Holme, Ringer & Company

The Rise and Fall of a British Enterprise in Japan (1868–1940)

By Brian Burke-Gaffney

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 Cover illustration: Sydney Ringer’s certificate of consular status issued by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 7 December 1939.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Burke-Gaffney, Brian. Holme, Ringer & Company : the rise and fall of a British enterprise in Japan (1868-1940) / by Brian Burke-Gaffney. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-23017-0 (hbk. : alk. paper) 1. Holme, Ringer & Company. 2. Great Britain-- Commerce--Japan--History. 3. Japan--Commerce--Great Britain--History. 4. Trading companies-- Great Britain--History. 5. Business enterprises, Foreign--Japan--History. 6. Merchants, Foreign--Japan--History. I. Title. HF3508.J3B87 2012 382.06ʼ552--dc23 2012035989

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.

ISBN 978-90-04-23017-0 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-24321-7 (e-book)

Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

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, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Authorisation to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

This book is printed on acid-free paper. For Elizabeth Newton Richard Bjergfelt and Wendy Herbert

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ��ix Prologue ��xi Note on Romanisation of Japanese Names and Words ��xv List of Figures �� xvii

1 Beginnings in England and China ��1 2 Revival of British Commercial Activity in Japan ��7 3 Establishment and Growth of Holme, Ringer & Co. �� 21 4 Family Affairs �� 39 5 Economic Expansion �� 49 6 The Dream Hotel �� 75 7 Whaling and Fishing ��101 8 Wuriu Shokwai and the Shimonoseki Connection ��113 9 The Second Generation ��125 10 Roaring Twenties, Souring Thirties ��139 11 Dogs of War ��161 12 Mountains and Rivers Remain ��193

Bibliography ��223

Appendix I Ringer Family Tree ��227 Appendix II Holme, Ringer & Company (Wuriu Shokwai) Agency list for 1918 ��229 Index ��233

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The former Ringer family houses in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki have been designated as heritage sites and carefully preserved by the Japanese government. To date, however, little has been done to shed light on the achievements of Holme, Ringer & Co. or the life and work of Ringer family members during their stay in Japan from the pre-Meiji years to the outbreak of the Second World War. Harold S. Williams’ essay The Story of Holme, Ringer & Co. Ltd. in Western Japan, 1868–1968 was published on the company centennial in 1968, but only in a small private edition. The present research project began in early 2007 when the author visited Canberra to study the Harold S. Williams Collection at the National Library of Australia. I would like to thank Dr Keiko Tamura of the ANU College of Asia & the Pacific and Mayumi Shinozaki and the other staff of the National Library of Australia for their kind assistance in viewing and recording the documents related to Holme, Ringer & Co. The next breakthrough came in the form of Elizabeth Newton, who paid an incognito visit to Nagasaki in 2007. The author had the good fortune to meet her during her stay and to call on her at her home in Whitby, North Yorkshire, the following year. By coincidence, Richard Bjergfelt, grandson of Freddy and Alcidie Ringer and Elizabeth’s second cousin, wrote to Nagasaki City around the same time offering to donate family heirlooms to Glover Garden. Richard kindly invited the author to his home in Gloucestershire and further extended the line of communication by introducing another second cousin, Wendy Herbert, granddaughter of Lina and Willmott H. Lewis. Needless to say, Elizabeth, Richard and Wendy provided a wealth of information about the activities of the Ringer family in both Japan and England. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for their generous cooperation. Special thanks also go to Takemoto Kazuhiro (longtime employee and current president of Holme, Ringer & Co.) and to the late Tomita Kaneyasu (son of Ringer family gardener Tomita Ikutarō) for their invaluable advice. I would also like to express gratitude to Paul Norbury, Nozomi Goto and the staff of Brill Academic Publishers for their encouragement and support. The present work relied heavily on the English-language newspapers published in Nagasaki from the early Meiji Period to 1928, during which time hardly a single issue rolled off the presses without some reference to x acknowledgement

Holme, Ringer & Co. Contemporary Japanese newspapers provided an alternative viewpoint. The British and American consular records preserved at the National Archives in the two countries, as well as the GHQ- SCAP files concerning the Ringer properties, shed further light on the company business and the activities of family members. The author’s investigations into the consular records and other sources at home and abroad were facilitated by research grants from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. I hope that the result of these efforts will illuminate a dark cranny in Japanese history and serve as a stepping stone for further research and discussion on the period in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when a few expatriates from Britain and other countries made Japan their home, contributed to that country’s remarkable growth, but found it impossible to stay.

Brian Burke-Gaffney Nagasaki, Japan Summer 2012 PROLOGUE

When it opened for business in Norwich, England in 1897, the Royal Hotel boasted the latest in architectural technology and building standards, everything from fireproofed stairwells to mechanical lifts and ventilation shafts, as well as an elaborately decorated marble foyer, baronial gables, turrets and pinnacles, and rich red stonework exuding the confidence and noble aspirations of the late Victorian period. The Nagasaki Hotel appeared on the other side of the world only a few months later. The elegant brick-and timber building was the work of British architect Josiah Conder, first professor of architecture at the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo and ‘father of modern Japanese modern architecture’. The four-storey hotel featured amenities and beau- ties commensurate with those of the Royal Hotel in Norwich: finely- appointed rooms, dining facilities for a hundred guests, private telephones, in-house electric plant, and dynamos of the same type as those installed in the US Mint – along with the added luxury of verandas with French windows looking down on the blue water of Nagasaki Harbour. Nagasaki was basking in unprecedented prosperity as a port-of-call for merchantmen and warships from Britain, Russia, France, the United States and other countries. The construction of the Kyūshū Railway had reached completion the same year, absorbing the once isolated town into the network of overland transportation stretching to the urban centres of Osaka and Tokyo. Foreign tourists were arriving by the thousands, searching for traces of Madame Chrysanthème and Madame Butterfly and spilling their money in souvenir shops, bars and brothels in the labyrinth of old streets. The Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, sprawling along the shore of Akunoura and Tategami opposite the foreign settlement, was producing – with the indispensable assistance of British naval architects – large-scale passenger liners and cargo vessels granted Class-A status by Lloyd’s inspectors. The people of Nagasaki, like their counterparts in Norwich, were revel- ling in good fortune and looking optimistically to the future. Japan had just defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 and surprised the world with newly-acquired military prowess and industrial capability. John Poyntz Spencer (Fifth Earl Spencer), the recently retired First Lord of the Admiralty, visited Nagasaki in 1896 and proceeded to Tokyo where he xii prologue smoothed the way for cooperation between the navies of the two countries and for the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902, the first such affiliation between a European and Asian power. During a naval fete held in Nagasaki in November 1906 to celebrate Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 and the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Nagasaki Mayor Yokoyama Toraichirō commented that: Our two Island Empires, one the most powerful in the West and the other having just emerged victorious from a great conflict, are geographically widely separated from each other, but in heart and mind they are knit together as brothers. We feel that we owe a great deal to our Western breth- ren for the rapid development and improvement of our country. Moreover, the conclusion of the new treaty of alliance not only strengthens the intimate relations already existing between the two nations but ensures the peace of the Far East. In the autumn of 1907, Frederick Ringer arrived at the Royal Hotel with his wife Carolina and sixteen-year-old son Sydney and wrote the words ‘Nagasaki, Japan’ in the address column of the guest register. The sixty- nine-year-old Norwich native was obviously in a precarious state of health. Although few people in his hometown could have known, Ringer had been party to many of the events in Japan’s rise to economic and industrial power, from the tea trade that cracked the shell of the Edo Period to the introduction of telephones, milling machinery, railway materials, trawlers, Norwegian-style whalers, and other commodities and technologies that had brought that country out of the shadow of national seclusion and into the spotlight of the twentieth century. ‘Holme, Ringer & Co.’, established by Ringer and Manchester cotton spinning expert Edward Z. Holme in 1868, had grown into the oldest and most influential business enterprise in western Japan. Frederick Ringer had also presided over the construction and operation of the Nagasaki Hotel but had been forced by the drop in visitors to Nagasaki during the Russo-Japanese War to liquidate the holding company and place the facility under the direct administration of Holme, Ringer & Co. The hotel had continued its downward slide to the point of bankruptcy by the time the aging entrepreneur stepped tired and ill into the mosaic-tiled lobby of the Royal Hotel. Ringer died in the arms of his wife and son on 29 November 1907 and was buried according to his wishes beside his mother and father in Rosary Cemetery, Norwich. The business of Holme, Ringer & Co. continued over the following years under the leadership of trusted employees and later prologue xiii

Ringer’s own sons and grandsons. Even when Japanese firms took over the lion’s share of the import and export trade and other foreign entrepreneurs packed up and left Japan – and even when militarism and xenophobia began to spoil Japan’s relationships with Britain and other former friends – Holme, Ringer & Co. maintained its presence in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki as Lloyd’s agent and representative of dozens of international shipping, insurance and banking companies. The ‘spy scare’ of 1940, however, precipitated an abrupt and irrevocable withdrawal. The Royal Hotel thrived as a social and political gathering place until its closure in the 1970s, but the building, preserved and used for other purposes, remains today as a cherished landmark in the ever-changing cityscape of Norwich. The Nagasaki Hotel, by contrast, closed soon after Frederick Ringer’s death and stood empty on the waterfront until being purchased by Japanese investors in 1918. It sputtered along over the following months but closed permanently in 1924, dog-eared and ghost-haunted, eventually falling to the wrecker’s hammer and leaving not as much as a foundation stone to posterity. In 2007, Frederick Ringer’s great-granddaughter Elizabeth Newton visited Nagasaki on a solo journey, the first Ringer descendant to return to Japan in decades. The seventy-year-old had seen her share of adventure over the years: study at Cambridge University, marriage to an American jazz pianist with whom she wandered the world, and life on a farm in North Yorkshire – near the grand Sutherland Lodge where her mother and father had met and fallen in love – raising goats and making cheese. After the death of her husband, Elizabeth decided to use the money set aside from the sale of family properties in Japan to study Japanese and learn more about the country of her birth, which until now had been little more than images in dreams and snippets of memory. She tells how, when filling out the immigration form on the airplane coming into Tokyo, she wrote a checkmark in the ‘no’ box for questions like ‘Are you carrying any weapons?’ and ‘Have you ever been convicted of a crime?’ but hesitated over the question ‘Have you ever been deported from Japan?’ The following chapters recount the achievements of Holme, Ringer & Co., from its inception at the beginning of the Meiji Period to its unexpected collapse on the eve of the Second World War, and paint a portrait of the triumphs and tragedies of Elizabeth’s ancestors – the Ringer family of Nagasaki and Shimonoseki. For additional illustrations relating to Nagasaki and the history of Holme, Ringer & Company, readers are referred to the author’s earlier book, Nagasaki: The British Experience, 1854–1945 (Global Oriental, 2009).

NOTE ON ROMANISATION OF JAPANESE NAMES AND WORDS

All Japanese names is this work are rendered in the Japanese fashion with the family name first. Long vowels are rendered with macrons, except in cases where the name or word can be considered to have entered the English lexicon. The same applies to italicisation. Chinese place names are presented using the Wade-Giles system with pinyin in brackets where applicable. Korean place names are presented using the Wade-Reischauer system, with the revisions introduced prior to the 2002 World Cup in brackets. Japanese words are presented using the hyōjun shiki, an adapta- tion of the Hepburn system.

LIST OF FIGURES

2.1 View over Nagasaki Foreign Settlement and Dejima �� 10 3.1 View of Minamiyamate looking north towards the town of Nagasaki �� 25 4.1 Former Ringer family residence ‘Niban’ at No.2 Minamiyamate, preserved in Nagasaki Glover Garden �� 46 5.1 The Hongōchi Dam advanced by Frederick Ringer �� 56 5.2 Early twentieth-century picture postcard of the Umegasaki waterfront. �� 57 5.3 Picture postcard showing the buildings on the Ōura waterfront, ca. 1910 �� 60 5.4 Kuraba Tomisaburō around the time of his departure for studies abroad in 1888. �� 73 6.1 Carolina Ringer with her three children, ca. 1898 �� 81 6.2 Picture postcard of the Nagasaki Hotel and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, ca. 1907 �� 85 6.3 Picture postcard of the Nagasaki Hotel, ca.1920, showing naval ensign unfurled �� 86 6.4 Frederick Ringer a few years before his death in 1907 �� 91 6.5 Two young British employees of Holme, Ringer & Co relaxing in the office at No. 7 Ōura, ca.1910 �� 95 6.6 Carolina and Lina Ringer, ca. 1905 �� 97 7.1 The Steamship Fishery Co. steam trawler Fukaye-maru, in Nagasaki Harbour, ca.1910 ��108 8.1 Foreigners pose for a photograph in Shimonoseki, ca.1895 ��115 8.2 Staff of Wuriu Shokwai in Shimonoseki, ca. 1907 ��117 8.3 Picture postcard showing the Karato-chō neighbourhood of Shimonoseki, 1939 ��122 9.1 Members of the Nagasaki Club pose for a photograph, ca. 1910 ��126 9.2 Frederick (Freddy) E.E. Ringer, ca.1930 ��130 10.1 Canadian Pacific Ocean Services Ltd, advertisement in a 1918 edition of The Nagasaki Press ��144 10.2 Photograph of the Ringer house at No.14 Minamiyamate, 1919 ��145 10.3 Alcidie Ringer prepares to fly a kite with Ringer family amah Obama Yoshi, ca. 1925 ��152 xviii list of figures

10.4 Picture postcard showing the Ōura waterfront street, ca. 1920 ��155 10.5 The roof of ‘Niban’ and Nagasaki Harbour, ca. 1930 ��158 10.6 Picture postcard showing the Ōura waterfront, incorrectly translated as ‘pier’, 1934 ��160 11.1 Ringer family members pose for a photograph with Holme, Ringer & Co. employees in front of the house at No.14 Minamiyamate, ca.1935 ��162 11.2 Michael, Sydney and Vanya Ringer on the lawn in front of ‘Niban’, ca.1935 ��163 11.3 Ringer family men stand with a friend in the front entrance to the house at No.14 Minamiyamate, ca.1935 ��165 11.4 The waterfront in Shimonoseki with Beniishiyama in the background ��166 11.5 Ringer family members pose for a photograph at the front door of ‘Niban’ on the day of Vanya’s wedding, 1937 ��168 11.6 Ringer family relaxing on the front steps of Rinkyōkan, Shimonoseki, ca 1939 ��171 11.7 Sydney Ringer’s certificate of consular status, December 1939 ��172 11.8 Living room in the Ringer family residence at No.14 Minamiyamate, ca. 1930 ��183 12.1 Ōura waterfront street, October 1945, taken by Allied Occupation forces ��194 12.2 Major Michael C.G. Ringer testifies at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, 1946 ��196 12.3 Charred ruins of the Holme, Ringer & Co. office at No.7 Ōura, 1947 ��203 12.4 Ringer family house ‘Niban’ 1947 when occupied by Japanese squatters ��206 12.5 Sydney and Aileen Ringer with their gardener Tomita Ikutarō in front of ‘Niban’, 1952 ��208 12.6 Sydney and Aileen Ringer with former Holme, Ringer & Co. employees, 1952 ��209 12.7 Former Ringer family residence at No.14 Minamiyamate preserved as the ‘Former Alt House’ in Nagasaki Glover Garden ��211 12.8 Sydney Ringer enjoys dinner at the Sanyō Hotel, Shimonoseki, with former Wuriu Shokwai employees, ca.1953 ��214 list of figures xix

12.9 Staff members of the new Holme, Ringer & Co. pose for a photograph in front of the office in Moji, 1968 ��214 12.10 Holme, Ringer & Co. office in Moji is still in operation today ��215 12.11 Ringer family residence in Shimonoseki, renamed ‘Kōyōkan’ in 1959 ��217 12.12 Last photograph of a Ringer family member in Japan shows Sydney enjoying dinner with Nagasaki friends, ca. 1960 ��218 12.13 Sydney Arthur Ringer in Japan, ca.1960 ��220 12.14 Japanese postage stamp (issued 2002) showing the former Glover house and former Ringer family residences at No.14 and No.2 Minamiyamate ��221

CHAPTER ONE

BEGINNINGS IN ENGLAND AND CHINA

The town of Norwich lies in the middle of rolling farmland about 150 kilometres northeast of London, connected to the seaport of Great Yarmouth by the River Wensum. The stone spire of a twelfth-century cathedral pierces the rooftops of the old city and casts a long shadow over the market places and stucco buildings of the town centre. Cobblestone backstreets flow away from the ruins of an ancient castle and eddy around dozens of antiquated churches of stone construction, including the Church of St. Julian dedicated to the fourteenth-century mystic Julian of Norwich who wrote the Revelations of Divine Love. The River Wensum served over the centuries as a lifeline for the transportation of timber, hides, grain and wool and for the stone and metal crafts, marine products and sundry goods conveyed across the sea from the European continent. It was the largest walled town in medieval England and the most important urban centre outside London by the seventeenth century, its population of some 30,000 people, including a large Dutch community, making a living from the construction, brewing and textile industries and the brisk foreign trade. By the middle of the nineteenth century the town was like a museum of British architecture, with buildings from the Norman, Tudor, Georgian and Victorian periods jostling together on a maze of old lanes and modern thoroughfares. Frederick Ringer was born in Norwich in 1838, the third son of a grocer named John Manship Ringer and his wife Anne. The England Census of 1841 records that the family – including Frederick’s parents, older brothers John and Sydney, and baby sister Emma – was living in the vicinity of the old cathedral in the centre of town.1 John Manship Ringer died in 1843 and was buried with his daughter Emma, who had succumbed to a childhood illness earlier the same year, in the nonconformist cemetery on Rosary Road. The term ‘nonconformist’ referred to an English subject belonging to any non-Anglican church, although it may also indicate an inclination on the part of the Ringer family to advocate religious freedom. According to the England Census of 1851, Anne Ringer was living with Sydney and

1 England Census of 1841, National Archives of the United Kingdom (NAUK), Kew. 2 chapter one

Frederick in Colegate Street, near the corner of Magdalene Lane where the medieval church of St. Clement stands shoulder-to-shoulder with a sixteenth-century stone and timber-frame merchant’s house in use today as a public house called ‘The Mischief’. In addition to Anne Ringer and her sons, the census records the presence of two maidservants, indicating that Anne maintained a relatively affluent lifestyle despite the death of her husband. All three Ringer sons would go on to make their mark on the world: John as one of the pioneer British residents of Shanghai, China; Sydney as a renowned medical scientist; Frederick as a pillar of business in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki and a contributor to the modern development of Japan. The absence of John Ringer’s name in the 1851 census shows that Frederick’s eldest brother, eighteen years old that year, had left the family nest to pursue his own career. Nothing is known about the events leading up to his arrival in China, but the Chronicle and Directory, an annual list of Europeans residing in the treaty ports of East Asia, shows John M. Ringer working as a tea inspector for a Shanghai company called Rothwell, Love & Co. from 1862 to 1864.2 The young Norwich native had apparently found a position in the burgeoning tea trade and undergone training in the impor tant job of assessing the quality of tea shipped from China to London. The people of Britain were already avid tea drinkers by the turn of the nineteenth century, consuming about two and a half pounds of tea and some seventeen pounds of Caribbean sugar per person per year. Although the trade with China was confined to the southern port of Canton (Guangzhou), the tea shipped from that port is said to have earned more profits for the English East India Company than all of the ports of India combined. On the negative side, however, the huge demand for tea in Britain and other countries resulted in a trade deficit because the Chinese accepted only gold and silver as payment and continued to shun British products like woollens. The British devised a solution to this quan- dary by importing large quantities of opium and exploiting the addiction that spread rapidly through the Chinese population. In 1839, the Qing government tried to halt the opium trade and, when that failed, took the dras- tic step of destroying thousands of chests of the drug on the waterfront in Canton. The British exacted revenge with a display of overwhelming

2 The Chronicle & Directory for China, Corea, Japan, the Philippines, Cochin China, Annam, Tonquin, Siam, Borneo, Straits Settlements, Malay States, etc. Lists of this sort were published annually in Hong Kong and other ports from around 1860 to the outbreak of the Second World War. Copies are preserved today at the Yokohama Archives of History. beginnings in england and china 3 military force. When the smoke cleared in the summer of 1842, the Chinese Emperor was compelled to sign the Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing), to cede the island of Hong Kong to Britain, to pay a crushing indemnity, and to allow the British to establish settlements and engage freely in trade in five other ports including Shanghai. This treaty was inherently ‘unequal’, that is, it gave advantages to one cosignatory that were not enjoyed by the other. Then came the Second Opium War (Arrow War) and the subsequent Treaty of Tientsin (Tianjin), which forced further invasive and humiliating conditions on the Qing government including the free passage of foreign missionaries and merchants throughout China, and the opening of the Yangtze River to trade. The lifting of the floodgate on commercial access to the tea-growing regions in the Chinese hinterland precipitated an unprecedented boom in the tea trade. Foreign shipping companies competed for supremacy in carrying the newly-harvested tea to the West India Dock in London. The fran- tic effort to win both the bonuses offered by the tea merchants and dealers in Mincing Lane and the honours of winning the race at sea resulted in the development of the famous ‘tea clippers’ that cut the voyage from Hong Kong to London to less than a hundred days. Britons widened the narrow path to the Far East travelled by the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch since the sixteenth century, and the para- digm of imperial governance and colonial life established in India climbed the east coast of China like a carefully tended wisteria vine, issuing exotic cultural blossoms and economic fruits along the way. Hong Kong, now British territory, swelled with the sudden influx of traders, missionaries, opium-runners, and opportunists, and the five coastal ports of Canton (Guangzhou), Amoy (Xiamen), Foochow (Fuzhou), Ningpo (Ningbo) and Shanghai – earmarked for concessions where foreign residents would enjoy extraterritorial rights and unilateral business privileges – formed a row of stepping stones for the northward march of British influence. The penetration of steamships into the mist-veiled upper reaches of the Yangtze River meanwhile turned the inland ports of Hankow (part of present-day Wuhan), Kiukiang (Jiujiang) and Chinkiang (Zhenjiang) into busy gateways for trade and foreign settlement. Alexander Bower, a Royal Navy captain employed by a Shanghai company to explore the river in 1861, provides the following description: The upper passage of the river above Chinkiang is well-known to the experienced pilots now on the river, and there is good anchorage to be had in any part of it, until reaching Kiukiang where a goodly number of foreign residences have sprung up… A range of mountains two thousand feet high at the 4 chapter one

back forms a pleasing contrast to the flat uninteresting plain opposite. As at Chinkiang, the anchorage is bad here, the ground is rocky and the water deep, and the river about three-fourths of a mile wide. Kiukiang has not, however, realised the expectations formed of it when Sir J. Hope’s party visited it; it is a market for green teas and a few blacks, but does not improve in its demand for manufactured goods. Thence to Hankow we pass through a rich cultivated plain; at others past a high range of hills, some cultivated to the summit. Every here and there are dotted towns and villages, wedged in sometimes between two hills with their numerous pagodas and battle- mented walls, and Buddhist monasteries perched on the brow of some lofty hill.3 On 1 June 1865, John M. Ringer placed an advertisement in the Shanghai newspaper The North China Herald announcing his independence as a general commission merchant in Hankow. In the Chronicle and Directory published in Hong Kong the same year, the name ‘F. Ringer’ appears for the first time in relation to East Asia. John Ringer’s twenty-seven-year-old younger brother is listed as a tea inspector working for the Shanghai trading firm Fletcher & Co. in Kiukiang, the Yangtze River port in the heart of the tea-producing regions described by Alexander Bower. This information suggests that Frederick Ringer spent a number of years in London learning the rudiments of the tea trade and the art of tea inspection, probably at the recommendation of his brother John, and that he travelled to China no later than 1864 on one of the tea clippers returning to collect the next harvest of the precious leaf. The date of Frederick Ringer’s departure from England is further defined by the following inscription on a silver trophy passed down in the Ringer family:

West Brompton Cricket Ground Foot races 27 June 1863 The gentlemen of the tea trade only Won by F. Ringer Esq. 250 yards

John Ringer moved to Shanghai and helped to establish Drysdale, Ringer & Co., one of the port’s leading foreign business enterprises and a driving force in the development of important projects such as the Shanghai

3 The North China Daily Herald, 30 January 1861. beginnings in england and china 5

Waterworks. His partner Thomas M. Drysdale, formerly of Fletcher & Co., stood side by side with Ringer as a pillar of the early Shanghai International Settlement. Frederick Ringer probably had the opportunity to join his brother and former Fletcher & Co. colleague in business, but he decided to leave China for the new frontier of Japan. The catalyst was an offer from Scotsman Thomas B. Glover to supervise the export of tea by his company in Nagasaki, the fabled former haunt of Portuguese Jesuits, Chinese mariners and Dutch opperhoofden now finally accessible to British entrepreneurs.

CHAPTER TWO

REVIVAL OF BRITISH COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY IN JAPAN

When Portuguese traders and missionaries found Nagasaki in the mid- sixteenth century, they could tell without even leaving their ship that they had entered one of the best natural harbours in the world. The rough waters of the East China Sea were tamed by a long channel that bottle- necked at the entrance and opened into a wide, calm bay protected on three sides by tree-clad mountains. Although little more than a remote fishing hamlet, the town at the head of the bay provided the closest safe haven in the Japanese archipelago for the carracks sailing from the Chinese continent. The Europeans engaged in friendly negotiations with the local lord, Ōmura Sumitada, and, in 1570, received permission to establish a base for commercial and missionary activity. A decade later Nagasaki had grown into a bustling international port studded with Catholic churches, frequented by European traders and missionaries, and visited without hin- drance by ships of all nations. The Japanese population, almost exclusively Christian, ate meat and bread, drank wine from glass goblets, played chess and backgammon, and otherwise carried on in a manner unimaginable in other parts of Japan. The European influence was so strong that travellers began to refer to the port as ‘Little Rome’.1 An atmosphere of cooperation and freedom predominated in Nagasaki, but the religion professed by the Europeans began to draw criticism from Japanese leaders because its followers, whose numbers swelled to a peak of some 300,000 by the turn of the century, tended to choose allegiance to a foreign god over submission to temporal authorities. In the spring of 1600, the Dutch ship Liefde foundered on the east coast of Kyūshū, an event that marked not only the beginning of Japanese-Dutch exchange but also the addition of a Protestant country to the international cocktail brewing in Japan. The Dutch won permission to trade from the newly- inaugurated Tokugawa Shogunate and established a factory (trading

1 C.R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan 1549–1650 (Berkley: University of California Press, 1951), pp. 91–136. 8 chapter two post) at Hirado in 1609.2 In 1613, the British ship Clove commanded by John Saris sailed into Hirado Harbour, and the British established a factory for the English East India Company within sight of the one run by the Dutch. As it turned out, however, only four British ships including the Clove ever touched Japanese shores, and the British factory soon closed. The Tokugawa Shogunate accepted the stubborn presence of the Catholic priests and their Japanese congregations as an unpleasant yet inevitable condition for continuation of the profitable foreign trade, but in 1612–1614 it imposed a complete and final ban on Christianity and ordered the destruction of all churches, the expulsion of priests, and the registration of every last Japanese citizen as a member of one of the principal Buddhist sects. The impact could not have been felt any greater than in ‘Little Rome’: churches were razed and Japanese Christians forced either to recant or to face gruesome torture and martyrdom. In 1641, the Dutch East India Company moved its factory (trading post) to Dejima, the artificial island in Nagasaki Harbour built a few years earlier in a last-ditch effort to maintain the lucrative European trade while confining Portuguese residents and curbing the spread of Christianity. The Chinese also won the right to continue a modicum of trade on the condition that they reside only at Nagasaki and, of course, refrain from any activity that smacked of Christian promulgation. The latter were free for the first few decades to take up lodgings anywhere in the town, a situation that resulted in a surge in the number of Chinese ships visiting the port and a remarkable flowering of Chinese culture. The trade became so unruly in fact that the Tokugawa Shogunate decided to restrict the number of Chinese ships to seventy a year in 1688 and, the following year, to confine all Chinese residents to a segregated quarter in Jūzenji-gō, near Dejima.3 For the next century and a half, the Dutch and Chinese enclaves in Nagasaki – the only two places in Japan where foreigners could reside – served as an interface for international exchange and portals through which a trickle of merchandise and information reached this country from abroad.

