansha, Tokyo, 1971. Cornwall, Peter G. The Meiji navy: training in an age of change, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1970. Cornwallis, Kinahan. Two journeys to Japan, 1856–1857, T.C. Newby, London, 1859. Corr, William. Adams the pilot: the life and times of Captain William Adams, 1564– 1620, Japan Library, Folkestone, 1995. …….. Correspondence respecting affairs in Japan: presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. London, various 1861–1870.

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Cortazzi, Sir Hugh, ed. A British artist in Meiji Japan: Sir Alfred East, In Print, Brighton, 1991. _____and Gordon Daniels, ed. Britain and Japan, 1859–1991: themes and personalities, Routledge, London, 1990. _____Britain and the ‘re-opening of Japan`: the Treaty of Yedo of 1858 and the Elgin Mission, Japan Society, London, 2008. _____British envoys in Japan, 1859–1972, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2004. _____Dr Willis in Japan, 1862–1877: British medical pioneer, Athlone Press, London, 1985. _____Images of Japan 1885–1912: scenes, tales and flowers, Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC), Norwich, 2011. _____Japan and back and places elsewhere: a memoir, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 1998. _____Japan experiences: fifty years, one hundred views: post-war Japan through British eyes, 1945–2000, Japan Library, Richmond, Surrey, 2001. _____Japan in late Victorian London: the Japanese village in Knightsbridge and the Mikado, 1885, Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC), Norwich, 2009. _____and Anne Kaneko. The Japan Society: a history, 1891–2000, Japan Society Pub., London, 2001. _____with George Webb, ed, Kipling’s Japan, Athlone Press, London, 1988. ed, Mitford`s Japan: the memoirs and recollections, 1866–1906, of Algernon Bertram Mitford, the first Lord Redesdale, Athlone Press, London, 1985. _____Victorians in Japan: in and around the treaty ports, Athlone Press, London, 1987. Cott, Jonathan. Wandering ghost: the odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn, Knopf, New York, 1991. Cradock, Sir Christopher. Sporting notes in the Far East, Griffiths, Farran, Okeden and Welsh, London, 1889. Craigie, Sir Robert. Behind the Japanese mask, Hutchinson, London, 1945. Crow, Arthur. H. Highways and byeways [sic] in Japan: the experiences of two pedestrian tourists, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London, 1883. Curzon, George N. Problems of the Far East: Japan, Korea, China, Longmans, Green & Co, London, 1894. Dalton, John Neale, compiler. The cruise of HMS ‘Bacchante’ 1879–1882, compiled from the private journals, letters and note books of Prince Albert Victor and Prince George of Wales, in 2 volumes. Macmillan, London, 1886. Daniels, Gordon. Europe interprets Japan, Paul Norbury, Tenterden, Kent, 1984. _____ and Reinhart Drifte. Europe and Japan: changing relationships since 1945, Paul Norbury, Ashford, Kent, 1986. _____Sir Harry Parkes, British representative in Japan, 1865–83, Japan Library, Folkestone, 1996. Davidson, Augusta M. Campbell. Present-day Japan, Fisher Unwin, London, 1904. Day, David. The great betrayal: Britain, Australia and the onset of the Pacific War, 1939– 42, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1988. d’Almeida, Anna. A lady’s visit to Manila and Japan, Hurst & Blackett, London, 1863. d’Anethan, Eleanora. Fourteen years of diplomatic life in Japan: leaves from the diary of Baroness Albert d’Anethan, S. Paul & Co, London, 1912. de Becker, J.E. The nightless city, Maruya, Yokohama, 1899. _____The principles and practice of the Civil Code of Japan, Kelly and Walsh, Yokohama, 1921.

796

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS IN ENGLISH

de Fonblanque, Edward B. Niphon[sic] and Pe-che-li, or, Two years in Japan and Northern China, Saunders, Otley and Co, London, 1862. de la Mare, Arthur. Perverse and foolish: a Jersey farmer’s son in the British Diplomatic Service, La Haule Books, Jersey, 1994. de Waal, Edmund. Bernard Leach, Tate Gallery, London, 1990. _____The hare with amber eyes: a hidden inheritance, Chatto & Windus, London, 2010. Del Mar, Walter. Around the world through Japan, Macmillan, London, 1902. Dening, Walter. Japan in days of yore, Hakubunsha, Tokyo, 1887. Dennys, N.B. The treaty ports of China and Japan: a complete guide to the open parts of those countries, together with Peking, Yedo, Hong Kong and Macao, Trubner, London, 1867. Dewar, J. Cumming. The voyage of the Nyanza, RNYC, Blackwood, Edinburgh and London, 1890. Dickens, F.V. & Stanley Lane-Poole. The life of Harry Parkes, sometime Her Majesty`s minister to China and Japan, Macmillan, London, 1894. Dickson, Walter G. Gleanings from Japan, Blackwood, Edinburgh and London, 1889. _____Japan, being a sketch of the history, govt and officers of the empire, Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1869. Dixon, William G. The land of the morning: an account of Japan and its people, James Gemmell, Edinburgh, 1882. Doeff, Hendrik. Recollections of Japan, translated from the Dutch original of 1833 by Annick. M. Doeff, Trafford, Victoria, B.C., 2003. Dore, Ronald. Shinohata: a portrait of a Japanese village, Allen Lane, London, 1978. Dresser, Christopher. Japan: its architecture, art, and art manufactures, Longmans, Green and Co, London, 1882. du Cane, Ella and Florence du Cane. The flowers and gardens of Japan, A & C Black, London, 1908. Duncan, Sara J. A social departure: how Orthodocia and I went round the world by ourselves, Chatto and Windus, London, 1890. Dundas, Admiral Sir Charles. An admiral’s yarns: stray memories of 50 years, H Jenkins, London, 1922. Dyer, Henry. Dai Nippon, the Britain of the East: a study in national evolution, Blackie and Son, London, 1904. Edwards, A. Herbage. Kakemono: Japanese sketches, Heinemann, London, 1906. Edwards, Osman. Japanese plays and playfellows, Heinemann, London, 1901. _____Residential rhymes: sympathetically dedicated to foreigners in Japan, Hasegawa, Tokyo, 1900. Eliot, Sir Charles. Letters from the Far East, E Arnold, London, 1907. Elphick, Peter. The intelligence war in the Far East, 1930–1945, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1997. Erickson, Lois Johnson. Highways and byways in Japan: incidents of daily life in a city on the Inland Sea, F H Revell, New York, 1929. Ewing, A. W. The man of room 40: the life of Alfred Ewing, Hutchinson, London, 1939. Farrington, Anthony, ed. The English factory in Japan 1613–1623, British Library, London, 1991. Faulds, Henry. Nine years in Nipon [sic]: sketches of Japanese life and manners, Alexander Gardner, London, 1885. Feaver, G.F. The Webbs in Asia: the 1911–1912 diary, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1992.

797

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Finn, Dallas. Meiji revisited: the sites of Victorian Japan, Weatherill, New York, 1995. Flat, Olavi K. The clash of interests: the transformation of Japan in 1861–1881 in the eyes of the local Anglo-Saxon press, Northern Finland Historical Society, Rovaniemei, 1990. Foght, H.W. & Alice Foght. Unfathomed Japan: a travel tale in the highways and byways of Japan and Formosa, MacMillan, New York, 1928. Fortune, Robert. Yedo and Peking: a narrative of a journey to the capitals of Japan and China: with notices of the natural productions, agriculture and trade of those countries…, John Murray, London, 1863. Fox, Grace. Britain and Japan, 1858–1885, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1969. Fraser, Mary Crawford. The customs of the country: tales of new Japan, Macmillan, New York, 1899. _____A diplomatist’s wife in Japan: letters from home to home, 2 volumes, Hutchinson & Co, London, 1899. _____Letters from Japan: a record of modern life in the island empire, Macmillan, New York, 1904. Fraser, Andrew, R.H.P. Mason & P. Mitchell. Japan`s early parliaments, 1890–1905: structure, issues, trends, Routledge, London, 1995. Frattolillo, Olivero and Antony Best, Japan and the Great War, PalgraveMacmillan, Basingstoke, 2015. Fritzinger, Linda B. Diplomat without portfolio: Valentine Chirol, his life and the Times, I B Tauris, London, 2006. Funch, Colin. Linguists in uniform: the Japanese experience, Japanese Studies Centre, Monash University, Clayton, Vic., 2003. Futamatsu, Yoshihiko. Across the Three Pagodas Pass: the story of the Thai-Burma railway, Renaissance Books, Folkestone, 2013. Futara, Yoshinori and Sawada Setsuzo. The Crown Prince’s European tour, Osaka Mainichi Publishing Co., Osaka, 1926. Goffey, Thomas. Round the world in 1894–5, privately printed, Liverpool, 1910. Gordon, Elizabeth Anna. “Clear round!”, or, Seeds of story [sic] from other countries, Sampson Low, Martin, London, 1893. Gore Booth, Paul. With great truth and respect: the memoirs of Paul Gore Booth, Constable, London, 1974. Goto-Shibata, Harumi. Japan and Britain in Shanghai: 1925–31, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1995. ‘Grenon’ [pseudonym). Verdant Simple’s view of Japan, or, The contents of his note-book, Kelly and Walsh, Yokohama, 1890. Gubbins, Sir John H. The making of modern Japan, Seeley, Service & Co., London, 1922. _____The progress of Japan, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1911. Guest, Harry. Traveller’s literary companion to Japan, In Print, Brighton, 1994. Halen, Widar. Christopher Dresser: a pioneer of modern design, Phaidon Press, Oxford, 1990. Hamilton, Sir Ian. A staff officer`s scrap book during the Russo-Japanese war, in two volumes, Edward Arnold, London 1905. Hanahiro, Roy S. Thomas William Kinder and the Japanese Imperial Mint, 1868–1875, Brill, Leiden, 1991. Hatcher, John. Lawrence Binyon: poet, scholar of East and West, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995.

798

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS IN ENGLISH

Haveley, Cicely Palser. This grand beyond: the travels of Isabella Bird Bishop, Century, London, 1984. Hawley, Frank T. An English surgeon in Japan: extracts from the private journal of John T Comerford, the author, Kyoto, 1954. Hearn, Lafcadio. Japan: an attempt at interpretation, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1900. Henriques, Robert. Bearsted: a biography of Marcus Samuel, first Viscount Bearsted, and founder of Shell Transport and Trading Company, Viking Press, New York, 1960. Herbert-Gustar, L.K. and O.A. Nott. John Milne, father of modern seismology, Paul Norbury, Tenterden, 1986. Hildreth, Richard. Japan as it was and is, Phillips, Sampson & Co, New York, 1855. Hoare, J.E. Japan’s treaty ports and foreign settlements: the uninvited guests, 1858–1899, Japan Library, Folkestone, 1994. _____Embassies in the East: the story of the British and their embassies in China, Japan and Korea from 1859 to the present, Curzon, Richmond, Surrey, 1999. Hodgson, C. Pemberton. A residence at Nagasaki and Hakodate in 1859–1860, with an account of Japan generally, R Bentley, London, 1861. Hogben, Carol. The art of Bernard Leach, Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1978. Hohler, Thomas B. Diplomatic petrel, John Murray, London, 1942. Holmes, Captain Henry. My adventures in Japan before the treaty came into force, February 1859: a personal narrative, R E King, London, 1904. Holtham, E.G. Eight years in Japan, 1873–1881: work, travel and recreation, Kegan Paul, London, 1861. Horner, Francis J. A case history of Japan, Sheed and Ward, London, 1948. Hosoya, Chihiro, series editor. The history of Anglo-Japanese relations, 1600–2000 in 5 volumes, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2000–2003. Hotta-Lister, Ayako. The Japan-British Exhibition of 1910: gateway to the island empire of the east, Japan Library, Richmond, 1999. _____and Ian Nish. Commerce and culture at the 1910 Japan-British Exhibition: centenary perspectives, Brill, Leiden, 2012. Howard, Ethel. Japanese memories, Hutchinson & Co, London, 1918. Howarth, Stephen. Morning glory: a history of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1983. Huberman, Toni, et al, ed. The diary of Charles Holme’s 1889 visit to Japan and North America, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2008. Hughes, Richard. Foreign devil: thirty years of reporting from the Far East, Deutsch, London, 1972. Huxley, Aldous. Jesting Pilate: the diary of a journey, Chatto and Windus, London, 1926. Iokibe, Makoto, Caroline Rose, Junko Tomaru and John Weste, eds. Japanese diplomacy in the 1950s: from isolation to integration, Routledge, London, 2008. Ion, Hamish. The cross and the rising sun, in 2 volumes, Laurier University Press, Waterloo, Ontario, 1993. Iriye, Akira. Japan and the wider world: from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, Longman, London, 1997. Irvine, Greg. A guide to Japanese art collections in the UK, Hotei, Amsterdam, 2004. Itoh, Keiko. The Japanese community in pre-war Britain: from integration to disintegration, Curzon Press, Richmond, 2001.

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Jackson, Captain S.C.F. A jaunt in Japan, or, Ninety days’ leave in the Far East, London, 1899. James, Grace. Japan: recollections and impressions, Allen & Unwin, London, 1936. Japan Times, ed. A short history of the Japan Times, Japan Times, Tokyo, 1941. Jeffries, W. Carey. Two undergraduates in the East, Sports & Sportsmen, London, 1914. Jennes, J. A history of the Catholic Church in Japan, from its beginnings to the early Meiji period, 1549–1873, Committee of the Apostolate, Tokyo, 1959. Jephson, R. Mounteney and Edward P. Elmhirst. Our life in Japan, Chapman & Hall, London, 1869. Johnson, Hiroko. Western influences on Japanese art, Hotei, Amsterdam, 2005. Johnson, Paul and Kenneth McConkey, Alfred East, lyrical landscape painter, Sansom and Co, Bristol, 2009. Jones, F C. Japan, Arrowsmith, Bristol, 1933. Jones, H.J. Live machines: hired foreigners and Meiji Japan, University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 1979. Kawakami, Kiyoshi. Japan and the Japanese, as seen by foreigners prior to the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, Keiseisha, Tokyo, 1904. Kennedy, Malcolm. The estrangement of Great Britain and Japan, 1917–1935, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1969. _____The military side of Japanese life, Constable, London, 1924. _____The problem of Japan, Nisbet & Co, London, 1935. Ketchell, Robert et al. Visions of paradise: the Japanese garden in the UK, Japanese Garden Society, Haslemere, 2011. King, Francis. Yesterday came suddenly: an autobiography, Constable, London, 1993. Kipling, Rudyard. Kipling’s Japan: collected writings, edited by Hugh Cortazzi and George Webb, Athlone Press, London, 1988. Kirkup, James. These horned islands, Collins, London, 1962. Knollys, Sir Henry. Sketches of life in Japan, Chapman & Hall, London, 1887. Koda, Shigetomo. A short list of books and pamphlets relating to the European intercourse with Japan, privately published, Tokyo, 1930. Kotani, Ken. Japanese intelligence in World War II, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2009. Kunitake, Kume. Japan Rising: the Iwakura embassy to the USA and Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009. Lambert, C and S. Lambert. The voyage of the “Wanderer”, Macmillan, London, 1883. Lambourne, Lionel. Japonisme: cultural crossings between Japan and the West, Phaidon, London, 2005. Landor, A.H. Savage. Alone with the hairy Ainu, or, 3,800 miles on a pack saddle in Yezo and a cruise to the Kurile Islands, Murray, London, 1893. _____Everywhere: the memoirs of an explorer, T Fisher Unwin, London, 1924. Lane-Poole, Stanley and F.V. Dickins, eds. The life of Sir Harry Parkes: sometime Her Majesty`s minister to China and Japan, in 2 volumes, Macmillan, London, 1894. Lawton, Lancelot. Empires of the Far East: a study of Japan and her colonial possessions, of China and Manchuria, and of the political question of Eastern Asia and the Pacific, in 2 volumes, Grant Richards, London, 1912. Leach, Bernard. A potter in Japan, 1952–1954, Faber & Faber, London, 1960. _____A potter’s book, Faber and Faber, 1940. Lee, Frank Herbert. Days and years in Japan, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1935. _____A Tokyo calendar: with impressions of an impressionable, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1934.