2 A small port in the northern part of present-day Nagasaki Prefecture, Hirado was the seat of the Matsura domain and the site of a trading post run by the Portuguese before their transfer to Nagasaki. 3 Nagasaki Shishi Nenpyō Hensan Iinkai (ed.), Nagasaki shishi nenpyō (Nagasaki City Chronology) (Nagasaki City Hall, 1981), p. 43. revival of british commercial activity in japan 9

Arrival of the British

The news reaching Nagasaki in the early nineteenth century began to include alarming reports about the rise of British influence in East Asia and China’s failure to push back the tide of colonisation. The Dutch factor urged the Tokugawa Shogunate to amend its policy of national isolation, but it was not until Commodore Matthew Perry pointed American cannons at the city of Edo (Tokyo) that the xenophobic country agreed to sign international treaties and to open its doors to a new era of trade and diplomatic exchange, the first pact being the Japan-US Treaty of Amity and Friendship or ‘Kanagawa Treaty’ signed by Commodore Perry and representatives of the Tokugawa Shogunate in March 1854. The next country to win a treaty was Britain. On 7 September 1854, four Royal Navy warships arrived in the middle roadstead of Nagasaki Harbour and anchored in front of the chain of boats installed across the water to remind visitors of the restricted area beyond. Admiral James Stirling met with Japanese representatives and submitted a request for the conclusion of a British-Japanese treaty, an event that marked (excluding the unwelcome visits of the Return in 1673 and the Phaeton in 1808) the first official contact between Britain and Japan since the closure of the English East India Company factory at Hirado in 1623. On 14 October, after some five weeks of stagnation, Stirling finally sat down with the Nagasaki magistrate to sign the Japan-Britain Treaty of Amity and to lay the first foundation stone for a new era of British-Japanese cooperation. A period of quiet continued until 3 August 1858 when Sir James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin and 12th Earl of Kincardine, arrived in Nagasaki to sign a new treaty that would go beyond the nebulous concept of ‘amity’ and guarantee commercial and residential privileges for British citizens. The former governor-general of Canada had been appointed high commis- sioner to China and entrusted with the task of concluding treaties with China and Japan, and he sailed into Nagasaki Harbour less than a month after signing the Treaty of Tientsin: I sailed for Nagasaki on the 31st ultimo and dropped anchor in the harbour on the 3rd instant. The scenery, as we approached the town, was very striking. Rocky islets, as outposts in the offing, followed by a narrow channel winding between hills clothed with luminescent vegetation, conducted us through a series of landscapes… to the city, through which alone, for so many years, foreigners have been permitted to catch a glimpse of the mysterious Empire of Japan.4

4 Lord Elgin to the Earl of Malmesbury, 30 August 1858 (NAUK, FO 17/290). 10 chapter two

Lord Elgin’s flagship Furious was joined the following day by the warships Calcutta and Retribution and the Emperor, a sleek steam-powered yacht built on the Thames as a gift from Queen Victoria to the Japanese emperor. Lord Elgin declined an invitation to go ashore, but he invited the Nagasaki Magistrate to lunch and gave him a tour of the steam yacht, the unprecedented beauty of which was causing a sensation among the populace. The crews of the British ships meanwhile took the opportunity to visit the city, and Sherard Osborn, commander of HMS Furious, wrote a detailed account of his experiences and the scenes of Nagasaki and its people pausing on the threshold of change.5 (Fig. 2.1) From his warship anchored in the harbour near Dejima, Osborn saw ‘a gallant bark from Holland, just such a ship as should always sail from Amsterdam; none of your fly-away newfangled vessels, lean as greyhounds and just as fast – but full round and frau-like – exactly the craft, in short,

Figure 2.1. View over the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement and Dejima, looking north towards the Urakami district. Nineteenth-century lithograph. (Author’s collection)

5 Sherard Osborn, A Cruise in Japanese Waters (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1859), pp. 15–58. revival of british commercial activity in japan 11 that a vessel rejoicing in the name of Zeevaart ought to be.’ Ashore, he marvelled at the fine quality of the metalwork, clocks, microscopes and other handmade products in the markets, at the cleanliness of houses and gardens, and at the sombre but elegant dress of the people. In his book he recounts encounters with ordinary citizens, who were invariably friendly, and tells how he pulled off buttons and other ornaments from his officer’s jacket and gave them to the children who approached him unhesitatingly on the streets. Envisioning the inevitable, he expresses regret that Nagasaki might be spoiled as a result of the opening of Japan’s ports and the establishment of foreign settlements: ‘How changed this scene will be (one involuntarily exclaimed) a few years hence, when Cockney, Scot, and New- Yorker shall be competing who can make money fastest, or be the quickest to improve the Japanese off the face of the earth!’ He also dwells propheti- cally on Japan’s role in the region and on the world stage: Our day’s observations led us to the conclusion which every hour in Japan confirmed – that the people inhabiting it are a very remarkable race, and destined, by God’s help, to play an important role in the future history of this remote quarter of the globe… Full of fresh life and energy, anxious to share and compete with European civilisation, ready to acknowledge its superiority, and desirous of adapting it to their social and public wants, how charming a contrast to the stolid Chinaman, who smiles blandly at some marvel of western skill or science, and calmly assures you that his countrymen ‘hab got all the same that, Pekin side!’ The Dutch naval and general instructors bore the highest testimony to the intelligence and mental capacity of their pupils; that their aptitude for every branch of knowledge, and their avidity for acquiring information, were equally remarkable. Mathematics, algebra, and geography, they acquired con amore, and the facility of computation by means of the European system of arithmetic, astonished and delighted them exceedingly. There was not a trade, or manufacture, or invention common to Europe or the United States that they did not expect to have explained to them, in order that they might immediately proceed to imitate it; and inquir- ies upon these subjects would come from the Government, the nobles, and the people generally. Like very inquisitive children, they often nearly posed their instructors. The characterisation of Japanese people as ‘inquisitive children’ who acknowledged the superiority of European civilisation would continue to inform Western attitudes for decades, even after Japan achieved a level of industrial and military capability that rivalled that of its European ‘instructors’. Lord Elgin had apparently intended to sign an Anglo-Japanese treaty in Nagasaki, but when this proved unrealistic he decided to accompany the Emperor to Edo and to deal directly with representatives of the 12 chapter two

Tokugawa Shogunate. At Shimoda, where he anchored along the way, he met Townsend Harris, the American consul general to Japan who had successfully concluded a US-Japan treaty the previous month and who provided a copy of the document and other assistance. Lord Elgin signed the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce in the British compound at Edo on 26 August 1858 and turned over the steam yacht to Japanese authorities the same day. The ship log ends with information that the yacht, renamed Banryū, changed colours amid a twenty-one-gun salute and that the discharged officers and crew ‘left yacht in charge of Japanese’.6 The treaties of amity and commerce signed by the Tokugawa Shogunate in the summer of 1858 (referred to collectively as the ‘Ansei Five-Power Treaties’) ended some five years of faltering negotiations between the Tokugawa Shogunate and representatives of the United States, Britain, Russia, France and the Netherlands. Effective 1 July 1859, they pried open Japan’s long-shut doors, designated several ports including Nagasaki, Yokohama and Hakodate as sites for foreign settlements, and pulled Japan into the commercial and political maelstrom sweeping through the Asia- Pacific region.

Birth of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement

A few months after Lord Elgin’s visit, the swashbuckling Scottish merchant-adventurer Kenneth R. Mackenzie arrived in Nagasaki to establish a branch of Jardine, Matheson & Co., the famous hong that had initiated the private shipment of Chinese tea to England in 1832 while blackening its hands by importing Indian opium to China. Mackenzie chose Nagasaki as a matter of course, not only because it was the nearest port to Shanghai but also because, in early 1859, it was still the only place in Japan with an infrastructure geared to trade and a population accus- tomed to rubbing shoulders with foreigners. While coping with the antag- onistic attitude of the Dutch, who were clinging to the last remnants of their former monopoly, the pioneer merchant established tentative con- tacts with the local authorities and leading business houses and smoothed the way for the official opening of the port on 1 July.

6 NAUK, ADM 53/7356. The yacht was promptly converted into a warship for use by the Tokugawa Shogunate and remained in use by the Imperial Japanese Navy until being decommissioned in 1888. After service as a whaling vessel and merchantman, the historic ship was dismantled in an Osaka shipyard in 1897. revival of british commercial activity in japan 13

The Tokugawa Shogunate had already chosen the village of Ōura Tomachi and its adjacent hillsides, formerly part of the Ōmura domain, as the site for the proposed Nagasaki Foreign Settlement. Bordering the old town to the south, the village consisted of a few fishermen’s huts with thatched roofs facing the harbour. Hillsides, cut into step-like ledges for the cultivation of fruits and vegetables, rose away from a narrow river pen- etrating the brim of flat land at the water’s edge and spilling into the harbour. The only building of note was a Buddhist temple called Myōgyōji on the southern side of the river that by June would be serving as the first British consulate in Japan. Mackenzie rented an old farmhouse above the temple as a temporary residence and a hub for commercial activities. He also erected a flagpole to fly the French flag and proclaim his appointment as acting consul for that country. From the early months of 1860, workers filled in the foreshore to reclaim flat land from the harbour and erected stone embankments to create a waterfront and canal. Upon completion, the Ōura commercial district was about 60,000 square metres (fifteen acres) in area and divided into thirty- one lots, with lots one to eleven facing the harbour. The first list of renters was drawn up on 10 October 1860 and signed by the four consuls George Morrison (Britain), John G. Walsh (USA), Joseph H. Evans (Portugal) and Kenneth R. Mackenzie (France). Morrison was the only official consul in the group; the other three were all merchants. The owners of business establishments were given priority in renting the waterfront lots, while residents opening public houses, hotels and shops had to settle for lots in the rear quarter. The yamate (hillside) neighbourhoods of Higashiyamate and Minamiyamate (also called ‘Ōura Hill’ and ‘Naminohira Hill’) were reserved for residences and schools. In addition to reclaiming land from the harbour, the Shogunate agreed to install all the necessary roads, bridges, gutters and foundation walls. The second phase of construction, which would reach completion by 1863, involved the filling in of the southern side of Ōura River and the extension of the rocky promontory below Myōgyōji Temple, called Sagarimatsu (‘drooping pines’) after the grove of trees there, and the erection of a stone embankment along the waterfront at Umegasaki, near Hirobaba. Kozone Rokuzaemon, a wealthy Nagasaki merchant who cooperated with Mackenzie and other European residents, paid for a further extension of the Sagarimatsu coastal district to the south.7

7 Nagasaki City Chronology, p. 97. This neighbourhood is called Kozone-machi (Kozone Quarter) to this day, and descendants of Rokuzaemon continue to live nearby. 14 chapter two

The foreign consuls drew up ‘Land Regulations for the Port of Nagasaki in Japan’ and enjoined foreign residents to apply to their respective consulates to rent property, to erect buildings within six months, to refrain from selling liquor without a licence, and to pay a yearly land rent to the Japanese government at the end of each year.8 The land leases granted by the government would be considered ‘perpetual’, that is, the renter would hold a title deed and enjoy full rights of ownership to buildings but would not actually possess the land upon which the buildings stood. The consuls issued an order for all foreign residents, who had been living to date in Buddhist temples, Japanese houses and other temporary accommodations in the town, to move into the confines of the foreign settlement by 15 April 1861. This was delayed a few weeks when Japanese authorities asked renters to wait until all the spring crops had been harvested by local farmers, but, by the time wisteria blossoms dressed the skirts of hills, the multinational community of Nagasaki was ensconced both physically and legally in its new home. Thomas Blake Glover (1838–1911) followed the path blazed by Kenneth R. Mackenzie, arriving in Nagasaki in September 1859 to work as a clerk in the Jardine, Matheson & Co. office. The twenty-one-year-old native of Fraserburgh, Scotland, quickly emerged as a leader in the foreign community and a conduit for interaction with Japanese merchants and representatives of domains. He declared his independence as a ‘general commission agent’ on 1 May 1861 and, in February the following year, joined with British colleague Francis Groom in launching a new business enterprise called ‘Glover & Co.’.9 He also enlisted Japanese carpenters to build a unique colonial-style bungalow at No. 3 Minamiyamate, the hillside residential neighbourhood commanding a panoramic view over Nagasaki Harbour. Combining Japanese, British and hybrid colonial architectural styles, the house was like an avant-guard castle symbolising the new era of commercial and diplomatic exchange upon which Japan was bravely embarking.10 One of Glover’s first business endeavours was the establishment of a tea re-firing godown in the rear quarter of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement. ‘Godown’ is an Anglo-Malay term used in the treaty ports of China and Japan to refer to factories and warehouses. Aware that tea was grown

8 ‘Land Regulations for the Port of Nagasaki in Japan’ (FO 262/173/153). 9 The North China Herald, 11 May 1861. 10 Brian Burke-Gaffney, Nagasaki: The British Experience 1854–1945 (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2009), pp. 18–56. revival of british commercial activity in japan 15 traditionally in Kyūshū, Glover and other early foreign merchants turned the Japanese product into a profitable export commodity by promoting production and establishing a network of growers and dealers extending deep into the hinterland. The Scotsman’s correspondence with Jardine, Matheson & Co. in 1861 and 1862 reveals his hope to expand this aspect of the foreign trade by sending samples of Japanese tea to Shanghai, answer- ing demands for increased quantities, and constructing a new godown with as many as 400 pans for the re-firing of tea.11 Elisabeth Alt, the wife of British merchant and Glover contemporary William J. Alt, lived in Nagasaki from 1864 to 1868 and left a vivid description of the tea-firing godown operated by her husband in the foreign settlement: In our early days in Nagasaki, the first place I lived in Japan and where my elder children were born, excitement was raised by the sudden whim of the great American nation in favour of drinking Japanese tea. My husband quickly responded by getting ready and sending off the first ship that left Japan with an entire load of Japanese tea. I think she was called the ‘Swanley’. It was the beginning of the tea season when the crops were coming in from the neighbouring country. It came in quite raw and the tea leaves had to be dried and then packed, and, under the circumstances of haste, the drying (or firing) and packing had to be done in the quickest possible time. The firing is done in large ‘godowns’ or warehouses. The process may be quite different now but in those days it was somewhat like that which I shall now describe. The firing went on night and day in shifts, about three or four hundred people working at a time – as many women as men it seemed to me. I went to see the work at night with my husband and it was a kind of inferno. There were hundreds of copper pans of red hot charcoal and over these were being dried the raw green leaves of the tea, jerked from side to side of large flat baskets – never still for a moment. The large high building lighted by flares of some kind, the burning charcoal, the misty dust or steam from the leaves, the perspiring men and women, the former almost quite naked, the latter naked to the waist – it was an inferno! Then added to these sights there was a din of indescribable noise – packing of the tea seemed to be going on in the same great hall or shed, [where] packing seemed mostly to consist of the wooden chests into which men were pouring the already ‘fired’ tea being shaken violently from one side to the other, to make the tea settle down… A hundred chests or more can cause a terrible noise under the process, especially on a hard wooden floor. I did not stay long nor did I again visit the godowns at night.12

11 Jardine Matheson Archive (JMA), Cambridge University Library, England. 12 Phillis Alt, ‘An Extract from the Memoirs of Elisabeth Christina Alt, Née Earl, Who Lived in Nagasaki from 1864–68, Together with an Abridged Biographical Sketch of Her 16 chapter two

Tea remained the most important export item from Nagasaki through out the decade, and Thomas B. Glover continued to search for ways to increase production and to improve the process of re-firing, packing and transportation.

Enter Frederick Ringer

In 1864, Thomas B. Glover opened branch offices of Glover & Co. in Shanghai and Yokohama and dramatically expanded business operations, stepping up the import of foreign merchandise, promoting production in Japan, and securing outlets abroad for the sale of tea, camphor oil, seafood and other Japanese products. He announced the opening of the Shanghai branch in the 11 April 1864 issue of the Shanghai newspaper The North China Herald and informed readers that he was using ‘Messrs. Fletcher & Co.’s old offices’ as temporary headquarters. Little is known about the first encounter between Thomas B. Glover and Frederick Ringer or the circumstances of the latter’s engagement in the Nagasaki company, but it is clear that Glover was hoping to expand the tea trade in Nagasaki, and the newspaper announcement suggests that he scouted Frederick Ringer through his connection with Fletcher & Co. in China. Ringer is not evident in the famous group photograph of Nagasaki foreign residents taken on Nezumijima Island in May 1865 but is mentioned in a short newspaper article reporting on an athletic event in Nagasaki in October the same year, indicating that he moved to this port sometime between those two dates.13 In June 1866, a writer calling himself ‘An Old Cha Tse’ submitted a long letter to the editor of the Yokohama newspaper The Japan Times discussing the qualities of Japanese green tea and the reasons for its sudden popularity abroad. He points to the political disturbances in northern China, which ‘have materially affected the production of what is called green tea, reducing the quantity, and advancing the price; and hence, as a substitute was wanted, attention especially on the part of American buyers has been

Parents.’ October 1985. This excerpt from Elisabeth’s memoirs (written about 1910) was presented to Nagasaki City in 1985 by Alt’s great-granddaughter Viscountess Tessa Montgomery of Alamein. 13 The Japan Times, 10 November 1865. Formerly part of the Bauduin Collection at Leiden University (Netherlands), the Nezumijima photograph is now in the Nagasaki University Library. Frederick Ringer’s 1907 obituary in The Nagasaki Press also states that he arrived in Nagasaki in 1865. revival of british commercial activity in japan 17 turned to Japan tea’.14 He goes on to urge the Japanese government to expand the production of green tea by sending forty or fifty men to Kiukiang to learn the Chinese art of cultivation, but Thomas B. Glover took the opposite approach: he brought Kiukiang to Nagasaki in the form of tea expert Frederick Ringer. If the leap in the value of exported tea from $110,410 in 1864 to $473,993 in 1866 is any indication, Ringer brought his expertise to bear in Nagasaki and fulfilled his employer’s high hopes regarding the prized leaf.15 The stocky young Norwich native also sped to the forefront of athletic activities in Nagasaki, particularly the boat races held regularly in Nagasaki Harbour. His name appears in connection with Nagasaki for the first time as the ‘starter’ in a ‘series of races and athletic games’ held there on 14 October 1865.16 The spectators watched the races from the second floor windows of the buildings along the Bund, the waterfront street built along the edge of the reclaimed land at Ōura and widened in 1864. ‘Bund’ is an abbreviation of the Anglo-Indian word bunder meaning ‘shore embankment’, first applied to the Apollo Bunder landing wharf in Bombay and later to similar streets in British settlements throughout East Asia. With its open structure and public access, the Ōura Bund contrasted sharply with the jealously guarded landing steps of the Edo Period and symbolised the new age of free trade and international cooperation unfolding in Nagasaki Harbour. The thin strip of land, paved to create a promenade and stretching for about 300 metres from No. 1 to No. 11 Ōura, was already the site of Japan’s first outdoor lampposts (erected by the foreign community in 1861) and a miniature railway line, now removed, laid by Thomas B. Glover in May 1865 to demonstrate the magic of steam locomotion. When he raised the gun to start the boat races in October, Frederick Ringer could never have imagined how deeply his family would become involved with this small patch of waterfront property. A photograph taken in Nagasaki in May 1866 provides further evidence of Ringer’s skill in aquatic sports. The photograph shows Ringer and the other members of the ‘winning crew’ at the Nagasaki Regatta standing

14 The Japan Times, 16 June 1866. 15 Sugiyama Shinya, Meiji ishin to igirisu shōnin: tomasu gurabā no shōgai (The Meiji Restoration and a British Merchant: The Life of Thomas B. Glover) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1993), p. 49. 16 The Japan Times, 10 November 1865. 18 chapter two rather proudly in front of a cloth backdrop, still in their white racing outfits. Aside from William Alt, all of the men (Frederick Ringer, W.O. Forester, John C. Smith and Robert Hughes) were employees of Glover & Co., and the photograph is part of an album preserved to this day by Glover family descendants. The silver cup awarded to Ringer at the time was preserved by his family and later donated to Nagasaki City, where it is presently on display.17 The arrival of Frederick Ringer in Nagasaki coincided with a boom in the fortunes of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement and a period of rapid growth and expansion for Glover & Co. While promoting the import and export trade, the company acquired the perpetual leases to some fifteen lots in the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement and used these as a source of rental income as well as collateral against loans taken out from Jardine, Matheson & Co. The company also acted as local agent for Lloyds Register of Shipping, five international insurance companies as well as the influential Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. By 1867, the staff included fourteen Europeans, dozens of Chinese compra- dors and clerks, and hundreds of Japanese labourers, wharf runners and messengers. At the top of the list in the 1867 issue of the Chronicle and Directory are Thomas B. Glover and his partners Francis Groom and Edward Harrison, the latter two shown as being in charge of the company branch offices in Shanghai and Yokohama, respectively. The remaining Europeans include Ryle Holme, Alexander J. Glover, Henry Gribble, John C. Smith, and Frederick Ringer, all participating in the rapidly expanding business of Glover & Co. during the 1860s and forming the backbone of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement. The youthful Ryle Holme was a fourth partner in the company and one of Glover’s most trusted assistants. Thomas B. Glover’s younger brother Alexander, who had been in Nagasaki since 1864, rented the lot at No. 2 Minamiyamate next door to his brother and erected the stone bungalow that would later be inhabited by the Ringer family. John C. Smith and Frederick Ringer, meanwhile, were gaining knowledge and expertise that would soon catapult them to the vanguard of Nagasaki business.

17 In 2008, Frederick Ringer’s great-grandson Richard Bjergfelt donated approximately 150 family heirlooms to Nagasaki City. The silver cup from the 1866 Nagasaki Regatta is presently on display in the former Ringer residence at No. 14 Minamiyamate, now part of the ‘Glover Garden’ theme park. revival of british commercial activity in japan 19

Collapse of the Tokugawa Order

The import trade had focused to date on merchandise in traditional demand in Japan, such as printed cotton fabrics from India as well as Chinese silk and plant-based dyes and incense from Southeast Asia. But Glover & Co. began to realise much greater profits from the sale of second- hand ships to the representatives of domains keen on promoting trade and communication and clamouring for the assistance of foreign merchants in Nagasaki. Since the domains could often pay only in local products, however, many of the contracts were concluded on the basis of risky long-term promises. Another controversial aspect of the import trade in the 1860s was the business in rifles, ammunition and other military equipment, the demand for which soared as the rebel domains of southwestern Japan and the Tokugawa Shogunate braced for a collision. To this day, Thomas B. Glover is remembered in many Japanese histories as a ‘merchant of death’ because of his involvement in these, often surreptitious, exchanges. In 1868, the political system functioning in Japan since the early seventeenth century suddenly collapsed. Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the last in a line of fifteen shoguns, relinquished his hold on power, and a band of opposition leaders proclaimed a ‘restoration’ under the young Emperor Meiji. This upheaval came at a time when Nagasaki’s status as the country’s main entranceway and hub of international activity was waning. Many of the foreigners who had invested initially in Nagasaki had come to the conclusion that Yokohama held greater potential because of its proximity to the centre of Japanese power, because it was more convenient for ships making the voyage to Japan from the west coast of North America, and because it enjoyed the added advantage of direct access to the silk-producing districts of northeastern Japan. The opening of Hyōgo (Kōbe) and Osaka as treaty ports in 1868 only added to the run on Nagasaki’s business fortunes. Foreign firms like Glover & Co. that dealt in weapons and ammunition found themselves in particularly dire straits when the return of peace pulled the plug on a lucrative source of income. Large stocks of rifles and bullets collected dust in Nagasaki godowns. Moreover, since so much of Glover & Co.’s business had been based on speculation and gentlemen’s agreements, the political confusion ensuing in the wake of the Meiji Restoration made it difficult not only to sell merchandise but also to recoup debts and placate the worries of creditors like Jardine, Matheson & Co. In late 1868, Thomas B. Glover dissolved the partnership 20 chapter two of Glover & Co. and revamped the company business, turning the various departments over to former employees and saving his own energy for the promotion of modern industries in collaboration with Japanese colleagues. Francis Groom continued the activities of the Shanghai branch under the style of Glover, Dow & Co. but without the Scotsman’s involvement. Henry Gribble succeeded the company’s insurance agency, while Alexander and Alfred Glover assisted their brother in importing machinery and scouting foreign experts for the Takashima Colliery – the first coal mine in Japan to incorporate British technology. Frederick Ringer meanwhile joined with John C. Smith and Edward Z. Holme to promote the re- firing, packing and export of Japanese tea, taking his first step to replace Thomas B. Glover as the don of foreign enterprise in western Japan. Thomas B. Glover’s subsequent achievements earned him a place of honour in the annals of Japan’s industrialisation and modernisation. These include the construction of Japan’s first modern ship-repair dock at Kosuge, the introduction of equipment for the first mint, and the opening of a mechanised lumber mill. However, his hope to rescue his company from bankruptcy using revenue from the Takashima Colliery and other undertakings was not to be fulfilled: Glover & Co. declared bankruptcy in the summer of 1870, and the Scotsman spent the next six years sorting out a convoluted mass of assets and liabilities. After that he accepted a position as a consultant for the rapidly expanding Mitsubishi Company and split his time between Nagasaki and Tokyo, playing an important role in the Mitsubishi takeover of the Takashima Colliery in 1881 and the establishment of the Japan Brewery Company, predecessor of Kirin Beer Company. In 1908, the Japanese government awarded him the prestigious Second Class Order of the Rising Sun in recognition of his contributions to the country. He died in Tokyo in 1911, a legend in his time, and was buried at Sakamoto International Cemetery in Nagasaki. CHAPTER THREE

ESTABLISHMENT AND GROWTH OF HOLME, RINGER & CO.

The ‘Anglo-Satsuma War’ of 1863 was a brief but bloody clash between the British government and the Satsuma domain (present-day Kagoshima Prefecture) over the murder of Charles L. Richardson, a Shanghai merchant who had interfered with the train of the daimyo of Satsuma on a country road near Yokohama and suffered a gory death at the hands of the daimyo’s retainers the previous year. The Tokugawa Shogunate, anxious to avoid a confrontation, submitted a formal apology and offered an indemnity of 10,000 pounds. The Satsuma domain, however, refused to either apologise or pay an indemnity, insisting that Richardson had been at fault by failing to pay proper respect. The British rebutted by pointing to the guarantee of extraterritoriality embedded in the Ansei Treaty, which they said exonerated Richardson of any wrongdoing. The suspense rose to a climax in August 1863 when the British despatched seven warships to Kagoshima and submitted a set of demands directly to the leaders of the domain. The Satsuma shore batteries opened fire, and the British warships promptly retaliated, destroying three steamships anchored in the harbour and inflicting damage on the city. The gunfire from the Japanese meanwhile resulted in the death of several British personnel, including the commander of one of the warships. Satsuma was one of the wealthiest and most powerful domains in Japan, its territories sprawling over a large section of southern Kyūshū and its influence extending to the Ryūkyū Islands (present-day Okinawa Prefecture) to the southwest. Aware of the bitter concessions made by China after the First Opium War, Shimazu Nariakira, daimyo of Satsuma, strengthened coastal defences near the stronghold of Kagoshima and forged a plan to create an industrial complex, called ‘Shūseikan’, near his family villa at Iso. Nariakira died in 1858, the same year as the Ansei Five- Power Treaties, but his successors continued his efforts to bolster, not only military power, but also industrial capacity as a way to meet Britain and other countries on an equal footing. Shimazu Hisamitsu, Nariakira’s brother and father of the last feudal lord Tadayoshi, was duly impressed by the show of British military might during the squabble of 1863 and acknowledged the importance of modernising Japan in cooperation with the countries of the West. 22 chapter three

One of the first measures adopted by Shimazu was to seek the assistance of Thomas B. Glover in sending a delegation of Satsuma representatives and students to England to observe business and industry there and to procure equipment for the Shūseikan industrial complex. Glover appointed Ryle Holme to escort the delegation and serve as a guide along the way, and he provided one of his steamships for the voyage. Since travel abroad was still strictly forbidden, the group left Japan under cover in April 1865 and reached Southampton on 21 June unbeknownst to the Tokugawa Shogunate.1 Among their destinations was the Platt Brothers & Co. plant in Oldham, Lancashire, one of the world’s leading manufacturers and exporters of machinery for the combing, spinning and finishing of cotton textiles. Fortunately for the Satsuma domain, a liberal commercial policy now predominated in Britain, and the secrets of Manchester, once jealously guarded by local guilds, were now accessible to anyone with the means to pay. The Satsuma representatives signed a contract with Platt Brothers & Co. for the purchase of carding and spinning machines and other equipment and arranged for the employment of engineers to supervise the installation work in Kagoshima and train Japanese students. It is probably no coincidence that Edward Z. Holme, the expert in cotton spinning techniques engaged by the Satsuma domain, was Ryle Holme’s brother. Edward Z. Holme arrived in Kagoshima in November 1866 with three colleagues and began preparations for the establishment of Japan’s first cotton mill. John Tetlow and two other British engineers sailed to Japan on the ship carrying the machinery and reached Kagoshima in January 1867, thus assembling the so-called ‘Manchester Seven’ at Shūseikan. Ernest M. Satow, the future British envoy extraordinary to Japan who had been on one of the British warships during the bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863, visited the site in early 1867 and wrote about Holme in his diary. He also mentions Thomas J. Waters, the architect employed through the offices of Thomas B. Glover to design the cotton mill buildings:

Went on shore and stopped at Shu-zei-kan [sic] at Iso. J. Sutcliff, H. Harrison and N. Shillingford are the names of the three foreigners stopping here, the two former on spec. to pick up what they can, and the latter having a year’s engagement. Waters is the name of the engineer in Liu Kiu [Okinawa] who is engaged in putting up a sugar mill. E. Holme is a cotton spinner and like

1 Inuzuka Takaaki, Satsumahan eikoku ryūgakusei (Students of the Satsuma Domain in England) (Tokyo: Chūōkōronsha, 1974), p. 56. establishment and growth of holme, ringer & co. 23

S. has also an engagement on the cotton mill which is going to be erected at Iso.2 The British visitors oversaw the completion of the spacious single-storey stone factory building in May 1867 and the installation of the dozens of machines brought from England, along with a state-of-the-art steam engine to provide power. The gishikan (engineers’ residence) designed by Waters was also ready for habitation, a two-storey building of wooden construction featuring glass windows around a second-floor veranda, a unique half-octagonal protrusion providing an added sense of space on one side, and a traditional Japanese roof with ceramic kawara tiles. At the time it was one of the most beautiful examples of Western-style architecture in Japan.3 The Japanese workers trained by Holme to run the equipment soon succeeded in the mass production of white sheeting and other textiles, the best of which was shipped to markets in Osaka. In a report on developments in the Nagasaki consular district during the year 1868, British consul Marcus Flowers described the Kagoshima Cotton Mill as follows: A cotton mill has been erected by the Prince of Satsuma at Kagosima [sic] under the superintendence of Mr Edward Z. Holme. The machinery was imported from England. It is now in good working order and gives employment to about 230 native workmen. It would be difficult to give an estimate of the quality of the material produced for during British superintendence teaching was the main object and not production. Mr Holme informs me the natives showed great aptitude in learning and in five or six months time they were able to work the looms without European aid. A mixture of China and Japan cotton is the raw material used and from this is spun a yarn classified as 185 mule and 165 water of first rate quality and from this again is woven a cloth entirely to suit native taste, much resembling our ‘domestic’. This so far as concerns the plain looms. The fancy ones are producing a cloth of exactly similar texture but with patterns made to suit the native fancy.4

2 Handwritten diary of Ernest Satow. (NAUK, PRO 30/33/15/1). 3 Kagoshima City ed., Jūyōbunkazai bōsekisho gishikan shūrikōji hōkokusho (Report on the Repair of an Important Cultural Asset: The Cotton Mill Foreigner’s Residence) (1979), p. 5. The factory building was later demolished. The engineers’ residence inhabited for about one year by Edward Z. Holme was moved to the site of Kagoshima Castle and converted into a school building. Returned to its original location in 1936, the latter building, along with other former Shūseikan structures, is currently on a tentative World Heritage list entitled ‘Modern Industrial Heritage Sites in Kyūshū and Yamaguchi’. 4 FO 262/173/127–8. After the Meiji Restoration, Shimazu Tadayoshi decided to promote mechanised cotton spinning throughout Japan and moved some of the machinery from 24 chapter three

Edward Z. Holme left Kagoshima in 1868 and came to Nagasaki, where he joined his brother Ryle and friends Thomas B. Glover and Frederick Ringer in the foreign settlement. There is no record of the discussions held by the four over the following weeks, but on 2 November 1868, Edward Z. Holme and Frederick Ringer, along with former Glover & Co. employee John C. Smith, announced their decision to take over the tea-export business conducted to date by Glover & Co. and to launch a new business enterprise called ‘Holme, Ringer & Co.’. Holme left Japan soon after the foundation of the company and returned to England, apparently to arrange for the purchase of the first company ship. Mar riage records show that he married Anne Sutcliff (perhaps a relative of J. Sutcliff, his colleague in Kagoshima) on the Isle of Wight, Hampshire, in early 1870,5 and the results of the national census conducted the following year show Edward and Anne, now thirty-four and twenty-four years old, respectively, living on Grove Road in Kingston, a suburb of London.6 In Nagasaki, meanwhile, Frederick Ringer started business from an office at No. 11½ Ōura, a triangular lot at the corner of the Bund and Ōura River that provided access to the harbour but avoided the high rental fees of the main waterfront lots. Having experienced the roller-coaster ride of work with Thomas B. Glover, he seems to have eschewed flamboyant spec- ulative trade, especially in the field of second-hand ships and weapons, and focused on import and export commodities that guaranteed steady and profitable returns. Naturally enough he poured his first and greatest efforts into his specialty, the trade in tea, still by far the most important commodity exported from Nagasaki. He acquired the rental rights to No. 33 Ōura and took over operation of a large godown with brick kamado fireplaces where the raw tea brought in from the countryside was dry-fired over hundreds of shallow pans. Japanese labourers worked in shifts, some carrying in firewood and charcoal and stoking fires, others shaking the pans over the fire pits and carrying the finished product into an adjacent area for packing in wooden chests.

Kagoshima to Sakai near Osaka, which later became the centre of the modern cotton spinning industry in Japan. Satsuma samurai and Glover associate Godai Tomoatsu, the main mover behind the project, went on to found the Osaka Chamber of Commerce and the Osaka Stock Exchange. The Kagoshima Cotton Mill closed in 1897. 5 England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index: 1837–1983, p. 833. 6 NAUK, RG 10/861. establishment and growth of holme, ringer & co. 25

Tea Clippers and Coal Barges

By the end of 1868, the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement was complete in physical shape and business and social structure, and foreign residents were able to carry on without fear of attack from angry rōnin struggling to prevent Japan’s engagement in international affairs. The results of surveys conducted by Japanese authorities show that the foreign population of the city had grown from 397 in 1865 to 574 in late 1868, including 375 Chinese, eighty-one British, thirty-nine American, thirty Dutch, fifteen French, twenty German, eight Portuguese and six Swedish residents.7 The commercial districts of Ōura and Sagarimatsu and hillside residential neigh- borhoods of Higashiyamate and Minamiyamate (Fig. 3.1) were now dotted with Western-style buildings and inhabited by a growing number of foreign women and children who by their very presence helped to rectify the Wild West atmosphere of earlier days. A Dutch consulate had replaced the

Figure 3.1. View of Minamiyamate looking north towards the town of Nagasaki. Early Meiji Period. The Western-style houses at No. 14 and No. 2 Minamiyamate – the future Ringer family houses – are visible beyond the large residence to the right. The pine tree near the Glover house is visible in the centre and Dejima in the background to the left. (Nagasaki University Library)

7 Nagasaki City Chronology, pp. 101 and 106. 26 chapter three former Dutch Factory on Dejima, and the island, incorporated into the foreign settlement in 1866, was now home to a number of businesses run by Dutch, German and French residents. The last addition to the mosaic was the Chinese residential district of Shinchi, where Chinese residents constructed a neighbourhood scattered with reminders of home and celebrated traditional anniversaries such as the Lantern Festival and Birthday of Confucius, their distinctive music and ornaments adding further ingredients to the cultural hodgepodge. Shinchi became part of the foreign settlement in 1868, the same year as the official abolition of the old Chinese Quarter. In the commercial districts, Glover & Co., Alt & Co. and other leading firms jostled with the branch office of Jardine, Matheson & Co. for access to the waterfront, while a troop of smaller business establishments like Holme, Ringer & Co., Rainbow, Lewis & Co. and Maltby & Co. vied for room on the narrow streets of the rear quarter. A variety of shops and services had also appeared to meet the needs of the swelling foreign population, including a bakery, butcher’s shop, blacksmith’s foundry and Western-style accommodations like the Belle Vue Hotel and Oriental Hotel. Another face of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement, and one which Frederick Ringer would make efforts to expunge, was the underworld of ‘grog shops’ with names like London Tavern, Army and Navy, and Germania Bowling Saloon occupying the cheap lots along Ōura River and catering to the crews of foreign warships calling at the port. In January 1870, Adolphus A. Annesley, the acting British consul in Nagasaki, wrote a long report on the situation in Nagasaki and the port’s prospects for the future.8 In his description of export commodities, the acting consul begins with a discussion of the tea trade and the problems faced by foreign merchants, much of his information probably coming from Frederick Ringer: Tea has been produced to a larger extent during 1869 than in 1868, and its preparation for direct home shipment has been actively carried on. The quantity prepared or fired here, however, is but a small portion of the total yield, a very large share being exported in the raw state to China, whence it also finds its way to the European markets, either separately prepared or mixed with the China leaf. The reason of such large shipments to Shanghai of our raw leaf is that in that form it passes under a low scale of duty whereas when fired here and shipped in chests or boxes it can no longer be classified

8 The report was published along with editorial comments in the 30 April 1870 issue of the Kōbe newspaper The Japan Weekly Mail. establishment and growth of holme, ringer & co. 27

as ‘Bancha’ [ordinary tea], although the quality of the tea itself is in both cases similar… Under these circumstances it would be beneficial to the trade of the port if the ‘Bancha’ clause in the Tariff were abrogated, thus placing all shippers on a like footing, and would lead to more tea being prepared on the spot, giving employment to the various tea firing establishments already owned by foreigners, increasing the receipts to the Custom House in the shape of duties, and providing increased demand for native labour in firing the teas. By this time, Yokohama and Kōbe were also starting to cut in on the tea trade, particularly the shipment of Japanese tea to North America. Instead of shipping through Nagasaki, many tea producers in western Japan were sending their product directly to the larger ports, where it was loaded onto the lengthening procession of steamships traversing the Pacific Ocean. As noted by Annesley, Frederick Ringer and other foreigners dealing in tea also faced stiff competition from Chinese merchants, who far outnum- bered other nationalities in the foreign settlement and enjoyed advantages in the trade between Nagasaki and the ports of China. The result was a decline in the importance of tea on the Holme, Ringer & Co. agenda and a gradual disappearance of the old tea-firing godowns in the rear quarter of the foreign settlement. With regard to coal, however, the British consul expresses nothing but optimism. He reports the success of the Takashima Colliery developed by Thomas B. Glover and the excellent quality of its black product, and he concludes by pointing out Nagasaki’s proximity to the wealthy and popu- lous districts of Kyūshū and predicting ‘that a steadily increasing trade will continue to be developed with these districts, and from its excellence as a harbour and the cheapness and improving quality of the coal produced here, Nagasaki will always retain its importance as a port of call for steamers.’ One of the ships arriving in Nagasaki Harbour in 1870 was the Zohrab, a 411-tonne barque (wooden vessel of the tea-clipper style with square sails on three masts) with an auxiliary steam engine built in England and registered by Edward Z. Holme, whose unusual middle name was applied to the ship. A young British mariner named Wilson Walker, who would later play an important role in the establishment of Japan’s first international shipping routes, recounts a visit with Thomas B. Glover to the Takashima Colliery in his memoir and goes on to describe his subsequent role in the activities of the Scotsman’s company and his encounter with the Zohrab:

I was down at the mine one day late in April with Mr Glover. He went down the shaft and came up greatly excited with a piece of stone in his hand that 28 chapter three

was black on one side and he quite expected that they would be mining coal in a short time, and we discussed about a steam collier he had in mind to build to run the coal to Shanghai, and he wanted me to take charge of her, right from Aberdeen where she was going to be built, and it was decided that I would go home right away and have a little holiday before the order to build went home. I was very glad of the opportunity, as I had had a bad attack of inflammation of the lungs. So I left Nagasaki on the 8th of May 1869 on the P.M.S.S. Costa Rica for Yokohama, where I transferred to the P.M.S.S. Great Republic for San Francisco, and in due course arrived home to find that Glover & Co had failed, and this left me for a little while in Queer Street. I was offered a position as Chief Officer of the Blue Funnel S.S. Achilles by Captain Russell, but Captain G.R. Stevens (late of the S.S. Naruto) was in England building a barque for Messrs Holme, Ringer & Co. called the Zohrab so I accepted the Chief Officer’s position as far as Nagasaki where we arrived in due course and I left Zohrab after discharging the cargo for that port.9 Wilson Walker and his shipmates guided the Zohrab on the now well- travelled tea route from England to Japan via the Cape of Good Hope, Singapore and the Philippines and reached Nagasaki on 14 September 1870, only a few days after the British Consular Court announced the bankruptcy of Glover & Co.10 The ship hoisted its sails and departed Nagasaki for Chefoo on 1 October 1870 loaded to the hilt with tea, tobacco, dried fish and other local products.11 The collapse of Glover & Co. in 1870 dramatically altered the business chain of command in Nagasaki, but the Chronicle and Directory – the who’s who of foreign businesses in East Asia – does not mention Holme, Ringer & Co. until 1872. From 1868 to 1871, Frederick Ringer’s name either remains on the Glover & Co. list or disappears altogether. Omissions and errors are by no means uncommon in these documents, but the lack of any mention of Holme, Ringer & Co. suggests that, although nominally independent, the company spent its first months as a subsidiary operation of Glover & Co. and did not really establish its own niche in the Nagasaki business world until after the mother company went into liquidation. A list of land renters compiled by the Nagasaki British Consulate in January 1870 shows that Glover & Co. held the rights to twenty-two lots scattered across the foreign settlement and totalling 17,620 tsubo (58,243

9 ‘Transcript of an account relating his ships and experiences after his arrival in Japan in 1868 and his involvement in the founding of The Mitsubishi Company, Japan’ by Wilson Walker. The handwritten document is preserved by Wilson Walker descendants in the UK. I thank Derek Robinson and Iain Morrison for this information. 10 The Nagasaki Shipping List, 17 September 1870. 11 The Nagasaki Express, 1 October 1870. establishment and growth of holme, ringer & co. 29 square metres) in area. By contrast, Holme, Ringer & Co. is renting only two properties: the office at No. 11½ Ōura and the tea-firing godown at No. 33 Ōura, or a total of 1,088 tsubo (3,596 square metres).12 After the collapse of Glover & Co., however, Holme, Ringer & Co. rapidly increased its holdings and pushed to the forefront of the foreign community in Nagasaki. By early 1871, the company had taken over several of the properties rented previously by Glover & Co. including the riverside lots of Nos 12, 14 and 16 Ōura, expanded its tea-firing and shipping operations, and created employment for a large number of Japanese middlemen and labourers. A letter from Frederick Ringer to acting British consul Adolphus Annesley indicates the increasing volume of trade handled by Holme, Ringer & Co. In the letter, Ringer protests a Japanese government plan to remove the old landing jetty on the upper reaches of Ōura River (referred to by foreigners as ‘the Creek’): Since July of last year we have landed and shipped over 45,000 packages at the Custom House and if compelled to have our packages carried to the distance of the large Custom House at the entrance of the Creek you will readily see that the difference in coolie hire will be very great. We estimate that this would cause a loss to us of $1000 per annum. Moreover we cannot understand what object the authorities have in view in pressing for the removal of this landing place as the expense of keeping it up is quite trifling, insignifi- cant in comparison with the advantage it affords to everyone having property on the Creek.13 Ringer’s attempt to stop the removal of the jetty proved futile, but the setback did not deter him from petitions to local government regarding business conditions and infrastructure. In another letter to the British consul, he lodges a complaint about how the loss of the jetty has exerted a negative impact on the business of Holme, Ringer & Co. and caused a sharp depreciation in the value of property near the creek. He also mentions his ‘tea-firing and tobacco-preparing establishments on Lots. 32 and 33’, revealing a further expansion in the number of properties held by the company and the addition of tobacco to its list of exports.14 Frederick Ringer continued to lead foreign residents in asserting their rights in Nagasaki and in demanding that the Japanese government observe its treaty obligations by maintaining roads, walls and gutters and improving hygienic conditions. In June 1871, he submitted a letter to the

12 FO 345/32. 13 Frederick Ringer to Adolphus Annesley, 17 May 1871 (FO 796/52). 14 Frederick Ringer to Marcus Flowers, 29 July 1874 (FO 796/61). 30 chapter three

British consul, cosigned by a large cohort of foreign residents and businesses, asking the former to convey a complaint to Japanese authorities about the stench emanating from Ōura River and to demand that it be dredged before the arrival of the rainy season.15 Not only by his representation, but also in his expression of concern that ‘some dreadful epidemic might occur should the course of this danger remain unnoticed’, Frederick Ringer reveals the sense of social responsibility that characterised his later role as leader of the foreign community and driving force for improvements to the city of Nagasaki. In the latter part of the decade he even took the radical measure of refusing to pay land rent until the Japanese government completed promised public works, a strategy that, although con- frontational, succeeded in cutting through red tape and effecting action.16

Sports and Entertainment

The documents in the Nagasaki British Consulate Archive and articles in English-language newspapers shed light on Frederick Ringer’s activities inside and outside the realm of business. In October 1871, soon after bat- tling for the dredging of Ōura River, Ringer wrote to Marcus Flowers asking for the British consul’s assistance in obtaining a passport for an excursion to the Japanese countryside: Owing to close attention to business and too much confinement in the office I have not, for some time past, felt in my usual good health and consider a change indispensable. I enclose a certificate from Doctor Forrest recommending this and shall feel obliged if you would kindly stamp and endorse the enclosed application to the Japanese authorities for permission to go to the sulphur baths at Taki Wo [Takeo] in the province of Hizen.17 By this time, the Meiji Government had relaxed the Tokugawa Shogunate’s strict rules regarding inland travel, but foreigners still had to obtain passports for visits beyond the limits set out in the Ansei Five-Power Treaties and, moreover, show that the visits were necessary for reasons of health. As a result, the residents of the foreign settlement began to apply, through their respective consulates, for permission to visit the famous hot springs in Hizen, Shimabara and other areas near Nagasaki for the sake of ‘health improvement’, which in practical terms could mean anything from

15 Renters of creekside property to A.A. Annesley, 6 June 1871 (FO 796/52). 16 Frederick Ringer to James Troup, 13 July 1878. (FO 796/70). 17 Frederick Ringer to Marcus Flowers, 24 October 1871 (FO 796/52). establishment and growth of holme, ringer & co. 31 refreshing dips in mineral baths to flings with geisha, picnics and scientific expeditions. Three years later, Ringer submitted a similar request for permission to embark on a more extensive tour of the Kyūshū hinterland with his friends Alexander Hall and Henry Gribble, revealing one of the true motives for the journey: Mr Hall and myself being desirous of taking a trip for the benefit of our health and at the same time with the view of collecting specimens of Natural History including birds have the honour to request you to be so good as to obtain permission to visit the following places viz.: Ōmura, Uresino [Ureshino], Arita, Imari, Karatsu, Taekiwo [Takeo], Saga, Kurume, Yanagawa, Miike, Kumamoto and Simabara [Shimabara]. We should prefer if possible to leave about the end of the present month and as Mr Gribble also intends to join our party please to obtain separate passports in case one of us is prevented from going.18 Bird hunting was a popular recreation among foreign, particularly British, residents, and the temperate, thinly-populated rural areas of Kyūshū provided ideal shooting grounds. Government officials soon acknowledged the practice by issuing annual licences. The licences were contentious because they were expensive and imposed exclusively on foreigners, but Frederick Ringer and his fellow sportsmen continued to take their shotguns out to the countryside and to convert snipe and pheasants into food for dinner parties. These activities undoubtedly attracted wonderment and curiosity among Japanese people who happened to be observers, if only because the connection between ‘sport’ and food gathering was yet to be drawn in this country. From the earliest days after the opening of the port, the tiny foreign community of Nagasaki kept itself entertained with a series of musical performances, plays and magic shows, often conducted entirely by local talent. These events were received so enthusiastically and served such an important role in boosting spirits that a group of residents established the ‘Nagasaki Amateur Dramatic Corps’ and held performances in a settlement building that they dubbed the ‘Olympic Theatre’.19 In December 1870, Frederick Ringer is shown as ‘Honorary Secretary and Treasurer’ of the Nagasaki Amateur Dramatic Corps, evidence of his active role in the social life of the foreign settlement.20 The organisation continued to prosper and the plays and musical performances conducted by its members to

18 Frederick Ringer to Marcus Flowers, 30 October 1874 (FO 796/61). 19 The Nagasaki Express, 19 February 1870. 20 The Nagasaki Express, 12 December 1870. 32 chapter three take on the air of professional productions. The admission fee collected at the door was used for the upkeep and improvement of the theatre, which later found a permanent home in the building at No. 31 Ōura used previously by the Municipal Council. Referred to as the ‘Public Hall’, this institution served over the following years as a venue for a wide variety of diversions from the isolated existence of the foreign settlement, everything from local entertainment to performances by companies touring the ports of East Asia, charity concerts, speeches by religious figures and travelling scholars, exhibitions of Japanese antiques, auctions, and receptions to welcome the crews of visiting warships. Still another popular activity pursued throughout the foreign settlement period – and one in which Frederick Ringer played a central role – was boat racing in Nagasaki Harbour, the long shape and calmness of which made it a perfect setting. The earliest mention of boat races in historical documents is a report carried in the 25 September 1861 issue of The Nagasaki Shipping List and Advertiser, Japan’s first English-language newspaper.21 According to this report, almost all of the young male residents of the foreign settlement gathered with crew members from visiting warships and Japanese employees of foreign companies in vying for cash prizes and a championship cup. The regatta of May 1870, reported in The Nagasaki Express, featured races in a number of categories including sailing boats, six-oared gigs, canoes, and ‘four-oared gigs pulled by amateurs’. The winner of the last race was the Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s boat manned by ‘Messrs. A Glover, Mettler, Baehr, T.B. Glover, stroke, and F. Ringer, coxswain’.22 The excitement of the Nagasaki Regatta distracted foreign residents from the unhappy fact that Nagasaki was rapidly losing ground to Yokohama and the newly-opened ports of Kōbe and Osaka. Several prominent enterprises folded in the 1870s or moved their headquarters eastward, including Henry Gribble & Co., one of the offshoots of Glover & Co., and the engineering firm of Boyd & Co. that had produced boilers, engines and

21 Brian Burke-Gaffney, Nagasaki: The British Experience 1854–1945, pp. 28–31. Albert W. Hansard, a grandson of the noted parliamentary printer Luke Hansard, arrived in Nagasaki via New Zealand with his own printing press and published the first issue of The Nagasaki Shipping List and Advertiser on 22 June 1861. In October the same year he moved his equipment to Yokohama and continued publication of the newspaper under the name The Japan Herald. He remained in Yokohama until 1865, when deteriorating health forced him to return to England. The founding father of newspaper publishing in Japan died in London the following year. 22 The Nagasaki Express, 7 May 1870. establishment and growth of holme, ringer & co. 33 other equipment during the early years of the foreign settlement. Another deserter was the Netherlands Trading Society, the last remnant of the commercial presence dating back to the Dutch East India Company Factory on Dejima. Thomas B. Glover, who since the collapse of his company in 1870 had been striving to develop the Takashima Colliery and to pay off his multifarious debts, also pulled up roots and moved to Tokyo to take up a position as consultant to the Mitsubishi Company.23 His decision to sell his famous house at No. 3 Minamiyamate in December 1877 clearly reflects the depression in confidence dogging Nagasaki at the time.24 In February 1878, Frederick Ringer, John C. Smith and the other members of the Nagasaki Rowing Club held a meeting to discuss measures to deal with the financial problems faced by the club in the midst of Nagasaki’s general economic woe.25 Opinions were divided, but a majority decided to dissolve the club and to dispose of its property. Frederick Ringer was elected to handle the process of liquidation, and his name appeared in a series of subsequent newspaper notices related to the sale of the boathouse and equipment. Some unnamed resident, however, came forward and provided financial backing to assure the continuation of the club in a new form. According to The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, the benefac- tor was a prominent member of the club ‘who has on more than one occasion shown his public spiritness in supporting the few institutions of which our little port boasts.’26 Considering that he was probably the most passionate advocate of the sport in Nagasaki and already one of the most prosperous merchants there, it is highly likely that the unnamed club member was Frederick Ringer. Boats were repurchased, a new facility acquired, and Nagasaki’s favourite sport carried on as before. A report on a canoe race held in August 1881 shows Frederick Ringer serving as offici ating starter and judge, indicating his maturation from participating oarsman to presiding host. Frederick Ringer and the other boating enthu- siasts of Nagasaki later joined to launch the ‘Nagasaki Racing and Athletic Committee’ (NRAC) and to build a Western-style boathouse on the shore

23 Mitsubishi Shōkai began operations in 1873 as a domestic shipping enterprise. After assisting government forces during the Taiwan Expedition of 1874, it expanded its fleet of steamships and launched Japan’s first international service between Yokohama and Shanghai the following year. 24 The Nagasaki Express, 8 December 1877. As it turned out, the house stayed in the possession of the Glover family, and Thomas continued to inhabit it on a regular basis. 25 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 13 February 1878. 26 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 3 April 1878. 34 chapter three in Kosuge south of the foreign settlement where spectators could watch the races from a wide second-floor veranda. The downturn in business fortunes also affected Frederick Ringer’s decisions regarding his company. In March 1874, he announced that Charles Ryley, a former Nagasaki resident and employee of Alt & Co. had joined with Edward Z. Holme to form Holme, Ryley & Co. in London.27 The timing and purport of the announcement suggest that Holme and Ringer went their separate ways at this point and that the latter assumed sole responsibility for the company operations in Japan.28 But far from succumbing to the decline in business activity or giving up on Nagasaki, Frederick Ringer adjusted to the changing times and looked abroad for new opportunities. One of his first steps was to establish a trade route from Nagasaki to Vladivostok, Russia’s fledgling outpost on the Pacific Ocean.

Russian and Korean Connections

Russia had been hankering from the eighteenth century for access to the Pacific Ocean, establishing naval facilities and settlements along the Amur River and slowly strengthening its military presence in the region. Seeing China’s disadvantage in the Second Opium War, the Russians camped thousands of troops on the Far Eastern border and pressed the Qing Dynasty to join in territorial negotiations. These led to the conclusion of the Treaty of Aigun in 1858, the same year that China and Japan acquiesced to foreign pressure and signed the Treaty of Tientsin and the Ansei Five-Power Treaties, respectively. The two countries agreed to move the national border south to the Amur River and to administrate the coastal areas jointly. Russia established a naval station at the tip of the southeast- ern province, calling it ‘Vladivostok’, which translates roughly as ‘Overlord of the East’. The following year, Russia once again forced unequal terms on the Qing Dynasty and acquired sole ownership of the territories under joint governance, thus creating Primorsky Krai (Maritime Province) and effectively cutting off China’s access to the Sea of Japan. In 1868, the Russian government invited tenders for a mega-project to build a telegraphic connection between European Russia and the

27 The Nagasaki Express, 28 March 1874. 28 The two former partners remained close friends, as indicated by the fact that Ringer turned to Holme for assistance in arranging for his children’s education in England and named Holme one of the executors of his will. establishment and growth of holme, ringer & co. 35 countries of the Far East. The Great Northern Telegraph Company of Denmark secured the contract and set up a subsidiary firm called the ‘Great Northern China and Japan Extension Company’ to lay underwater cables between Primorsky Krai and China, Japan and Hong Kong. The Japanese government guaranteed access to Nagasaki and allowed the company to manage the cables, its lack of financial leverage, political savvy and technological capability in the early years of the Meiji Period leaving it little choice but to follow the imperatives spelled out by foreign interests. The company laid cables from Vladivostok to Nagasaki, Shanghai and Hong Kong over a distance of some 2,300 nautical miles and opened a station in the Belle Vue Hotel at No. 11 Minamiyamate, Nagasaki. Japan’s first overseas telegraph service began on 12 August 1871 with a notice in The Nagasaki Express telling readers that the company was ‘prepared to forward telegrams from the station at this port to all parts of the world in telegraphic communication’.29 Three years later the Great Northern Telegraph Co. moved its headquarters to a new building at No. 2 Umegasaki and took a place alongside Holme, Ringer & Co. as one of the pillars of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement. In April 1876, Frederick Ringer applied to the British Consulate for a passport to visit ‘Russian Siberia’.30 The exact purpose of this first foray to Russia is unknown, but it is safe to assume that he was hoping to take advantage of the link created by the Great Northern Telegraph Co. and to open new channels for the export of tea and, conversely, the import of timber, petroleum, seafood and other products from the continent. In his book The Story of Holme, Ringer & Co. Ltd. in Western Japan, 1868–1968, Harold S. Williams describes the circumstances regarding tea as follows: Russia in those days was one of the greatest tea-consuming countries in the world. Huge quantities of tea were shipped from China to Russia, at first by camel train and later by Trans-Siberian Railway. That which went by camel train absorbed some of the sweaty aroma of the camels and resulted in a tea fragrance much esteemed in Russia. The tea which was transported by the Trans-Siberian Railway never really matched the camel train tea, even although some rather clever schemes were thought up of giving it a camel flavour. In addition to shipments of leaf to Russia there was also a huge demand there and throughout Siberia for tea bricks. These were usually made from leaf or sweepings of tea dust compressed into brick shapes. They were sold to the peasants who chipped off portions of the bricks when they were about to brew a cup of tea. China had most of that trade. It is

29 The Nagasaki Express, 12 August 1871. 30 Frederick Ringer to Marcus Flowers, 20 April 1876 (FO 796/64). 36 chapter three

understandable that when a tea expert such as F. Ringer saw the tea trade of Nagasaki dwindling away, he should make every effort to maintain the Firm’s interest in the commodity out of which his success in business had first developed. If he could not export tea to America, he could at least obtain sufficient leaf for his Russian connections. Thus for years the Firm was a shipper of tea and tea bricks to Vladivostok.31 Vladivostok was still an isolated outpost when Frederick Ringer visited the area in 1876, its harbour frozen and inaccessible during winter and the town consisting of little more than ‘a few wooden piers, an Orthodox church, a Chinese temple, and huts clinging to scrubby slopes rising from a dirt track’.32 Ringer’s principal contact in Vladivostok was Julius Bryner, a Swiss-born entrepreneur who had lived in Nagasaki in the early 1870s as an employee of the American firm Walsh & Co. Best known today as the grandfather of Academy Award-winning actor Yul Brynner (who added an extra ‘n’ to the name), Bryner established an export business in Vladivostok and went on to make extraordinary contributions to the development of the port. The Bryner and Ringer families remained friends for three subsequent generations. Another contact was Iacob L. Semenoff, a Jewish businessman and early civilian resident of Vladivostok who would also be one of Frederick Ringer’s important collaborators over the years. Nippon Yūsen Kaisha (NYK), established after the merger of Mitsubishi Mail Steamship Co. and Kyōdō Unyu Kaisha in 1885, further strengthened the Nagasaki-Vladivostok connection by installing a regular steamship service between the two ports. When the Takachiho-maru foundered on the misty coast of Tsushima during a voyage from Nagasaki to Vladivostok in May 1891, Frederick Ringer was one of the passengers forced to seek a hasty refuge on the rocks at Tsutsuzaki.33 Ringer’s business with Russia remained strong over the following years. Holme, Ringer & Co. cooperated with Semenoff, Denbigh & Co. in the promotion of whaling and the import of marine products, and it served as Nagasaki and Shimonoseki agent for a