800

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS IN ENGLISH

Leyland, R.W. Round the world in 124 days, Gilbert G. Walmsley, Liverpool, 1880. Lloyd, Arthur. Everyday Japan, written after twenty-five years’ residence and work in the country, Cassell, London, 1909. _____Pictures of life in Japan, Gowan and Gray, London, 1910. Lomax, Eric. The railway man, Vintage, London, 1995. Lönholm, Ludwig H. The conditions of foreigners under the new treaties: a digest written for the International Committee of Yokohama, Kokubunsha, Tokyo, 1898. _____Supplement to The conditions of foreigners under the new treaties written for the International Committee of Yokohama, Nagashima Washitaro, Tokyo, 1899. Lowe, Peter. Great Britain and Japan, 1911–1915: a study of British Far Eastern policy, Macmillan, London, 1969. _____Great Britain and the origins of the Pacific War: a study of British policy in East Asia, 1937–1941, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1977. _____Containing the Cold War in East Asia: British policies towards Japan, China and Korea, 1948–53, Manchester University Press, 1997. McKay, Alexander. Scottish samurai: Thomas Blake Glover, 1833–1901, Canongate Press, Edinburgh, 1993. McLeod, Nicholas. Japan and the lost tribes of Israel: epitome of the ancient history of Japan, Rising Sun Office, Nagasaki, 1875. _____Illustrations to The epitome of the ancient history of Japan, Rising Sun Office, Nagasaki, 1878. Makino, Tadashi. The blue-eyed samurai, William Adams, Ito Tourist Association, Shizuoka, 1983. Ma[r]kino, Yoshio. A Japanese artist in London, Chatto and Windus, London, 1919. _____My recollections and reflections, Chatto and Windus, London, 1913. Manthorpe, Victoria ed. Travels in the land of the gods, 1895–1906: the Japan diaries of Richard Gordon Smith, Viking/Rainbird, London, 1986. Massarella, Derek. A world elsewhere: Europe’s encounter with Japan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1990. Meik, Charles S. Reports on the Hokkaido harbours, [publisher unclear], Sapporo, 1887. Menpes, Mortimer. Japan: a record in colour, transcribed by Dorothy Menpes, A. & C. Black, London, 1901. Miln, Louise Jordan. When we were strolling players in the East, Osgood, Mulvaine, London, 1894. Milne, John and William K. Burton. The great earthquake in Japan, 1891, Lane, Crawford, Yokohama, 1892 [?] _____The volcanoes of Japan, Lane, Crawford, Yokohama, 1893 [?] Milton, Giles. Samurai William: the adventurer who unlocked Japan, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2002. Mitford, Algernon Bertram (Lord Redesdale). The Garter Mission to Japan, Macmillan, London, 1906. Mitford, Major General R.C. W. Orient and occident: a journey east from Lahore to Liverpool, W H Allen, London, 1888. Miyoshi, Nobuhiro. Henry Dyer, pioneer of engineering education in Japan, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2004. Mollison, J.P. ‘Reminiscences of Yokohama, Japan Gazette, Yokohama, 11 January, 1909. Morris, J. Makers of Japan, Methuen, London, 1906. Moss, Michael. Seizure by the Japanese of Mr Moss, and his treatment by the ConsulGeneral (Sir R. Alcock), William Ridgway and A.H. Baily, London, 1863.

801

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Mossman, Samuel. New Japan, the land of the rising sun: its annals during the past twenty years, John Murray, London, 1873. Mounsey, Augustus Henry. The Satsuma rebellion: an episode of modern Japanese history, John Murray, London, 1879. Munro, Neil Gordon. Ainu creed and cult, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1962. Murakami, Naojiro and Kengo Murakawa. Letters written by the English residents in Japan 1611–1623: with other documents on the English trading settlement in Japan in the seventeenth century, Sankosha, Tokyo, 1900. Muramatsu, Teijiro. Westerners in the modernization of Japan, translated by Lynne Riggs and Manabu Takechi, Hitachi Ltd, Tokyo, 1995. Murdoch, James. The history of Japan, in 3 volumes [Vols 1 & 2 originally published in Japan for the Asiatic Society of Japan 1903–1910], Kegan Paul Trench Trubner, London, 1926. _____The Sakurajima eruption. January 1914: foreign resident’s narrative, Japan Chronicle, Kobe, 1914. Murray, Paul. A fantastic journey: the life and literature of Lafcadio Hearn, Japan Library, Folkestone, 1993. Muto, Chozo. A short history of Anglo-Japanese relations, Hokuseido, Tokyo, 1936. Mutsu, Hirokichi. The British press and the Japan-British Exhibition of 1910, Curzon Press, Richmond, Surrey, 2001. Mutsu, Munemitsu. Kenkenroku: a diplomatic record of the Sino-Japanese war, 1894–95, edited and translated by Gordon Mark Berger, University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo, 1982. Nagase, Takashi. Crosses and tigers: and, The Double-edged dagger, 2nd edition, edited by Gill Goddard. Paulownia Press, Sheffield, 2010. Nagayama, Tokihide, ed. An album of historical materials connected with foreign intercourse. Onishi Kumezo, Nagasaki, 1918. Naruhito, Crown Prince of Japan, The Thames and I: a memoir of two years at Oxford, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2006. Nish, Ian. The Anglo-Japanese alliance: the diplomacy of two island empires, Athlone Press, London, 1966. _____ The British Commonwealth and the Allied Occupation of Japan, 1945–1952, Global Oriental, Leiden, 2013. _____and Hosoya Chihiro, eds. The history of Anglo-Japanese relations, 1600–2000, in 5 volumes, Macmillan/Palgrave, 2000–2002. Nish, Ian. The Iwakura Mission in America & Europe: a new assessment, Japan Library, Richmond UK, 1998. ______Japan’s struggle with internationalism: Japan, China, and the League of Nations, 1931–1933, Kegan Paul, London, 1993. _____The Japanese in war and peace, 1942–48, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2011. Noguchi, Yone. The story of Yone Noguchi, Chatto and Windus, London, 1914. Norman, Henry. The real Japan: studies of contemporary manners, morals, administration and politics, T F Unwin, London, 1892. North, Marianne. Recollections of a happy life, in 2 volumes, Macmillan, London, 1892. Oba, Sadao. The ‘Japanese’ war, trans. Anne Kaneko, Japan Library, Folkestone, 1988. O’Brien, Phillips Payson, ed. The Anglo-Japanese alliance, 1902–1922, Routledge, London, 2004.

802

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS IN ENGLISH

O’Connor, Peter. The English-language press networks of East Asia, 1918–1945, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2010. Okada, Sumie. Edmund Blunden and Japan: the history of a relationship, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1988. _____Western writers in Japan, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1999. Oliphant, Laurence. Episodes in a life of adventure, Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1887. _____Narrative of the Earl of Elgin`s mission to Japan and China in the years 1857, 1858 and 1859, Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1859. Ono, Ayako. Japonisme in Britain: Whistler, Menpes, Henry, Hornel and nineteenth century Japan, RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2003. Osborn, Captain Sherard. A cruise in Japanese waters, Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1859. _____Japanese fragments, Bradbury & Evans, London, 1861. Ota, Yuzo. Portrait of a Japanologist, Japan Library, Richmond, 1998. Otsuki, Shuji (Nyoden). The infiltration of European civilization in Japan during the 18th century, trans. C.C. Krieger, Brill, Leiden, 1940. Palmer, Henry S. Letters from the land if the rising sun, Japan Mail, Yokohama, 1894. Parsons, Alfred. Notes in Japan, Osgood, McIlvaine, London, 1896. Patalano, Alessio (ed). Maritime strategy and national security in Japan and Britain: from the first alliance to post-9/11, Brill, Leiden, 2012. Paske-Smith, Montague. England and Japan: the first known account of Japan in English, extracted from the ‘History of Travayle’, 1577, J.L. Thompson and Co., Kobe, 1928. _____A glympse [sic] of the ‘English house’ and English life at Hirado, 1613–1623, J.L. Thompson and Co., Kobe, 1927. _____with Shuten Inouye. Japanese traditions of Christianity : being some old translations from the Japanese: with British consular reports of the persecutions of 1868–1872, J.L. Thompson and Co., Kobe, 1930. _____Western barbarians in Japan and Formosa in Tokugawa days, 1603–1868, J. L. Thompson and Co., Kobe, 1930. Pearse, Bowen. Companion to Japanese Britain and Ireland with additional writing by Christopher McCooey, In Print, Brighton, 1991. Pearson, George C. Flights inside and outside paradise, by a penitent peri, Putnams, New York, 1886. _____Shades of the past, or, Indiscreet tales of Japan, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1958. _____The Story of Holme Ringer & Co. Ltd in Western Japan, 1868–1968, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1968. The Story of Shioya, of the James Estate, of James Yama and of the Shioya Country Club, International Committee for the Kansai, Tokyo, 1984. _____Tales of the foreign settlements in Japan, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1958. _____Articles in Spotlight, magazine of the Kobe Club, 1981–84. Peattie, Mark. Sunburst: the rise of Japanese naval air power, 1909–1941, Chatham Publishing, London, 2002. Pedlar, Neil. The imported pioneers: Westerners who helped build Japan, Japan Library, Folkestone, 1990. Perez, Louis G. Japan comes of age: Mutsu Munemitsu and the revision of the unequal treaties, Associated University Presses, London, 1999. Peterson, Susan. Shoji Hamada: a potter’s way and work, A &C Black, London, 2004. Pfoundes, C. Fu-so mimi bukuro: a budget of Japanese notes, Japan Mail, Yokohama, 1875.

803

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Phillips, Sir Percival. The Prince of Wales’ eastern book: a pictorial record of the voyages of H.M.S. “Renown” 1921–1922. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1922. Pidgeon, Daniel. An engineer’s holiday, or, Notes of a round trip from longitude 0° to 0°, in 2 volumes, Kegan Paul & Co., London, 1882. Piggott, Maj.Gen, F.S.G. Broken thread, Gale & Polden, Aldershot, 1950. Poole, Otis Manchester. The death of Old Yokohama in the great earthquake of 1923, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1968. Powles, Cyril H. Victorian missionaries in Meiji Japan: the Shiba sect, 1873–1900, University of Toronto-York University Joint Centre on Modern East Asia, Toronto, 1987. Poyntz, Major W. H. ‘Per mare, per terram’: reminiscences of thirty-two years’ military, naval and constabulary service, Economic Printing and Publishing Co., London, 1892. Pratt, Peter and Montague Paske Smith. History of Japan : compiled from the records of the English East India Company at the instance of the Court of Directors, J.L. Thomson and Co., Kobe, 1931. Purcell, Theobald A. A suburb of Yedo, Chapman & Hall, London, 1889. Quennell, Peter. A superficial journey through Tokyo and Peking, Faber and Faber, London, 1932. Raffles, Sir Stamford. Report on Japan to the secret committee of the English East India Company, J. L .Thompson and Co., Kobe, 1929. Ransome, J. Stafford, Japan in transition: a comparative study of the progress, policy and methods of the Japanese since the war with China, Harper & Bros, London 1899. Reed, Edward J. Japan, its history, traditions and religions, with the narrative of a visit in 1879, 2 volumes, John Murray, London, 1889. Rees, Laurence. Horror in the East: Japan and the atrocities of World War II , da Capo Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001. Rennie, David Field. The British arms in North China and Japan: Peking 1860, Kagosima [sic] 1862, John Murray, London, 1864. Repington, C. à Court. The war in the Far East, 1904–1905, by the military correspondent of the Times, John Murray, London, 1903. Richard, Henry. The destruction of Kagosima [sic]: our intercourse with Japan, Jackson, Walford and Hodder, London, 1863. Richie, Donald. The honorable visitors: the plot to assassinate Charlie Chaplin and other great Tokyo welcomes, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1994. _____Lafcadio Hearn`s Japan: an anthology of his writings on the country and its people, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1997. _____This scorching earth: a novel of the Occupation of Japan, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1956. Roberts, Christopher. The British courts and extra-territoriality in Japan, 1859–1899, Global Oriental, Leiden, 2014. Roberts, Philip G. The first Englishman in Japan, Harvill Press, London, 1956. Robertson-Scott, J.W. Japan, Great Britain and the world: a letter to my Japanese friends, Japan Advertiser, Tokyo, 1912[?] _____The foundations of Japan: notes made during journeys of 6000 miles in the rural districts as a basis for a sounder knowledge of the Japanese people, John Murray, London, 1922. Rodner, William S. Edwardian London through Japanese eyes: the art and writings of Yoshio Markino, 1897–1915, Brill, Leiden, 2012. Rogala, Jozef. Life in Yokohama’s foreign settlement: Charles Wirgman and the Japan Punch, 1862–1887, Yurindo, Yokohama, 2004.

804

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS IN ENGLISH

Roggendorf, Joseph. Between different cultures: a memoir, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2004. Rouse, W.H.D. ed. Early voyages to Japan: John Saris and William Adams, Blackie, London, 1905. Rundall, Thomas, ed. Memorials of the Empire of Japon [sic] in the XVI and XVII centuries, Hakluyt Society, London, 1850. Russell, Sir Herbert. With the Prince in the East: a record of the royal visit to India and Japan, Methuen, London, 1922. Ruxton, Ian C ed. Sir Ernest Satow’s private letters to W.G. Aston and F.V. Dickins: the correspondence of a pioneer japanologist from 1870 to 1918, Edwin Mellen Press, New York, 1998. _____The diaries and letters of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1843–1929, a scholar diplomat in East Asia, Edwin Mellen Press, New York, 1998. Sabin, Burritt. A historical guide to Yokohama: sketches of the twice-risen phoenix, Yurindo, Yokohama, 2002. Sagara, Tasuku. Press cuttings: a study of leading articles taken from newspapers of America, Britain, China and Japan, Kaibunsha, Tokyo, 1926. St John, Captain Henry Craven, R.N. Notes and sketches from the wild coast of Nipon [sic], D. Douglas, Edinburgh, 1880. Sanders, T. H. My Japanese year, Mills and Boon, London, 1915. Sansom, George B. The western world and Japan: a study in the interaction of European and Asiatic cultures, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1987. Saris, John. The first voiage [sic] of the English to the islands of Iapan [sic], Toyo Bunko, Tokyo, 1940. _____The voyage of Captain John Saris to Japan, 1613, edited from contemporary sources by Sir Ernest M. Satow, Hakluyt Society, London, 1900. Satow, Sir Ernest Mason. A diplomat in Japan: the inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, Seeley, Service, London, 1921. Scott, J.H. A short account of the firm of John Swire & Sons, Arden Press, Letchworth, 1914. Screech, Timon. The western scientific gaze and popular imagery in later Edo Japan, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996. Seki, Eiji. Mrs Ferguson’s tea-set, Japan and the Second World War: the global consequences following Germany’s sinking of the SS Automedon in 1940, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2007. Shinmura, Izuru. Western influences on Japanese history and culture in earlier periods (1540–1860), Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, Tokyo, 1936. Singleton, Esther. Japan, as seen and described by famous writers, Dodd, Mead and Co., New York, 1904. Sissons, D.C.S. ‘James Murdoch (1856–1921), historian, teacher and much else besides’, Transactions of the Asiatic Society, fourth series, volume 2, Tokyo, 1987. Sladen, Douglas B.W. The Japs at home, Hutchinson, London, 1892. _____Queer things about Japan, Anthony Treherne & Co., London, 1903. _____and Norma Lorrimer. More queer things about Japan, Treherne & Co., London 1905. _____Twenty years of my life, Dutton, New York, 1913. Smith, Bernard T. Memoires of Japan, 1946: A People Bowed But Not Broken, Trafford On Demand, 2012. Smith, George. Ten weeks in Japan, Longmans, Green & Co, London, 1861.