31 Harold S. Williams, The Story of Holme, Ringer & Co. Ltd. in Western Japan, 1868–1968 (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1968), pp. 25–6. An Australian businessman and resident of Kōbe since 1919, Williams conducted research into the history of Japan’s former foreign settlements and published numerous works on the subject in the post-war period. In 1968 he was asked by Holme, Ringer & Co., which had been revived after the war, to write a short company history. His extensive notes, photographs, correspondence and other materials are preserved today at the National Library of Australia as the ‘Harold S. Williams Collection’ (HSWC). 32 John Stephan, The Russian Far East: A History (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 84. 33 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 13 May 1891. establishment and growth of holme, ringer & co. 37 long list of Russian shipping concerns. Ringer also imported Russian granite to Japan and used some of it to refurbish the veranda of his house at No. 2 Minamiyamate, evidence of which can still be seen today. Sydney A. Ringer, Frederick’s second son and business successor and frequent visitor to the Bryner house in Vladivostok, upheld the Russian connection to such an extent that he gave his second son the name ‘Vanya’. By a twist of fate, Frederick Ringer also became one of the first Britons to visit Korea as it awoke from the cocoon of national seclusion. Korea had stubbornly maintained its ‘hermit kingdom’ status, even after the opening of Japan’s doors in 1859. In 1876, Japan used gunboat diplomacy to win a treaty of amity with Korea and to open Pusan (Busan) and other ports for trade, but Britain was yet to establish official relations. In October 1878, the barque Barbara Taylor was blown off course by a typhoon and foundered on the southern shore of Cheju (Jeju), a large volcanic island lying south of the Korean Peninsula. The island was known to foreigners as ‘Quelpart’, a name apparently derived from an obsolete Dutch word applied to sailing ships and harking back to the days when Dutch East India Company full- riggers sailed past the island on their way to Dejima. The captain of the barque left the wreck in the hands of his crew and managed to find his way back to Nagasaki to seek assistance. On 21 October, the Norwegian steamship Hakon Adelsten left Nagasaki carrying the captain of the stranded ship along with British consular official Edward Paul, Belle Vue Hotel owner C.N. Mancini, and Frederick Ringer, agent for the owners of the ship and consigner of the cargo. Also on board was Erasmus H.M. Gower, a British engineer and resident of Nagasaki who later published a detailed account of the event.34 The group found the stranded ship, rescued the crew and recovered most of the cargo. Gower recounts the experience in colourful detail, including the costumes and friendly attitude of the Korean officials who assisted the uninvited guests, the local economy and culture, the rugged topography of the island, and even the women, who ‘seemed to be very hard-worked in the fields; they were studiously kept away from us, and I must confess I did not see a pretty one’. As the Hakon Adelsten departed, the Korean

34 Entitled ‘Our Trip to Quelpart’, this long account was published in two instalments in the 6 and 13 November 1878 issues of The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express. The author is not identified, but the fact that Gower’s name appears last in the list of visitors and nowhere else – not to mention the rather scientific bent of the writing – indicates that it was his work. In 1883, the same year that Britain and Korea signed a formal diplomatic agreement, Erasmus H.M. Gower became Frederick Ringer’s father-in-law. 38 chapter three officials set fire to the wreck of the barque as though trying to erase all traces of the visit, but only five years later Britain would establish a formal diplomatic relationship with Korea, and Frederick Ringer would soon be back in the country to forge commercial links and open branch offices. CHAPTER FOUR

FAMILY AFFAIRS

Many of the ships acquired by Holme, Ringer & Co. were former tea clippers sold off by their owners after service in the China-Europe trade. These ships decorated Nagasaki Harbour with sleek hulls and white sails and gained a new lease on life as carriers of cargo on the routes criss-crossing the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan. The company installed one of these, the Ariel, on the Nagasaki-Tientsin route in the summer of 1877 and used it to carry the first shipment of natural ice from northern China, surprising and delighting a Nagasaki populace suffering from an unprecedented heat wave. Holme, Ringer & Co. continued to import large quan tities of ice from China and Russia and to sell it on the Nagasaki market. As the following humourous newspaper quip indicates, the company emerged victorious over R.H. Powers, G.W. Lake and other foreign competitors in Nagasaki (the italics are those of the original article): ‘In spite of the Powers that be, we have been compelled to return Holme to Ringer & Co. for our supply of ice. We hear, however, that river ice is likely to be sup- planted by some Lake, though whether Wenham or not we cannot say.’1 The success of the ice-import enterprise persuaded Japanese traders to follow suit and also stimulated the birth of a modern ice-manufacturing industry. It was a pattern oft repeated over the following decades: Holme, Ringer & Co. establishing business connections for the import of novel merchandise and technology, and Japanese colleagues later gathering up the threads and weaving them into the fabric of modern Japan. On the voyage from Nagasaki to Tientsin, the Ariel transported coal from the Takashima Colliery, which in the 1870s presented what many observers, bemoaning Nagasaki’s economic doldrums, called the ‘staple of the place, now and for long to come the only one’.2 In April 1881, the colliery – including machinery, buildings, tramways, three rich veins of coal, and the manpower of some 3,000 workers – was sold in its entirety to the Mitsubishi Mail Steamship Co., which by this time was branching out from the shipping industry and implementing a land-based strategy that

1 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 28 July 1877. 2 Quoted in The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 24 April 1878. 40 chapter four included the purchase of mines, factories and railways.3 The company’s acquisition of the Takashima Colliery had profound implications for the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement because it promised the efficient development of this port as a coaling station and created demand for the services of foreign experts and companies. It also brought Thomas B. Glover, now a Mitsubishi consultant, back to Nagasaki in early 1881 to oversee the transfer of ownership. In February, Thomas B. Glover and Frederick Ringer were in cahoots again, this time working together to arrange Japan’s first demonstration of dynamite as part of an effort to promote the use of the new explosive in mines and public works. The day before the demonstration, Ringer submitted a letter to the British consul asking him to inform Japanese authorities about the demonstrations, which were to be conducted by a representative of the Nobel Explosives Company on the lawn at Thomas B. Glover’s Minamiyamate house and in the harbour using boats.4 A large number of foreign and Japanese residents gathered at the Glover house to witness the epoch-making demonstrations, including a reporter from the local English-language newspaper: A good number of the foreign residents, including ladies, and a large con- course of native officials and others interested in mining and engineering were present… [The dynamite’s] destructive properties were well illustrated by the entire demolition of a solid block of granite, and the breaking of a massive casting, weighing half a ton, into a thousand pieces… Its harmless- ness was equally as satisfactorily convincing, as a charge was burnt in an ordinary charcoal fire without the slightest sign of an explosion, and a box containing 10 lbs. was afterwards blown into the air by a ten-pound charge of gunpowder, completely destroying the box without in any way affecting the dynamite. Various other minor examples were also given, and at 4 o’clock the proceedings adjourned to the bay, where experiments in the water were made. To illustrate torpedo warfare, a small native boat was destroyed by a charge of dynamite connected by insulated wires with a dynamo electric battery, contained in a boat at a safe distance away, and when the current was connected the doomed craft was blown to atoms and a column of water thrown high into the air. Several other torpedoes were also cast into the water and exploded by the same means. Those afloat in the vicinity had a rather unexpected windfall in the shape of fish killed by the explosions, of which great quantities were picked up.5

3 Maekawa Masao, Tankōshi: Nagasaki-ken sekitanshi nenpyō (A History of Coal Mining: Chronology of Major Events in Nagasaki Prefecture) (Fukuoka: Ashi Shobō, 1990), pp. 62–5. 4 Holme, Ringer & Co. to James Troup, 8 February 1881 (FO 796/84). 5 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 12 February 1881. It is apparent from this article that the participants in Nagasaki were aware of the potential of dynamite for military as family affairs 41

Thomas B. Glover kept some of the explosive for himself and used it to dig a well in his garden, a mundane episode that made history only because the French priests at nearby Ōura Catholic Church complained to the British Consulate about the noise. Reprimanded by the British consul, Glover filed a rebuttal, claiming that the students in the seminary attached to the church constituted a far greater and more chronic source of noise in Minamiyamate and that, ‘The high veneration in which we hold the Head of the mission alone prevented complaints being sent by Messrs. Gower, Ringer and myself long ere this.’6 In this statement, Glover is referring to Erasmus H.M. Gower and Frederick Ringer, his collaborators in the dynamite experiment. As mentioned earlier, Gower was a civil engineer who had come to Nagasaki in 1876 to supervise operations at the Takashima Colliery and who had accompanied Frederick Ringer on his brief visit to Korea in 1878. Gower was also soon to become Ringer’s father-in-law. The following biographical sketch is based on information from a number of sources including the description penned by Shiboi Toshio, the British engineer’s grandson.7

Erasmus H.M. Gower (1830–1902)

Erasmus Henry Mauritius Gower was born in Livorno, Italy in 1830, the son of British merchant George Henry Gower. His father was a nephew of British Admiral Sir Erasmus Gower, commander of the 1793 British expedition to the Chinese Imperial court and later governor of Newfoundland. Erasmus apparently received his education in England and worked for some time in the mining industry. He married Caroline Burrit in 1855 and fathered four children between 1857 and 1864, the eldest being Carolina Rosina Gower, the future wife of Frederick Ringer.8 His younger brother Abel A.J. Gower was a British diplomat who served as consul to Nagasaki and Hakodate during the 1860s, a role thoroughly documented in British Foreign Office records. The well-known photograph of Abel taken in

well as industrial uses. The author could never have imagined, however, the significance that the word ‘atom’ would garner in Nagasaki half a century later. 6 Thomas B. Glover to James Troup, 2 March 1881 (FO 796/84). 7 Shiboi Toshio, Erasmus H.M. Gower to sono keirui (Erasmus H.M. Gower and his Descendants) (Tokyo: Bunka Sōgō Shuppan, 1979), p. 81. Shiboi Toshio followed in his grandfather’s footsteps, going on to become a respected geologist and professor at the Kitami Institute of Technology in Hokkaidō. 8 From the Gower family tree compiled by Australian researcher Ian Bates. (http:// www.sageold.com.au/gower.shtml). 42 chapter four

Nagasaki by Swiss photographer Pierre Rossier shows a refined young man with features that suggest the injection of Italian blood at some branch of the family tree. Another younger brother, Samuel J. Gower, was an employee of Jardine, Matheson & Co. stationed in Shanghai and later Kōbe and Yokohama. In 1867, the Tokugawa Shogunate hired Erasmus H.M. Gower to assist in the development of the Kayanuma Colliery in Iwanai, Hokkaidō.9 Since Abel was serving as British consul in Hakodate from 1866 to 1867, it is likely that Erasmus came to Japan at his brother’s recommendation and went directly to Hokkaidō to discuss the position offered by the Shogunate. At Kayanuma, he supervised the construction of a four kilometre-long track from the coal pit to the coast, thus reducing the cost and time required for transportation, and even taught Italian to Japanese students. It is also said that he introduced gunpowder charges as a way to loosen rock formations, which, if true, is consistent with his involvement in the early dynamite experiments in Nagasaki. The Tokugawa Shogunate asked Gower to implement similar innova- tions on the island of Sado (present-day Niigata Prefecture), the site of a gold mine still being worked by traditional methods. He arrived at Sado in January 1868 but had to leave the island after the collapse of the Shogunate the same year. He was back again in May 1869, this time as one of the first oyatoi gaikokujin, that is, foreigners hired by the Meiji government to assist in various facets of the country’s push for modernisation.10 Gower implemented a number of modern mining techniques at Sado, but his efforts to establish a factory for the refinement of ore proved unsuccessful and he left the island in 1873. During the period of his employment on Sado, he established a relationship with a Japanese woman named Shiboi Uta and fathered two sons named Raikichi and Jūyō, born in 1872 and 1873, respectively. Erasmus H.M. Gower worked as a kind of ‘engineer-adventurer’ after leaving Sado, assisting in projects such as the establishment of Japan’s first modern glassworks at Shinagawa, Tokyo. His name appears in Takashima Colliery records for the first time in October 1876, when he was engaged to supervise the digging of a new shaft at Futagojima (a small island adjacent

9 Harry Parkes to the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, 5 April 1867, Ezochi Iwanai sekitan kaikutsu no tame eikokujin gawaru shi yatoiire ikken (On the Employment of Briton Mr Gower for the Development of the Colliery at Iwanai, Ezo) (Gaimushō Hikitsugi Shorui No. 792, Tokyo University Library). 10 Takeuchi Hiroshi, (ed.). Rainichi seiyōjinmei jiten (Dictionary of Western Visitors to Japan) (Tokyo: Kinokuniya Shoten, 1995), pp. 90–1. family affairs 43 to Takashima), the original shaft sunk by Thomas B. Glover having flooded earlier the same year.11 He apparently made Nagasaki his home at this juncture, joining Thomas B. Glover and Frederick Ringer as one of the leaders of the foreign community. From 1879, he inhabited the house at No. 27A Minamiyamate, a quasi-Western-style building of stone and wood construction erected during the early years of the foreign settlement on a hillside abutment overlooking Nagasaki Harbour. The building remains to this day, preserved by Nagasaki City and opened to the public today as the ‘Minamiyamate Rest House’.12 Erasmus’s eldest daughter Carolina married Edmund Pye, a partner in the trading firm Elles & Co. and a leading foreign resident of Amoy, China. In a handwritten will dated 20 November 1880 and penned aboard a ship in Malaya, Edmund Pye writes, ‘I leave all my property of every kind to my dear wife Carolina Rosina Pye.’13 Pye apparently came down with a life- threatening disease and left Amoy for Europe intending to convalesce. He died of unstated causes in Cannes, France, in March 1881. Shipping intelligence published in the English-language newspapers shows that Carolina arrived in Nagasaki from Hong Kong in January 1882 aboard the Mitsubishi Mail Steamship Co.’s Nagoya-maru. The name of her father is also on the passenger list, indicating that Gower escorted his bereaved daughter to Nagasaki. Interestingly, another name on the Nagoya-maru passenger list is John M. Ringer, Frederick Ringer’s older brother, who was travelling from Shanghai to Nagasaki with Gower and Pye and then proceeding to San Francisco via Yokohama.14 The results of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement census conducted by Japanese authorities in February 1881 show ‘E.H.M. Gower, a woman, and Alice Gower’ living at No. 27A Minamiyamate. In the March 1882 census, however, the information has changed to ‘E.H.M. Gower and a woman’ with a separate heading for ‘Mrs Pye’ living at the same address. This information is conveyed entirely in Japanese letters and provides the names only of foreigners, making it difficult to determine exact spell- ings, relationships and Japanese family members, but ‘Mrs Pye’ and ‘Alice Gower’ undoubtedly refer to Erasmus Gower’s daughters Carolina and

11 Maekawa Masao, p. 55. 12 Nagasaki Prefecture, (ed.), Nagasaki kyoryūchi gaikokujin meibo III (List of Foreign Residents of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement, Vol. 3), (Nagasaki: Nagasaki Prefectural Library, 2004), p. 17. This publication is a transcription of original handwritten census records preserved at the library. I refer to it hereafter as NKGM. 13 FO 679/2/18. 14 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 14 January 1882. 44 chapter four

Alice.15 Since Carolina came to Nagasaki in January 1882, the ‘woman’ mentioned in the 1881 census seems to refer to Gower’s Japanese consort Shiboi Uta who, according to Shiboi Toshio, lived with him for a short period in Nagasaki.16 The last mention of Erasmus H.M. Gower in The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express is a short account of a meeting of the English Church committee held at the end of November 1882. The newspaper reports that Gower and four other foreign residents were chosen to serve as trustees during the following year. By the time of the January 1883 census, Erasmus H.M. Gower is no longer registered, and the ‘woman’ and ‘Mrs Pye,’ although listed separately, are both living at No. 27A Minamiyamate. Again, the ‘woman’ seems to be Shiboi Uta, abandoned by Erasmus and stranded with her children, Madame Butterfly-like, in the house on the Minamiyamate hillside. The reason for Erasmus H.M. Gower’s sudden departure from Japan is unknown. He returned to Italy, where he married the actress Countess Castelvecchio, and remained there until his death in 1902.17 The shipping intelligence in The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express shows Carolina arriving back in Nagasaki from Yokohama in August 1883, only a few weeks before her marriage to Frederick Ringer. It is possible that she accompanied Shiboi Uta and her two sons back to Tokyo and helped them to re-establish themselves there, a conjecture consistent with Shiboi Toshio’s assertion that Carolina continued to support her two step- brothers and later helped Raikichi find a position as an engineer on a British steamship. All traces of the Gower family are gone by the time of the December 1884 census, when Carolina is living at No. 2 Minamiyamate as ‘Mrs Frederick Ringer’ and the inhabitant of the house at No. 27A Minamiyamate is shown as Ryle Holme, the former Glover & Co. employee (and brother of Edward Z. Holme) now engaged as Nagasaki agent for Jardine, Matheson & Co.

A New Life at ‘Niban’

Frederick Ringer and Carolina Pye married in Nagasaki on 12 September 1883, forty-five and twenty-six years old, respectively. The congratulatory

15 Alice Gower, although apparently single at the time of this census, later married a British resident of Shanghai named H.B. Burns. 16 Shiboi, p. 96. 17 Personal communication from Ian Bates. Gower’s death was reported in the 9 December 1902 issue of The Nagasaki Press. family affairs 45 announcement carried in The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express reports that the marriage was registered at the British Consulate and solemnised at the English Church in Higashiyamate, ‘the ceremony at the church being witnessed by probably the largest assembly of residents that have ever gathered there’.18 The bride was given away, not by her father, but by her brother-in-law H.B. Burns, a resident of Shanghai at the time. The groom’s ‘best man’ was Scottish mining engineer John Stoddart, who had been Erasmus H.M. Gower’s associate at the Takashima Colliery. After the ceremony, the participants retired to the American Consulate at No. 7 Higashiyamate where the consul A.C. Jones and his wife hosted a reception for the couple under a large tent erected on the lawn. The house at No. 2 Minamiyamate, where the newlyweds took up residence, was one of the best residential locations in the foreign settlement, surrounded by Japanese-style gardens and commanding a panoramic view over Nagasaki Harbour. It stood on the hillside between the Glover family residence to the north at No. 3 Minamiyamate and the former Alt family residence to the south at No. 14 Minamiyamate, inhabited at the time by Edward Rogers of the China & Japan Trading Co. but soon to become another Ringer family possession. The single-storey house amal- gamated British and Japanese building styles, with walls of Amakusa sandstone, high shuttered windows and doors, coal-burning fireplaces and a traditional Japanese roof with grey ceramic tiles and onigawara (‘devil tile’) end pieces to ward off fire and other unwelcome guests. The building had five rooms branching off an L-shaped corridor and several adjoining structures including a kitchen, servants’ quarters and storehouse. First acquired in 1864 by Thomas B. Glover’s younger brother Alexander (who apparently built the house), the lot had changed hands twice over the next few years, first to Holme, Ringer & Co. partner John C. Smith in 1870 and then to British ship captain Alexander Grange the following year, until being acquired by Frederick Ringer on 29 August 1874.19 Ringer seems to have purchased the property as an investment for the future, because he did not actually inhabit the house until January 1883, a few months prior to his marriage.20 From this time onward, the Ringer family referred to the house affectionately as ‘Niban’, the Japanese word for ‘No. 2’. (Fig. 4.1)

18 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 15 September 1883. 19 FO 796/203/151. 20 NKGM, p. 70. 46 chapter four

Figure 4.1. The former Ringer family residence ‘Niban’ at No. 2 Minamiyamate is preserved today in Nagasaki Glover Garden, an ‘Important Cultural Asset’ designated by the Japanese government. (Photograph by the author, 2011)

Frederick and Carolina left Nagasaki in November 1883 aboard the steamship Zambesi and travelled to England on a honeymoon. It was Frederick Ringer’s first time back to his homeland in nineteen years. Carolina remained in London and gave birth to a son named Frederick Erasmus Edward Ringer (referred to hereafter by his nickname ‘Freddy’) before sailing back to Nagasaki in October 1884. The shipping intelligence in The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express reports the arrival of ‘Mrs Ringer, infant and maid’ sailing from Hong Kong on the Teheran, a ship consigned by Holme, Ringer & Co. Frederick Ringer was undoubtedly standing at the waterfront, waiting to greet his wife and son and to begin a new life bal- ancing the responsibilities of family life with his role as the leader of Nagasaki’s foremost business enterprise. Ringer stepped up his efforts to improve facilities in the port and to increase trade in any item that promised profitable returns. Like a soldier picking up fallen flags on a battlefield, he acquired foreign settlement property abandoned by foreign residents leaving Nagasaki for greener pas- tures and used the land and buildings to expand the activities of Holme, family affairs 47

Ringer & Co. He even funded the purchase of a modern fire engine and the formation of a fire brigade that proved its importance in February 1884 by extinguishing a fire that broke out in a coal shed in Sagarimatsu and threatened to destroy valuable property in the neighbourhood.21 As his range of business widened and roster of foreign and Japanese employees lengthened, Frederick Ringer began to impose rules that would come to characterise the company philosophy, notably his insistence that all Japanese employees maintain their integrity by wearing only Japanese clothing and footwear and, similarly, that foreigners refrain from unsightly forays into Japanese culture and society. He also seems to have frowned on interracial marriage, even though many of his friends, including Thomas B. Glover, married Japanese women and established families in Japan. Perhaps images different from marital bliss were branded in his consciousness, such as the unbridled philandering of foreigners during the early years after the opening of the port, or the sad example set by his own father-in-law, who had turned his back on his Japanese family and left Japan never to return. To Frederick Ringer, the maintenance of polite distance and strict adherence to national identity meant, not discrimination, but order. At home, the Norwich native drew the same clear distinction between the island of European culture in the foreign settlement and the sea of Japanese culture surrounding it. He lived in purely English style with his wife and children in the house at No. 2 Minamiyamate, assisted by a team of faithful servants who inhabited adjacent quarters. The servants prepared European meals in a separate kitchen, nursed young Freddy according to Carolina’s instructions, cleaned furniture and polished silver, and kept the imported rose vines and begonia bushes carefully trimmed. By no means, however, were they allowed to become ‘Westernised’. It was almost as though a small British estate had been transplanted onto the Nagasaki hillside, with a change of staff and the introduction of a few exotic utensils and works of art, but with customs, manners, values and everything else intact. Carolina gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Lina Jessie Ringer, on 18 January 1886. Almost exactly two years later, she gave birth to another child that was apparently stillborn and never named. Instead of interring the remains in the international cemetery, Frederick and Carolina chose to bury their third child on the slope in front of their Minamiyamate

21 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 23 February 1884. 48 chapter four house. To this day, two small gravestones mark the spot, one a Western- style obelisk with the epitaph ‘In Memoriam 15 January 1888’ and the other a small monument with the Buddhist invocation Namu Amida Butsu (‘Hail Amitabha Buddha’) inscribed in Chinese characters. The circumstances of the death and burial of this child and the erection of the gravestones remain a mystery.22 The final addition to the family was Sydney Arthur Ringer, born in Nagasaki on 26 February 1891 and destined, after many curves and dips in the road, to be the last Ringer family member to inhabit ‘Niban’.

22 Harold S. Williams tried to find information about the gravestones during his research on Holme, Ringer & Co. in the early 1960s but was unsuccessful, even after corresponding with Frederick Ringer’s grandson Michael (HSWC, MS 6681/2/32). CHAPTER FIVE

ECONOMIC EXPANSION

On 14 April 1884, Holme, Ringer & Co. received official appointment as Lloyd’s agent at Nagasaki, a designation that cemented the company’s status as Nagasaki’s business leader and local link in the global network of trade and communication.1 A further boost came in the summer of the same year when the Mitsubishi Mail Steamship Co. took charge of the government shipyard at Akunoura on the Inasa side of Nagasaki Harbour. The editor of The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express applauded the decision and predicted that Mitsubishi would be much more successful than the Imperial Japanese Navy or any government body in introducing new technology, dealing with competition and earning profits. His long article on the subject reflects the elation of the foreign community, which saw the Mitsubishi takeover as a light at the end of the dark economic tunnel of the 1870s and an opportunity for foreign as well as Japanese businesses. He confidently assures readers that: The port of Nagasaki is well situated geographically; the land-locked deep- water harbour is easily accessible, safe, and admirably adapted for these purposes; it is a coaling port; the surrounding country abounds with all descriptions of timber, from oak to cedar; skilled labour is cheap; provisions and necessaries in general are as plentiful and far cheaper than in any other part of the East; and in fact everything is strongly in favour of the Nagasaki Dockyard being made a great success in the hands of an energetic and influential firm with almost unlimited resources like the Mitsubishi Co.2 One of the first vessels to visit the newly-founded ‘Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard’ was the French naval frigate Triomphante, which arrived on 8 July 1885 and underwent repairs at the dock for a period of about one month.3 The 4,176-tonne frigate was by far the largest ship in the harbour: the runners-up were the 2,380-tonne British corvette Champion and the

1 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 26 April 1884. 2 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 5 July 1884. This comment is preceded by a detailed description of the dockyard, factories and other facilities. Mitsubishi purchased the rights to the shipyard in 1887. 3 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 8 July 1885. The newspaper carried an announcement of the arrival of the warship this day. 50 chapter five

2,300-tonne American frigate Trenton, the latter still decked out in ban- ners from its celebration of Independence Day four days earlier. At the side of the larger steamships, chains of basket-bearing labourers, some of them women with infants strapped to their backs, stood on ladders and passed coal up to the bunker ports with ant-like diligence. Other groups of Japanese sat in boats or clambered up onto the ship decks to hawk a dazzling array of crafts and curiosities, everything from bamboo ear cleaners to bird cages, silk kimono, Noh drama masks, scarlet lacquerware trays with mountain scenes painted in gold, and bottles of medicinal liquor containing poisonous snakes. The city of Nagasaki stretched back from the waterfront: to the south the foreign settlement; to the north orderly rows of low wooden buildings with ceramic-tile roofs and white paper windows. A grid of flagstone- paved streets led up to a string of Buddhist temples skirting the hillsides and, behind them, graveyards looking out over the old town as if to remind the populace of the impermanence of life. Shinchi, the former site of warehouses, was now a congested Chinese Quarter. The island of Dejima was intact, devoid of its status as Japan’s only point of contact with the Western world but still untouched by the harbour reclamation projects that would engulf it by the turn of the century. Although the chonmage topknots and samurai swords of old were gone, most of the Japanese people walking in the streets wore traditional dress, lived in houses that dated back to the days before the opening of the port, cooked food with firewood in earthen kitchen kamado stoves, illuminated rooms with oil lamps, and enjoyed the same familiar Nagasaki diet of Japanese cuisine spiced with Chinese, Portuguese and Dutch influences. There were no telephone poles, no modern vehicles (other than rickshaws with spoked bicycle wheels), no significant military presence, and still very few artifacts of glass or steel to mar the historic townscape. In short, aside from the foreign settlement and the Mitsubishi factories, the lifestyles of the citizens of Nagasaki and the physical appearance of their city remained remarkably unchanged since the sunset years of the Edo Period. Lieutenant Julien Marie Viaud, one of the officers gazing from the quar- terdeck of the Triomphante, was better known in his homeland as ‘Pierre Loti’, the author of quixotic travelogues enjoying acclaim for his keen powers of observation, his gift for poetic turn of phrase, and his talent for smuggling himself into the bosom of faraway lands. During the month- long stopover in Nagasaki, Loti engaged a teenage prostitute in a kind of play-marriage and wove his impressions of the city into in a book entitled Madame Chrysanthème that promptly shot to the top of bestseller lists economic expansion 51 after publication in Paris in 1887 and exerted an irrevocable impact on Western views of Japan. This came on the heels of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Mikado or The Town of Titipu, which opened at the Savoy Theatre in London in March 1885 and garnered huge popularity despite its blatantly inaccurate and demeaning portrayal of Japanese subjects. In Madame Chrysanthème, Loti continues the comic treatment of Japan, exploiting the sexual premise as a joke and using his consort and other Japanese people merely as props. At the same time, however, he provides a compelling view of the naked underbelly of old Japan unavailable in previous travelogues and scholarly works. While arrogantly ridiculing Japan’s attempts at modernisation, he rolls out a candid and enchanting description of the pristine beauty of Nagasaki, the whole thing validated by his personal experiences. Yokohama and Kōbe were pushing to the forefront of international trade, but to many Europeans – especially in the wake of Loti’s book – Nagasaki would remain the epitome of old Japan, the familiar former rendezvous of priests and buccaneers, the crossroads of East and West, the exotic but decadent port city outré a la mer. One of the many writers and artists influenced by Madame Chrysanthème was Rudyard Kipling, who visited Nagasaki during a voyage from India to England in 1889 and penned a distinctly Lotiesque account of his brief stay.4 Describing his arrival in Nagasaki Harbour, the British author tells his readers that: There was a yellow-shot greenness upon the hills round Nagasaki different, so my willing mind was disposed to believe, from the green of other lands. It was the green of a Japanese screen, and the pines were screen pines. The city itself hardly showed from the crowded harbour. It lay low among the hills, and its business face – a grimy bund – was sloppy and deserted. Business, I was rejoiced to learn, was at a low ebb in Nagasaki. The Japanese should have no concern with business. When it comes to ‘O-Toyo’ and the other maids serving him at a Japanese restaurant, however, Kipling rejects Pierre Loti’s cynical attitude and steers in the direction of Madame Butterfly, the Giacomo Puccini opera that would turn Madame Chrysanthème into a love-tragedy and take the world by storm some fifteen years later: My very respectable friends at all the clubs and messes, have you ever after a good tiffin lolled on cushions and smoked, with one pretty girl to fill your

4 Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches: Letters of Travel (London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1900), Vol. 1, pp. 313–27. 52 chapter five

pipe and four to admire you in an unknown tongue? You do not know what life is. I looked around me at that faultless room, at the dwarf pines and cherry blossoms without, at O-Toyo bubbling with laughter because I blew smoke through my nose, and at the ring of Mikado maidens over against the golden-brown bearskin rug. Here was colour, form, food, comfort and beauty enough for half a year’s contemplation. I would not be a Burman any more. I would be a Japanese – always with O-Toyo bien entendu – in a cabinet-work house on a camphor-scented hillside. Rudyard Kipling wanted Nagasaki to be economically stagnant and culturally retrospective, like a protective father trying to cloister a beautiful daughter, but the city was in fact on the threshold of a new era of prosperity and international activity. Along with the Russian steamer described by Kipling as ‘cumbered with raffle of all kinds’, its rigging ‘frowsy and drag- gled as the hair of a lodging-house slavey’, Nagasaki Harbour was scattered with French, British and Italian men-of-war as well as dozens of foreign merchantmen and a motley collection of barges, tugs, lighters, junks and single-oar danpeisen hurrying back and forth from the landing steps in front of the custom jetties. Many of the merchantmen were working under consignment for Holme, Ringer & Co., including the Russian steamship Wladivostok, British barque G.H. Wappus and German cargo carrier Hever. Aside from establishing new departments in the Ōura office and hiring British and Japanese staff, the company enlisted an array of Nagasaki businesses to engage labourers, pay wages and settle contracts with producers and suppliers, and the visit of each ship under the Holme, Ringer & Co. banner whipped up a flurry of activity that resonated into the hinterland and poured money into both the company coffers and the local economy. The increase in trade volume translated into a comparable increase in administrative duties related to insurance and banking, import and export trade, and services for travellers arriving and departing on foreign steamships. Two important Japanese collaborators appeared in Frederick Ringer’s circle around this time and joined the British merchant in advancing Nagasaki’s status as an international port and modernising the urban infrastructure. One was Uryū Furuu, manager of the Mitsubishi Takashima Colliery Office in Nagasaki. The other was Kusaka Yoshio, governor of Nagasaki Prefecture from 1886 to 1889. Former samurai and native of Fukui Prefecture, Uryū Furuu (1853–1920) participated in the Iwakura Mission to America and Europe (1871–1873) and returned to Japan to assume government office after a three-year stay abroad, later assisting in the management of the Takashima Colliery. economic expansion 53

After acquiring the facility in 1881, the Mitsubishi Mail Steamship Co. employed the bilingual Uryū to handle administrative affairs and the marketing of coal. Frederick Ringer assisted Uryū by arranging for the sale of the black rock to foreign merchantmen and warships calling at Nagasaki. Ringer also helped him obtain rights to a waterfront lot in the Sagarimatsu district for the colliery office, part of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement and, strictly speaking, off-limits to Japanese renters. Uryū’s ability, honed as a government official-turned-businessman and colleague of foreign residents, was a key factor in the leasing of the Nagasaki Shipyard to Mitsubishi in 1884 and other inroads made by the company in the late nineteenth century. Kusaka Yoshio (1851–1923) was also a former samurai and member of the Iwakura Mission. A fluent English speaker who had studied economics in London, he served in various government positions before arriving in Nagasaki in February 1886 to assume the post of prefecture governor. Although his predecessors had tended to serve as figureheads rather than active leaders and to meet residents of the foreign settlement only at social functions, Kusaka associated closely with foreigners and responded to their suggestions regarding sanitation, transportation, public safety and other issues affecting Nagasaki’s role as an international port. He enjoyed a particularly close relationship with Frederick Ringer, relying on him for assistance in various efforts to promote business and improve living conditions in the port.

Nagasaki Waterworks

One of the most important projects in which Uryū Furuu, Kusaka Yoshio and Frederick Ringer cooperated was the construction of the Nagasaki Waterworks. The story begins with the construction of a modern waterworks in Shanghai, a port that, like Nagasaki, suffered from a chronic shortage of fresh drinking water and illnesses related to poor sanitation. In 1880, the municipal council of the Shanghai International Settlement, led by Frederick Ringer’s older brother John M. Ringer and other prominent residents, invited a British engineer named John W. Hart to prepare plans and estimates for the construction of a water tower and infrastructure for an efficient water service.5 Work began in the summer of 1881 and reached

5 Kerrie L. Macpherson, A Wilderness of Marshes: The Origins of Public Health in Shanghai, 1843–1893 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 97. 54 chapter five completion two years later.6 Hart was already well known in Japan at the time: appointed a consulting engineer by the Meiji government in 1868, he had surveyed the harbour of Hyōgo and laid out plans for the Kōbe Foreign Settlement, going on to live in that port until his retirement in 1879. Little information remains in English about Hart’s involvement in the Nagasaki Waterworks, but Japanese sources reveal that he visited this port in the summer of 1886 at the behest of Frederick Ringer and Uryū Furuu and submitted a plan and estimate of costs to Nagasaki authorities after surveying the city and environs. Shipping intelligence in The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express confirms this time frame, showing the British engineer passing through Nagasaki on his way to Kōbe on 10 June 1886, arriving back on 5 July, and then departing for Shanghai on 26 September. A handwritten document entitled Nagasaki shi suidō shimatsu, compiled by the Nagasaki prefecture government in 1888, provides a translation of Hart’s proposal, including his list of estimated expenses and opinion that a dam should be built to create a reservoir on the upper reaches of Ichinose River at Hongōchi. The document also states that Hart’s contribution to the project was ‘huge’.7 The need for a modern waterworks and improvements in sanitation was tragically underlined during Hart’s six-week sojourn in Nagasaki, when a cholera epidemic rampaged through the city, claiming more than 400 lives and inducing health officials to declare a state of emergency. The Liverpool native also had the odd luck to witness the worst international clash in Nagasaki memory, a riot by hundreds of Chinese sailors angered over the alleged mistreatment of a compatriot and bent on revenge, running amok on the backstreets one hot summer evening and causing damage and injury on an unprecedented scale.8 Frederick Ringer and Uryū Furuu conveyed John W. Hart’s proposal to the Nagasaki Chamber of Commerce and Industry in September 1886, with the endorsement of Governor Kusaka Yoshio. In spite of the obvious benefits, however, the plan provoked a flurry of opposition because of the colossal expense, predicted to run upwards of 300,000 yen or more than

6 John W. Hart, The Shanghai Water-Works (Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Volume 100, Issue 1890), pp. 217–45. 7 Nagasaki Prefecture Civil Engineering Department (ed.), Nagasaki shi suidō shimatsu (Nagasaki City Waterworks Beginning and End), 1888. The original plans and estimates submitted by Hart, presumably in English, unfortunately cannot be found today. 8 Brian Burke-Gaffney, Nagasaki: The British Experience 1854–1945, pp. 72–3. economic expansion 55 seven times the annual municipal budget of Nagasaki. The representatives of fifty-five out of eight-eight city neighbourhoods joined in a protest movement that resulted in the motion being voted down when brought before the Nagasaki City Council. Governor Kusaka Yoshio made an extended trip to Tokyo in late 1886 to appeal for government financial support, and when he returned to Nagasaki in February 1887 he received a hero’s welcome from foreign residents. In a letter of appreciation, Frederick Ringer’s name tops a list of sixty-three signatures penned by European and American residents of the port. ‘The labours of your responsible office have during the past year been we venture to think of no ordinary description and we feel sure it is only your tact and indefatigable perseverance which have removed difficulties,’ write Ringer and his fellow foreign residents. ‘In this connection we refer more particularly to the admirable arrangements existing while last summer an epidemic was raging here and to the comprehensive system of sanitation which has received your constant and anxious attention.’9 After a long political battle Kusaka finally pushed the motion through government channels and obtained the necessary funds, including 190,000 yen collected through the first offer of public debentures by a regional government body in Japan. The contract to import iron pipes, hydrants and other equipment fell, not to Holme, Ringer & Co., but to the American-run China & Japan Trading Co., showing that Frederick Ringer had no conflict of interest in his stubborn insistence that an up-to-date water supply system was essential to the development of Nagasaki as a modern city. Governor Kusaka Yoshio meanwhile suffered a puzzling and ironic setback. Despite all his efforts to improve the quality of life in Nagasaki – and despite the mood of joy and congratulation surrounding his success in realising the waterworks – Kusaka was dismissed from the post of gover- nor at the end of 1889 and called back to Tokyo, apparently because he had issued the public debentures without the final sanction of the Ministry of Home Affairs. Before leaving Nagasaki he made a personal donation of 500 yen toward the project, erasing any doubt in Nagasaki minds about his character and altruistic intentions as a politician.10

9 Frederick Ringer et al. to Kusaka Yoshio, 12 February 1887 (Raikan [Official correspondence from foreign nationals to the Nagasaki Prefecture government] 1887, Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture). 10 Nagasaki City Water Bureau (ed.), Nagasaki suidō hyakunenshi (One Hundred Year History of the Nagasaki Waterworks) (Nagasaki: Nagasaki Bunkensha, 1992), p. 126. 56 chapter five

When it began operation in 1891, the Nagasaki facility was Japan’s third modern waterworks after Yokohama and Hakodate and the first to feature a dam built exclusively for municipal water supply. Much to Frederick Ringer’ satisfaction, the supply of clean water extended to the foreign settlement in early 1892 and helped to reduce the threat of cholera and other water-related diseases. Built on the basis of John W. Hart’s proposals, Hongōchi Dam (Fig. 5.1) and the network of water mains and hydrants improved the health and living conditions of Nagasaki residents and served as a prototype for other waterworks initiated around Japan.11 The thousands of cherry trees planted near the base of the dam bloomed every subsequent spring as though celebrating the cooperation and friendship of Kusaka Yoshio, Uryū Furuu and Frederick Ringer and the grand project they brought to fruition.

Figure 5.1. The Hongōchi Dam advanced by Frederick Ringer, designed by John W. Hart and completed in 1891 remains intact and functional to this day. (Photograph by the author, 2011)

11 Japan Commission on Large Dams (ed.), Dams in Japan: Past, Present and Future (London: Francis & Taylor Group, 2009), pp. 34–6. economic expansion 57

Japan’s First Telephones

The Nagasaki Foreign Settlement was the site of one of Japan’s earliest telephone experiments. In May 1878, only two years after Alexander Graham Bell’s epoch-making conversation with his assistant Mr Watson and less than a year since the formation of the Bell Telephone Company, Norwegian merchant H.M. Fleischer installed an experimental line between his office at No. 3 Umegasaki and the premises of the Great Northern Telegraph Company next door at No. 2 Umegasaki (Fig. 5.2). The acting Danish consul in Nagasaki, Fleischer served as local agent for a number of overseas shipping lines and business enterprises, including the Bell Telephone Company. The first demonstration was conducted on 9 May 1878, when two groups of foreign residents assembled at the two ends of the line and gasped in astonishment at the marvel of telephone communication. The editor of the English-language newspaper The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express attended the demonstration and reported the event in the newspaper. He was disappointed that the voices over the line were often feeble or totally inaudible, and he ended his article on a realistic note: ‘As far as

Figure 5.2. Early twentieth-century picture postcard of the Umegasaki waterfront showing (from left to right) the Nippon Yūsen Kaisha Nagasaki Branch Office, the Great Northern Telegraph Co. Nagasaki Bureau, and the Nagasaki General Post Office. The danpeisen in front are loaded with coal for transport to foreign steamships. (Author’s collection) 58 chapter five we can judge, the invention, though doubtless of paramount importance, is yet in its infancy and requires considerable development before [it] can come into universal use as the enforced silence, which is now necessary to hear what is spoken, cannot help mitigating against its employment in factories etc., where constant noise is going on.’12 Despite initial glitches, the telephone was soon demonstrating its importance worldwide as a communication tool. The first permanent connection in Nagasaki was installed within the precincts of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard in October 1885, a line of about 1.2 km in length and probably the first industrial application of the technology in Japan.13 This was followed by lines connecting the Nagasaki Prefecture Office with the Umegasaki Police Station and Megami Quarantine Office in April and May 1886, respectively, only weeks before the visit of John W. Hart and the first preparations for the Nagasaki Waterworks.14 Frederick Ringer may have been involved in the import of the first telephones or at least in the installation of further connections in the Nagasaki Prefecture Office because he wrote to Governor Kusaka Yoshio in June the same year informing him that he was ready to sell ‘four telephones manufactured by the Electrical Apparatus Company of London, with all the most recent improvements, and I shall be glad to show them to any of the officials who are interested in them. The price is $45 each.’15 The Electric Apparatus Company, predecessor of the General Electric Co. Ltd., had been founded in London only the same year, equipping a grid of telephone connections that extended across Eurasia to the ports of Japan. In September 1886, Frederick Ringer asked British consul James J. Enslie to submit a request to the Nagasaki prefecture government for permission to install a private telephone line between the Holme, Ringer & Co. office at No. 12 Ōura and the Mitsubishi Coal Office, which was located on the Sagarimatsu waterfront near the Holme, Ringer & Co. warehouses.16 The timing of the request coincides with the concerted efforts of Ringer and Mitsubishi Coal Office director Uryū Furuu to promote the Nagasaki Water works. Before granting permission, the prefecture government asked for detailed information on the route of the line and location of poles, in

12 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 15 May 1878. 13 Mitsubishi Shashi Kankōkai (ed.) Mitsubishi shashi (Mitsubishi Company Records) (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1981), Vol. 12, pp. 376–8. 14 Murakami Masayuki, Nagasaki no denshin denwa shi (History of the Telegraph and Telephone in Nagasaki) (private publication: 1973), pp. 191–2. 15 Holme, Ringer & Co. to Kusaka Yoshio, 19 June 1886 (Raikan 1886). 16 Holme, Ringer & Co. to J.J. Enslie, 20 September 1886 (FO 796/101). economic expansion 59 response to which Ringer provided a list showing the intended site of the six poles and two brackets needed to complete the line, ‘none of which in any way impede public thoroughfares or roads’.17 Funded entirely at the expense of Holme, Ringer & Co. and completed in May 1887, this early private telephone connection fulfilled Frederick Ringer’s wish, not only to establish a ‘hot line’ with his friend Uryū Furuu at the Mitsubishi Coal Office, but also to enhance communication among his own company facilities. It was probably also the first privately-installed telephone line in Japan. In October 1888, Holme, Ringer & Co. moved into the two-storey Western-style building at No. 7 Ōura, next door to the British Consulate (Fig. 5.3). Originally constructed in the early 1860s as an office for Alt & Co., the building had been acquired by the Qing Dynasty government in 1878 and converted into a consulate. Early photographs reveal a square wood-and-stucco structure with chimneys protruding from a Japanese- style hipped roof, verandas on both floors, and a wall of stone blocks surrounding the property. Frederick Ringer’s request for permission to move the telephone line from the old office at No. 12 Ōura to the new company premises should have been a mere formality, but it ran into a wall of bureaucratic reticence, apparently because officialdom was beginning to regard the telephone as a potential tool of espionage. Much to his chagrin, the Nagasaki authorities put their response to the request on hold, claiming that they had to wait for approval from the central government. Ringer lodged a complaint with the British consul, pointing out that: ‘The line was constructed at our cost… and as we expressly stipulated that we would surrender the privilege directly if the government desired to establish a line of their own, the present delay on the part of the local officials seems to us to be a little unreasonable.’18 After an exchange of appeals and fuzzy replies, Governor Kusaka Yoshio finally informed the British consul that permission had been granted to install the line between the Holme, Ringer & Co. office and the Mitsubishi Coal Office, underlining once again the relationship of cooperation forged by Kusaka Yoshio, Uryū Furuu and

17 Holme, Ringer & Co. to J.J. Enslie, 28 January 1887 (FO 796/101). The locations were as follows: one pole in the Holme, Ringer & Co. office compound (No. 12 Ōura), one bracket on the wall of Anderson’s Saloon (No. 42 Sagarimatsu), one pole at the Belle Vue Hotel (No. 11 Minamiyamate), one bracket on the wall of the Bowling Club (No. 10A Minamiyamate), one pole at J.C. Smith’s house (No. 9 Minamiyamate), one pole outside the Russian Consulate (No. 5 Minamiyamate), one pole on the hillside opposite the coal office, and one pole in the Mitsubishi Coal Office compound. 18 Holme, Ringer & Co. to J.J. Quin, 3 May 1889 (FO 262/623). 60 chapter five

Frederick Ringer.19 Japan’s first public telephone exchange was launched the following year between Tokyo and Yokohama, but Nagasaki, the cradle of the technology in this country, would have to wait until 1899 to join the national network of telephone communication.

Nagasaki Steam Roller Flour Mill

In February 1890, Holme, Ringer & Co. won permission to install still another private telephone line, this time a connection of only sixty-three metres between the Mitsubishi Coal Office and the ‘Nagasaki Steam Roller Flour Mill’, a new enterprise established on the Holme, Ringer & Co. warehouse lot at No. 49 Sagarimatsu.20 This short line added another link to the telephone network already connecting the various Mitsubishi and Holme, Ringer & Co. facilities, still nine years before the inauguration of a public telephone exchange in Nagasaki.

Figure 5.3. Picture postcard showing the buildings on the Ōura waterfront ca. 1910. The Nagasaki British Consulate is visible in the centre with the Holme, Ringer & Co. office at No. 7 Ōura to the right. (Author’s collection)

19 Kusaka Yoshio to J.J. Quin, 20 May 1889 (FO 262/623). 20 Murakami Masayuki, pp. 194–5. Official permission for the line was granted on 12 February 1890. economic expansion 61

Frederick Ringer was cognisant of the need for an efficient mill to supply flour to the fleets of warships and merchant vessels visiting Nagasaki. He had conceived the plan for a modern mill the previous year, selling 120 shares of $500 each to foreign and Japanese investors in Nagasaki and reg- istering the ‘Nagasaki Roller Flour Mills Co. Ltd.’ in Hong Kong.21 In the past the business enterprises in the foreign settlement had generally treated Japanese people as customers, not collaborators, so Ringer’s mill signalled the beginning of a new trend in international business in Japan. The shareholders elected a board of directors and appointed Holme, Ringer & Co. to serve as managers. Ringer erected a large three-storey brick building on the site and ordered a state-of-the-art plant from a ‘well- known milling engineer in England’, possibly Henry Simon of Manchester, designer of the world’s first fully automatic roller flour mill and the principal supplier of plants to companies throughout Britain at the time. The engine and boiler needed to run the mill were ordered from the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, and G.H. Ackerman, a representative of the British manufacturer, was invited to Nagasaki to supervise operations. The newspaper editor reporting on the grand opening pointed out that the mill was capable of producing about one ton of high-grade flour per hour and added: ‘It is, we believe, the first mill of the kind erected in the Far East, but should it prove the success it is anticipated, it will undoubtedly not be the last.’ The machinery was set in motion on 17 December 1889 by Frederick Ringer’s wife Carolina, and the invited guests included Kusaka Yoshio, Uryū Furuu and a solid representation of both the Japanese and foreign business communities. A correspondent from the Shanghai newspaper The North China Daily News, who visited the mill in 1892, commented as follows on the mechanisms of the plant and its significance for Nagasaki: The ordinary pleasure-seeking traveller who passes through Nagasaki usually associates that place with coals. He probably sees the harbour full of steamers of all sorts which are loading coal for freight or taking in a supply for the bunkers, and so far as he can see this is the sole business done at the picturesque port in Japan… It comes as a pleasant surprise, therefore, to the visitor who is trying to pass without weariness a few hours at Nagasaki, during his enforced detention there en route for other parts of Japan, to learn that there is an establishment in the port which is very well worth visiting, and that the detailed working of it is interesting in the extreme. This is the

21 The inauguration of the mill is reported in detail in The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 18 December 1889. 62 chapter five

Steam Roller Flour Mill which has been running now for two years, being the only mill of the kind east of Penang… The mill is lightened by electric light, generated from a dynamo on the premises, and work is kept up continuously for 18 hours a day. The flour is made from Japanese wheat only, and is remarkable for its strength and for the sweet and excellent bread that results from its use. Experience has proved that the most excellent bread is made from a mixture of Californian (Sperry) and Nagasaki flour… The proprietors of the Nagasaki Mill declare that travellers passing through or staying at that port, who have tasted bread so made, assert that nowhere outside of Paris or Vienna do they find the bread so good. The French fleet uses the Nagasaki flour, which in itself is no slight recommendation.22 The success of the Nagasaki Steam Roller Flour Mill and Holme, Ringer & Co.’s surging prosperity was due, not only to the diligence of partners and staff and to Frederick Ringer’s unwavering loyalty to Nagasaki, but also to the elimination of serious competition during the lull in international trade alluded to by the writer of the above article. Holme, Ringer & Co. became Nagasaki’s foremost business enterprise as if by default, and Frederick Ringer emerged as the unchallenged leader of the foreign community, heading everything from aquatic sporting events to English Church pew-holder meetings and committees to welcome guests from overseas. Ringer also served as a foreign settlement spokesperson, submitting regular requests to the British consul and the Japanese government for the maintenance of roads and drains, improvements to customs and immigration facilities, and efforts to rid the foreign settlement of nui- sances such as illegal prostitution in seamen’s bars, road blockage caused by slipshod construction crews and rickshaw drivers, and the eyesore of beggars, loafers and deserters constantly tarnishing the international port. Many of Frederick Ringer’s actions extended beyond the borders of the foreign settlement and exerted an impact on Japanese business practices by bringing Western values to play. One small example is his insistence that Sunday be regarded as a ‘day of rest’ by the employees, Japanese as well as foreign, under his direction, all the way down to wharf runners working on the jetties and labourers carrying bunker coal to steamships in the harbour. In July 1892 he spearheaded a request to Nippon Yūsen Kaisha (NYK) for cooperation in changing the company’s service schedule in such a way that the steamships running between Yokohama and Shanghai would call at Nagasaki on Monday instead of Sunday. This probably came as a surprise to both NYK and the workers in Nagasaki because

22 The North China Daily News, cited in The Japan Weekly Mail, 29 April 1893. economic expansion 63 the definition of a ‘day off’ applied to the first and fifteenth of every month, regardless of the day of the week, and the only conceivable ‘holiday’ was a day devoted to Buddhist or Shinto rituals. The cultural difference is illustrated by use of the Dutch word for Sunday (Zondag, altered to ‘dontaku’) as the name of a festival associated with Kushida Shinto Shrine in Fukuoka and held every year on 3 May, the ‘Constitution Memorial Day’ public holiday. In a letter addressed to ‘Messrs. Holme, Ringer & Co. and Other Gentlemen, Nagasaki’, NYK announced its decision to change the service schedule as requested: ‘We have the pleasure to acknowledge your valued communication of July last and to inform you that, commencing with the S.S. Saikio Maru, the Yokohama-Shanghai mail steamers will, on their return voyage, be despatched on Monday of each week, instead of Sunday, as heretofore, in accordance with your request.’23 In February 1889, Frederick Ringer chaired a committee to arrange a farewell party for British consul James J. Enslie, who had been promoted to consul at Kōbe. One of the most opulent ever held before in the foreign settlement, the party was attended by virtually every foreign resident of the port and a large number of Japanese guests, all of whom signed a letter of gratitude read at the party by Frederick Ringer. The report on the event in the English-language newspaper reveals the high esteem in which the consul was held and the importance of Ringer’s role as representative; it also illustrates the remarkable atmosphere of goodwill and coopera tion uniting the multinational community. In a response addressed to ‘Mr Ringer, Ladies and Gentlemen’, Enslie expressed thanks to the people gathered in the Public Hall for the party and said: ‘It is a source of intense satisfaction to me to see assembled here such a large number of my Japanese and foreign friends, whilst the fact that so very many ladies grace this entertainment is an honour of which I am deeply sensible; and the names of so many reverend gentlemen being appended to the address just now read is proof positive that in Nagasaki we are, as a community, one in thought and feelings.’24

Merchant Consul and Business King

The Canadian Pacific Railway Co. (CPR) was incorporated in February 1881 to lay tracks across the expanses of the Dominion of Canada and to

23 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 10 August 1892. 24 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 27 February 1889. 64 chapter five provide a fast connection between London and the ports of East Asia. After the transcontinental railway reached completion in 1886, the company chartered three steamships from the Cunard Line – the Abyssinia, Parthia and Batavia – and started a regular service from Hong Kong to Vancouver via Shanghai, Nagasaki, Kōbe and Yokohama. The Abyssinia reached Vancouver for the first time in June 1887 with a load of tea and silk that was promptly transferred onto boxcars and shipped eastward. Holme, Ringer & Co. assumed the role of CPR agent in Nagasaki, and from the summer of 1887 the three steamships began to call regularly at this port to take on passengers, cargo and mail. The undertaking was so successful that the CPR ordered three new 6,000-tonne sail-rigged steamships from the Naval Construction and Armaments Company, Barrow, England, in October 1888. The Empress of India left Liverpool on its maiden voyage in early February 1891 and followed the old route to Japan via the Suez Canal. In preparation for the ship’s arrival in Nagasaki, Frederick Ringer wrote to the British consul, pointing out that the Empress of India was a mail steamer and asking him to ‘kindly write in to the Superintendent of Customs, requesting him to add the three “Empresses” to his list of steamers privileged to deviate from the restrictions levied on ordinary trading vessels’.25 He also placed advertisements in the local newspapers, inviting readers to purchase tickets for $200 first class to Vancouver or $325 through to Liverpool and London, with special rates granted ‘to missionaries, members of the naval, military, diplomatic and civil services, to European officials in service of China and Japan, and to government officials’.26 The elegant ship arrived in Nagasaki on the morning of 12 April 1891 and dropped anchor in the middle of the harbour. A fleet of boats went out to greet her like moths attracted to a streetlamp, some carrying coal to fill the bunkers, some transporting Frederick Ringer and other Nagasaki citizens yearning for a glimpse of the ship and its luxurious accoutrements. The many passengers who had boarded the Empress of India in England to enjoy a trip around the world took the boats the other way for a visit to the exotic city at the edge of the Japanese archipelago.27 With each subsequent sailing, the Empress of India and its sister ships the Empress of Japan and Empress of China broke new records for the voyage across the Pacific Ocean. Now travellers could not only reach Asia from Europe by heading west instead of east but also journey around the

25 Holme, Ringer & Co. to J.C. Hall, 25 February 1891 (FO 796/114). 26 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 3 June 1891. 27 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 15 April 1891. economic expansion 65 world by modern convenience without ever leaving areas of British influence. ‘East’ and ‘West’ drew closer than ever before, and the dream of international travel became feasible for a new generation of people in both hemispheres. In the wake of the Empress of India’s maiden voyage, it became a fashion to debate the amount of time necessary to circumnavi- gate the globe. Some people tested the question by sending a picture postcard from London to Shanghai and then having it forwarded to London via Canada and counting the days that elapsed. Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days had captured the public imagination after the opening of the Suez Canal and the construction of the American transcontinental railway in 1869; now travellers, and picture postcards, could circle the globe on the ‘all-red route’, so called because British territory was coloured red on maps at the time. A month after the first visit of the Empress of India, the Russian flagship Pamiat Azova sailed into Nagasaki Harbour carrying Nikolay Aleksandrovich, the future Nicholas II and last tsar of Russia. Much to the bewilderment of local officials, the tsarevitch declined all invitations to official events and meetings and instead spent the first seven of what was to be a nine-day visit on incognito excursions into the town, shopping for coral and tortoiseshell ware in Kago-machi, posing for photographs in a rickshaw, and enjoying the hospitality of the beautiful Russian-speaking Nagasaki madame, Michinaga Ei. Only during the final two days did he suffer through the obligatory official visits, including a twenty-four course Japanese meal that included everything from wild duck soup to a crane fashioned from seaweed and a mysterious concoction called ‘essence of lemon blossom’.28 The foreign community also made preparations, setting up an arch at the jetty in Sagarimatsu and affixing lights to buildings on the waterfront and hillsides. The following day the tsarevitch came ashore to visit the Russian Consulate in Minamiyamate and received an enthusi- astic welcome from a party led by Frederick Ringer. He …personally expressed to the chairman of the reception committee, Mr F. Ringer, his thanks to the foreign community for the very hearty welcome accorded to him, and added that he highly appreciated the efforts that had been made to honour him. Mr Ringer briefly replied, regretting the inability of so small a community to do more than had been done, and concluded by wishing His Highness a pleasant journey hence and safe return to his native land.29

28 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 6 May 1891. 29 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 13 May 1891. Ringer’s ‘bon voyage’ turned to irony because the Russian prince’s happy memories of Nagasaki and his friendly 66 chapter five

Frederick Ringer’s rise to supremacy in the foreign settlement and role as a representative of the port of Nagasaki did not come without detrac- tors. One source of controversy was the function of ‘merchant consul’. In December 1882, when Holme, Ringer & Co. was emerging as Nagasaki’s foremost business entity, Ringer accepted a request from the government of Belgium to handle that country’s interests in this port. His partner John C. Smith accepted a similar request from Denmark the same year, after the death of Norwegian merchant H.M. Fleischer. These appointments stemmed from business connections and the desire of the respective countries to avoid the expense of an official consulate, but in practical terms they placed Ringer and Smith, not merely on an equal footing with the British consul and his colleagues, but in fact above them because hier- archy among the consuls was decided on the basis of length of stay. When one of the partners left Nagasaki for an extended period, he named the other as acting-consul and thereby maintained diplomatic ascendancy. Signing himself ‘His Belgian Majesty’s Consul and Senior Consul’, Frederick Ringer wrote directly to the governor of Nagasaki Prefecture at the end of 1889 asking for his good offices in bringing about a number of improvements urgently needed in the foreign settlement, including the dredging and sanitisation of Ōura Creek, reconstruction of Sagarimatsu Bridge, and upgrading of the various landing jetties. He seemed to be speaking for the entire consular body, including British consul John J. Quin, but Quin later submitted the following protest to the governor of Nagasaki Prefecture, clearly disgruntled at finding himself outranked by a merchant of his own nationality: I have the honour to inform you that as I am of the opinion that the seniority among the members of the foreign consular body at this port should rest solely among the officially paid consuls, and not with the unpaid merchant consuls, it is not my intention in the future to recognise Mr Ringer, Belgian consul, as senior consul, nor any other merchant consul who may so desig- nate himself. I shall not therefore attend any consular meetings called either by him, or any other merchant consul, nor be present at any official meeting or reception where such seniority is accorded to him. In the future, therefore, I beg that should you at any time desire my decision upon any matter of general consular interest that you will address me separately on the subject, when I shall be most happy to give the matter my most careful attention and consideration.30 feelings towards Japan were ruined a few days later by an assassination attempt in Ōtsu near Kyoto. 30 J.J. Quin to Nakano Tateakira, 19 June 1890 (Raikan 1890). economic expansion 67

This opinion was reiterated by John C. Hall, who came to Nagasaki in 1890 to take over as officiating British consul during John J. Quin’s leave of absence. Hall rejected Frederick Ringer’s seniority and even wrote a long letter to his superior in Tokyo complaining about the blatant undermining of his authority. Groans Hall: To a degree unknown at the other and large ports [of Japan], British interests here are mainly centred in the business and connections of one leading firm, whose dominating influence is adventitiously enhanced by the fact that its members hold consular appointments. Two of the three partners are titular consuls respectively for Denmark and Belgium; whilst the junior partner [Thomas B. Glover’s younger brother Alfred B. Glover] is vice-consul for Portugal. To the last named, indeed, the foregoing objections do not apply; but as the other two, ranking as consuls, are permanently resident here, whilst the British and other official consuls are, in the course of promotions and service arrangements, sometimes changed, it so happens that the official members of the consular body must, if the absolute and indiscriminate equality of merchants with officials he granted, be always and inevitably at a disadvantage as regards seniority and precedence. The absurdity of such as situation is brought into clearer light when it is recollected that it is the leading Powers, having substantial interests in the port, that are represented by professional consuls; namely Great Britain, the United States, China, Germany and Russia, whilst the interests of the two lesser states represented by merchant consuls is comparatively trifling.31 The resentful consul goes on to insist that merchants are viewed with much less respect in Japan than in Western countries and therefore that the merchant consul is inherently disadvantaged in dealings with local government. He reports that when he took office he found Frederick Ringer serving as senior consul and usurping his role as leader of the foreign community in social events. Finally he implores the British envoy to communicate with the governments of Belgium and Denmark and to urge them to demote Ringer and Smith to vice-consuls, innocuous positions that would bring an end to the ‘absurdity’. Hall’s supplications did not apparently produce the desired effect, because the issue was still a hot topic of discussion in late 1893 and had even attracted the attention of the Japanese press, one newspaper weighing in with the comment that: For years past there has existed ill-feeling between the paid and honorary consuls of Nagasaki, which has now come to a climax. The main cause of the ill-feeling is the question of the right of precedence at banquets and other

31 J.C. Hall to Hugh Fraser (H.B.M. Envoy Extraordinary), 11 January 1892 (FO 262/679). 68 chapter five

functions, consequently they all avoid meeting each other on business, and when invited to local official dinners and ceremonies the paid consuls are conspicuous by their absence, as if by mutual agreement. As such a state of affairs is detrimental to all concerned, said a certain person, it is desirable that a reconciliation should be effected.32 Frederick Ringer and John C. Smith eventually acquiesced for the sake of peaceful coexistence and allowed whomever among the British, American, Russian and German consuls held seniority to fill the role of official representative of the foreign community. But the fact remained that the professional consuls served on the short term and played a mostly ceremonial role in Nagasaki society, while the doyens of Holme, Ringer & Co. maintained close alliances with influential members of the Japanese community and tightened their grip on economic and social affairs in the foreign settlement.