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BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

Staunton, George Thomas. Memoirs of the chief incidents of the public life of George Henry Staunton, Bart., L Booth, London, 1856. Steeds, David and Ian Nish. China, Japan and 19th century Britain, Irish University Press, Dublin, 1977. Steel, James King. Wandering feet: along well-known highways and unfrequented byways of China and Japan: a collection of travel sketches, Carlisle and Co., San Francisco, 1923. Sterry, Lorraine, Victorian women travellers in Meiji Japan: discovering a ‘new’ land, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2009. Stewart, David B. The making of a modern Japanese architecture, 1868 to the present, Kodansha International, Tokyo and New York, 1987. Stoddart, Anna M. The life of Isabella Bird, Mrs. Bishop, John Murray, London, 1906. Stopes, Marie. A journal from Japan: a daily record of life as seen by a scientist, Blackie and Sons, London, 1910. Storry, Dorothie. Second country: the story of Richard Storry and Japan, Paul Norbury, Ashford, Kent, 1986. Storry, G.R. with F.W. Deakin. The case of Richard Sorge, Chatto and Windus, London, 1966. Stripp, Alan. Codebreaker in the Far East: how Britain cracked Japan’s top secret military codes, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995. Sugimura, Kotaro. England through Japanese eyes, Yurakusha, Tokyo, 1910. Sugiyama, Shinya. Glover and Co: a British merchant in Nagasaki, 1861–1870, in Ian Nish ed, Bakumatsu and Meiji studies in Japan`s economic and social history, LSE, London, 1981. Suzuki, Barney T. The First English pipe-smoker in Japan: William Adams, the pilot, and the English trade-house in Hirato[sic], 1600–1621, Academie Internationale de la Pipe, Paris, 1998. Takahashi, Aya. The development of the Japanese nursing profession: adopting and adapting Western influences, RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2003. Tamayama, Kazuo. Railwaymen in the war: tales by Japanese railway soldiers in Burma and Thailand, 1941–1947, PalgraveMacmillan, Basingstoke, 2005. Tames, Richard. Servant of the shogun: being the true story of William Adams, pilot and samurai, the first Englishman in Japan, St Martin`s Press, New York, 1987. _____Encounters with Japan, Alan Sutton, Stroud, 1991. _____A traveller’s history of Japan, Windrush Press, Moreton in Marsh, 1993 Tate, D.J.M. (compiler). The Mikado’s Japan, being glimpses of nineteenth century Japan from Commodore Perry’s visit (1853) until the promulgation of the Meiji constitution (1889) as seen and reported in the Illustrated London News and other contemporary sources, J Nicholson Ltd, Hong Kong, 1990. Taylor, Mrs. Basil. Japanese gardens, Methuen & Co, London, 1912. Thomas, the Revd Joseph Llewellyn. Journeys among the gentle Japs in the summer of 1893, Sampson Low, Marston, London, 1897. Thompson, Sir Edward M. The diary of Richard Cocks, cape merchant in the English factory in Japan, 1615–1622, with correspondence, Hakluyt Society, London, 1883. Thunberg, Carl Peter. Journal of a voyage to Japan, edited by Roger Machin, Kyoto, Richard Cocks Society, 1981. Tilley, Henry A. Japan, the Amoor and the Pacific: with notices of other places, comprised in a voyage of circumnavigation in the Imperial Russian corvette ‘Rynda’, in 1858–60, Smith, Elder& Co., London, 1861.

806

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS IN ENGLISH

Tilley, Sir John. London to Tokyo, Hutchinson, London, 1942. Tomaru, Junko. The postwar rapprochement of Malaya and Japan, 1945–1961: the roles of Britain and Japan in South-East Asia, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2000. Toyoda, Minoru. Shakespeare in Japan: an historical survey, Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, 1940. Tracy, Albert (Albert Leffingwell). Rambles through Japan without a guide, Sampson Low & Co., London, 1892. Tronson, J.M. Personal narrative of a voyage to Japan, Kamtschatka[sic], Siberia, Tartary, and various parts of the coast of China, in HMS ‘Barracouta’, Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1859. Trotter, Ann. Britain and East Asia, 1933–1937, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975. Tyndale, Walter. Japan and the Japanese, Methuen and Co., London, 1910. Utley, Freda. Japan`s feet of clay, Faber and Faber, London, 1936. Vines, Sherard. Humours unreconciled, a tale of modern Japan, Wishart and Co, London 1928. _____Yofuku, or, Japan in trousers, Wishart and Co., London, 1931. Vining, Elizabeth Gray. Windows for the crown prince, Michael Joseph, London, 1952. The house of Dodwell: a century of achievement, 1858–1958, Dodwell, London, 1958. Watanabe, Toshio. ‘Japanese influence on English art’, Japan Society Proceedings no 85, 1978. _____ ‘Ruskin and Japan’, Japan Society Proceedings no 125, 1995. _____ ‘Whistler and Japan’, Japan Society Proceedings no 117, 1991. Watson, Gilbert. Three rolling stones in Japan, E. Arnold, London, 1903. Webb, Keith E. Sherlock Holmes in Japan, NextChurch Resources, Bellevue, Washington, 1998. Wedderburn, David. ‘Modern Japan’, Fortnightly Review, volume XXI and volume XXIII, new series, 1877. Wenckstern, Friedrich von. Bibliography of the Japanese Empire: a list of books in European languages from 1859–1893, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1895. _____Bibliography of the Japanese Empire: a list of books in European languages from 1894–1906, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1907. Whiteway, Michael. ed. Christopher Dresser: a design revolution, V&A Publications, London, 2004. Wild, Cyril, ed. Purches, his pilgrimages in Japan, extracted from Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes: containing a history of the world in sea voyages and lande travels by Englishmen and others, J.L.Thompson and Co., Kobe, 1939. Wildes, Harry Emerson. Aliens in the East: a new history of Japan`s foreign intercourse, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1937. Wilkinson, Hugh. Sunny lands and seas: a voyage in the SS ‘Ceylon’, John Murray, London, 1883. Willes, Richard. England and Japan: the first known account of Japan in English, extracted from The History of Travayle, by Petrus Martyr Anglerius, 1577, J.L. Thomson and Co., Kobe, 1928. Williams, Harold S. Foreigners in Mikadoland, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1963. _____The Foreign cemeteries in Kobe and Osaka, International Committee for the Kansai, Tokyo, 1978. and Naito Hiroshi. The Kamakura murders of 1864: Major Baldwin and Lieutenant Bird, privately published in Kobe, 1971.

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BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME X

_____Kobe Regatta and Athletic Club: the first 100 years, The Club, Kobe, 1970. _____Shades of the past, or, Indiscreet tales of Japan, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1958. _____The story of Holme Ringer & Co. Ltd in Western Japan, 1868–1968, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1968. _____The story of Shioya, of the James Estate, of James Yama and of the Shioya Country Club, International Committee for the Kansai, Tokyo, 1984. _____Tales of the foreign settlements in Japan, Tuttle, Tokyo, 1958. _____Articles in Spotlight, magazine of the Kobe Club, 1981–84 Wingfield, the Hon. Lewis. Wanderings of a globe-trotter in the Far East, R. Bentley and Sons, London, 1889. Wise, Michael, ed. Travellers’ tales of old Japan, Marshall Cavendish, Singapore, 1985. Woodhead, H.G.W. Adventures in Far Eastern journalism: a record of thirty-three years experience, Hokuseido, Tokyo, 1935. Woodhouse, Eiko. The Chinese Hsinhai revolution: G.E. Morrison and Anglo-Japanese relations, 1897–1920, RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2004. Yanagi, So¯etsu. The unknown craftsman: a Japanese insight into beauty, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1972. Yokoyama, Toshio. Japan in the Victorian mind: a study of stereotyped images of a nation, 1850–1880, Macmillan, London, 1987. Yoshida, Shigeru. The Yoshida memoirs, transl. Kenichi Yoshida, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1962. Younghusband, George. On short leave to Japan, Sampson Low, Marston & Co, London, 1894. Ziegler, Philip, ed. The diaries of Lord Louis Mountbatten, 1920–22: tours with the Prince of Wales, Collins, London, 1987. PERIODICALS Chinese and Japanese Repository, ‘A Medical Officer of the Royal Navy: Some Reminiscences of a visit to the capital of the Tycoon’. III xxiii, 1 June 1865, London Bulletin of the Japan Society, London, 1950Transactions and Proceedings of the Japan Society, London, 1892Proceedings of the Japan Society, London: The Far East, An illustrated fortnightly magazine, Yokohama, 1870–75. The Far East, An illustrated fortnightly magazine, Yokohama, 1870–75. The Graphic in Japan and The Graphic, Complete Record of Reported Events 1870–1899, Compiled by Terry Bennett, Global Oriental, Folkestone 2012. The Illustrated London News in Japan and The Illustrated London News, Complete Record of Events, 1853–1899, Compiled by Terry Bennett, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2006. Shakkei, the quarterly of the Japan Garden Society in the UK. The Times, London. Various reports from regular and occasional correspondents. Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 1874-

808

Selected Bibliography of Works in Japanese On Anglo-Japanese Relations Compiled by Akira Hirano

BOOKS ಶேఏグ ⛅⏣༤, 䛄ᾏ䛾᫛࿴ྐ㻌 : ᭷ྜྷ⩏ᘺ䛜䜏䛯ᾏ㐠᪥ᮏ䛅, ᪥ᮏ⤒῭᪂⪺♫, ᮾி, 2004. Ᏻ⸨⨾Ⓩ㔛,㻌䛄B.J.䝧䝑䝔䝹䝝䜲䝮䛅䠄㏆௦ᩥᏛ◊✲ྀ᭩, 1䠅, ᫛࿴ዪᏊ኱Ꮫගⴥ ఍, ᮾி, 1956. 㟷ᮌ࿘ⶶ,㻌䛄㟷ᮌ࿘ⶶ⮬ఏ䛅䠄ᮾὒᩥᗜ, 168䠅, ᖹซ♫, ᮾி, 1970. 㟷ᒣ䛺䜢, 䛄Ᏻ஭䛶䛴ఏ㻌: ఏグ䞉Ᏻ஭䛶䛴䛅䠄ఏグྀ᭩, 81䠅, ኱✵♫, ᮾி, 1990. 㟷ᒣ㟼Ꮚ, 䛄䝯䜰䝸䞊䞉H䞉䝁䞁䜴䜷䞊䝹䞉䝸䞊㻌: ⱥᅜዪᛶᐉᩍᖌ㻌: 䝷䝤䝻䝬䞁䝇సᐙ 䛛䜙䝝䞁䝉䞁⑓⪅ᩆ῭άືᐙ䜈䛅, 䝗䝯䝇ฟ∧, ᮾி, 2012. 㯞⏕࿴Ꮚ, 䛄∗ྜྷ⏣ⱱ䛅, ගᩥ♫, ᮾி, 1993. ᮾ⚽⣖, 䛄ᮾி㥐䛾ᘓ⠏ᐙ㎮㔝㔠࿃ఏ䛅, ㅮㄯ♫, ᮾி, 2002. 㤿ሙ㎮⊦,㻌䛄㤿ሙ㎮⊦⮬ླྀఏ䚸㤿ሙ㎮⊦᪥グ䠄ᢒ䠅䛅㻌䠄᫂἞ᩥ໬඲㞟, 14䚷⮬⏤Ẹ ᶒ⠍䠄⥆䠅䠅, ᪥ᮏホㄽ♫, ᮾி, 1968. Ụ㛫Ᏺ୍,㻌䛄⛛∗ᐑድໃὠᏊ䛅, ᒣᡭ᭩ᡣ, ᮾி, 1983. ⸨ᒣᴍ୍,㻌䛄ⱥᅜ䛸䛔䛖ᅜ䛅, ୡ⏺䛾ື䛝♫, ᮾி, 1984. ⚟෠೺୍, 䛄㔜ගⵇ㻌: 㐃ྜ㌷䛻᭱䜒ᜍ䜜䜙䜜䛯⏨䛅, ㅮㄯ♫, ᮾி, 2011. ⴗཎᘏᑑ,㻌䛄㤿ሙ㎮⊦䛅, ୰ኸබㄽ♫, ᮾி, 1967. ᫓ྡᚭ, 䛄䛻䛳䜍䜣㡢ྜྷ⁻ὶグ䛅, ᬗᩥ♫, ᮾி, 1979. 㛗㇂ᕝዴ᫝㛩ⴭస┠㘓⦅㞟ጤဨ఍⦅,㻌 䛄㛗㇂ᕝዴ᫝㛩㻌 : ே䞉᫬௦䞉ᛮ᝿䛸ⴭస ┠㘓䛅, ୰ኸ኱Ꮫฟ∧㒊, ඵ⋤Ꮚ, 1985–1987. ␊ᒣ䛡䜣䛨, 䛄㮵㬆㤋䜢๰䛳䛯⏨㻌: 䛚㞠䛔ᘓ⠏ᐙ䝆䝵䝃䜲䜰䞉䝁䞁䝗䝹䛾⏕ᾭ䛅, Ἑ ฟ᭩ᡣ᪂♫, ᮾி, 1998. ᪩ᕝ႐௦ḟ, 䛄ᚨᐩ⸽ᓠ㻌 : ఏグ䞉ᚨᐩ⸽ᓠ䛅䠄ఏグྀ᭩, 85䠅, ኱✵♫, ᮾி, 1991. ᯘḒຓ,㻌䛄䜟䛜୐༑ᖺ䜢ㄒ䜛䛅, ➨୍᭩ᡣ, ᮾி, 1935. ᯘⴷ,㻌䛄ᚋ䛿᫇䛾グ௚㻌: ᯘⴷᅇ㢳㘓䛅䠄ᮾὒᩥᗜ, 173䠅, ᖹซ♫, ᮾி, 1970. ⴥ᭶ዉὠ, ⱝᯘᑦྖ,㻌䛄䝢䞊䝏䞉䝤䝻䝑䝃䝮䜈㻌: ⱥᅜ㈗᪘㌷ே䛜ኚయ௬ྡ䛷⥛䜛 ༓䛾ᜊᩥ䛅, ⸨ཎ᭩ᗑ, ᮾி, 1998. ᵽཱྀḟ㑻, ኱ᒣ⍞௦⦅ⴭ, 䛄᮲⣙ᨵṇ䛸ⱥᅜே䝆䝱䞊䝘䝸䝇䝖㻌: H䞉S䞉䝟䞊䝬䞊䛾 ᮾிⓎ㏻ಙ䛅, ᛮᩥ㛶ฟ∧, ி㒔, 1987. ᖹᕝ♸ᘯ, 䛄䜰䞊䝃䞊䞉䜴䜵䜲䝸䞊㻌: 䛄※Ặ≀ㄒ䛅䛾⩻ヂ⪅䛅, ⓑỈ♫, ᮾி, 2008. ᖹᕝ♸ᘯ,㻌䛄ᑠἨඵ㞼䠖すὒ⬺ฟ䛾ክ䛅, ᪂₻♫, ᮾி, 1981.