Further Headaches

Frederick Ringer’s business activities are well recorded in Foreign Office archives and newspapers, but many of his personal pursuits are alluded to only indirectly in historical documents. Japanese oral histories indicate for example that he maintained a dairy to produce milk, from which he made butter and cheese for private consumption. This activity is confirmed in official documents by an unnamed resident who submitted a complaint to the governor of Nagasaki Prefecture about the smell wafting across the neighbourhood. Ringer responded as follows in a letter to British consul John J. Quin: I beg to inform you that while I was away in Europe the livestock in my yard was allowed to increase far beyond my desires and directly contrary to my instructions and that although none of my neighbours have ever complained in any way, I think that perhaps this uncontemplated augmentation of stock may have given rise to the discomforts complained of. I am now taking steps to reduce the number of animals, and it will give me very great pleasure to do my utmost, in every way, to remove any cause of objection that there may be existing.33 In another case, the shameful behaviour of a young Holme, Ringer & Co. employee caused Frederick Ringer great embarrassment and brought an

32 Nagasaki Shinpō, 14 December 1893, translated in the 20 December issue of The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express. 33 Frederick Ringer to J.J. Quin, 20 October 1893 (FO 796/120). economic expansion 69 unprecedented barrage of criticism upon the European, particularly British, community of Nagasaki. H. Elgin Angier arrived in Nagasaki in 1886, a time when Holme Ringer & Co. was expanding on various fronts and bolstering its European and Japanese work force. The young Briton did not attract any special attention until the summer of 1892 when Japanese newspapers reported that he had picked up a naïve eighteen year-old woman in the countryside near Nagasaki and violated her in an empty greenhouse in Minamiyamate. Interrogated by the police, the woman testified that Angier had asked her to undress and allow a large dog that he had brought with him to mount her from behind. She said that she had acquiesced to the request and accepted the money offered by Angier. The incident came to the attention of the police and local media only after she visited a doctor and reported what had happened. Angier meanwhile fled from Japan before the British consul had the opportunity to question him, leaving his former employer and other British residents scratching their heads over his bizarre crime and struggling to deal with the blanket condemnation of foreigners that ensued. The editor of The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express reluctantly picked up his pen in early October and addressed the issue in his columns: What is sufficiently well known as the ‘Nagasaki scandal case’ to obviate any necessity of going into particulars of the circumstance, has considerable to answer for even up the present, and the ball has apparently only just commenced to roll. The native papers throughout the country have worked themselves up to a white heat of indignation, with an amount of energy deserving of a better cause; the believers of Buddha and Shinto have decided to investigate the matter from a religious point of view, with the object of throwing discredit on the Christian religion and Western civilization… What next, we wonder?34 Frederick Ringer was dragged into another criminal investigation in 1895 when the police charged a barkeeper of Belgian nationality named P.A. Verstappen with murdering his wife, and it fell on Ringer’s shoulders, as Belgian consul, to try the case. The woman had been found hung to death in the bar she ran with her husband at No. 37 Sagarimatsu, one of the infamous ‘grog shops’ on Ōura River, and a Japanese physician who saw the body suggested that she had been strangled and then deliberately hung to conceal the crime. The news caused such a sensation among the public that the Maizuru Theatre staged a play entitled ‘Killing a Foreign Concubine of Ōura’ that reenacted the alleged crime, prompting Ringer to

34 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 5 October 1892. 70 chapter five send a letter to the governor of Nagasaki Prefecture demanding that the play be cancelled because it jeopardised the accused murderer’s right to a fair trial.35 Until now, Ringer’s duties as representative of Belgian interests in Nagasaki had been confined to social events and administrative tasks, but the rules of extraterritoriality suddenly lifted him to the position of judge and converted one of the rooms in the Holme, Ringer & Co. office into a temporary courtroom. Ringer convened a hearing to gather testimony from witnesses, including British physician Maurice E. Paul, who had conducted a post mortem examination and concluded that the woman had committed suicide. Paul pointed out that she had been suffering from early-stage tuberculosis, a possible motive for suicide, and that the accused man was probably too frail to lift the woman’s body off the floor. Ikebe Eijirō, former chief medical officer at the Nagasaki Quarantine Station, concurred with this opinion. Ringer undoubtedly heaved a sigh of relief when he was finally able to declare Vestappen innocent and call the case closed.

Kerosene Tanks

While consolidating his command over trade and business in the foreign settlement, Frederick Ringer worked with Japanese counterparts to overcome the physical and legal restrictions inherent in the system of extraterritoriality and to share the benefits of international business with the entire community. In 1892, he launched a plan to install tanks for the storage of kerosene on the shore of Nagasaki Harbour. The demand for kerosene as a lamp fuel was soaring in Japan at the time, and Holme, Ringer & Co., in conjunction with Samuel, Samuel & Co. of Yokohama, hoped to import bulk kerosene using specially designed tankers. Ringer wrote to British consul John J. Quin as follows, outlining the project and asking for the consul’s cooperation: The successful accomplishment of this intention will prove of immense benefit to the consumers in this country, particularly those of the poorer classes, as by this means oil can be sold to them at a much cheaper rate than it is now possible to supply it at. In order to extend this benefit to this port and surrounding district, it will be necessary to perfect certain arrangements for the storage of oil, which can only be stored in tanks and at places where the depth of water is sufficiently ample to allow the supplying steamer to come alongside the depot or up to a pier connecting immediately with it…

35 Frederick Ringer to Ōmori Shōichi, 15 August 1895 (Raikan 1895). economic expansion 71

The proposed plan is to bring out from home and erect on this ground three steel tanks of the best order, and constructed on the latest principles, and to build out a frame work to carry the pipes providing the connection between these tanks and the oil steamers. We beg therefore to request that you will be good enough to apply, on our behalf, to the Governor of Nagasaki for the approval required.36 Quin dutifully relayed the request along with the maps and other materials provided by Ringer, but Nagasaki Prefecture refused to grant permission on the grounds that a foreign firm could not be allowed under current treaty rules to engage in an activity outside the boundaries of the foreign settlement. The consul later reported these developments to the British Embassy in Tokyo and mentioned that Holme, Ringer & Co. had turned for assistance to Matsuo Miyoji, a member of the Nagasaki City Council and chairman of the local chamber of commerce, and finally managed to win permission to install the tanks.37 The owner of an old Nagasaki business enterprise, Matsuo was involved in the import and export trade and served as local agent for the Portland Cement Co. from his office at No. 33 Ebisu- machi. With his help, Frederick Ringer was able to kill two birds with one stone by surmounting the limitations of the foreign settlement and gaining Japanese cooperation in the storage and marketing of kerosene. Ringer and Matsuo nevertheless faced an immediate problem. The residents of Tomachi village, the first choice for the site of the tanks, opposed the plan out of fear that the kerosene might explode and demolish their homes. Then Nishidomari, the reserve site, had to be abandoned because the Japanese government planned to build warehouses there to hold the cables for a sea-bottom telegraph line between Japan and Formosa (Taiwan). An appropriate site was finally found at Kōzaki, a small cape at the entrance to Nagasaki Harbour, where engineers despatched by Samuel, Samuel & Co. supervised the construction of two tanks with a capacity of 1,500 tons each. The first shipment of oil reached the site in early May 1894. The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express reported the ‘latest commercial innovation’ in a long article and provided details about the tanks and the adjacent buildings, which were ‘all of brick, with Portland cement floors; whilst the machinery for filling etc. is all automatic, and of the latest type’. The article concludes with the following comment: ‘To what extent the tank system will succeed in Japan, financially, remains to be seen; but there is no denying the fact that the founders of it deserve great praise for the

36 Frederick Ringer to J.J. Quin, 18 August 1892 (FO 796/120). 37 J.J. Quin to M. de Bunsen (HBM Chargé d’Affairs), 8 February 1893 (FO 262/679). 72 chapter five boldness of their enterprise, whilst the local depot, the agents, Messrs. Holme, Ringer & Co. are to be congratulated upon the satisfactory manner in which the work has been carried out so far.’38 The undertaking indeed proved successful. By early 1897 Nagasaki had established itself as the major relay point for the distribution of kerosene in southwestern Japan, and Holme, Ringer & Co. and colleagues were reaping enormous profits from the business, which extended to Hakata, Karatsu, Moji, Kagoshima and a network of other ports. Today, passengers on ships entering Nagasaki Harbour look to the left to see a cluster of modern oil storage tanks and the remnants of brick structures on the shore at Kōzaki, reminders of the original facility established by Holme, Ringer & Co. and the contribution made by the company to the local economy. The kerosene tanks were barely in place in the summer of 1894 when Japan’s first major international war filled Nagasaki Harbour with steamships and men-of-war and catapulted the city into an unprecedented period of growth. Japan and China had signed a treaty in 1885 agreeing to withdraw troops from Korea, but the two countries remained on a collision course because Japan was hankering for increased trade and diplomatic privileges while China continued to insist upon its age-old suzerainty over the country. The catalyst for armed conflict came in the form of a massive peasant uprising in early 1894. The Korean king turned to China for military assistance, and China fulfilled its treaty obligations by informing Japan of the despatch of troops to Seoul. Japan however condemned this as an infraction and sent its own troops, setting the stage for war. The Japanese forces won one decisive battle after another, quickly routing the Chinese on land at Pyongyang and the Liaotong (Liaodong) Peninsula and emerging victorious at the battle of the Yalu River. While war raged on the other side of the Japan Sea, Thomas B. Glover and other members of his family returned to Nagasaki and took up residence in the house at No. 3 Minamiyamate, apparently to enjoy a retreat from their hectic life in Tokyo. These included his wife Tsuru and daughter Hana. Glover’s widowed sister Martha also travelled from Scotland to join the family in Japan. In early October, Nagasaki welcomed back another Glover family member, this time Thomas B. Glover’s only son Tomisaburō (Tommy). Born in Nagasaki in 1870, Tomisaburō was the offspring of a Japanese woman named Kaga Maki with whom Glover had shared a temporary relationship prior to his betrothal to Tsuru. The boy had attended an American-run mission school in Nagasaki and went on to studies at

38 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 9 May 1894. economic expansion 73

Peers School (Gakushūin) in Tokyo and both Ohio Wesleyan University and the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. He returned to Nagasaki on the same steamship with Iwasaki Hisaya, the son of Iwasaki Yatarō and future third generation president of Mitsubishi Co. who had also studied at the University of Pennsylvania.39 (Fig. 5.4)

Figure 5.4. Kuraba Tomisaburō around the time of his departure for studies abroad in 1888. (Nagasaki Glover Garden)

39 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 3 October 1894. 74 chapter five

Tomisaburō assumed Japanese citizenship on 1 October 1894 and officially adopted the name ‘Kuraba Tomisaburō’. The family register created on the same date and preserved today at Nagasaki City Hall names him the successor of a certain ‘Kuraba Rihei’. The name ‘Kuraba’ is a combination of two ideographs meaning ‘warehouse place’ and is feasible as a Japanese family name, but the phonetic resemblance to ‘Glover’ is too strong to think that it was anything but a fabrication. Interestingly, the family register states that ‘Kuraba Rihei’ was living at No. 33 Ebisu-machi, that is, the same address as Matsuo Miyoji, the Japanese entrepreneur cooperating with Frederick Ringer in the installation of kerosene tanks at Kōzaki. This information suggests that Thomas B. Glover turned to Frederick Ringer for help in arranging for his son’s registration and employment in Nagasaki and that Matsuo Miyoji provided the necessary legal assistance. Whatever the circumstances, the young man gained a solid footing for his new role as an employee of Holme, Ringer & Co., a trusted assistant of Frederick Ringer, and a bridge between the foreign and Japanese communities of his hometown. CHAPTER SIX

THE DREAM HOTEL

Representatives of Japan and China signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki on 17 April 1895, bringing the Sino-Japanese War to an end and alerting the world to Japan’s emergence as a military power in East Asia and its success, after a mere three decades, in the project of modernisation and industrialisation. Shumpanrō, the Japanese inn where the cosignatories gathered, was only a few steps away from the house acquired by Holme, Ringer & Co. in 1890 to serve as a residence for their agent in Shimonoseki (see Chapter 8). In addition to recognition of Korean independence, the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki included China’s cession of Formosa (Taiwan) and the Penghu (Pescadores) Islands to Japan, as well as rights to the strategic Liaotong (Liaodong) Peninsula. China also granted permission for Japanese companies to operate ships on the Yangtze River and establish manufacturing facilities in Shanghai and other treaty ports, advantages similar to those won by Britain in the wake of the Opium Wars. China had to pay a crushing war indemnity of some 200 million silver taels, again simulating the terms of the Treaty of Nanking and Treaty of Tientsin earlier in the century. Victory brought Japan headlong into the commercial, political and military maelstrom of East Asia and translated into a sharp boost in Nagasaki’s fortunes as the closest port to China and a coal depot, supply harbour and rest place for foreign warships and merchantmen. In early 1896, the local English-language newspaper reported that: During the year 1895 no less than 160 different men-of-war of all nationalities visited Nagasaki. Of course the number of men-of-war entries is much greater, some of them coming here as many as five or six times during the twelve months. And large as these numbers are, those of this year give every indication of being larger, the large increase in the Far-Eastern fleets of the Powers and disturbed state of the political atmosphere being the prime fac- tors in bringing this about.1 In March the following year, seven Russian warships anchored in Nagasaki for rest and replenishment, marking the beginning of regular visits of the

1 The Nagasaki Shipping List, 21 February 1896. 76 chapter six

Russian East Asian Fleet.2 The Spanish-American War and the cession of the Philippines to the United States in 1898 also drastically increased the American naval presence in Nagasaki. In December the following year, American military representatives arrived in Nagasaki from Manila and established a depot to provide food and supplies to American forces, pay salaries, and arrange for the coaling and provision of American ships visiting the port.3 The increase in harbour traffic naturally resulted in an economic windfall for the people of Nagasaki, filling the coffers of suppliers and trading companies and lining the pockets of all the people, Japanese and foreign, involved in business and transportation. In an 1896 report, Nagasaki British consul Joseph H. Longford describes the trade boom in Nagasaki and expresses optimism about the future of the port: Nagasaki is, of all Eastern ports, perhaps that which is most frequented by foreign men-of-war of all nationalities, and it would not be an excessive estimate to say that fully $1,000,000 are annually spent in the port by their crews and on the purchase of supplies, a great portion of which goes into Japanese hands, directly or indirectly. Large sums are also disbursed by mail and other merchant steamers for supplies, and by tourists and other temporary residents, especially by Russians, large numbers of whom from Vladivostok are now making the port a winter residence. But in addition to Nagasaki there are other ports which furnish an outlet for the productions of Southern Japan, the principal being Shimonoseki, Moji, and Kuchinotsu, and all three may be considered as subsidiary ports to Nagasaki… With the single exception of the French, all lines of mail steamers now running to the East call at Nagasaki both on their outward and inward voyages, and this is the only port of call either in China or Japan of the magnificent vessels of the Russian Volunteer Fleet. The preponderance and advance of British shipping are both very marked. The number of British vessels that entered Nagasaki in 1896 was 335 and the tonnage 746,130, and the total entered both in Nagasaki and the subsidiary ports, 722 vessels of 1,582,479 tonnes… The Island of Formosa has not yet answered the expectations formed of it by the Japanese, but in whatever wealth it may ultimately bring to Japan, Nagasaki as the nearest port must have a large share, while the opening of the Siberian Railway must also tend greatly to its advantage, and from its proximity to the Pacific terminus of the railway, give it also a large share in whatever trade Japan may develop with Siberia.4

2 Nagasaki City Chronology, p. 131. 3 Lane Earns, Nagasaki kyoryūchi no seiyōjin (Westerners of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement), (Nagasaki: Nagasaki Bunkensha Co., 2002), p. 193. 4 ‘Report on the Trade and Navigation of Nagasaki for 1896’, quoted in full in The Nagasaki Press, 8–9 December 1897. the dream hotel 77

Holme, Ringer & Co. is not mentioned explicitly in Longford’s report, but the commercial empire orchestrated by Frederick Ringer was the main piston of Nagasaki’s thriving business machine. The company was also establishing connections abroad, including one of the first British commercial facilities in Chemulpo (Incheon), which had developed into an international port with all the eclectic flavour of Nagasaki and Shanghai after Korea concluded treaties with Japan and several Western nations including Britain and the United States. Frederick Ringer seized the opportunity of the shuffling of power in Korea to open a branch office in Chemulpo and to station his trusted employee Walter G. Bennett in the foreign settlement there.5 The appearance of Holme, Ringer & Co. in the arena of Korean-Japanese trade seems to have raised some Japanese eye- brows, as indicated by the following comment in a letter from Ishikawa Kikujirō, consul at Chemulpo, to Foreign Minister Komura Jutarō: At this moment, when the harvest time has arrived in Korea and the commercial condition of this port is in full activity; when every vessel starting hence for Japan is carrying full cargo, and when both companies [Nippon Yūsen Kaisha and Ōsaka Shōsen Kaisha] have temporarily increased the number of vessels to meet the increasing demand, Messrs. Holme, Ringer & Co. of Nagasaki, agents for the Russian Oriental Steamship Company, have despatched one of their staff, a Englishman, to this port and established a branch in the Japanese settlement. On the 30th ult. they opened a reg ular line of steamers to run between Chemulpo, Nagasaki, Fusan, Gensan, Vladivostok, Chefoo, Newchang and Shanghai. The steamers used for this purpose are two; one is called the Baikal, registered tonnage 1,127 tons and the property of an Englishman, and the other is the Vladimir, registered tonnage 1,101 tons. She is also engaged in the importation of sugar and flour and the exportation of Korean products. I shall pay attention to the further movement of this branch office and report upon the matter.6 In 1897, in addition to a long list of insurance and banking companies, Holme, Ringer & Co. was serving as agent for twenty different international steamship companies, fully five times more than the runner-up,

5 Walter G. Bennett was a native of New Cross, Kent, who came to Japan around 1890 to enter the employ of Holme, Ringer & Co. He married Hana Glover, the daughter of Thomas B. Glover and his Japanese wife Tsuru, in 1897. He declared his independence in 1909 and established Bennett & Co. in Chemulpo, going on to serve as acting British consul in the port and remaining there until the outbreak of the Second World War. 6 Dated 30 November 1896, the letter, apparently taken from an article in the Japanese- language Keizai Zasshi, was published in English translation in The Nagasaki Shipping List (31 December 1896) along with the comment: ‘It seems that if Messrs. Holme, Ringer & Co. imagined that they could send an agent to Korea without arousing the interest of the Japanese consular authorities there, they were hopelessly mistaken.’ 78 chapter six

Browne & Co. These included P&O, Canadian Pacific Railway Co., Eastern and Australian S.S. Co., Ben Line of Steamers, and Russian Oriental Steamship Co.7 Every time a foreign steamship called at Nagasaki, the Holme, Ringer & Co. staff arranged for inspections by customs officials and insurance company representatives, supervised the loading and unloading of cargo and mail, assisted foreign travellers with immigration and emigration procedures, and commissioned all the tasks related to conveyance aboard of coal, water and foodstuffs. The boom enjoyed by Nagasaki is clearly reflected by trade statistics: the total import trade, which included items such as kerosene, foodstuffs, cotton cloth, dyes and paints, locomotives, machinery and metals, shot from 3.5 million yen in 1893 to 19 million yen in 1898.8 As the British consul points out, Nagasaki was reaping the benefits, not only of the dramatic increase in shipping, but also of a new and closely- related trend in international travel, namely tourism. The ports of China and Japan, once hidden behind drapes of mystery and danger, were now easily accessible to foreign travellers following in the footsteps of Pierre Loti, Rudyard Kipling and other writers who had stirred the collective consciousness with tales of adventure in the exotic ‘Far East’. Guidebooks for travellers to Japan were also in print, most notably the lavishly mapped ‘Murray’s Handbook to the Japanese Empire’ written by Basil Hall Cham berlain (professor emeritus of Tokyo Imperial University) and William B. Mason, a former employee of the Imperial Japanese Telegraph Department and resident of Nagasaki. After the Sino-Japanese War, large numbers of people travelling on business or purely for pleasure arrived in Nagasaki by steamship and stopped to enjoy the sights and flavours of the port and its surroundings. Many came from Vladivostok; others were residents of Hong Kong, Shanghai and the other foreign concessions in China. One of the reasons for Nagasaki’s popularity among European resi dents of East Asia was its proximity to Unzen, a mountain hamlet on the Shimabara Peninsula about forty kilometres to the east as the crow flies. After disembarking in Nagasaki, the travellers hired rickshaws to the nearby port of Mogi, then took a steam launch across Tachibana Bay to Obama and sedan chairs or horseback up the winding path to the hamlet. Unzen had served for centuries as a way station for pilgrims seeking spiritual comfort in shrines on mist-shrouded mountaintops and the cura- tive effects of natural hot springs. Foreign residents visiting the area in the

7 The Chronicle and Directory, 1897 issue. 8 Nagasaki City Chronology, pp. 128–33. the dream hotel 79

1860s deemed it an ideal place to escape the heat, humidity and turmoil of coastal settlements, and by the turn of the century Unzen had taken a place beside Ootacamund, Kuling and the Cameron Highlands as one of the most popular Western-style resorts in East Asia. American author Pearl Buck also spent her summers there as a child when her parents were working as missionaries in China. Another visitor, a British resident of Shanghai, described the benefits of a trip to Unzen as follows in The North China Daily News: The Unzen mountain range as an economical and pleasant health resort, where there is no organic lesion, is hard to beat. The man of limited means run down by his sedentary occupation, his malarious environment, the monotonous routine of Shanghai daily life, and often – during the summer months – want of sleep, will realize within 48 hours of his arrival there, that life is still worth living… For those more run down the change is enough from the vicinity of malarious paddy fields to lovely mountain scenery – hills, valleys, mountains and ravines clothed in verdure of great variety, and an atmosphere so pure and spirit-bracing that it almost impels one to laugh aloud, for no other reason than one feels it a joy to be alive… To merely lie back on the verandah of your hotel, after satisfying the inner man, inhaling the pure cool mountain air between the whiffs of your cigar, and comparing your lot with those less favoured mortals fighting through a Shanghai summer is the realization of a beatific vision.9 Frederick Ringer was heartened by the economic boom and the droves of foreign visitors coming ashore at the customs jetties in Ōura, and he envi- sioned a hotel that would signify Nagasaki’s status as an international port and rank shoulder to shoulder with the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, Palace Hotel in Shanghai, and all the other luxurious hotels punctuating the ‘all-red route’. Perched at his desk in the Holme, Ringer & Co. office or sitting in his favourite chair at the Nagasaki Club, he conveyed the idea to the leading residents of Nagasaki, formu- lated plans, and communicated with everyone from building contractors to suppliers of carpets, cutlery and French wine. On 20 February 1897, The Nagasaki Shipping List reported the establishment of the Nagasaki Hotel Ltd. and the offer of shares to the public. According to the newspaper, Frederick Ringer had been appointed provisional chairman and David Robertson (British marine surveyor), Morris Ginsburg (Russian merchant) and Maurice E. Paul (British physician) directors, while the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and Holme, Ringer & Co. were to serve as bankers and

9 Quoted in The Nagasaki Press, 21 October 1898. 80 chapter six general managers, respectively. The architect engaged to design the building was none other than Josiah Conder, the celebrated British architect who had been employed by the Meiji Government in 1877 as first professor of architecture at the Imperial College of Engineering and who in the interim had not only designed monumental buildings like the Ueno Museum and Rokumeikan but also educated many of Japan’s pioneer architects including Tatsuno Kingo, the designer of Tokyo Station.10 Local investors snapped up all but 120 of the 1,300 $100-shares in the first three days. One observer commented as follows on the significance of the hotel and its prospects for the future: Nagasaki has so far had to labour under the disadvantage of deplorably insufficient hotel accommodations during the busy summer and winter seasons – many guests being glad to ‘double up’ four and five in a room during such periods. The erection of the Nagasaki Hotel on the harbourfront – a handsomer and more convenient location for transients than even the Grand at Yokohama – will tend not only to relieve that congestion, but also to attract a large amount of transient trade from men-of-war and through liners that now passes this port on the other side through lack of proper accommodations for those who might wish to land here… The moment chosen for launching the enterprise might be considered late had anyone else cared to seize the golden opportunity that has been presenting itself for the last two years; as it is, however, with the railroad, which is to connect us with the north, within a few months of completion and the settlement itself extending its influence and importance day by day, the Nagasaki Hotel Ltd., apart from being one of the finest caravanserais, is destined to become one of the most desirable investments in the Far East.11 At the first general meeting of stockholders held on 9 April, Ringer was re- elected chairman and Morris Ginsburg and Maurice E. Paul were asked to stay on as directors. Ringer reported that the company had been registered in Hong Kong and that Nos 43 and 44 Sagarimatsu, a prime stretch of waterfront property in the southern part of the foreign settlement, had been acquired for the building site. Ringer informed the stockholders that a local contractor had submitted an estimate of $55,000 but hurried to add that, in view of the rise in wages for labourers and the increasing cost of building materials, the cost of construction would probably exceed that amount. He also noted that an unexpected expenditure of $1,200 had been encountered in the removal of old buildings standing on the site. Even

10 Dallas Finn, ‘Josiah Conder (1852–1940) and Meiji Architecture’, Britain and Japan 1859–1991: Themes and Personalities (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 86–93. 11 The Nagasaki Shipping List, 20 February 1897. the dream hotel 81 before the laying of the first brick – and despite the optimism intoxicating the people of Nagasaki in 1897 – concern about the future of Frederick Ringer’s ‘dream hotel’ began to rattle among the investors in the project. The extravagance of the plans also contrasted sharply and strangely with the British entrepreneur’s well-known caution in business matters. Carolina Ringer may have decided that her husband was better off handling the preparations for the hotel alone. In June 1897 she boarded the steamship Ancona with her son Sydney and a Japanese maid and departed Nagasaki for London via Singapore, Colombo and the Suez Canal.12 Sydney was on his way to study at Haileys School in Bournemouth, just as his older siblings Freddy and Lina had been sent to England for their primary education (Fig. 6.1). Sydney’s uncle, John M. Ringer, had left the business world of Shanghai and returned to England at this point, and the results of the 1891 UK census show that both he and Edward Z. Holme, Frederick’s

Figure 6.1. Carolina Ringer with her three children (left to right) Sydney, Freddy and Lina ca. 1898. (Nagasaki Glover Garden)

12 The Nagasaki Shipping List, 30 April 1897. By coincidence, Carolina and Sydney were travelling companions as far as Hong Kong with Edith Carew, whose trial for the murder of her husband in Yokohama had monopolised newspaper gossip columns over the past weeks. Although condemned to death in consular court, she had been given a reduced sentence of life imprisonment and ordered to return to England. 82 chapter six former partner in Holme, Ringer & Co., were living in Bournemouth at the time.13 This strongly suggests that the two men were involved in the selection of young Sydney’s place of education. Frederick Ringer’s trust in Holme is further underlined by the fact that he named him Sydney’s guardian in his will. The UK census returns for 1901 show Sydney, age ten, still boarding at Haileys School and Lina, age fifteen, living with her mother’s sister Rosina Spence in Croydon, Surrey. The Spence household in Croydon was a longtime Ringer refuge in England, as indicated by the fact that Carolina had given birth to her eldest son Freddy there in 1884.14 Both brothers would go on to attend prestigious schools in England and return to Nagasaki as young adults to take up positions as junior partners in Holme, Ringer & Co. Frederick Ringer’s other older brother, Sydney, probably also provided support to his nephews and niece during their stay in England. A noted biomedical scientist at University College London and author of the clas- sic textbook Ringer’s Handbook of Therapeutics, Dr Sydney Ringer conducted groundbreaking research on the relationship between ions and the human heartbeat, and he gained fame for ‘Ringer’s Solution’, the physio- logical saline named after him and still used today in hospitals around the world.15 Maurice E. Paul, the British physician serving as director of the Nagasaki Hotel Co., had studied at University College London when Dr Ringer was teaching there and may very well have come to Nagasaki by his introduction. The renowned physician split his time between a house in London and the family home of his wife in Lastingham, Yorkshire, both of which were frequented by the Ringer family of Japan. The Nagasaki Hotel went ahead as planned but the costs continued to snowball. The directors decided that a third storey was needed to make the facility worthy of the appellation ‘world-class hotel’, a revision that added thousands of dollars to the original estimate. This in turn made it necessary to purchase the adjacent lot at No. 45 Sagarimatsu for servants’ quarters and other outbuildings, sharply increasing both building expenses and the architect’s fee, which had been set at seven percent of the total construction cost. The directors also chose to order a huge stock of wine and liquor before the imposition of the high import tariff promised by the

13 RG 12/901/107. 14 England & Wales, FreeBMD Birth Index, 1837–1915 [database on-line]. 15 David Miller, A Solution for the Heart: The Life of Sydney Ringer (1836–1910) (London: The Physiology Society, 2007). the dream hotel 83

Japanese Government the following year. Moreover, almost everything that the company needed to get the hotel up and running proved considerably more expensive than the original estimates, partly because of the rapidly rising cost of living in Japan but mostly because of Frederick Ringer’s persistent ‘spare no expense’ policy with regard to the hotel and its furnishings. In April 1898, the directors and shareholders gathered for an extraordinary general meeting in the Holme, Ringer & Co. office to face the fact that the hotel was going to cost $300,000, not $130,000, and to discuss ways to avoid a financial crisis. A decision was passed to issue an additional lot of debentures worth $170,000 to make up for the shortfall. The company advertised these in a long notice in The Nagasaki Press the following month, enticing investors with a promise to pay seven percent interest per annum until the debentures matured a decade later. While these conundrums unfolded, the citizens of Nagasaki marvelled at the grand apparition in their midst and waited on tenterhooks for a dis play of the hotel’s electric lighting, expected to exceed anything ever seen before in Japan. The installation of the electric plant and wiring of the hotel were the work of an engineer despatched by the Western Light and Power Construction Company, an American firm that had already ‘lighted nearly all the large buildings in San Francisco’. In an interview with the editor of The Nagasaki Press, the engineer reported that a thousand lights were to be installed in the hotel and the power supplied by Atlas engines and Westinghouse dynamos of the same type used in the US Mint.16 On two evenings in August 1898, the lights were displayed in all their glory, and hundreds of guests stepped inside to tour the hotel and inspect its luxurious appurtenances. The Nagasaki Press reported as follows: The lights were turned on shortly after eight o’clock, and the effect of the illumination of the verandah, with coloured lights in all the archways and pendant white lights at frequent intervals within the verandah, was most striking, the view from the water being especially charming. Within the hotel, the lights were nearly all turned on, showing the fine proportions of the rooms and corridors. The illumination of the dining room was most brilliant, the light being by far the best we have ever seen in the East, and, indeed, equal to that to be found anywhere in the world. The engine house and boiler shed are placed close to the back street, quite detached from the main building, and all the machinery is of the latest and most perfect design. Standing just without the engine room, it was almost impossible to believe

16 The Nagasaki Press, 7 April 1898. Frederick Ringer bought out both The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express and The Nagasaki Shipping List and launched this newspaper as a daily publication on 6 September 1897. The first editor was H.O. Palmer. 84 chapter six

that a 45-horse-power engine and a powerful dynamo were being worked within, the noise of the whole plant being no more than that produced by a small sewing machine… Nothing but admiration was heard from the many persons present, who also expressed their approval of the internal arrangements of the building. The shareholders of the hotel are to be congratulated on the acquisition of the finest electric plant in the Far East.17 The power plant was indeed so efficient that Frederick Ringer was able to apply for permission to erect poles and wires along the Bund to feed the excess electricity to the Holme, Ringer & Co. office and other facilities.18 The Nagasaki Electric Light Company had been founded in 1893, but subscriptions from the owners of private homes and businesses remained low because of the exorbitantly high cost of supply.19 It was reported as late as September 1897 that only 417 houses in Nagasaki – and not a single building in the foreign settlement – enjoyed the amenity of electric lighting.20 Ringer’s dream hotel was, quite literally, a lamp shining in the darkness. When the Nagasaki Hotel opened its doors on 1 September 1898, newspapers heralded it as the ‘finest hotel in the East’ and proudly advertised its electric light, electric bells, electric fire alarms, telephones and ‘cuisine under the direction of a French chef’. Visitors arrived at the nearby customs jetty and entered the hotel through the front door facing Nagasaki Harbour. To the left inside was the dining room with space enough for 120 people, and to the right a comfortable bar and smoking room with imported billiard tables. The fifty-six rooms on the second and third floors were furnished with large brass beds and teak furniture imported from England, as well as the unprecedented convenience of private telephones. The first-class suites were at the front, with French windows opening onto balconies that provided a view over Nagasaki Harbour. The luxury came at a price: charging at least four yen per night, or the average cost of a month’s room and board in a Japanese inn, the Nagasaki Hotel was the most expensive place to stay this side of Hong Kong. (Figs 6.2 and 6.3) No one seeing the number of ships visiting the harbour or the activity in the streets of Nagasaki in 1898 would have doubted the success of the hotel. The Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard was glowing with pride and satisfaction over the launching of the 6,000-tonne Hitachi-maru,

17 The Nagasaki Press, 12 and 19 August 1898. 18 Frederick Ringer to J.H. Longford, 20 April 1898 (FO 796/133). 19 Nagasaki City Chronology, p. 128. 20 The Nagasaki Press, 20 September 1897. the dream hotel 85

Figure 6.2. Picture Postcard showing the Nagasaki Hotel ca. 1907. The large Western-style building to the left is the Nagasaki branch of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. (Author’s collection)

Japan’s first posh ocean liner, and expanding and diversifying facilities in preparation for further projects. The extension of the Kyūshū Railway to Nagasaki had reached completion, linking the once mountain-hidden port with the rest of the country by land and increasing its potential as a trade and military hub, and government officials were signing orders for a harbour reclamation project of epochal dimensions that would radically improve the efficiency of cargo handling by allowing large steamships to pull up to the Nagasaki waterfront and by bringing the railway tracks into close proximity to the harbour. The picture was not nearly as rosy, however, for the Nagasaki Hotel. Despite the festive opening and the healthy stream of people willing to pay the high tariff, the hotel had to scramble just to pay running costs and dividends. At an extraordinary meeting held on 30 December 1898, less than four months after the opening celebration, the directors reported that the gross expenditure to date had ballooned to over $390,000, three times more than the original share capital, and that it was necessary to borrow money in order to meet immediate obligations and avoid bankruptcy. As might be expected, the loan was to be provided by Holme, Ringer & Co. and a further $95,000 worth of debentures offered to the 86 chapter six

Figure 6.3. Picture Postcard showing the Nagasaki Hotel ca. 1920, with a huge naval ensign unfurled at the entrance, probably as an expression of welcome to Japanese warships in the harbour. (Author’s collection) the dream hotel 87 public to keep the ball rolling.21 The hotel apparently flourished over the following months, the long lists of guests carried in The Nagasaki Press correlating with the ongoing prosperity of Nagasaki as a port-of-call for foreign ships. The daily newspaper is also scattered with articles on balls and concerts convened in the famous dining room and billiard tourna- ments in the smoking room, as well as the activity of the hotel chef as a caterer for parties held after the launching of ships at the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard and other international events. But the reports on half- yearly general meetings printed in the same newspaper reveal the hotel’s increasingly desperate struggle to stay afloat. One problem faced by the company was that, unlike the Nagasaki Roller Flour Mills Co. and the petroleum tanks in Kōzaki, no Japanese investors seem to have participated in the project, probably because the ‘hotel’ was still a mostly foreign phenomenon and that the company had been established as a business entity within the confines of the foreign settlement. Indeed, the Nagasaki Hotel would have been empty if not for the well- heeled foreign travellers arriving daily by ship. Another problem was the transience, not only of visits by wealthy guests, but also of the commit- ment from the directors and shareholders who had lined up behind Frederick Ringer in promoting the project. Although Ringer remained ensconced at the helm, the two original directors both retired soon after the opening of the hotel and were followed by an unsteady parade of other shareholders elected at the general meetings. Ringer’s longtime friend and partner, John C. Smith, pulled up stakes and left Nagasaki with his family in May 1900, and T.S. Baker, local agent for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and original auditor and financial advisor, also departed, never to return. By 1901 the list of participants in general meetings was starting to look like a roster of Holme, Ringer & Co. employees.

Kuraba Tomisaburō and the Nagasaki International Club

One of the most prominent and committed Holme, Ringer & Co. staff members was Kuraba Tomisaburō, the son of Thomas B. Glover who had returned to his hometown in 1894 and taken up a trusted position under Frederick Ringer. Kuraba was proving his worth in the company with his intelligence and diligence and especially with his ability to breeze back and forth between the foreign and Japanese communities. In fact he was

21 The Nagasaki Press, 31 December 1898. 88 chapter six unique in that he had two overlapping identities: one that of a member of the foreign community named T.A. Glover who was fluent in English, well versed in the business practices and social customs of Europe, and whose father was one of the most highly-respected British residents of Japan; the other that of a native speaker of Japanese and registered citizen of Nagasaki called Kuraba Tomisaburō perfectly at home in the traditional environment of Japanese society and business circles. On 12 June 1899, Kuraba married a young woman named Nakano Waka, the second daughter of British merchant James Walter and a Japanese woman named Nakano Ei. Born in Liverpool in 1847, James Walter had learned the techniques of silk spinning as the apprentice of an English silk manufacturer. In 1867 he sailed to Yokohama and entered the employ of a foreign firm in that port, assuming responsibility for silk and paper exports. Later he succeeded in establishing his own silk exporting business and rose to a position of prominence in the Yokohama foreign settlement. His daughter Waka was an attractive young woman whose physical features revealed her mixed parentage but who invariably wore a kimono and kept her hair combed in the Japanese fashion. The couple’s marriage coincided with the effectuation of treaty revisions and the abolition of the foreign settlements as legal entities. Less than a month later, foreigners were given free rein to live and travel anywhere in Japan, and, conversely, Japanese citizens were able to purchase land in the former foreign settlements and to live and work there if they wished. The invisible wall that had separated Japanese and foreigners since 1859 came suddenly down, making Kuraba Tomisaburō and Waka both symbols and indispensable players in a new era of cooperation and cohabitation. Soon after his marriage, Kuraba joined with a number of other prominent foreigners and Japanese businessmen, politicians and local officials in the establishment of a social venue called Nagasaki Naigai Kurabu (Nagasaki International Club). He was the fulcrum of the new organisation in that he was virtually the only person in Nagasaki capable of striking a balance between Japanese and foreigners, culturally as well as linguisti- cally. The Nagasaki Club in Ōura had served for decades as a meeting place for leading foreign residents, following the example of other exclusive men’s clubs dotting the trails of the British Empire. The Nagasaki International Club emulated the Nagasaki Club in that it was a gathering place for men of a certain social standing, but it differed in the important fact that it was open to all nationalities, its express purpose being ‘to promote a more genial and easy intercourse between Japanese and those of the dream hotel 89 other nations’. The first gathering was held on 1 August 1899 and attended by 125 Japanese, five Chinese and twenty European and American residents.22 The club later moved into the former Harbour Office Building in downtown Nagasaki, but at a meeting held on 28 April 1902, the members decided to accept Frederick Ringer’s offer to build and rent a club building on his property at No. 7 Dejima. Interestingly, this seems to be the extent of Ringer’s participation in the Nagasaki International Club; his name is evident nowhere else in club records. The veteran British merchant was apparently satisfied just to see the club flourish and to have his right-hand man Kuraba Tomisaburō represent his interests therein. Ringer arranged for the construction of a two-storey wooden building of the typical quasi-Western architectural style prominent in the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement. Upon completion the following year, the building featured spacious verandas, shuttered windows, chimneys and ceramic roof tiles. Inside were large rooms with high ceilings, hardwood floors, and coal-burning fireplaces, including a billiard lounge, bar, dining room, and reading room furnished with European tables and chairs. The first monthly dinner in the new building was held on 10 November 1903, and Frederick Ringer and Kuraba Tomisaburō were conspicuous by their absence and indispensable presence, respectively.

Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905)

The catalyst for the establishment of the Nagasaki International Club was the abolition of the foreign settlements and the abrogation of extraterritorial privileges for foreigners as a result of the treaty revisions that came into effect in July 1899. Although many diehards had predicted dismal consequences, the revised treaties did not significantly alter life in the former foreign settlement, largely because Nagasaki was riding a wave of prosperity tall enough to eclipse other concerns. The Japanese government won autonomy in customs tariffs, immigration and diplomatic affairs but agreed, as a gesture of goodwill, to honour the ‘perpetual leases’ held by foreigners from the pre-Meiji years. This meant that the leaseholders would pay annual ground rent as before and continue to enjoy exemption from all Japanese property taxes until the properties passed into Japanese hands by sale or succession.

22 The Nagasaki Press, 4 August 1899. 90 chapter six

In September 1899, Frederick Ringer led British residents in an appeal for assurance that the perpetual leases would indeed be honoured by the Japanese government and provided a complete list of the properties in question to the British consul.23 This document reveals the extent of Ringer’s holdings in the former foreign settlement: Nos 1, 7, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 23 Ōura, Nos 7, 19, 20, 23 Dejima, No. 7 Higashiyamate, and Nos 2, 27, 28, 29A Minamiyamate, as well as No. 9 Minamiyamate, owned by John C. Smith, who had returned to England and given attorney thereof to Frederick Ringer. The Nagasaki Roller Flour Mills Co. properties in Kozone-machi and petroleum storage facility at Kōzaki were also under the thumb of Holme, Ringer & Co. There was probably no other person, foreign or Japanese, holding the rights to such a huge slice of valuable urban property in Nagasaki. Frederick Ringer at the turn of the century had all the aura of a Bombay sahib or Hong Kong taipan, lording it peace- fully but persuasively over a British-style business empire in a faraway land. (Fig. 6.4) Dark clouds however were gathering. By 1902, the financial troubles of the Nagasaki Hotel were painfully evident. At the general meeting of shareholders held on 31 January, Frederick Ringer expressed regret over the fact that ‘the receipts had fallen off a little during the last three months owing to fewer people passing through and that the visits of warships had not been so frequent as before’.24 At the next general meeting held on 30 July, American physician and acting chairman Robert I. Bowie announced that he was filling in for Ringer, who was on leave of absence until October, and went on to describe the situation of the company: We are sure that you will agree with us that the past six months have been the quietest known in Nagasaki since any of us arrived, and as is natural, the hotel has suffered from the depression. I can assure you that it has been a very difficult task to make our working expenses, in fact during the first three months of this year we found ourselves working at a loss. Respecting the property of the company, you will notice that very little has been expended for the half year, a fact on which we can congratulate ourselves. Your directors having frequently inspected the buildings, etc. are able to assure you that they are in a first class condition. Owing to the drop in silver exchange it was found necessary to write off Yen 2,375 from the Investment Account, and the amount has been debited to the Profit and Loss Account.25

23 British residents to J.B. Rentiers, 21 September 1899 (FO 796/136). 24 The Nagasaki Press, 3 February 1902. 25 The Nagasaki Press, 31 July 1902. the dream hotel 91

Figure 6.4. Frederick Ringer a few years before his death in 1907. (Nagasaki Glover Garden)

The downhill slide turned into a complete collapse when war erupted between Japan and Russia in the early months of 1904 and brought commercial shipping between Japan and the continent to a halt. The number of steamships arriving in Nagasaki dwindled day by day until 20 February 1904 when the English-language newspapers – probably for the first time in their more than forty-year history – printed the word ‘NONE’ in the arrivals column of the shipping intelligence section. Companies run by Russians or involved in business with Russia, such as M. Ginsburg & Co., N. Mess & Co. and the Russo-Chinese Bank, closed their Nagasaki offices or transferred their agencies to British firms, and the Russian consul and other Russian residents boarded ships and hastily returned to their country. Hotel rooms, restaurant tables and bar counters in the former foreign settlement lay vacant, and the flow of business in the Japanese town froze up under the constraints of martial law and the added burden of war taxes. 92 chapter six

The 15 April 1904 issue of The Nagasaki Press carried, side by side with a wire report on the continuing bombardment of Port Arthur (Lushun) by Japanese forces, a long article on an extraordinary meeting of the Nagasaki Hotel Ltd. shareholders held two days earlier. Frederick Ringer asked Robert I. Bowie to explain the reason for the meeting, and the latter addressed the assembled stockholders, all foreign residents of Nagasaki, informing them that the directors had called the meeting ‘for the purpose of asking you to vote for voluntary liquidation of the company’. The hotel revenue, said Bowie, had fallen to under 5,000 yen per month and, since this situation was only expected to worsen, it would be impossible to pay the interest on debentures. The assembly accepted the motion and appointed Percy J. Buckland, a young Holme, Ringer & Co. employee, to serve as official liquidator. Advertisements were posted in newspapers throughout East Asia for an auction to sell the property, which included the land at Nos 43, 44 and 45 Sagarimatsu (rent paid to March 1905), brick and stone building with fifty-six rooms, imported teak furniture, billiard room and bar, complete set of fine tableware for 120 guests, electric light and refrigerating plants, and a ‘stock of wine and provisions on hand, estimated value Yen 4,000’. Buckland of course hoped to see a wide and competitive group of bid- ders from Japan and abroad, but the fifty or sixty participants who appeared for the auction on 25 October 1904 were mostly foreign residents of Nagasaki, and not a single bid was made on behalf of a Japanese company. As it turned out, the hammer fell to Frederick Ringer for 106,000 yen. Sighs of exasperation and resignation were probably heard among the prudent Holme, Ringer & Co. employees yearning to disengage their company from the money-leaking ‘white elephant’, but Ringer stubbornly refused to abandon hope in either his cherished hotel or the future of Nagasaki as an international port. The Nagasaki Hotel closed for refurbishments and reopened on 1 December 1904 as an arm of Holme, Ringer & Co.26 The hotel enjoyed a few bursts of prosperity over the following two or three years but never realised Frederick Ringer’s high hopes, even after the cessation of hostilities between Japan and Russia. In July 1905, Holme, Ringer & Co. hired an experienced hotel manager named Albert E. Willsher, formerly manager of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company Hotel in Shasta Springs, California, to try to bring the Nagasaki Hotel

26 The Nagasaki Press, 15 April, 8 and 24 October 1904. the dream hotel 93 around. Willsher proved his ability on a few occasions, such as the extended visit of passengers on the Great Northern Steamship Company’s 20,000- tonne ocean liner Minnesota, which along with its sister-ship the Dakota, began calling at Nagasaki on regular voyages between Seattle and Hong Kong. While the ship underwent repairs at the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard for a few weeks in May and June 1905, the passengers took up lodgings en masse in the hotel, their names extending for several unprecedented inches in the columns of The Nagasaki Press. Upon departure, the passengers expressed their gratitude and called for ‘three cheers and a Tiger for Mr Willsher and the Nagasaki Hotel’.27 Another way in which Willsher and his employers kept the hotel afloat was to exploit the huge dining room and its well-staffed kitchen, which continued to enjoy renown as the best purveyor of European cuisine in western Japan. The bands of warships calling at the port accepted invitations to give evening performances, and residents and visitors patronised the dining room to enjoy its authentic atmosphere and cuisine. The breakfast menu, which could have come straight from the table of a hotel in Brighton or Long Beach, included everything from sirloin steak (1.35 yen) and grilled English bacon with three eggs (75 sen) to toast, potato salad, stewed tomatoes, and a pot of tea or coffee. One of the last grand events celebrated at the Nagasaki Hotel was the sixty-fifth birthday of King Edward VII in November 1906. Acting British consul Harold G. Parlett received courtesy calls from the governor of Nagasaki Prefecture, commanders of Japanese and foreign warships in port, and representatives of political and business circles. The celebration moved from the consulate to the Nagasaki Club, where Frederick Ringer, as the oldest British resident in Nagasaki, proposed a toast to the health and long life of the king and led the assembly in singing God Save the King.28 A ball was held from 9:00 p.m. in the Nagasaki Hotel dining room with all the celebrants in attendance – ‘the gowns worn by the ladies and the brilliant naval uniforms combining to form a most pleasing picture’ and the room ‘tastefully decorated with flags and evergreens and portraits of Their Majesties King Edward and Queen Alexandra’ – but Frederick Ringer seems to have eschewed the pomp and clamour of the ball and retired early. The fact was that the veteran merchant had all but withdrawn from active participation in the social and business life of the city by late 1906,

27 The Nagasaki Press, 2 June 1906. 28 The Nagasaki Press, 11 November 1906. 94 chapter six opting to spend time alone in the family house, ‘Niban’, at No. 2 Minamiyamate. In 1903, he had purchased the grand stone and timber Western-style house on the adjacent lot at No. 14 Minamiyamate for his wife Carolina, and the couple seems to have lived separately from that year onward. As one former resident of Nagasaki later pointed out, ‘Mr Ringer, a recluse, never entered into the gay life of the Nagasaki community, preferring to – on occasion – entertain men only at luncheons.’29 The portly merchant was also suffering from heart problems, which made it difficult for him to negotiate steps and necessitated the construction of a hillside path accessible to rickshaws. The result was one of Japan’s first applications of asphalt pavement, parts of which can still be seen today. The Harold S. Williams Collection (National Library of Australia) contains a letter relating the following story told by a former Holme, Ringer & Co. employee named William Harston (Fig. 6.5). A fire broke out in the Holme, Ringer & Co. office at No. 7 Ōura in December 1906, and while the fire brigade battled the flames, Harston ran to Niban to report the event to his employer. The house was steeped in darkness. The young Briton hur- riedly rang the doorbell, but there was no response. He rang it again, and when a light finally came on in the recesses of the building he ran to the lighted window at the side of the house, tripping over several flower beds en route, and gasped:

‘Is that you sir?’ ‘Who’s that?’ barked Ringer on the other side of the window. ‘Harston, sir, Harston.’ ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘Office on fire, sir, office on fire!’ ‘Well come back and tell me when it’s out,’ grumbled the veteran British merchant before closing the window and turning out the light.30

Death of Frederick Ringer

Frederick and Carolina Ringer spent the summer of 1907 at their villa at Lake Chūzenji, the scenic resort in Tochigi Prefecture where wealthy foreign residents erected summer houses in the late nineteenth century and

29 J.F. Jordan to Harold S. Williams, 27 May 1969 (HSWC, MS 6681/1/108). 30 Arnold Graham to Harold S. Williams, 18 August 1967 (HSWC, MS 6681/2/32). the dream hotel 95

Figure 6.5. Two young British employees of Holme, Ringer & Co. relax in a room in the company office at No. 7 Ōura ca. 1910. The man in front is William E. Harston. (Harold S. Williams Collection, National Library of Australia) where both the Glover and Ringer families frequently spent holidays. Instead of returning to Nagasaki, they decided to travel back to England via Canada and to spend the winter resting there. Before leaving Japan, Ringer visited Yokohama to sign a last will and testament. Dated 18 September 1907 and running for fifteen pages, the document provides detailed instructions for the distribution of money, assets, real estate and personal belongings among his family and employees.31 It starts with a ‘probate jurisdiction’ stating that Ringer’s account at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in Nagasaki was overdrawn to the tune of 241,722 yen – perhaps a debt related to the failed Nagasaki Hotel – but that the bank held various securities as collateral and that the over- draft could be apportioned among the divisions of the estate in Shanghai, Hong Kong and London. In the will, Ringer names Holme, Ringer & Co.

31 ‘The Estate of Frederick Ringer’ (FO 917/1561). 96 chapter six executives Neil B. Reid, James H. Wallace and Percy J. Buckland as trustees along with his old partner Edward Z. Holme, residing at 17 Philpot Lane, London (coincidentally, the former home and office of the eighteenth- century slave trader Richard Oswald). He begins with a request that the funeral service in Nagasaki ‘be a simple one, that no flowers shall be displayed and no crepe shall be worn… and I desire that the coffin shall be perfectly plain, with no decorations of any kind.’ He also requests that he be buried beside his mother and father in the Rosary Cemetery in Norwich. He then directs that his estate be divided into seven categories, that is, personal effects, residence property, head office premises, villa at Lake Chūzenji, business premises and property, personal property, and ‘curios’. He calls for generous financial disbursements to Kuraba Tomisaburō and several faithful Japanese servants, instructs that the villa at Lake Chūzenji be given to his wife and, upon her death, used by his trustees ‘as a place of resort and recreation for any of those in the employment of the business who fall sick and need an outing’, and bequeaths all of his ‘residence property’ to his wife Carolina. Frederick Ringer’s division of rights and assets sheds an interesting light on his relationship with his children. He instructs his trustees to ‘carry on, keep up and increase’ the activities of the company ‘with the intent that it shall ultimately be turned over to my two sons Frederick Erasmus Edward Ringer and Sydney Arthur Ringer’, but he adds the following provision clearly appointing his still only sixteen-year-old second son as his business successor:

It has not been my wish in the past to make any distinction between my two sons, but, since I have recently had good cause to doubt the capability of my eldest son, Frederick Erasmus Edward Ringer, to exercise good judgment in matters of business and the settlement of property rights, I direct that, while he shall be retained as an employee in the business at a present salary of Three Hundred Yen per month, subject, however, to increase in the discretion of my trustees, he shall not be admitted to a partnership interest in, or in the control of, the business until he reaches the full age of twenty-nine years. I direct that my son, Sydney Arthur Ringer, when he reaches the full age of twenty-one years shall be admitted as a partner in the business to the extent of an absolute interest in the same, and in the net profits thereof, which shall be fifty-five percent of the whole, and that he shall be permitted to act in the carrying on of the said business as a principal in conjunction with my trustees. At the time that my son, Frederick Erasmus Edward Ringer, reaches the age of twenty-nine years, if he has loyally accepted and acted upon the provisions of this my will, the remaining forty-five percent interest in the business and its net profits and control shall be transferred to him absolutely. the dream hotel 97

Ringer also lays out strict conditions with regard to his daughter Lina, bequeathing the entire ‘head office premises’ to her but instructing his trustees to hold all of the property ‘absolutely’ until she divorces Willmott H. Lewis, with whom she had eloped the same year (see Chapter 9). (Fig. 6.6) The will ends with the veteran merchant’s rather unsteady signature, followed by the verification of the trustees and British consul in Nagasaki, the seal of the Nagasaki District Court, and affidavits by the Shanghai lawyers handling the case.

Figure 6.6. Carolina and Lina Ringer ca. 1905. (Nagasaki Glover Garden) 98 chapter six

After reaching England, Frederick and Carolina took up lodgings at the Royal Hotel on Prince of Wales Road, near the ruins of Norwich Castle and the British merchant’s birthplace. Opened in 1897, the Royal Hotel was the English equivalent of the Nagasaki Hotel, lavishly constructed and designed to accommodate visitors in a new age of rail travel and business growth. The ostensible purpose of the trip home was leisure and rehabili- tation, but, since no Ringer family members remained in the city at the time, it suggests a rather firm sense of purpose, like the journey of a salmon swimming upstream to old spawning grounds. Ringer’s health deterio- rated rapidly and he found himself on death’s door, perhaps wandering wistfully back to Nagasaki in his thoughts, imagining himself lying in his dream hotel on the Sagarimatsu waterfront, the harbour scattered with commercial vessels and warships and smiles of happiness and prosperity shining on all the faces coming and going. He died in the arms of his wife and son Sydney on 29 November 1907, aged sixty-nine, and was buried according to his last will and testament beside his parents and baby sister in the Rosary Cemetery. Carolina and Sydney, as well as Edward Z. Holme, John C. Smith, Neil B. Reid and a number of other former colleagues, attended the funeral service held at the cemetery on 2 December. A service was also convened in Nagasaki at approximately the same time. Ringer’s eldest son Freddy served as chief mourner at the latter service, ‘which, in accordance with the wish expressed by the deceased, was conducted by the Rev. A.R. Fuller and was attended only by the staff and employees of the firm and a few of Mr Ringer’s most intimate friends.’32 The British merchant’s death was as dignified and understated as his long life in Japan. One of the first decisions made by Holme, Ringer & Co. in the wake of Frederick Ringer’s death was to jettison the Nagasaki Hotel. During the early months of 1908, the directors, auditors and shareholders gathered on several occasions to discuss the sale of the building and the disposal of assets. The closure was announced officially on 18 February and brought into effect when the last remaining guests checked out after that date. The liquidators disposed of the hotel furniture and the rich stock of wines and liquors relatively easily, but they scratched their heads over the expensive English tableware because every last spoon, fork and plate was inscribed with the letters ‘NH’. Luckily, however, a buyer was found in the form of the

32 The Nagasaki Press, 3 December 1907. Edward Z. Holme died in Kensington, Middlesex on 4 February 1909. John C. Smith returned to his hometown in Ayrshire, Scotland and died there on 31 March 1920. the dream hotel 99

Nara Hotel, which had opened the same year to accommodate the growing number of foreign visitors to the ancient capital.33 Widely-advertised auctions for the sale of the hotel were held on several occasions over the following months, but no serious buyer appeared, and the grand building stood empty and useless on the Nagasaki waterfront, like the exuvium of a beautiful departed insect.