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ᖹ⏣⪀Ꮚ,㻌 䛄ᮏ㛫ஂ㞝㻌 : ኱ṇ᫬௦䛾䝶䞊䝻䝑䝟ᩥ໬⛣ධ䛅, ᪩✄⏣኱Ꮫฟ∧㒊, ᮾி, 2012. ᫍ㔝ᩥᏊ,㻌䛄䝶䝛䞉䝜䜾䝏㻌: ክ䜢㏣䛔䛛䛡䛯ᅜ㝿リே䛅, ᙬὶ♫, ᮾி, 2012. ⣽㇂㞝୍,㻌 䛄እ஺䛻䜘䜛ᖹ࿴㻌 : 䜰䞁䝋䝙䞊䞉䜲䞊䝕䞁䛸஧༑ୡ⣖䛾ᅜ㝿ᨻ἞䛅, ᭷ ᩫ㛶, ᮾி, 2005. 㣤ᓥ⹫ᚰ,㻌䛄Ἑ㘠ᬡᩪ⩝ఏ䛅䠄᪥ᮏⱁ⾡ྡⴭ㑅, 3䠅, 䜊䜚䛛䜣♫, ᮾி, 1984. ௒஭ኖ㐨,㻌䛄䝿䝗䝽䝹䝗䞉䝡䜹䝇䝔䝇䛅, ᪥ᮏ⪷බ᭳ฟ∧♫, ⚄ᡞ, 1916. ௒ᮧṊ㞝,㻌䛄ᑠἨಙ୕ఏ䛅, ᩥⱁ᫓⛅, ᮾி, 1983. ఀᮧඖ㐨, 䛄䝟䞊䝬䞊䛸᪥ᮏ䛾ⱥㄒᩍ⫱䛅, ኱ಟ㤋᭩ᗑ, ᮾி, 1997. ஭ୖ㤾බఏグ⦅⧩఍⦅,㻌䛄ୡእ஭ୖබఏ䛅, ෆእ᭩⡠, ᮾி, 1933–1934. _____㻌䛄౳∖஭ୖ຾அຓྩ␎ബ䛅, ෆእ᭩⡠, ᮾி, 1934. ≟ሯᏕ᫂, 䛄ᑎᓥ᐀๎䛅䠄ே≀ྀ᭩䠅, ྜྷᕝᘯᩥ㤋, ᮾி, 1990. ఀ⸨༤ᩥ㛵ಀᩥ᭩◊✲఍⦅,㻌䛄ఀ⸨༤ᩥ㛵ಀᩥ᭩䛅, ሮ᭩ᡣ, ᮾி, 1973–1981. ᒾᶫṊኵ, ᒾᶫ䛝䜢,㻌䛄ග䛿㜌䜘䜚㻌:㻌ẕ䞉ጒ䞉ጔ㻌: ዪᛶ䛻୚䜅㻌:㻌⳥䛸ⷭ䛸ⅉྎ䛅䠄┣ ே䛯䛱䛾⮬ླྀఏ, 21䠅, ኱✵♫, ᮾி, 1998. ᒾ⏫ຌ, 䛄ホఏᓥᮧᢪ᭶㻌: 㕲ᒣ䛸ⱁ⾡ᗙ䛅, ▼ぢᩥ໬◊✲ᡤ, ὾⏣, 2009. ゅ㔝႐භ, 䛄ₙ▼䛾䝻䞁䝗䞁䛅, Ⲩ➉ฟ∧, ᮾி, 1982. 㬞ୗ㔜ᙪ[䜋䛛]⦅, 䛄▮ෆཎᛅ㞝䛅, ᮾி኱Ꮫฟ∧఍, ᮾி, 2011. ⚄ዉᕝ┴❧Ṕྐ༤≀㤋⦅,㻌䛄䝽䞊䜾䝬䞁䛜ぢ䛯ᾏ㻌: ὒ䛾ᮾす䜢⤖䜣䛰⏬ᐙ䛅, ⚄ ዉᕝ┴❧Ṕྐ༤≀㤋, ᶓ὾, 2011. ຍ⸨఑ബグ⦅⧩ጤဨ᭳⦅,㻌䛄ຍ⸨㧗᫂䛅, ຍ⸨఑ബグ⦅⧩ጤဨ᭳, ᮾி, 1929. ᯶ᡞṇ,㻌䛄䜺䝸䞂䜯䞊䛾ゼ䜜䛯ᅜ㻌: 䝬䝸䜰䞁䝚䞉䝜䞊䝇䛾᫂἞ඵᖺ᪥ᮏ⣖⾜䛅, ୓᮶ ⯋, ᮾி, 2014. වΎṇᚨ,㻌䛄ᒣᑿᗤ୕ബ㻌: ᫂἞䛾ᕤᴗ❧ᅜ䛾∗䛅, ᒣᑿᗤ୕㢧ᙲ఍, ᒣཱྀ, 2003. ໭ᗣ฼, 䛄䝺䝆䜵䞁䝗ఏㄝ䛾⏨ⓑὪḟ㑻䛅, ᮅ᪥᪂⪺ฟ∧, ᮾி, 2009. ᑠᆏ஭⃈, 䛄䛣䜜䛿䛒䛺䛯䛾ẕ㻌: ἑ⏣⨾႐䛸ΰ⾑Ꮩඣ䛯䛱䛅, 㞟ⱥ♫, ᮾி, 1982. ᮙᮌ䜖䜚Ꮚ,㻌䛄䝝䜴䝇䞉䜸䝤䞉䝲䝬䝘䜹㻌: ᮾὒ䛾⮳ᐆ䜢Ḣ⡿䛻኎䛳䛯⨾⾡ၟ䛅, ᪂₻ ♫, ᮾி, 2011. ⇃⃝ᜨ㔛Ꮚ,㻌䛄෗┿䛷ぢ䜛ᯇᖹᗣⲮ䛾ⱥᅜ㎰Ꮫಟ⾜㛵ಀྐᩱ䛅, ᮾி㎰ᴗ኱Ꮫ, ᮾி, 2011. ᰩཎ೺,㻌䛄ኳⓚ㻌: ᫛࿴ྐぬ᭩䛅, ཎ᭩ᡣ, ᮾி, 1985. ᴋᐙ㔜ᩄ,㻌 䛄W.G.䜰䝇䝖䞁䠖᪥ᮏ䛸ᮅ㩭䜢⤖䜆Ꮫ⪅እ஺ᐁ䛅䠄ᮾす஺ὶྀ᭩, 11䠅, 㞝ᯇᇽฟ∧, ᮾி, 2005. ᱓ཎ༓௦Ꮚ,㻌䛄䜟䛜䝬䞁䝻䞊ఏ㻌: 䛒䜛ⱥே་ᖌ䞉䜰䜲䝚◊✲ᐙ䛾⏕ᾭ䛅, ᪂ᐟ᭩ᡣ, ᮾி, 1983. ┿ᮌὒ୕, 䛄ᮾ㒓ᖹඵ㑻䛅, ᩥⱁ᫓⛅, ᮾி, 1985. ∾㔝ఙ㢧, 䛄ᅇ㢳㘓䛅, ᩥⱁ᫓⛅᪂♫, 1948–1949. ∾㔝⩏⏨,㻌䛄ⱥᅄ༑ᖺ௒᫇≀ㄒ䛅, ᨵ㐀♫, ᮾி, 1940. ᯇ⏣༑้, 䛄ᩪ⸨ᐿఏ㻌: 䛂஧䞉஧භ஦௳䛃䛷ᬯẅ䛥䜜䛯ᥦ╩䛾┿ᐇ䛅, ඖᑵฟ∧♫, ᮾி, 2008. ᯇ஭៞ᅄ㑻,㻌䛄ᯇ஭៞ᅄ㑻⮬ླྀఏ䛅, ห⾜♫, ᮾி, 1983. ᯇᒃ❳஬, ⏣ᮧ⩏ஓ⦅,㻌䛄༡᪉⇃ᴋ኱஦඾䛅, ຮㄔฟ∧, ᮾி, 2012. 㒔⏣ᜏኴ㑻, 䛄䝞䝑䜽䝇䝖䞁䛸䛭䛾ᘵᏊ䛯䛱䛅, 䝞䝑䜽䝇䝖䞁⪷఍, ᮾி, 1999. ᐑᮏᖖ୍,㻌 䛄ྂᕝྂᯇ㌺㻌 : 䜲䝃䝧䝷䞉䝞䞊䝗䛅㻌 䠄᪑ே䛯䛱䛾Ṕྐ, 3䠅, ᮍ౗♫, ᮾ ி, 1984. Ỉᑿẚ࿅ᚿ, 䛄ホఏᰗ᐀ᝋ䛅, ⟃ᦶ᭩ᡣ, ᮾி, 1992. Ỉ㇂୕බ,㻌 䛄୸ᒣ┿⏨䠖䛒䜛᫬௦䛾⫝̸ീ䛅䠄䛱䛟䜎᪂᭩, 484䠅, ⟃ᦶ᭩ᡣ, ᮾி, 2004. ᱈ᒣᏛ㝔90ᖺྐ⦅⧩ጤဨ఍⦅, 䛄᱈ᒣᏛ㝔90ᖺྐ䛅, ᱈ᒣᏛ㝔, ኱㜰, 1974.

810

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS IN JAPANESE

᳃╬ᙪ,㻌䛄䝂䝹䝗䞁ኵே䛸᪥ⱥᩥᗜ䛅, ᳃╬ᙪ, ᮾி, 1995. ᐊᒣ⩏ṇ,㻌 䛄ᯇ᪉ṇ⩏䠖ᡃ䛻ወ⟇䛒䜛䛻㠀䛪䚸၏ṇ┤䛒䜛䛾䜏䛅䠄䝭䝛䝹䞂䜯᪥ᮏ ホఏ㑅䠅, 䝭䝛䝹䞂䜯᭩ᡣ, ᮾி, 2005. 㝣ዟ㝧அຓ⦅, 䛄㝣ዟ᐀ග㻌: ṝᚋⓒ࿘ᖺグᛕㅮ₇㞟䛅, 䜲䞁䝍䝘䝅䝵䝘䝹ᫎ⏬ᰴ ᘧ఍♫, ᮾி, 1998. ୰ᕝ⧊Ụ,㻌 䛄䝉䝑䝅䝳䜴! : ୡ⏺䜢㨩஢䛧䛯᪥ᮏே䝇䝍䞊䞉᪩ᕝ㞷Ὢ䛅, ㅮㄯ♫, ᮾ ி, 2012. ༡᮲ᩥ㞝, 䛄༡᮲ᩥ㞝⮬ླྀఏ㻌: ఏグ䞉༡᮲ᩥ㞝䛅䠄ఏグྀ᭩, 127䠅, ኱✵♫, ᮾி, 1993. ᰿ὠ⩝ബグ⦅⧩᭳⦅, 䛄᰿ὠ⩝ബ䛅, ᰿ὠ⩝ബグ⦅⧩᭳, ᮾி, 1961. ᪥ᮏ⤒Ⴀྐ◊✲ᡤ⦅, 䛄୰ୖᕝᙪḟ㑻ఏグ㈨ᩱ䛅, ᮾὒ⤒῭᪂ሗ♫, ᮾி, 1969. ᪂಴ಇ୍, 䛄ホఏす⬥㡰୕㑻䛅, ៞᠕⩏ሿ኱Ꮫฟ∧఍, ᮾி, 2004. ோከぢᕑ,㻌䛄␗ቃ䛾౑ᚐ㻌: ⱥே䝆䝵䞁䞉䝞䝏䝷䞊ఏ䛅䠄㐨᪂㑅᭩, 21䠅, ໭ᾏ㐨᪂⪺ ♫, ᮐᖠ, 1991. ᒸ⩏Ṋ, 䛄ᒸ⩏Ṋ䝻䞁䝗䞁᪥グ㻌1936ࠥ1937䛅, ᒾἼ᭩ᗑ, ᮾி, 1997. ᒸ⏣❶㞝,㻌䛄୕ᾆᣨ㔪䛅䠄๰ඖ㑅᭩, 130䠅, ๰ඖ♫, ᮾி, 1948. ᒸᒣ┴❧⨾⾡㤋, 㒆ᒣᕷ❧⨾⾡㤋, ⚄ዉᕝ┴❧㏆௦⨾⾡㤋⦅,㻌䛄ཎ᧙ᯇᒎ㻌: ▱ 䜙䜜䛦䜛ṇ⤫㻌: ఏ䛘䜙䜜䛯ⱥᅜ⤮⏬䛾䛣䛣䜝䛅, ཎ᧙ᯇᒎᐇ⾜ጤဨ఍, 1997. ኱ஂಖ฼ㅬ⦅,㻌 䛄᳃᭷⚰඲㞟䛅䠄㏆௦᪥ᮏᩍ⫱㈨ᩱྀ᭩, ே≀⠍, 1䠅, ᐉᩥᇽ᭩ ᗑฟ∧㒊, ᮾி, 1972. 㰻⸨ຬ, 䛄㛤ᅜᙜึ䛻᮶䛯ⱥᅜே䜸䝸䝣䜯䞁䝖䛅䠄㰻⸨ຬⴭస㞟, 6䠅, ◊✲♫ฟ∧, ᮾி, 1976. బ㔝┿⏤Ꮚ,㻌 䛄䜸䞊䝹䝁䝑䜽䛾Ụᡞ䠖ึ௦ⱥᅜබ౑䛜ぢ䛯ᖥᮎ᪥ᮏ䛅䠄୰බ᪂᭩, 1710䠅, ୰ኸබㄽ᪂♫, ᮾி, 2003. ⃝ṇ㞝, 䛄᪥ᮏ䛾ᅵ䛻㻌 : 䝝䞁䝉䞁⑓⪅䛾䛯䜑᪥ᮏ䛻㦵䜢ᇙ䜑䛯䝸䝕䝹䚸㻌 䝷䜲䝖୧ ዪྐ䛾⏕ᾭ䛅, 䜻䝸䝇䝖᪂⪺♫, ᮾி, 1995. ᚿ㈡㔜᪸,㻌䛄䝤䝷䜻䝇䝖䞁⥺䛾Ⓨぢ⪅䛅䠄ᚿ㈡㔜᪸඲㞟, 4䠅, ᚿ㈡㔜᪸඲㞟ห⾜఍, ᮾி, 1928. ୗ㔜ᬡᏊ, 䛄⣧ឡ㻌: 䜶䝉䝹䛸㝣ዟᘅྜྷ䛅, ㅮㄯ♫, ᮾி, 1994. ΎỈᚭ⦅, 䛄ྜྷ⏣೺୍䛅㻌䠄᪂₻᪥ᮏᩥᏛ䜰䝹䝞䝮, 69䠅, ᪂₻♫, ᮾி, 1995. ಙኵ῟ᖹ,㻌䛄ᑠᮧኖኴ㑻䛅䠄᪂ബグྀ᭩, 12䠅, ᪂₻♫, ᮾி, 1942. ಙኵΎ୕㑻,㻌䛄䝷䝑䝣䝹䝈ఏ㻌: 䜲䜼䝸䝇㏆௦ⓗ᳜Ẹᨻ⟇䛾ᙧᡂ䛸ᮾὒ♫఍䛅䠄ᮾὒ ᩥᗜ, 123䠅, ᖹซ♫, ᮾி, 1968. ⓑ஭ᑲᏊ,㻌 䛄⚟ἑㅍྜྷ䛸ᐉᩍᖌ䛯䛱䠖▱䜙䜜䛦䜛᫂἞ᮇ䛾᪥ⱥ㛵ಀ䛅䠄៞ᛂ⩏ሿ ⚟ἑ◊✲䝉䞁䝍䞊ྀ᭩䠅, ᮍ౗♫, ᮾி, 1999. ᇛᒣ୕㑻,㻌䛄ᮏ⏣᐀୍㑻䛸䛾100᫬㛫㻌: ே㛫⣖⾜䛅, ㅮㄯ♫, ᮾி, 1984. 㟼ᒸ┴❧⨾⾡㤋⦅, 䛄ᰩཎᛅ஧ᒎ㻌 : ⱥᅜ䛻ᯫ䛡䜛ᶫ䛅, 㟼ᒸ┴❧⨾⾡㤋, 㟼ᒸ, 1991. ᫓␇බ㏣㡴఍⦅,㻌䛄ఀ⸨༤ᩥബ䛅, ᫓␇බ㏣㡴᭳, ᮾி, 1940. 䝋䝙䞊䞉䝬䜺䝆䞁䝈䝡䝆䝛䝇䝤䝑䜽⦅㞟㒊⦅ⴭ,㻌 䛄┒⏣᫛ኵㄒ㘓㻌 : ୡ⏺䛜⯙ྎ䛾 Ọ㐲㟷ᖺ䛅, 䝋䝙䞊䞉䝬䜺䝆䞁䝈, ᮾி, 1996. ᮡᒣṇᶞ,㻌䛄㒆⹡ᙪ䠖䛭䛾ክ䛸⏕ᾭ䛅, ᒾἼ᭩ᗑ, ᮾி, 1987. 㕥ᮌ⚞ᏹ,㻌 䛄䝞䞊䝘䞊䝗䞉䝸䞊䝏䛾⏕ᾭ䛸ⱁ⾡䠖䛂ᮾ䛸す䛾⤖፧䛃䛾䞂䜱䝆䝵䞁䛅䠄ே 䛸ᩥ໬䛾᥈✲, 1䠅, 䝭䝛䝹䞂䜯᭩ᡣ, ᮾி, 2006. 㧗ᮌ႐ᐶ, 䛄㧗ᮌවᐶఏ㻌 : ఏグ䞉㧗ᮌවᐶ䛅䠄ఏグྀ᭩, 305䠅, 㧗ᮌ႐ᐶ, ᮾி, 1922. 㧗ᶫ᫝Ύ, 䛄㧗ᶫ᫝Ύ⮬ബ䛅, ༓಴᭩ᡣ, ᮾி, 1936. 㧗ᶫᏕⶶ, 䛄೔ᩔ䛛䜙᮶䛯㏆௦䝇䝫䞊䝒䛾ఏ㐨ᖌ㻌 : 䛚㞠䛔እᅜேF.W. 䝇䝖䝺䞁 䝆䛾ά㌍䛅䠄ᑠᏛ㤋101᪂᭩, 136䠅, ᑠᏛ㤋, ᮾி, 2012.

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㧗ᶫᫀ㑻, 䛄୰ᮧᩗᏱ䛅䠄ே≀ྀ᭩䠅, ྜྷᕝᘯᩥ㤋, ᮾி, 1988. ⋢Ụᙪኴ㑻, 䛄㟷ⴍ䞉ᮎᯇㅬ⃈䛾⏕ᾭ䛅, ⴺ᭩ᡣ, ⚟ᒸ, 1985. Ჴ⏣┿㍜, 䛄䝇䝫䞊䝒ே㢼ᅵグ - රᗜ┴䠄ୗ䠅䛅, 㐨࿴᭩㝔, ᮾி, 1975. ⏣୰ᙲ, 䛄ᒾ಴౑⠇ᅋ䛾Ṕྐⓗ◊✲䛅, ᒾἼ᭩ᗑ, ᮾி, 2002. ⏣୰୍㑻,㻌䛄⛎ᐦㅁሗဨ䝃䝬䝉䝑䝖䞉䝰䞊䝮䛅, Ἑฟ᭩ᡣ᪂♫, ᮾி, 1996. ᮾிᅜ❧㏆௦⨾⾡㤋⦅,㻌䛄Ἑ஭ᐶḟ㑻ᒎ㻌: ㏆௦㝡ⱁ䛾ᕧᫍ䛅, ᪥ᮏ⤒῭᪂⪺♫, ᮾி, 1984. ᮾிPR㏻ಙ♫⦅,㻌䛄ᯇᖹᜏ㞝㏣᝿㘓䛅, ᨾᯇᖹᜏ㞝Ặ㏣᝿఍, ᮾி, 1961. ᐩᒣ኱Ꮫ㝃ᒓᅗ᭩㤋⦅,㻌䛄ᑠἨඵ㞼䠄䝷䝣䜹䝕䜱䜸䞉䝝䞊䞁䠅㛵ಀᩥ⊩┠㘓䠖ᐩᒣ ኱Ꮫ䝦䝹䞁ᩥᗜᡤⶶ䛅, ᐩᒣ኱Ꮫ㝃ᒓᅗ᭩㤋, ᐩᒣ, 1998. ᅵᒇႛ㞝, 䛄䝅䝱䞁䝗㻌: 䜟䛜ᅜ㖟⾜ྐୖ䛾ᩍᖌ䛅, ᮾὒ⤒῭᪂ሗ♫, ᮾி, 1966. ෆ⏣ὒ୍㈐௵⦅, 䛄㔝⏣⚽ᶞ䛅䠄᪥ᮏ䛾₇๻ே䠅, ⓑỈ♫, ᮾி, 2009. ୖ⏣ᗈ,㻌䛄஭ୖ຾ബ䛅, ஭ୖ຾ఏ᚟้ጤဨ఍,㻌ᮾி, 1993. ∵ᓥ⚽ᙪ,㻌䛄䝜䞁䝣䜱䜽䝅䝵䞁䞉ⓚኴᏊ᫂ோ䛅, ᮅ᪥᪂⪺♫, ᮾி, 1987. ᒣཱྀಟ,㻌䛄๓ᓥᐦ䛅䠄ே≀ྀ᭩䠅, ྜྷᕝᘯᩥ㤋ᮾி, 1990. ᒣᓮᏕᏊ, 䛄ὠ⏣ᱵᏊ䛅䠄ே≀ྀ᭩䠅, ྜྷᕝᘯᩥ㤋, ᮾி, 1962. ᒇᩜⱱ㞝, 䛄୰஭ᱜὪ㻌 : ᫂἞䛾ඖ໏䛻᭱䜒㢗䜙䜜䛯ྡཧㅛ䛅, ᗁ෤⯋䝹䝛䝑䝃䞁 䝇, ᮾி, 2010. ᏳỌᝅ㑻,㻌䛄㤿ሙ㎮⊦䛅, ᮾிᇽ, ᮾி, 1897. ᶓ὾㛤 ㈨ᩱ㤋⦅, 䛄ᅗㄝ䜰䞊䝛䝇䝖䞉䝃䝖䜴㻌: ᖥᮎ⥔᪂䛾䜲䜼䝸䝇እ஺ᐁ䛅, ᭷㞄 ᇽ, ᶓ὾, 2001. ᶓᒣᏥ,㻌䛄᭩≀䛻㨩䛫䜙䜜䛯ⱥᅜே㻌: 䝣䝷䞁䜽䞉䝩䞊䝺䞊䛸᪥ᮏᩥ໬䛅㻌䠄Ṕྐᩥ໬ 䝷䜲䝤䝷䝸䞊, 163䠅, ྜྷᕝᘯᩥ㤋, ᮾி, 2003. ྜྷ⏣ఙᘺ,㻌䛄ኳⓚ䜈䛾㐨㻌: ᫂ோ㝎ୗ䛾᫛࿴ྐ䛅, ㄞ኎᪂⪺♫, ᮾி, 1991.

ิఏ䞉஦඾➼ ᪥❧㐀⯪ᰴᘧ఍♫⦅,㻌䛄᪥❧㐀⯪ⓒᖺྐ䛅, ᪥❧㐀⯪, ኱㜰,1985. ᒾୗဴ඾⦅, 䛄Ụᡞ᫬௦᮶᪥እᅜேேྡ㎡඾䛅, ᮾிᇽฟ∧, ᮾி, 2011. ∦㔝່, 䛄᫂἞䛚㞠䛔እᅜே䛸䛭䛾ᘵᏊ䛯䛱㻌 : ᪥ᮏ䛾㏆௦໬䜢ᨭ䛘䛯25ே䛾䝥 䝻䝣䜵䝑䝅䝵䝘䝹䛅, ᪂ே≀ ᮶♫, ᮾி, 2011. ᕝᓮᬕᮁ, 䛄ᖥᮎ䛾㥔᪥እ஺ᐁ䞉㡿஦ᐁ䛅㻌 䠄ᮾす஺ὶྀ᭩, 4䠅, 㞝ᯇᇽฟ∧, ᮾ ி, 1988. ᑠᒣ㦐,㻌䛄◚ኳⲨ䠘᫂἞␃Ꮫ⏕䠚ิఏ䠖኱ⱥᖇᅜ䛻Ꮫ䜣䛰ே䚻䛅䠄ㅮㄯ♫㑅᭩䝯 䝏䜶, 168䠅, ㅮㄯ♫, ᮾி, 1999. ᐑỌᏕ, 䛄᪥ᮏ䛸䜲䜼䝸䝇㻌: ᪥ⱥ஺ὶ䛾400ᖺ䛅, ᒣᕝฟ∧♫, ᮾி, 2000. ᐑ⃝┿୍, 䛄⸃ᦶ䛸䜲䜼䝸䝇䛾ฟ఍䛔㻌: ⏕㯏஦௳㻌: ⱥᅜഃ㈨ᩱ䛛䜙ぢ䜛䛅, 㧗ᇛ᭩ ᡣฟ∧, 㮵ඣᓥ, 1987. 㔜⸨ጾኵ, 䛄㛗ᓮᒃ␃ᆅ䛸እᅜၟே䛅, 㢼㛫᭩ᡣ, ᮾி, 1967. ᔱ⏣ṇ[䜋䛛]⦅, 䛄䝄䞉䝲䝖䜲㻌: 䛚㞠䛔እᅜே䛾⥲ྜⓗ◊✲䛅, ᛮᩥ㛶ฟ∧, ி㒔, 1987. ᐀⏣୍[䜋䛛]⦅ⴭ,㻌䛄་Ꮫ㏆௦໬䛸᮶᪥እᅜே䛅, ୡ⏺ಖ೺㏻ಙ♫, ᮾி, 1988. ᱵ῱᪼, 䛄䛚㞠䛔እᅜே㻌: ᫂἞᪥ᮏ䛾⬥ᙺ䛯䛱䛅䠄᪥⤒᪂᭩, 23䠅, ᪥ᮏ⤒῭᪂⪺ ♫, ᮾி, 1965. 䛄䛚㞠䛔እᅜே䠄1䠅-䠄17䠅䛅, 㮵ᓥ◊✲ᡤฟ∧఍, ᮾி, 1968–1976.

PERIODICALS Ἴ㒊ᛅ㔜,䛂᪥ᮏ䛾㈅㢮䜢᥇㞟䛧䛯እᅜே䛃䛄⮬↛⛉Ꮵ䛸༤≀㤋䛅, 39ᕳ7䞉8ྕ, ᅜ ❧⛉Ꮫ༤≀㤋, ᮾி, 1969. 812

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▼஭Ꮥ,䛂䛄ⱥᅜ⟇ㄽ䛅䛸䝟䞊䜽䝇䛾ᑐ᪥ᨻ⟇䛃䛄᪥ᮏṔྐ䛅, 163, ྜྷᕝᘯᩥ㤋, ᮾ ி, 1962. 㔠஭෇, 䛂ⱥே䝤䝷䝑䜽䛸᪥ᮏ㻌 : ᫂἞᪂⪺Ⓨ㐩ྐ䛾୍⠇䛃䛄ᅜ㝿ᩥ໬䛅, 156–162, ᅜ㝿ᩥ໬᣺⯆఍, ᮾி, 1967. ⳥ụ㔜㑻, 䛂ⱥேT.J.䜴䜸䞊䝖䝹䝇䛾஦⦼䛻㛵䛩䜛◊✲䛃䛄᪥ᮏᘓ⠏Ꮫ఍ㄽᩥሗ ࿌㞟䛅, 228–229, 243, ᪥ᮏᘓ⠏Ꮫ఍, ᮾி, 1975–1976. ྜྷⰋⰾᜨ⦅, 䛂ᶓ὾㛤 ㈨ᩱ㤋ᡤⶶF.O.䜰䝎䝮䝈㛵ಀᩥ᭩┠㘓䠄ୖ䠅䛃䛄ᶓ὾㛤  ㈨ᩱ㤋⣖せ䛅, 6, ᶓ὾㛤 ㈨ᩱ㤋, ᶓ὾, 1988. ᮧ℩ಙஓ, 䛂䝖䝽䜲䝷䜲䝖䛾ྥ䛣䛖䛻㻌 : ᝒ๻䛾ᅜ㝿ἲᏛ⪅䝖䞊䝬䝇䞉䝧䜲䝔䜱䛃䛄እ஺ 䝣䜷䞊䝷䝮䛅, 2003. 4–6, ୡ⏺䛾ື䛝♫, ᮾி, 2003. ᒸ㒊ᫀᖾ, 䛂ᖥᮎ᮶᪥෗┿ᐙ䝡䝲䝖䛾◊✲䛃䛄᫂἞⨾⾡◊✲Ꮫ఍◊✲ሗ࿌䛅, ➨ 17ᅇ, ᫂἞⨾⾡◊✲Ꮫ఍, ᮾி, 1988. ኴ⏣⨾႐Ꮚ, 䛂ᮾすⱁ⾡䛾ᯫᶫ : ∧⏬ᖌ⁽ཎᮌ⹸䛃䛄ᾋୡ⤮ⱁ⾡䛅, 149, ᪥ᮏᾋ ୡ⤮༠఍, ᮾி, 2005.

OTHER MEDIUM ᡭሯ᫭, ▼ᓥ฼⏨ඹ⦅, 䛄ᖥᮎ᫂἞ᮇᾏእΏ⯟⪅ே≀᝟ሗ஦඾䛅, [CD-ROM]. 㔠ἑᕤᴗ኱Ꮫ, 㔝䚻ᕷ⏫䠄▼ᕝ┴䠅, 2003.

813

Index

Abbey, Tom, 81 Abbott, Edgar, 86–93 Abbott, Edwin Morton, 86 Abe Ken’ichi, 127, 640 Abe Shintaro, Prime Minister, 611, 780 Ackroyd, Heather, 525 Ackroyd, Joyce, 378 Adams, William, 151, 403, 567 Ainslie, Dr Donald, 20–34 Aitken, Janet, 731 Akatani Genichi, 589 Akihito, Emperor, 346, 403, 623 Akihito, Prince, 480 Albert, Prince, 761 Alcock, Sir Rutherford, 60, 300 Alexander III, Tsar, 211 Alexander, A.V., 396 Alexandra of Denmark, Princess, 545, 550, 604 Alexandra, Queen, 698 Alfred, Prince (Duke of Edinburgh), 62 Allen, Louis, 377 Allen-Jones, Charles, 504 Alsop, Joe, 329 Amano Tameyuki, 638 Amery, Leo, 239 Anderson, Arthur, 297 Anderson, George, 253 Anderson, Peggy, 310 Andrews, Malcolm, 535 Anesaki Masahira, 151 Anley, Gwendolyn, 711, 712 Anne, Princess, 346 Aoki Kunio, 505 Aoyama Nao, 625 Arai Hakuseki, 378 Araki Jo¯gen, 27 Araki Yu¯tei, 27 Arata Toshio, 408, 411, 419, 420, 421

Arato Takuya, 180 Arita Hachiro¯, 586, 587, 588 Ariyama Teruo, 133, 134 Asada Atsushi, 427, 428, 431, 433 Asakai Ko¯ichiro¯, 589 Ashcroft, Lord, 42 Ashley, G.A., 739 Ashton-Gwatkin, 293, 305 Aso Kazuko, 164 Asquith, Herbert, 611, 697 Aston, W.G., 284, 334, 352, 367 Baba Saju¯ro¯ (aka Abraham), 16 Baba Tamehachiro¯, 26 Baba Tatsui, 649, 650, 652, 653, 654, 655, 657 Bacon, Francis, 774 Bacon, Peter, 466, 467, 468, 470, 471, 476 Bailey, Rev. Michael Buckworth, 64 Baird, John Logie, 441, 664 Baker, Janet, 156 Balfour, A.J., 223, 228, 230, 231 Balfour, Betty, 241 Balfour, Gerald, 241 Ballard, Miss, 627 Ballard, Susan, 178 Barber, James Samuel, 101 Barker, Pat, 159 Barlow, E., 484 Barlow, Mr (chairman of RHP), 419 Barlow, Sir George, 4 Barnes, John, 145 Barrow, Martin, 493 Basho, 141, 352, 557 Bassett-Lowke, W.J., 741 Bastable, Charles, 640 Batchelor, John, 189 Bate, 255 815

INDEX

Bauer, John, 32 Baur, Alfred, 108, 110, 758, 759 Beale Dorothea, 627, 628 Beardsley, Aubrey, 669, 734 Beart, Edward, 79 Beaumont, Rupert, 505 Beckett, Sir Terence, 781 Beecham, Sir Thomas, 666 Bell, Thomas, 269 Bender, James A., 673 Benesch, Oleg, 350 Benham, Peter, 502–503 Benjamin, Diana, 411 Benn, Tony, 156 Benson, Edward S., 65 Bentley, Mary Alice, 366 Bentley, Wilson, 671 Bergh, Lisa Ingeborg Van den (see Sainsbury, Lady) Berlin, Sir Isaiah, 651 Bertie, Francis, 226, 227 Bevin, Ernest, 334, 396 Bickersteth, Bishop Edward, 178 Bickersteth, Edward, 173, 179 Bird, Charles, 614 Black, John Reddie, 58, 62, 65, 204 Blacker, Carmen, 125, 157, 161, 164, 379, 380, 381 Blackie, Walter W., 740 Blair, Tony, 476, 497, 522, 619 Blake, William, 736 Blakemore, Thomas, 502 Blakiston, Thomas Wright, 253 Blomhoff, Jan Cock, 15, 16, 22, 29, 30, 31, 33 Blow, James, 107 Blow, Mary, 107 Blow, Thomas Bates, 106–119, 758 Blunden, Edmund, 536 Bodley, R.V.C., 126 Boehmer, Louis, 708 Bolard-Talbère, Charles, 351, 353 Bold, Stephen, 431 Bonar, Henry A.C., 108 Bonaventura, Paul, 525 Bose, Rash Behari, 294 Bottomley, Baroness, 460 Bouchier, Cecil Air Vice-Marshal Sir Cecil (Boy), 140

816

Bouchier, Derek, 141 Bouchier, Lady (Dorothy Britton), 138–142 Bowes, James L., 708, 739 Bownas, Geoffrey, 164 Boyd, Sir John, 333 Boyes, Duncan, 37, 38–42 Boyes, Louisa Mary, 38 Bragg, Professor William Henry, 668 Brain, Sir Norman, 714 Brandsten, Bill, 485 Brassey, Anna, 708 Brent, Arthur, 58, 61, 65, 66, 67 Brett, Arthur Cyril Adair, 630 Brewer, Sir David, 622 Bridge, Lieutenant Colonel Charles, 725 Brinkley, Captain Francis, 126 Brinkley, Frank, 351, 355, 356 Britton, Dorothy (see Bouchier, Lady) Britton, Frank, 139 Bromley, Tom, 671 Brontë, Branwell, 537 Brontë, Charlotte, 531, 532, 535–537 Brontë, Emily, 531, 532, 535–537 Brooke, Gertrude, 64 Brooke, J.H., 301 Brooke, John Henry, 64 Brown, Rev. S.R., 300 Brown, Dr, 418 Brown, Peter, 25, 31 Brown, Robert, 431 Brown, Sir Stephen, 527 Bruce, Thomas (Lord Elgin), 5 Brunswick, Caroline, 5 Budd, Professor Alan, 781 Buddhinour, Dharmapala, 294 Bull, George, 581 Bülow, Prince, 226 Bulwer-Lytton, Victor, 723 Buncombe, William Pengelly, 173 Burdon, Bishop John Shaw, 171, 188, 189 Burgess, Ed., 80 Burgess, Guy, 328 Burgh, Simon Van den, 773 Burgoyne, Hugh Talbot, 40 Burnel, Emile, 665, 666, 668 Burnel, Jeanne, 665, 666

INDEX

Burrell, Sir William, 734 Bush, Kate, 536 Busk, Mary, 34 Butler, R.A., 395 Buttrey, Richard, 563–564 Buxton, Barclay Fowell, 177–183, 191 Buxton, Barclay Godfrey, 179 Buxton, Effie Priscilla, 181 Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, 179 Calder, John, 32 Caldwell, Helen, 696 Callaghan, James, 335 Callan, James Henry, 615 Cameron, David, 619 Cameron, Katherine, 731 Campbell, A.J., 76, 77 Campbell, William Wallace, 81 Canterbury, Archbishop of, 243 Caradon, Lord, (Hugh Foot), 329 Carew, Mrs Walter, 281 Carew, Walter, 281, 302 Carrington, Lord, 335 Carroll, Lewis, 532 Cary, Otis, 164 Cassa, Anthoni, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31 Cassidy, Dr Tony, 159 Casson, Sir Hugh, 725 Ceadel, Eric, 372, 380, 387 Cecil, Lord Robert, 239 Chadwick, James, 670 Chamberlain, Austin, 294 Chamberlain, Basil Hall, 280, 282, 349–359, 367 Chamberlain, Houston, 352 Chamberlain, Joseph, 230 Chamberlain, Neville, 395 Chang Hsueh-liang, 318 Chaptal, Jean Louis, 446 Charles, Prince, 152 Charlton, Sir Bobby, 406 Chiang Kai-shek, 608 Chiba Kazuo, 577–582 Chiba Keiko, 580 Chiba Saburo¯emon, 15 Chiba Shin’ichi, 577 Chichibu, Prince, 295, 296, 297, 613 Chichibu, Princess, 159, 164, 295, 297, 331

Chinda Sutemi, 586 Chinnery, George, 1, 5 Chiyonoyama, Yokozuna, 404 Cholmondeley, Lionel, 178 Christensen, John, 502, 504 Christie, Agatha, 164 Christmas, Jamieson, 447, 453, 454, 455 Chu Hsi [Zhu Xi], 379 Churchill, Winston, 396 Clarence and Avondale, Duke of, 547 Clarendon, Earl of (see Villiers, Sir George) Clarendon, Lord, 200, 209, 248, 249 Clark, Ian Melville, 712, 714 Clarke, Kenneth, 618 Clark, Lord, 766 Clive, Sir Robert, 357, 723 Cockburn, George, 5 Cockburn, Henry, 309 Cohen, Sir Ivor, 472, 474, 476 Cole, Henry, 761 Collins, Philip, 535 Collins, Wilkie, 532 Colvin, John, 329 Commerell, John, 40 Connaught, Prince Arthur of, 108, 709 Conroy, Hilary, 650 Constable, 727 Cooper, Richard, 610 Copeland, William, 91 Cortazzi, Hugh, 492, 565, 579, 753 Cortazzi, Lady, 753, 777 Coward, Noel, 145 Craigie, Sir Robert, 311, 590 Crane, Steve, 478 Crane, Walter, 734 Cranston, Catherine (Kate), 737, 739, 740 Croock, James, 511 Crosland, Anthony, 335 Crossland, Professor Bill, 452 Crowe, Arthur Louis, 303 Crowe, Sir Colin, 305 Crowe, Sir Edward, 293, 303–305 Crowe, Sir Eyre, 304 Crowe, Sir Joseph, 304 Crown Prince Naruhito, 528, 595 Crown Princess Masako, 528, 594

817

INDEX

Cunard, Lady Emerald, 696, 698 Cunningham of Felling, Lord, 787 Curtis, Robin, 160 Cutler, Thomas, 733 Dackson Masiyano, Dr, 454 Daendals, Herman, 16 Dan, Baron, 724 Daniels, Frank, 378 Daniels, Gordon, 197 Darwin, Charles, 46 David, Sir Percival, 722, 723, 724, 725, 764 Davids, Thomas William Rhys, 684 Davidson, John, 292 Davidson, Sir Colin John, 292–297 Davies, Angela, 558–560 Davies, Sir John, 684 Davies, Terry, 475 Deacon, Richard, 525 Deakin, Lady, 657 Deakin, Sir William, 651, 657 Delcassé, Théophile, 231 Dell, Edmund, 336 Delville, Jean, 732 Dening, Esler, 318, 319–320 Dening, Walter, 180, 319, 353, 356 Denman, Roy, 337 Derby, Fifteenth Earl of, 195–205, 255, 265 Deussen, Paul, 684, 688 Diana Spencer, Lady, 152 Dicey, Professor A.V., 502 Dickens, 531, 532, 534–535, 538, 539 Dickins, F. Victor, 351 Dillon, Frank, 50 Dimond, Paul, 496 Disraeli, 196 Do¯fuku Sueyoshi, 23 Dodds, James, 88, 91, 92 Doeff, Hendrick, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 22ff. Dohmen, 270 Doi Kyo¯suke Yu¯rin, 27 Doi Ryu¯zo¯, 23 Doi Uriuno, 23 Dolton, R.F., 534 Donnan, 667

818

Dore, Ronald, 380, 389, 653, 654 Douglas, Sir Andrew, 5 Downer, Lesley, 556–558 Doyle, Arthur Conan, 145, 164, 532, 538 Dresser, Christopher, 544, 732 Drummond, Eric, 295 Drumwright, Joan, 156 Drury, William, 6 Dulac, Edmund, 697, 698, 699 Durkheim, Emile, 684 Dyer, Henry, 440 Earle, Joe, 770 East, Sir Alfred, 727 Eberle, Admiral Sir James, 785 Ebina Danjo¯, 629, 630 Ebisawa Arimichi, 182 Eden, Anthony, 295, 315, 324, 334 Edgerton, William, 32 Edinburgh, Duke of, 331 Ednie, John, 731, 737 Edward VII, King, 547, 709 Edward VIII, Prince, 295 Edward, Prince, 346 Edwardes, Arthur, 126, 395 Edwards, John, 506, 507 Efford, Capt. John James, 79 Egremont, Pamela, 329 Eida Saburo¯, 754 Eida, S., 710 Einstein, Albert, 665 Elizabeth II, Queen, 480, 698 Elliot, Gilbert (Earl of Minto), 20 Elliott, David, 535 Elliott, Jon, 476 Elmhirst, Edward Pennell, 64 Emmott, Charles, 395 Enji Kyochoku, 10 Enomoto, Viscount, 108 Enslie, J.J., 270, 279 Entwistle, Sir Cyril, 129 Erikawa Haruo, 532 Essig, Karl, 505 Esteve-Coll, Dame Elizabeth, 776 Etherington, Keith, 471 Everill, J.O., 79 Evington, Henry, 170, 173, 191 Ezra, David, 431

INDEX

Faber, E., 189 Farley, Gus, 102 Farrell, Simon, 497, 498 Farsshid Moussavi, 727 Fawcett, Sarah Lizzie, 170 Fenollosa, Ernest, 697, 699 Ferranti, Simone de, 329 Fleisher, Wilfrid, 132 Fleming, Alexander, 664 Foot, Hugh (see Caradon, Lord) Ford, Henry, 504 Forsyth, Frederick, 164 Fortune, Robert, 707 Foss, Bishop Hugh James, 178, 181 Foster, Norman, 773, 775 Franks, Augustus Woolaston, 762, 764 Fraser, Antonia, 164 Fraser, Duncan, 492 Fraser, Evan James, 103–104 Fraser, Hugh, 709 Fraser, Ian, 503 Fraser, J.A., 301 Fraser, Jack, 102 Fraser, James Campbell, 100–101 Fraser, John, 250 Fraser, Mrs Hugh, 709 Frazier, Everett, 102 French, Chief Justice, 269 Freshwater, Tim (a.k.a. Mr Shimizu), 505 Freud, Lucian, 159 Fujikawa Mariko, 157 Fujimoto Fumio, 428 Fujimoto Ju¯saku, 181 Fujita Tsuguharu, 702 Fujita Tsuguji, 696 Fujiyama Naraichi, 569–576 Fujiyama Shizuko, 576 Fujiyama Takeichi, 569 Fukada Hiromu, 592 Fukasawa Suguru, 532 Fukata Naotarô, 171 Fukuda Takeo, 339 Fukuda Tokuyasu, 589 Fukuhara Masao, Professor, 559 Fukuzawa Yukichi, 350, 379 Furusho¯, Captain, 695 Gaitskell, Hugh, 652, 653, 654, 656 Gallacio, Anya, 525

Galsworthy, John, 532 Geldof, Bob, 523 George IV, King, 530, 545 George V, King, 644, 762 George, Lloyd, 611, 644 George, Prince (later George V), 547 Giacometti, Alberto, 774 Gibbing, Elizabeth Wippell, 189 Gibbs, Anthony, 392 Giers, Nikolai Karlovich de, 211 Giffard, Sir Sydney, 337, 345 Gilbert, Alfred, 732 Gilbertson, Edward, 763–764 Giles, Paul, 508 Giles, Ray, 494 Gladstone, William, 200, 204, 205, 209 Gloucester, Duke of, 295 Glover, Thomas, 92, 198, 440 Goethe, 649 Gogh, Vincent Van, 734 Goodman, Roger, 567 Goodwin, Agnes, 263 Goodwin, Augustine Anne, 263 Goodwin, Charles Wycliffe, 247, 250, 263–267, 280 Goodwin, Charles, 263 Goodwin, Frances Catherine (née Sawyer), 263 Goodwin, Harvey, 263 Gorman, George W., 126, 132 Gower, A.J., 279 Gower, Abel A.J., 79 Gozeman, Dirk, 9, 10, 12, 13 Graham, Captain Alan, 395 Graham, Dr E.L., 110 Granville, Lord, 203, 204, 265 Gray, George, 427 Gray, Robert, 37 Greaves, John, 534 Greene, Sir Conyngham, 293, 294, 304 Grenside, John, 503 Grey, Sir Edward, 217, 221, 292 Griffis, William Elliot, 350 Griffiths, Harry, 358 Grimani, Edmund Hornby, 247, 248, 250 Grimani, Francesca, 248 Grindrod, Peter, 507 Grundy, Anne Hull, 765, 768–769

819

INDEX

Grundy, John Hull, 768 Gubbins, J.H., 281, 293 Guevara, Che, 340 Haga Yaichi, 354 Hagihara Nobutoshi, 648–660, 782 Halifax, Lord, 244 Hall, Agnes, 280 Hall, John Carey, 263, 278–285, 308 Hall, Kathleen, 308 Hamada Kunio, 504, 510, 513 Hamada Sho¯ji, 745, 746, 747, 748 Hamilton, George, 102, 103, 104 Hammarskjöld, Dag, 334 Hanai Takao, 613 Hanaoka Takaaki, 616, 620 Hani Motoko, 626 Hankey, Lord, 395 Hannen, Consular Court Judge Nicholas, 90, 92, 93, 250, 252, 253, 262, 264, 265, 266, 268, 269 Hannen, James, 248, 250, 255 Hanson, Edith, 146 Harcourt, Sir William Vernon, 209, 234 Harding, Warren, 700 Hardy, Thomas, 331, 531, 532, 533–534, 537, 538 Harré, Rom, 594 Harris, Colin, 492 Hart, Joseph, 614, 615 Hart, Mrs, 710 Hart, Sir Robert, 212 Hartley, Arthur, 537 Hart-Synnot, Captain, 293 Harvey, Alan, 492 Harvey, Dan, 525 Hashimoto Ryutaro, 528 Haslam, T. Rothwell, 394 Hayashi, Ambassador, 619 Hayashi, Baron, 723 Hayashi, Viscount, 227, 228, 229 Hayashi Sadayuki, 593 Haynes, George, 400 Head, Violet Jane, 180 Healey, Denis, 618 Healey, Graham, 566 Hearn, Lafcadio, 161, 165, 358 Heath, Sir Edward, 329, 334, 604

820

Heiniger, Andre, 401 Henderson, Lori, 498, 499 Henry, George, 734 Henty, Audrey M., 178 Heseltine, Michael, 429, 430, 431, 466, 472, 495 Hesketh, Kirsty, 329 Hidaka Tadaichi, 643, 644 Higgins, Peter, 523 Higuchi Ichiyo¯, 626 Hikoichiro¯, 350 Hillier, Alice, 139 Hilsum, Cyril, 427 Hilton, Carolyn, 344 Hirahara Tsuyoshi, 403 Hirano Akira, 777 Hirata Shigeyuki, Professor ‘Frank’, 165 Hirata Tokuboku, 532 Hirohito, Emperor, 110, 623 Hisato, Mr, 113 Hitachi, HIH Prince, 528 Hobart-Hampden, Ernest, 284, 308 Hobson, R.L., 764 Hoffman, Josef, 739 Hokusai, 725, 726, 736 Holst, Gustav, 697, 698 Homma, General, 312 Homma Jiro, 613 Honda Kinkichiro¯, 720 Hook, Neil, 524 Hooker, Sir William, 45 Horiuchi Kensuke, 587 Hornby, Sir Edmund Grimani, 247, 248–263, 264, 265, 266, 268, 270 Hornby, Thomas, 248 Hornel, Edward Atkinson, 734 Hosoi Ogawa Tanosuke (H.O. Tanosuke), 754 Hosokawa Yukimasa, 149 Hosomi Takashi, 782 Howard of Lympne, Lord, 789 Howard, John, 483 Howe, Geoffrey, 346, 788 Howell, Lord (David), 785–786 Hübner, Baron von, 201, 203 Hudson, G.F., 651, 652, 654, 656 Hudson, Mary, 250 Hughes, Elizabeth Phillips, 625, 628, 629, 630, 631, 632

INDEX

Hughes, Hugh Price, 628 Hull, Cordell, 243, 571, 572, 573 Hunt, Roger, 406 Hutchinson, Archibald Campbell, 187, 191 Hutchinson, Arthur Blockey, 187, 188, 189, 192 Hutchinson, Ernest Gordon, 187, 191 Hutchison, John, 735 Huth, Georg, 684 Hyakutake Kaneyuki, 719 Ichikawa Sanki, 357 Iguchi Sadao, 588, 592 Iguchi Takeo, 572, 573, 588, 589, 592 Ihara Saikaku, 378 Ijima Isao, 77 Iju¯in Hikokichi, 586 Ikeda Seisuke, 757 Ikuma Dan, 141 Ikuta Kizan, 695 Imamura Haruo, 146 Imasato Hiroki, 409 Ingle, Mike, 496, 497 Ingram, Captain Collingwood, 767–768 Ingram, Herbert, 767 Inoue Kaoru, 301 Inoue [Taku], Mr, 589, 665, 666, 668, 669 Inoue Tetsujiro¯, 350 Irving, Rev. E.C., 93 Irwin, Lord, 239 Ishibashi Kazunori (aka Wakun), 720, 721, 722 Ishibashi Sukezaemon, 26 Ishibashi Tanzan, 642 Ishihara Kanji, 127 Islington, Lady, 698 Isobe Yaichiro¯, 355 Ito¯ Hirobumi, 210, 213, 229, 686 Ito¯ Kimi’e, 693 Ito¯ Michio, 693–703 Ito¯ Tamekichi, 693 I-Tsing, 685 Iwakami Haruko, 536 Iwanaga Teruko, 567 Jacobs, Miss, 302 Jacques-Dalcroze, Émile, 695

James, Captain, 281 Jansen, Marius, 650 Janssens, Jan, 22 Jarmain, John Joshua, 63 Jenkin, Patrick, 781, 784 Jenkins, Roy, 336 Jenyns, R. Soames, 712 Jephson, Richard Mounteney, 64 Jimmu Tenno¯, 354, 359 Johnson, Boris, 620 Joll, James, 658, 659 Jones, Sir John Harvey, 604 Jordan, David Starr, 77, 78 ¯ nanda, 355 Josephson, Jason A Kagawa Toyohiko, 183 Kaifu Toshiki, Prime Minister, 659, 782 Kakitsubo Masayoshi, 589 Kaku, T., 618 Kamijo¯ Tokuemon, 11 Kamishima Jiro¯, 654 Kanawa, Dame Kiri Te, 405 Kanbara Jiemon, 15 Kanda Takahira, 279 Kaneko Umaji, 641 Kanoi Nobuo, 474, 476 Kansai Yamamoto, 621 Kasahara Kenju, 683, 684, 685 Kataoka (president of Alps), 474, 453, 454, 459 Kataoka Katsutaro, 443 Kataoka Masataka, 451 Kataoka Masayuki, (Prince Kataoka), 754–755 Kataoka Sho¯ei, 427, 428 Kato¯ Kanji (Hiraharu), 293 Kato¯ Sho¯zo¯, 754, 755–757, 762 Kato Tadao, 565, 566, 590, 591, 595, 781 Kato¯ Takaaki, Count, 216 Kato¯ Yasotaro¯, 756 Katsumata Zentaka, 76 Kawai Masatomo, Professor, 776, 777 Kawakami Otojiro¯, 558 Kawakami Sadayakko, 558 Kawakubo Rei, 486 Kawashima Yutaka, 593 Kaye, Gordon, 484, 490

821

INDEX

Kazuko Kon, Mrs, 493 Keene, Donald, 164 Keio Gijuku, 182 Kennedy, John Russell, 126, 127–128 Kennedy, Malcolm, 126 Kenrick, Douglas, 491 Kent, Duke of, 346 Keppie, Jessie, 731 Keppie, John, 731 Kieda Takao, 408 Kimberley, Earl of, 208–217 Kimura Ko¯kichi, Rear Admiral, 357 Kindaichi Kyo¯suke, 357 King, Francis, 156, 166 King, Jessie, 731, 737, 739 King, Steve, 523 Kinoshita Jun’an, 381 Kipling, Rudyard, 532 Kirkwood, William Montague, 92, 93 Kishi Nobosuke, Prime Minister, 163 Kita Ikki, 162 Kita Nagao, 589 Kitanofuji, 403, 404 Kiyono Tetsuhiro¯, 450, 452, 455 Klestadt, Eric, 650 Klimt, Gustav, 739 Knight, Oliver Hayward, 181 Ko¯no Taeko, 533, 536 Ko¯ri Torahiko, 696, 697 Ko¯ Tsunetaro, 190 Ko¯un-kaku, 27 Ko¯zu Minato, 722 Koba Magohiko, 171, 190 Kobayashi Takanobu, 145, 146, 152, 153 Kobayashi Tatsuo, 776 Koike Shigeru, Professor, 534 Koizaburo Nishikawa, 142 Koizumi Gunji, 147 Koizumi Junichiro, 566 Koizumi Shinzo¯, 646 Komeya Nobuhiko, 450, 451, 454 Kondo, T., 485 Konoe Fumimaro, 395 Konoe Hidemaro¯, 575 Kosugi Takuo, 512 Ko¯toku Shu¯sui, 353 Koyake Shoko, 108 Koyasu, 503

822

Kume Kunitake, 544 Kume Tamiju¯ro¯, 696, 697 Kunio (see Senda Koreya) Küper, Admiral Sir Augustus Leopold, 38, 39 Kurashiki Taketoshi, 191 Kuroyanagi Tetsuko, 141 Kurusu, Ambassador, 571, 572 Kyle, Terence, 504 Laffin, Thomas ‘Tim’, 80 Laffitte, Pierre, 284 Lamb, Sir Walter, 723 Lampson, Sir Miles, 294, 295, 319, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325 Lange, Rudolf, 367 Langley, W., 295 Lansdowne, Lord, 221–233, 334 Laski, Harold, 591 Lawden, James, 514 Lay, Arthur Hyde, 303 Lay, Eleanor, 303 Lay, William Hyde, 303 Lea, Arthur, 191, 192 Leach, Bernard, 556, 745, 747 Leach, David, 748 Leach, Janet, 747 Legge, James, 684 Leggett, Trevor, 140, 144, 145, 147, 150, 151 Lehmann, Margarette, 695 Leyland, F.R., 739 Lightley, Anthony, 148 Lilley, Peter, 464 Lindley, Sir Francis, 319 Livingstone, John, 707 Lloyd, Arthur, 108, 179 Lloyd, Lord, 395 Lloyd, Selwyn, 334 Lodge, David, 159 Lodge, Oliver, 668 Loewe, Dr Michael, 777 Logan, George, 731, 737 Louis XV, 545 Louis XVI, 545 Lowder, E. Gordon, 302 Lowder, John Frederic, 64, 300–302 Lowder, Lieut. Colonel Samuel Netterville, 59

INDEX

Lowder, Rev. John, 300 Lutyens, 740 Lyon, Mary, 631 Lytton, Lord, 238–244, 322, 323, 532, 723 Lytton, Pamela, 239 Ma Chan-shan, General, 321, 322 MacArthur, Supreme Commander General Douglas, 140, 163 Macdonald, Frances, 731 MacDonald, Malcolm, 324 Macdonald, Margaret, 725, 731, 732, 734, 735, 736, 740 MacDonald, Sir Claude, 292, 293, 392 Macdonell, Anthony, 684, 688 Maceroni, Emilia, 248 MacKenzie (née Hughes), Hettie Millicent, 630 MacKenzie, John Stuart, 630 Mackintosh, Charles Rennie, 731–743 Maclean, 328 Macleod, Norman, 493 Macmillan, Lord, 239 MacNair, Herbert, 731, 732, 735, 736 Maeda, Count, 296 Maeda, Viscount, 666, 669 Maeda Toshitame, Marquis, 695–696 Magaribuchi Kai-no-kami, 14 Magniac, Herbert, 256, 257 Major, John, 460 Makihara Minoru, 611 Makino Narikatsu, 25 Makino Nobuaki, 586, 587 Makino Yoshio, 698 Makioka Tetsuya, 173 Mann, John Charles, 192 Margaret, Princess, 156, 419, 420 Marsden, Rosalind, 158 Marshall, Frederick, 203, 204 Martin, Catherine (née Sydee), 158, 159, 160, 162 Martin, Peter, 155–166 Maruyama Masao, 651, 653 Mary, Queen, 762 Masaki, Mrs, 712 Masako, Crown Princess, 528 Masataka Kosaka, 782 Mason, Alan, 476

Mason, W.B., 117, 353, 357 Massarella, Dr Derek, 567 Matanle, Peter, 561–563 Matsudaira (Nabeshima) Narinao, 15, 23 Matsudaira Ichiro¯, 613 Matsudaira Setsuko, 613 Matsudaira Tsuneo, 613 Matsudaira Yasuhide, 23 Matsudaira Zusho-no-kami Yasuhide, 3 Matsui Keishiro, 586 Matsumura Kaiseki, 356 Matsuoka Yo¯suke, 127, 657 Maumené, Albert, 710 Maundrell, Herbert, 190 Maurois, Andre, 611 Mauss, Marcel, 684 Maynard, Robin, 494, 495 McCallum, Graham, 493 McCartney, Paul, 156 McDonald, Albert William, 399 McDonald, Christopher W., 399–406 McDonald, Emily, 399 McDonald, Peter, 406 McDonald, Roger, 406 McEnally, Stephen, 159 McEwan, Alan, 374 McEwan, Evelyn, 374 McEwan, John, 374–383, 483 McKenzie, Professor Robert, 654 McNeil, Hector, 328 Meinertzhagen, George Frederick, 765–766, 769 Melville, James, 158, 160, 162, 164 Mencius, 189 Metzeler, 9, 13, 14 Mikami Sanji, 357 Miki Takeo339 Milhaud, Darius140 Millais, 727 Mills, Douglas, 371–373 Milward, Reginald (‘Peter’), 615 Minakata Kumagusu, 754, 755, 756, 757, 759 Minobe Tatsukichi, Professor, 162 Mitani Tanekichi, 181 Mitford, A.B., 196, 198 Mitsukuri Kakichi, 77 Miura Tamaki, 695

823

INDEX

Miwa Hiroshi, 613 Miwa Kinji, 613 Miyagi Michio, 150 Miyahara Kame, 76 Miyazaki Isamu, 782 Miyazaki Ko¯ichi, Professor, 534 Miyazawa Toshiyoshi, Dr, 570 Miyazawa Yasushi, 592 Mizumura Minae, 539 Mizuno Isao, 190 Mizutani Futo¯, 535 Modigliani, Amedo, 776 Mollison, James Pender, 88, 90, 91, 98, 101–103, 104 Moody, Dwight Lyman, 179, 183 Moore, Henry, 774 Moore, T. Surge, 696 Moran, Joseph, 164 Morgan, Alastair, 567 Mori Arinori, Viscount, 358, 652 Mori Mariko, 726 Mori Yoshiko, Mrs, 726 Morishima Chu¯ryo¯, 23 Morishita Yo¯ko, 405 Morita Akio, 464 Moriya, Mr W., 110 Morland, Sir Oscar, 344 Morosco, Oliver, 699 Morrell, Lady Ottoline, 696 Morrell, Philip, 697 Morris, Ivan, 164 Morris, Margaret, 698 Morris, Talwin, 731, 737, 740 Morris, William, 735 Morrison, Herbert, 334 Morse, E.S., 733 Moss, George, 318, 319, 322, 323–325 Motoki Sho¯ei, 16 Motoki Sho¯zaemon, 26 Motono Morimichi, 202 Motoo Shiina, 782 Motoo Ueno, 461

Motoori Norinaga, 379, 380, 381 Mountbatten, Lord Louis, 324 Mowat, 270 Müller, Friedrich Max, 681, 683, 684, 685, 687, 688 Müller, Georgina, 687 Muller, Robert O., 110

824

Murdoch, Iris, 156 Murray, E.D., 102

Murray, Iain, 504 Muto, Mr, 313 Muto¯ Takehiko, 758 Mutsu Hirokichi, 585 Mutsu Munemitsu, Count, 585, 592, 649, 654, 655, 656, 657 Mutsu Munimutsu, 210, 213 Mutsu, Yonosuke Ian, 585 Nabeshima Naohiro, 719, 751 Nagai Kafu¯, 695 Nagai Ryu¯taro, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132 Nagako, Empress, 623 Nagano Bujirô, 180 Nagano Busaburo¯, 180 Naganuma Ken, 403 Nagaoka Hantaro, 668 Nagayama Osamu, 457 Nagayo Matao, 357 Nakagawa Kasumasa, 694 Nakagawa Kenjiro¯, 626, 630 Nakagawa Noboru, 509 Nakajima Yoshi, 431 Nakamura Mototaka, 613 Nakamura Muneo, 646 Nakanishi Yoshiyuki, 170 Nakano Seigo¯, 127 Nakano Tomio, 646 Nakaya Fujiko, 673 Nakaya Jujiro, 670 Nakaya Ukichiro, 663–673 Nakayama Sakusaburo¯, 9, 26 Nakayama Sho¯zen, 145 Namura Takichiro¯, 26 Nanbu Chu¯hei, 645 Nanjo¯ Bun’yu, 683, 684, 686 Napoleon, 5, 22, 31 Napoleon I, 545 Napoleon, Louis, 22 Naruse Jinzo¯, 629 Nash, Elizabeth, 181 Natsume So¯seki, 641, 664, 727 Neal, Richard, 497 Neave, Airey, 429 Needham, Sir Richard, 472, 780, 781 Newbery, Francis ‘Fra’, 731, 734, 735, 736, 737

INDEX

Newbery, Jessie, 731, 736 Newman, Ernest, 132 Newman, John Edward Brian, 143–153 Newton, Lord, 295 Nichols, Robert, 536 Nicolai, Carsten, 673 Nino Kenji, 505 Nishida Taketoshi, 649 Nishimiya Shinichi, 593 Nitobe Inazo¯, 349, 350, 351, 358, 625, 629, 630, 631 Nitta Tetsuo, 448, 449, 450, 451, 452, 455 Nixon, Richard, 330 Noguchi Yone, 349 Nomura Toshio, 431 Nomura, Ambassador, 571, 572 Norihito of Takamado, Prince, 403 Norikoshi Hideo, 513 Norman, E.H., 651 North, Marianne, 45–56 Nott, John, 338 ¯ kawa Shu¯mei, 127, 294 O ¯ kuma Shigenobu, 301, 642 O ¯ kuma Toshiyuki, 542 O ¯ sawa Mamoru, 533, 534 O ¯ shima Hiroshi, General, 574 O ¯ ura Kanetake, Baron, 354 O O’Neill, Patrick, 383 Ochiai Naobumi, 351 Ogasawara Sho¯ji, 443, 444 Ogata Shijuro, 607–611 Ogata Taketora, 607, 608 Ogura Kazuo, 593 Ogyu¯ Sorai, 374, 378, 379, 382 Ohara Shigeya, 279 Ohira Masayoshi, 339 Oka Yoshitake, Professor, 649, 655 Okabe, Marie Lorenz, 139 Okada Keisuke, 131570 Okada Saburo¯suke, 720 Okada Yu¯ji, 758 Okakura Yoshisaburo¯, 356, 357 Okano Shunichiro, 402, 403 Okazaki Hisahiko, 592 Oku Katsuhiko, 595 Okuma Shigenobu, 301 Okumura Katsuzo¯, 572

Okumura, Mr (Nomura Securities), 503 Oldenberg, Herman, 684 Olivier, Laurence, 536 Omura Sumiyoshi, 14 Onoemon, 637 Onuki, Y., 619 Orange, James, 353 Orita Masaki, 593, 777 Ormandy, Eugene, 571 Orme, Mrs, 712 Ota Nanpo, 28 Ota Tomotsune, 588 ¯ tsuki Gentaku, 10, 16 O Ôuchi Saburô, 182 Owada Hisashi, 593, 595 Owada Masako, 595 Owen, David, 335 Owen, Jane, 495 Owen, Sir Philip Cunliffe, 544 Owston, Alan, 74–82 Owston, Suzie, 75 Oxlad, Miss Mary Jane, 171 Oyama Toru, 445, 446, 448, 450 Ozaki Yukio, 350 Ozolins, Dainis, 673 Palliser, Sir Michael, 336, 782 Parekh, Dharini, 748, 749 Parker, Cornelia, 525 Parker, Sir Peter, 604 Parkes, Lady, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52 Parkes, Sir Harry, 48, 49, 50, 51, 65, 196, 197, 198, 199, 201, 202, 204, 205, 251, 266, 300 Parlett, H.G., 295 Parrott, Frederick, 180 Passingham, Ethel [Iso], 585 Paxton, Joseph, 525–526 Peacock, Marjorie, 156 Pearson, David, 503 Peel, Robert, 761 Pellew, Admiral Sir Fleetwood, 1–16, 23, 26, 29, 30, 34 Pellew, Edward, 4 Pellew, Israel, 4 Pellew, Viscount Pownoll Bastard, 4 Perret, Auguste, 740 Petty-Fitzmaurice, Henry Charles Keith (see Lansdowne, Lord)

825

INDEX

Philippe I, Louis, 545 Philipps, Dr L.R., 533 Pickering M.P., Ernest Harold, 125–134 Piggott, Major General Francis S.G., 125, 134, 394 Piggott, Sir Francis T., 125 Pilcher, Sir John, 157, 333, 344, 521 Piper, John, 189 Plunkett, Sir Francis, 281 Pole, George Henry, 171, 173 Pool, Mr, 573 Poole, Arthur William, 173, 189 Porter, Professor A.W., 666, 667, 668, 669 Pound, Ezra, 697 Poyntz, Major William Henry, 62 Prentice, John, 337 Price, Robert Ernest, 102 Pride, Thomas, 37, 39, 40 Priestley, J.B., 145 Prior, James, 781 Puccini, 558 Pugin, 738 Queen, Her Majesty The, 330, 331, 480, 611, 698 Rachmaninoff, 571 Radbourne, Lew, 493 Raeburn, Agnes, 731 Raffles, (Sir Stamford), 16, 20–34 Railton, William, 180 Railton, Margaret Mari Amelia, 180 Rankin, Ian, 164 Raphael, Oscar Charles, 723, 764 Rawcliffe, Dr Carole, 161, 165, 166 Rawson-Hastings, Francis (Earl of Moira), 20 Raynes, Peter, 427, 431 Reading, Lord, 239 Redcliffe, Lord Stratford de, 249 Reid, Alexander, 734 Reilly, Sir Francis Savage, 250 Rennie, George, 268 Rennie, Jane, 268 Rennie, Marie, 268 Rennie, Sir Richard Temple, 247, 267–271

826

Rennie, William Hepburn, 268 Revelstoke, Lord, 392 Richards, Dr John, 159 Richardson, Charles Lennox, 39, 60 Richardson, Geoff, 485, 486 Richardson, L., 667 Richardson, Owen Willans, 665, 666, 668, 669, 670 Richardson, Thomas Miles, 719 Richie, Donald, 490 Richmond, Mr (AUEW chairman), 415 Ricketts, Charles, 698 Riddy, John, 525 Ridsdale, Sir Julian, 782 Riley, Bridget, 156 Rimer, Tom, 164 Roberts, Emily, 250 Roberts, Lady, 712 Robertson, Russell, 68, 251 Robertson-Scott, John William, 125, 293 Robinson, B.W., 756 Robinson, Joan, 591 Robinson, William, 25 Robson, David, 451 Roper, Joanna, 524 Rose, Sir Archibald, 393 Rosebery, Earl of, 209, 210, 211, 212, 214, 215, 216, 217 Rosen, Sam, 560–561 Ross, John Bailey, 101 Rossetti, 669 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 532, 533, 669 Rowat, Jessie, 736 Rowland, Anda, 481 Ruez, Sir Thomas de la, 268 Ruskin, John, 735 Russell, Earl, 209, 249, 250 Russell, John, 710 Russell, Lord John, 60 Russell, Richard, 508 Rutherford, Ernest, 667, 669 Ryder, Vice-Admiral Sir Alfred, 190 Saba Sho¯ichi, 599–605 Saigo Takamori, 164–165, 198, 202 Sainsbury, John, 774 Sainsbury, Lisa, Lady, 604, 773–778

INDEX

Sainsbury, Sir Robert (Bob), 604, 774, 775–776 Saionji Kinmochi, 586, 587 Saito¯ Hiroshi, 586, 587, 588 Saito¯ Kunihiko, 593 Saito¯ Rei, 355 Saito¯ Sogan, 722 Saito¯ Takao, 639 Saji Keizo, 782 Sakamoto, 503 Sakamoto Jutaro, 565 Saki, 221 Sakimura Reiko, 514 Sakurai Hikoichiro¯, 350 Sakurai (president of Ricoh), 474 Sale, Charles, 391, 392–396 Sale, George, 391, 393, 395, 396 Salter, William, 491, 492 Samata Sanae, 495 Sandon, Viscount, 782 Sankey, Ira David, 179 Sansom, George, 293, 295, 305, 308, 357 Sargent, Geoffrey, 378 Sargent, John Singer, 721, 727 Sasaki Nobutsuna, 356, 357 Sasaki Tadashi, 426 Sasaki, Vice President (of Sharp), 427 Sasao Tetsusaburo¯, 182 Sato Hiroaki, 142 Sato¯ Nobuhiro, 389 Sato¯ Yoshiyasu, 593 Satoh Yukio, 780, 781 Satow, Sir Ernest, 39, 108, 197, 198, 216, 651 Sawai Teruyuki, 592 Sawai Umetaro¯, 681 Sayle, Murray, 340 Schereschewsky, Samuel Isaac Joseph, 188 Schiller, 649 Schimmel, Gerrit, 9 Schulmann, Horst, 610 Scidmore, Eliza R., 709 Scott, Baillie, 732 Scott, James Henry, 102 Scott, Robert, 318, 319, 320–323 Seaward, Mark, 537 Seeley, William Henry Harrison, 37, 39, 40

Seichu¯-tei Tokushin, 27 Seidensticker, Edward, 164 Seki Dennojo, 13 Sekimoto Takahiro, Dr (president of NEC), 474, 782 Seligman, Edwin, 639, 640 Seligman, Gerald, 672 Sempill, Lord, 394, 395, 396 Sen Sumiko, 157 Senda Koreya, 694, 702 Seymour, Admiral Sir Michael, 40 Shakespeare, 532, 578 Shand, Alexander Allan, 363 Shand, James, 363 Shand, Margaret (née Allan), 363 Shand, William J.S., 362, 363–365, 367 Shaw, George Bernard, 144, 645, 696 Sheldon, Mark, 514 Shiba Ko¯kan, 28 Shibusawa Yeiichi, 92 Shidehara Kiju¯ro¯, [Baron; Foreign Minister], 131, 133, 296, 319 Shigemitsu Mamoru, 315, 316, 586, 587 Shilton, Peter, 406 Shimada Rei JKao (sic.), 75 Shimamura Ho¯getsu, 640 Shimaoka Tatsuzo¯, 745–751 Shimazaki To¯son, 696 Shimazu Hisamasa, 589 Shimoda Utako, 627, 632 Shimokobe Atsushi, Dr, 782 Shinmura Izuru, 357 Shiozawa Masasada, 640, 643, 644 Shirahata Tomoyuki, 589 Shiraishi Kazuko, 673 Shiroji Yuki, 572 Shoji Norio, 619 Showa Emperor, 331, 346, 480, 569, 590, 755 Shuttleworth, Dorothy, 107, 108 Siebold, Philipp von, 34 Silver, Elizabeth, 567 Simon, Sir John, 128, 321, 324 Simpson, Professor George C., 666, 669 Sinclair, Ross, 525 Skillend, William, 379 Slater, Michael, 535

827

INDEX

Smale, Sir John, 263 Smart, Adrian, 506 Smith, Alfred Brooke, 65 Smith, Antony, 429 Smith, George, 65 Smith, John, 782 Smith, Nina Beatrice, 65 Smith, Paul, 488 Smith, William Henry, (father), 58–69 Smith, William Henry, (son), 65 Snow, Henry James, 75, 76 Soejima, 154, 253, 261 Soganoya Goro¯, 695 Solf, Wilhelm Heinrich, 688 Sone Yutaka, 673 Sonoda Sunao, 339 Sorrell, Sir John, 523 Southern, Henry, 248 Sparks, Andy, 567 Spencer, Tim, 523 Spender, Stephen, 672 Spielmann, M.H., 737 Spira, Peter, 503 Stains, Ian de, 476, 491 Stanley, Lord (see Derby, Fifteenth Earl) Stein, Lorenz von, 649, 656 Stevenson, Dennis, 411 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 532 Stock, Eugene, 190 Stockdale, Chas Boddam, 6–7, 9, 11, 14 Stockwin, Arthur, 164 Storry, Richard, (Dick), 566, 650, 659 Stout, George Frederick, 628 Stratton, Professor F.J.M., 671 Strickland, Robert, 157 Suematsu Kencho¯, Baron, 351, 682, 686, 687 Sugden, James, 487 Sugimoto Hisatsugu, 379 Sunobe Ryo¯zo¯, 591 Suwa Nejiko, 575 Suyama Totsuan (also known as Don’o¯), 381 Suzuki Hamakichi, 708 Suzuki Uhei, 708 Tajiri Akiyoshi, 588 Takagi Yasaka, Professor, 576

828

Takahashi Genji, Dr, 533 Takahashi Kageyasu, 16 Takahashi Kazuko, 538 Takahashi Masaki, 616, 617, 620 Takahashi Mutsuo, 673 Takahashi Yasunari, 158 Takakusu Junjiro¯, 680–690 Takamado, HIH Princess, 528 Takamine Hideo, 630 Takata Sanae, 639, 644 Takatani Shiro, 673 Takeda Shunzo¯, 181, 182 Takeguchi Haruo, 431 Takeno Yasuzo, 507 Takenobu Yoshitaro¯, 350 Takeuchi Ryu¯ji, 589 Takeuchi Yukio, 593 Taki Katei, 720 Takuma Michio, 613 Talbot, W.H., 86, 91, 92 Tanabe Baike Genseki, 12, 14 Tanabe Yo¯ko, 539 Tanaka Hisao, 476, 477 Tanaka Hozumi, 637–646 Tanaka Kakuei, 330, 339 Tanaka, Professor, 506 Tanaka Shu¯nosuke, 637 Tanaka Susumu, 444, 445, 447, 448, 450 Tanaka Yu¯, 637 Tani Yukio, 144 Tasker, Peter, 567 Tatsuro Kosaka, 461 Taylor, Ernest Archibald, 731, 737 Tennelly, Richard A., 132 Tennyson, Alfred, 532, 533 Tenterden, Lord, 204 Terada Torahiko, 664 Teraishi Issei, 428 Terasaki Hidenari, 575 Terasawa Hisayoshi, 171 Terauchi, Count, 377 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 532 Thakur, P.N., 294 Thatcher, Margaret, 330, 335, 345, 346, 491, 580, 779, 781, 784, 789 Thompson, Ian, 431 Thorne, Ben, 337, 492, 493 Thorpe, Adrian, 491

INDEX

Thynne, John, 428 Tibbatts, Horace Nelson, 170 Tibbatts, Mary Ann Ada, 170 Tilley, Sir John, 297, 304 To¯bata Seichi, 380 To¯go Shigenori, 575, 657 Tochinishiki, Yokozuna, 403, 404 Toke, Major Roundell, 293 Tokonami Takejiro¯, 131 Tokugawa Ienari, 25 Tokugawa Ieyasu, 151 Tokugawa Keiki, 293 Tokugawa Yoshihiro, 164 Tokugawa Yoshimune, 28 Tomioka Taeko, 533 Tomita Kumasaku, 110, 754, 755, 757–759, 762 Tomita Taro¯emon, 757 Tomlinson, Sir Stanley, 566 Tomoeda Takahiko, 686 Tomura, Mr S., 108 Tottori Hisako, 403 Toulouse-Lautrec, 734 To¯yama Hirokatsu, 25 Toyoda Eiji, Dr, 522 Toyoda Shoichiro, Dr, 782 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 28 Trench, Hon. P. Le Poer, 93 Tristam, Canon Henry Baker, 171 Tristam, Katherine, 178 Tsubouchi Sho¯yo¯, 639, 643 Tsuchiya Sho¯zo¯, 133, 134 Tsuda So¯kichi, 645 Tsuda Umeko, 626, 629, 632 Tsuji Haruo, 428 Tsukatani Akiko, 474 Tsumura Toichi, 709 Tsunematsu Ken, 502, 504 Tsuneo Hayashida, 141 Tsuru Yagi, 485 Tsutsumi Seiji, 726 Turner, J.M.W., 4 Tyndale, Walter, 107 Uchida Yasuya, 242 Uchiyama Sho¯hei, 534 Uehara Masanao, 588 Uemura Masahisa, 350 Ueno Kagenori, 202, 204

Ukawa Hideyuki, 592 Ullmann, Philip, 768 Urashima (the Rip Van Winkle of Japan), 115 Urushibara Yoshijiro, 732 Uryu¯ Matao, 589 Ushihara Torao, 533 Ushijima Sôtarô, 191 Verkhovskoy, Pierre, 509 Victor, Prince Albert, 547 Victoria, Queen, 40, 198, 211, 545, 547 Villiers, Sir George, 248, 249 Voorman, Hendrik, 25, 31 Voysey, C.F.A., 731, 732 Wade, Sir Thomas, 202 Wagatsuma Sakae, Dr, 570 Wagener, Gottfried, 719 Wakasugi Akira, 615, 616, 619 Wakefield, Peter, 492, 495 Wales, Prince of (future George IV), 5 Wales, Prince of (later Edward VII), 547 Wales, Prince of, 346, 545 Wales, Princess of, 346 Waley, Arthur, 382, 698 Walker, I.D., 89 Walton, Edward, 734 Walton, George, 731, 734, 736, 739 Wardenaar, Willem, 16, 24, 25, 26, 29 Wärndorfer, Fritz, 739 Warner Fred, (father), 327 Warner, Sir Fred, 327–332, 335 Warren, Charles Frederick, 169–174, 188, 189, 190 Warren, Charles Theodore, 169 Warren, D.F.W., 174 Warren, George, 170 Warren, Horace George, 169, 172 Warren, Mrs (Charles Frederick), 170, 171 Warren, Sir David, 480, 610 Watanabe Jo¯taro¯, General, 570 Watanabe Junko, 566 Watanabe Kaigyoku, 687 Watano Kiyoshi, 444ff. Watson, E.B., 68

829

INDEX

Watson, R.G., 300, 301 Weintz, Elizabeth, 365 Weintz, Henry John, 362, 363, 365–368 Weintz, Henry, (father), 365 Welch, Jack, 603 Welles, Orson, 536 Welling, Mark, 508 Wellington Koo, 587, 597 Welsford, Alan, 503 Westlake, Richard, 567 Weston, Walter, 178 Wheeler, Dr Edwin, 81 Whistler, 669, 734, 739, 740 White, Annie (née Fish), 308 White, Annie ‘Betty’, 309 White, Geoffrey, 509 White, Gleeson, 736 White, James, 307 White, Kathleen ‘Kitty’, 309 White, Oswald ‘Shiro’, 282, 307 White, Patricia ‘Pat’, 309 Whitehead, Sir John, 343–348, 492, 579 Whitfield, George, 79, 80 Wilberforce, William, 179, 766 Wilde, Oscar, 669, 698 Wilford, Sir Michael, 331, 333–341, 782 Wilkes, Alpheus Paget, 177, 179, 181, 182 Wilkie, Gill, 151 Wilkin, A.J., 68 Wilkins, John H., 266 William V (Prince of Orange), 21 Williams, Emlyn, 156 Williams, Geoffrey, 503 Williams, Mark, 567 Williams, Martin, 431 Willis, Dr William, 254, 460, 657 Wills, Keith, 429 Wilson, Alexander ‘Sandy’, 384 Wilson, Angus, 156 Wilson, C.T.R., 668, 670, 671 Wilson, Des, 340 Wilson, Harold, 335, 653, 654 Wilson, Nicholas, 502, 506 Wilson, Woodrow, 586 Winchester, Charles, 60, 62

830

Windridge, Margaret, 515 Windsor, Philip, 658, 659 Winkworth, Stephen, 770 Winkworth, William Wilberforce, 765, 766 Winternitz, Moriz, 684 Winton, John, 41 Wirgman, Charles, 40, 63, 64, 67, 88, 267 Wodehouse, John, 209 Wolfers, Nicolas, 159, 460, 555, 556, 566 Wood, Henry, 696 Wood, William, 25, 29 Woodland, Peter, 444, 454 Woods, Richard, 525 Woolley, Amy Kathleen, 178 Wrangham, Edward Addison, 769–770 Wrangham, Sir Geoffrey Walter, 769 Wright, Hazel, 700 Wright, Sir David, 421, 476, 497 Wright, Thomas, 763 Yamada Hisanari, 589 Yamada Ko¯saku, 695, 699, 700, 702 Yamada Yoshitaro¯, 571 Yamamoto Bunnnosuke, 533 Yamamoto Sukeyoshi, 408, 419, 421, 495 Yamamoto Tadashi, 781 Yamanaka Rokusaburo¯, 758 Yamanouchi Hisaaki, 158 Yamaryo¯ Kazuma, 28 Yamazaki Kazuya, 726 Yamgata Kanae, 696 Yanagi So¯etsu, 745, 746 Yanaihara Tadao, 127 Yanase Shuji, 504 Yano Makoto, 585 Yass, Catherine, 525 Yasuda Mitsuhiro, 506 Yasuhiro Nakasone, Prime Minister, 779, 780, 781, 789 Yasuhisa Shiozaki, 787, 789 Yasui Chiyo, 626 Yasui Tetsu, 625–632 Yasui Tsumori, 626 Yeats, W.B., 696, 697, 698, 699, 700, 702 Yokota Kizaburo¯, Professor, 570

INDEX

Yokoyama Katsunojo¯, 9 Yokoyama Toshio¯, 655 Yone Noguchi, 700 York, HRH the Duke of, 527 Yoshida Kazuko, 162 Yoshida Miyako, 621 Yoshida Shigeru, Prime Minister, 609, 654 Yoshida Shintaro¯, 146 Yoshii Kiyonari, 190

Yoshikawa Jiro¯zaemon, 10 Yoshizawa Kenichi, 321 Young, Brigham, 100–101 Young, Morgan, 132 Young, Robert, 283 Young, Thomas James, 38 Yukawa Morio, 590 Zetland, Lord, 239 Zumoto Motosada, 131

831