33 Harold S. Williams, The Story of Holme, Ringer & Co. Ltd. In Western Japan 1868–1968, p. 40.

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHALING AND FISHING

Tsushima Strait, flowing south of the Tsushima Island group with the Japanese main island of Honshū to the east and Kyūshū to the south, has served since prehistoric times as a migration route between Korea and Japan and a corridor for invading armies, most notably the Mongolian fleet thwarted by a typhoon – the archetypal kamikaze (‘divine wind’) – during a bold attempt to conquer Japan in the thirteenth century. Over the years the strait also nurtured an indigenous Japanese whaling industry. When villagers spotted a whale from the coast, they scrambled aboard boats and raised a din with drums and cymbals, chasing the animal into a submerged net and using hand-thrown spears and swords to make the kill. The whale was hauled ashore and dismembered, every last part being con- sumed or implemented for various purposes. The great blessing of the whale catch is illustrated by the Japanese saying kujira ittō de nanaura uruosu (‘One whale enriches seven villages’). This early method gradually disappeared in the nineteenth century when American and British whaling vessels began to operate off the coasts of East Asia, capturing whales before they reached Japanese waters and collecting the valuable blubber. The next important event in the Japanese whaling industry was the adoption of the harpoon gun, a cannon-like device installed on the whaling vessel and used to fire a spear with a grenade at the tip that exploded inside the whale after penetration. Developed in Norway, this innovation dramatically increased the efficiency of the catch and made Norway a leading force in the international whaling industry. It also led to the construction of modern whale catchers, the first of which – the Spes et Fides (Hope and Faith) – reached completion in Christiana (Oslo) in 1863.1 The first entrepreneur to successfully implement the Norwegian method in Japanese waters was H.H. Kejzerling, a former Russian naval officer who had served on the Pamiat Azova when that ship carried the future Tsar Nicholas II to Nagasaki in May 1891. Kejzerling established the Pacific Whaling Co. in 1894 with facilities in the port of Kaidamark near

1 Johan Tønnessen, Arne O. Johnsen, The History of Modern Whaling (Berkley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 28–32. 102 chapter seven

Vladivostok and began operations along the coast of the Korean Peninsula using two steam-powered whale catchers – the Nicholai and the Georgie – built at the Akers Mekaniske Verksted in Christiana. The whales harvested during the winter were hauled to Nagasaki and sold whole in local markets, where the demand for whale meat was insatiable. After a successful run in the winter of 1896, Kejzerling arranged for the two ships to be repainted at the Kosuge Ship Repair Dock south of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement. The editor of The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express took the opportunity to view the ships and reported as follows on their unusual trappings: In the bows, a harpoon gun, a somewhat curious looking object working upon a swivel, stands above a sloping iron platform upon which the harpoon line is coiled. The head of each harpoon contains a bomb, the explosion of which spreads the barbs of the instrument and embeds them in the whale. A boat is then launched and the animal is brought alongside and secured by some curious looking India-rubber strops attached to the fore rigging and then towed in towards the coast to the steam schooner Siberia, where the blubber is removed and ‘trying out’ operations conducted, while the captor rejoins her consort in search of fresh monsters of the deep.2 The following year the newspaper reported that Kejzerling and his crews had captured seventy-four whales from January to May, that all of the carcasses had been brought to Nagasaki for sale, and that a total of 23,000 piculs (about 1,390 tonnes) of meat had passed through the local market.3 This commercial windfall was enhanced by an exclusive concession from the Korean government allowing the Pacific Whaling Co. to establish facilities for the landing and processing of whales in three Korean ports. It also aroused the attention of competitors. One of the first entrepreneurs in Japan to contest Kejzerling’s monopoly was, of course, Frederick Ringer. The book ‘History of Norwegian-style Whaling in Japan’ published by the Oriental Whaling Company of Osaka in 1910 states that Ringer was so impressed by Kejzerling’s successes that he established his own whaling consortium with headquarters in the Holme, Ringer & Co. office at No. 7 Ōura.4 The consortium is referred to in this book as the eirojinkumiai

2 The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express, 17 June 1896. 3 The Nagasaki Press, 2 July 1898. A term coined in the British colonies of Asia, picul refers to a Chinese unit of measurement equivalent to about sixty kilogrammes, or the amount that a human labourer is capable of carrying in one load. 4 Tōyō Hogei Kabushiki Kaisha (ed.), Honpō no noruweishiki hogeishi (History of Norwegian-style Whaling in Japan (Tōyō Hogei Kabushiki Kaisha [Oriental Whaling Company, Ltd.], 1910), pp. 185–7. whaling and fishing 103

(association of Britons and Russians), but no comparable English name is evident in any English-language source, including British consular archives, newspapers, or the Chronicle and Directory. In their groundbreaking work The History of Modern Whaling (translated from Norwegian into English), Johan Tønnessen and A.O. Johnsen also refer to Ringer’s enterprise as the ‘Eirojinkumiai’, borrowing the word directly from the Oriental Whaling Co.’s 1910 book and providing no English equivalent. Clearly, ‘Eironjinkumiai’ was not the registered name of a business entity but an informal expression used by Japanese observers to refer to the relationship of cooperation established by Frederick Ringer, George Denbigh and Iacob L. Semenoff in promoting the import of whale meat to Japan. The Scotsman George Denbigh came to East Asia as a young man and established a small business trading in marine products such as seaweed, crab, herring and sea slug in Chefoo, China. He also frequented Nagasaki and fathered five children in the city with his Japanese wife.5 In 1896, Denbigh established Semenoff, Denbigh & Co. with Iacob L. Semenoff, an early civilian resident of Vladivostok who spearheaded a variety of business enterprises such as gold mining, steamship operation and supplier of stores to the Russian Navy.6 According to the Oriental Whaling Co. history, Ringer ordered a whale catcher similar to Kejzerling’s Nicholai and Georgie from the same Akers Mekaniske Verksted shipyard in Norway for the sum of £6,000. Again, this cannot be confirmed in English-language sources or shipyard records, but shipping intelligence in the Nagasaki newspapers indicates that the 18-tonne ship, christened the Olga, arrived in Japan in 1898 and began operating in October that year, achieving successes as out- standing as the investors had anticipated. In March 1899, Japanese Customs reported that the Russian whalers had imported whale meat totalling 112,940 yen in value to Japan through Nagasaki during 1898 and that ‘a foreign firm at Nagasaki’ had imported an additional 49,000 yen worth of meat during the last two months of the year alone, obviously a reference to Holme, Ringer & Co.7 However startling at first, the successes achieved by foreign whalers in Japan were bound to falter for several reasons. While Kejzerling received special privileges from the Korean government, Iacob Semenoff failed to

5 Lane Earns, pp. 125–7. 6 Kaminaga Eisuke, ‘Hokutō ajia ni okeru kindaihogeigyō no reimei’ (The Dawn of Modern Whaling in Northeast Asia), Slavic Studies (Hokkaidō University, Vol. 49, 2002), p. 70. 7 The Nagasaki Press, 16 March 1899 (quoting from The Japan Times). 104 chapter seven win a similar concession for Holme, Ringer & Co. when he visited Seoul in February 1899, leaving the company little choice but to pay for the right to use the port of Ulsan and the other taxes demanded by the Koreans. More importantly, Japanese entrepreneurs began to establish whaling companies that implemented the Norwegian method, thereby elevating the local industry to a competitive level. The Japanese government actively subsi- dised these efforts, not only to promote the industry in Japan but also to check the suspected espionage of the Russian whalers and to halt Russian advances in East Asia. One of the first successful Japanese entrepreneurs was Oka Jūrō, a native of Yamaguchi Prefecture who travelled to Norway to study modern whaling methods and to purchase harpoon guns and other equipment. In July 1899, Oka and colleagues established a company called Nippon Enyō Gyogyō and submitted an order to the Ishikawajima Shipyard in Tokyo for the construction of a Norwegian-style whaler called the Daiichi Chōshū- maru, the first of its kind built in Japan. Oka also came to Nagasaki to confer with Morten Pedersen, the Norwegian gunner on the Georgie whose appointment had expired in April 1899. Pedersen signed a contract with Oka’s company and took the handle of the harpoon gun at the end of 1899. The hotel guest lists published in The Nagasaki Press corroborate this information, showing that Pedersen, along with his wife and three children, stayed in the Cliff House Hotel in Nagasaki for most of the year. In addition to the Pedersen family, the Cliff House Hotel guest lists during the latter part of April 1899 show the names of Ringer’s colleague Iacob Semenoff as well as Fredrik Olsen, Pedersen’s brother-in-law and the captain of Holme, Ringer & Co.’s whaler the Olga. Kejzerling’s company continued to prosper, but both Holme, Ringer & Co. and Nippon Enyō Gyogyō suffered setbacks. The Olga did well at first, but catches fell off after a few seasons, and it became increasingly unprofitable to maintain the whaling operation while paying the high fees and taxes demanded by the Korean government. Frederick Ringer decided to pull out of the industry in the summer of 1901. The Daiichi Chōshū-maru run by the latter company meanwhile experienced repeated breakdowns and mechanical failures, one a noisy engine problem that scared off whales before they came within range of the harpoon gun. Oka Jūrō nego- tiated with Holme, Ringer & Co. and reached an agreement to charter the Olga for a period of eight months at 5,000 yen per month, a stunning figure that reveals the Japanese determination to remain in the industry and hints at the reason for Ringer’s willingness to stop operating the vessel. From this time onward, Holme, Ringer & Co. participated in the whaling whaling and fishing 105 industry by chartering its whale catcher and subsidiary vessels to Nippon Enyō Gyogyō and providing advice about negotiations with Korea and the shipyards in Norway. The loss of the Daiichi Chōshū-maru in a storm off the coast of Korea in December the same year again pushed Nippon Enyō Gyogyō to the brink of financial disaster, but the Olga fortunately enjoyed a good winter season and the company managed to stay intact. Oka Jūrō visited Nagasaki in June 1902 to negotiate with Holme, Ringer & Co. about the renewal of the charter contract on the Olga.8 The book ‘History of Norwegian-style Whaling in Japan’ states that Oka noticed the presence of another Norwegian whaling vessel in the harbour, namely the 25-tonne Rex, and struck a bargain with Holme, Ringer & Co. to charter it on the same terms as the Olga. Little information is available about the Rex and its sister-ship the Regina (under construction in Christiana at the time), but it is likely that Holme, Ringer & Co. ordered the two whalers from Norway for sale to Japanese companies. Fredrik Olsen, formerly captain of the Olga, transferred to the Rex and commanded the vessel on its first successful season flying a Japanese flag in the waters off Korea. Oka was hankering to win a concession from the Korean government similar to or better than that enjoyed by H.H. Kejzerling, but the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 unexpectedly saved him the trouble. Japanese forces captured Kejzerling’s whalers, floating factories and other vessels in the early months of the war and interned the crews as prisoners-of-war, bringing an abrupt end to Russian participation in the industry.9 In August 1905, Holme, Ringer & Co. sold the Olga to Oka Jūrō for 60,000 yen. The Japanese company, renamed Tōyō Gyogyō (Oriental Fishing Co.), ordered three new whale catchers – the Ikazuchi-maru, Inazuma- maru and Akebono-maru – from the Akers Mekaniske Verksted shipyard in Christiana, despatching Fredrik Olsen, Morten Pedersen and other Norwegian employees to guide the ships back to Japan. Pedersen died on board the Ikazuchi-maru during the voyage, but Fredrik Olsen returned safely to Japan in early 1907 and resumed his position as an expert whaler and teacher to a new generation of Japanese hands. He married a Japanese woman named Tomita Mitsu and remained in Japan for the rest of his

8 The shipping intelligence published in The Nagasaki Press shows that the Olga arrived in Nagasaki on 12 June 1902 and departed on 20 September. 9 Tønnessen and Johnsen, p. 134. The Japanese government was fully aware of the military agenda pursued by the whaling fleets and so treated them as warships. 106 chapter seven life.10 Responding to a government initiative in 1908, six companies including Tōyō Gyogyō merged to form the ‘Tōyō Hogei Kabushiki Kaisha’ (Oriental Whaling Co. Ltd.). Oka Jūrō was appointed first president, and the company went on to control some 70% of the total whale catch in Japan. On 1 November 1906, Frederick Ringer wrote to the British consul in Nagasaki informing him that he had been asked to ‘accept the post of Consul for Norway at Nagasaki, an honour of which I have been apprised in the receipt of the Diploma from H.M. the King of Norway and also the document bearing the Japanese Imperial exequatur’ and requesting that this information be relayed to the British Embassy in Tokyo.11 Although no further information is provided, it is safe to assume that Ringer received this appointment because of his longstanding contributions as an agent for Norwegian ships visiting Nagasaki and a mediator in the purchase of whaling vessels from Norway. In the book Present-Day Impressions of Japan published in 1919, Holme, Ringer & Co. is credited with ‘starting the whaling industry of Japan’.12 Although somewhat inaccurate in view of the long history of traditional whaling in Japan and the early successes of H.H. Kejzerling’s fleet, it is at least true in the sense that the Olga began operations before the birth of the first Japanese company implementing the modern Norwegian method and that Fredrik Olsen and other former Holme, Ringer & Co. employees served as pioneers and teachers in the modern whaling industry in this country. On 4 February 1908, only a few days after the news of Frederick Ringer’s death appeared in Nagasaki newspapers, a whale swam by mistake into the narrow inlet of Nagasaki Harbour and caused a stir among the local population.13 To some, startled by the timing, the unusual visitor may have seemed like the embodied spirit of the British entrepreneur returning for a final visit to his second hometown, noticing with sadness that the bank- rupt Nagasaki Hotel was about to be abandoned by Holme, Ringer & Co. but finding comfort in the success of other enterprises and turning back

10 Personal communication from Morten Pedersen’s granddaughter Marie-Louise Rören. Fredrik Olsen died in 1949 and was buried in the Yokohama Foreign Cemetery. Mitsu Olsen, thirty-five years younger than her husband, died in 1987 at the age of ninety-three. 11 Frederick Ringer to Harold G. Parlett, 1 November 1906 (FO 796/158). 12 W.H. Morton-Cameron (ed.), Present-Day Impressions of Japan (Chicago: The Globe Encyclopedia Co., 1919), p. 808. 13 The Nagasaki Press, 5 February 1908. whaling and fishing 107 and swimming past the mouth of Nagasaki Harbour and out into the vast- ness of the East China Sea.

Japan’s First Steam Trawlers

The west coast of Kyūshū, where the whale fled in February 1908, is caressed by warm ocean currents flowing north to the Yellow Sea and East China Sea and carrying rich schools of mackerel, yellow tail, sea bream, squid, bonito, sardines, tilefish, sole and tuna. The wide continental shelf has waters less than 200 metres in depth and provides one of the best fishing grounds in the world. The early fishing industry implemented single lines as well as nets either pulled from shore or submerged using buoys. Traditional techniques prevailed in Japan throughout the nineteenth century, but the trawling method, which involved the dragging of a pocket-shaped net from the stern of a moving ship, came into vogue in seventeenth-century Europe and soon became the primary style of fishing in the North Sea, Irish Sea and other areas. Fishing centres emerged in Aberdeen, Hull, Grimsby and Milford Haven along with facilities for the construction of trawling vessels. By the end of the nineteenth century the sailing ships of old were giving way to steamships equipped with engines to drive both the propeller and trawling winch and a deck and hold specially designed for the sorting and storage of fish.14 Frederick Ringer perceived the great potential of steam trawlers in the Japanese fishing industry and the ideal conditions of Nagasaki to serve as a base. Only a few months before his death in 1907, he gathered capital from Japanese and foreign investors and established the Steamship Fishery Co. with headquarters in the Holme, Ringer & Co. office, appointing the now thirty-seven-year-old Kuraba Tomisaburō to serve as general manager.15 The first step taken by the new company was to purchase a steam trawler from England, a 169-tonne iron-side ship called Hene Castle built in 1898 at the Cook, Welton & Gemmell shipyard in Hull for Castle Steam Trawlers Co. of Swansea.16 Renamed Fukaye-maru, the trawler arrived in Nagasaki Harbour in May 1908 and began work as part of the first successful steam trawling operation in Japan.17 (Fig. 7.1)

14 ‘The Steam Trawler: Its Evolution and History’, The Fishing News, 20 February 1915. 15 Nagasaki City Chronology, p. 142. 16 http://www.llangibby.eclipse.co.uk. 17 Shibata Keishi, Nagasaki no shokikisen to torōru gyogyō (Early Steamships in Nagasaki and the Trawling Industry) (Kaijishi Kenkyū, Vol. 59, 2002), pp. 17–18. 108 chapter seven

Figure 7.1. The Steamship Fishery Co. steam trawler Fukaye-maru in Nagasaki Harbour ca. 1910.

In an eight-page report on the trawling industry submitted in 1912, the acting British consul in Nagasaki, Gerald H. Phipps, mentions that the first experiment in trawling had been conducted in Hokkaidō in 1903 but proved a failure because of resistance from the traditional industry, the defective construction of the ship employed, and the unsuitability of the fishing grounds selected. He goes on to describe the beginnings of the industry in Nagasaki and the conditions there: It was not until four years later, in 1907, that another attempt was made to establish the industry, this time with success. A British resident of Nagasaki had seen the possibilities of Nagasaki as a base for trawlers and exerted himself to interest others in the scheme, although he did not himself live to see the fruition of his ideas. A company was formed with a capital of Yen 150,000, and a steam trawler ordered from Grimsby to commence operations. Considerable prejudice was at first experienced among the people, who resented the invasion of the market by the ‘frozen fish’, but this was soon overcome and the advantages of a cheap and plentiful supply of fish were soon recognized. The increase in the general scale of living within recent years and particularly since the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 had led to a greatly increased demand for marine products of all kinds, which gave the promoters of the company a decided advantage over their predecessors, four years earlier. The example of the pioneer company was whaling and fishing 109

soon followed, and Japan’s trawling fleet has now grown to considerable proportions.18 As Phipps indicates, traditional fishing communities protested the introduction of steam trawling because it seemed to threaten their livelihood and, although the idea of resource depletion was yet to gain a niche in the collective consciousness, because it was so effective and indiscriminant in catching fish that it seemed to ‘empty the ocean’. Kuraba Tomisaburō pla- cated these concerns by promising not to operate the company trawler in coastal areas where traditional fishing was underway. In a letter dated 4 June 1908, he jubilantly informs his father Thomas B. Glover, who was living in Tokyo at the time, about the successes of the Steamship Fishery Co.: The steam trawler ‘Fukaye Maru’ is doing unexpectedly well. I did not expect her to pay her expenses during the summer season, but I see she will… Our daily expenses at present is [sic] about Y.83 and her last 16 days earning aver- ages about Y.107, so there is gross profit of Y.24 per day. Please do not make this information known to the public as there will be more opposition companies starting. You need not be afraid of our boat fishing too near the shore as our Captain has a strict instruction from me to that effect, moreover we find that there is no special need of it at all; there are plenty of other good grounds to work on.19 The early successes of the Steamship Fishery Co., as well as a Japanese government decision to subsidise the use of steam trawlers, triggered the establishment of several new trawling companies and the refitting of building berths at the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard and other shipyards for the construction of Japan’s first steam trawlers. Shimonoseki briefly pushed ahead of Nagasaki as a trawling station because of its proximity to the centres of population and convenient location at the head of the main railway line on Honshū Island. In 1912, however, complaints about the unbridled activities of trawlers and the damage done to fishing grounds and submarine telegraph cables spurred government legislation to limit the areas accessible to trawlers to the west and south of Kyūshū. This legislation, especially the closure of the fishing grounds in Tsushima Strait, effectively restored Nagasaki’s preeminence in the industry and stimulated the expansion of the related infrastructure in the port. The Steamship Fishery Co. increased its fleet to five ships, including the Tsuruye-maru and Tomiye-maru built at the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard

18 ‘The Trawling Industry in Nagasaki’ (FO 262/1122/68–75). 19 ‘Private Letters’ (Folder 17–1067–1, Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture). 110 chapter seven in 1911. In his 1912 memorandum, the Nagasaki British consul reports that Nagasaki City had constructed a large fish distribution facility on the wharf near Nagasaki Railway Station, that the Nagasaki Fish Market had been relocated there for the convenient landing and marketing of trawler catches, and that the local ice factory was doubling its output to meet the huge demand from refrigerator cars carrying fish to the Osaka and Tokyo metropoli. The consul concludes his report with the following comment: ‘The pioneers of the trawling industry in Japan have every reason to feel satisfied with the progress made by their new enterprise and confident as to its prospects for the future.’ The groundbreaking work of Holme, Ringer & Co. indeed propelled Nagasaki to the forefront of the modern fishing industry in Japan, a position that the city continues to hold to this day. However, the golden age of trawling and the activity of the Steamship Fishery Co. did not last as long as the British consul imagined. The number of steam trawlers operated by local companies soared from six in 1908 to 139 in 1913. This brought about a dramatic, commensurate increase in the volume of catches, but it resulted in a collapse in the price of fish and pushed many operators to the brink of bankruptcy. When the First World War broke out the following year, the Japanese government offered to purchase steam trawlers for military use at prices four or five times the original cost of the ship, and many of the operators acquiesced and withdrew from the industry.20 By 1917, only seven steam trawlers remained registered in Nagasaki, and the local fishing industry was now relying on deep-sea net fishing using two ships working in pairs in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea. The Steamship Fishery Co. disbanded in early 1917 and sold its fleet to the Italian government for use as warships in the Mediterranean Sea, bringing an unexpected end to Japan’s pioneer steam trawlers. Kuraba Tomisaburō enlisted Jewish merchant Sigmund Lessner to convene an auction in March the same year at the Holme, Ringer & Co. office, where interested citizens gathered to bid on a ‘foreign-made iron safe, thirteen chairs, two writing desks, one gas stove’ and other remnants of the company.21 Circumstances shortened the career of Japan’s first steam trawling company, but one indirect product of the undertaking has left an enduring mark in the field of scientific art. In 1912, the same year that government legislation assured Nagasaki’s advantage as a port for steam trawlers,

20 Nagasaki Fish Market Co. (ed), Uoichidayori, No. 39. 21 The Nagasaki Press, 17 March 1917. whaling and fishing 111

Kuraba Tomisaburō began to commission Nagasaki artists to paint watercolour illustrations of fish coming up in the trawler nets. During his stint as a biology student at the University of Pennsylvania, Kuraba had seen the precise illustrations of animal and fish species decorating textbooks. His curriculum had even included a course in freehand drawing from animal models. Aware that no fish atlas of the scale of those existing in Europe and America had been produced in Japan, he decided to launch system- atic research on the fish and other species in the waters worked by the steam trawlers and to compile an authoritative fish atlas based on this information. However competent, the Japanese artists he employed had little experience or interest in the kind of photographic style demanded for the atlas. Kuraba had to present examples of the appropriate kind of illustration and patiently supervise the initial attempts. The completion of the atlas required a period of twenty-one years and the painstaking efforts of five different artists. In addition to the zoological name of each species, Kuraba noted the names in English, standard Japanese, and local dialects where appropriate. Entitled ‘Fishes of Southern and Western Japan’ but referred to in local parlance as the ‘Glover Fish Atlas’, this dazzling work of art and science consists of 823 minutely detailed watercolour paintings, including 700 illustrations of 558 fish species and 123 illustrations of shell and whale species, executed on Kent paper and bound in a series of registers. Several years later, Kuraba Tomisaburō received a visit from Shibusawa Keizō, the future governor of the Bank of Japan and founder of the Japanese Ethnology Society. Shibusawa himself was a student of ichthyology and the author of a book entitled Nippon Gyomei Shūran (Collection of Japanese Fish Names). He had heard about the fish atlas compiled by Kuraba and arranged for a visit to see it, later writing about the event as follows:

I remember that it was about one o’clock when we arrived at Mr Kuraba’s house. He welcomed us warmly and immediately started bringing the volumes of the atlas down from a large bookshelf… The paintings were done on English Kent paper and were bound in thirty-four volumes. It was an enormous work that had taken more than twenty years to complete… Some of the fish illustrated in the atlas had been obtained from the trawler catches, but in most cases Mr Kuraba had gone to the Nagasaki fish market himself to search for new species. Each time he found one he bought it and carried it to the artist for reproduction. Of course the artists had had no experience in this field of endeavour. Mr Kuraba’s efforts to guide them in the production of a scientific fish atlas were certainly of no common order. The zoological names of the fish were included on each illustration. Mr Kuraba had 112 chapter seven

determined the names through the course of his own research and had carefully written a question mark beside those about which some doubt remained. I was particularly impressed to see that in many cases he had included the names applied to the fish in local dialects… Each volume Mr Kuraba showed me I examined with great pleasure and fascination, sometimes writing down interesting local fish names. The time slipped by unnoticed, or at least unnoticed by me. I remember it took a full three and a half hours to look through the entire atlas. Mr Kuraba seemed very pleased as he brought the books to the table and answered my questions. However, I am afraid that it was very boring for Mrs Kuraba and my two companions. Later we were kindly invited to have a cup of tea and some delicious canapés. By the time I expressed my thanks and bid my hosts farewell, Nagasaki Harbour, which was visible from Mr Kuraba’s house, was already flushed with the colours of sunset.22 After a journey as turbulent as the fate of its owner, the ‘Fishes of Southern and Western Japan’ ended up in the Nagasaki University Library, where it remains to this day as one of Japan’s most celebrated fish atlases.

22 Shibusawa Keizō, Kuraba shi gyofu ga futatabi nagasaki ni modoru keii (How Mr Kuraba’s Fish Atlas Returned to Nagasaki) (Unpublished handwritten document dated 1950 and preserved in the Nagasaki University Library.) Shibusawa visited Kuraba Tomisaburō in May 1941, only a few months before the outbreak of war. In his last will and testament, Kuraba bequeathed the fish atlas to Shibusawa Keizō, who in turn donated it to Nagasaki University after the war. Quotation translated from Japanese by the author. CHAPTER EIGHT

WURIU SHOKWAI AND THE SHIMONOSEKI CONNECTION

The twin towns of Shimonoseki and Moji face each other across Kanmon Strait, a narrow channel separating the extended fingers of Honshū and Kyūshū in an S-shape like the Grand Canal in Venice. The site is famous for the 1185 Battle of Dan-no-Ura when the forces of the two great clans of Genji and Heike clashed, the latter fleeing in defeat and giving a name to the crabs that populate the strait and bear a pattern on their shells resembling a sad human face. In 1612, Miyamoto Musashi vanquished his nem- esis Sasaki Kōjirō in a duel on the island of Ganryūjima, going on to achieve almost saintly status in Japanese popular culture as a swordsman, artist and philosopher. Then, in 1863, Shimonoseki made world headlines when disgruntled militants of the Chōshū domain (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture) fired cannons at foreign ships passing through Kanmon Strait and, after a brief squabble the following year, surrendered to a multinational force and abandoned further resistance to the opening of Japan’s doors. As international trade and transportation increased in the latter part of the nineteenth century, foreign commercial vessels, mail steamers and warships frequented Kanmon Strait on their way back and forth between Nagasaki and Kōbe, and facilities for their fuelling and supply as well as the exchange of merchandise began to appear in Shimonoseki on the Honshū side and Moji on the Kyūshū side of the strait. However, the two cities remained off-limits to foreign commercial enterprises because they were not among the ports opened for trade according to the treaties of 1858. The emergence of Shimonoseki and Moji as links in the network of trade in East Asia did not go unnoticed by Frederick Ringer, ensconced in Nagasaki but ever on the lookout for new business opportunities. From the earliest years of the Meiji Period, Ringer had foreseen the abolition of extraterritorial rights for foreigners and the emergence of Japan as an economic power, and he had tried to rise above the legal barriers of the foreign settlement and to build bridges into the Japanese community. He was careful to the point of fastidiousness, stopping to ‘tap a stone bridge before crossing it’ as the Japanese analogy goes, but on the other hand he showed 114 chapter eight a remarkable ability to divine social, political and commercial changes and to adjust his strategies accordingly. As outlined earlier he was one of the first entrepreneurs in Japan to establish a private telephone line with a Japanese counterpart, namely the Mitsubishi Coal Office in Nagasaki. He also took a strong personal interest in waterworks and other public projects for the betterment of the port as a whole. When he founded the Nagasaki Steam Roller Flour Mill in 1889, he welcomed investments from the Eighteenth Bank and other businesses in Nagasaki and joined with Japanese representatives on the board of directors. Similarly, his alliance with Matsuo Miyoji, a leader of the Japanese business community in late nineteenth-century Nagasaki, allowed him to proceed with his plan to build petroleum storage facilities on the outer shore of Nagasaki Harbour. Frederick Ringer saw the geographical advantages of Shimonoseki and Moji as ports-of-call for foreign ships but could not take action because the two towns were outside the designated treaty ports. He overcame this obstacle by joining with a Japanese associate named Uryū Hajime and establishing a subsidiary company called ‘Wuriu Shokwai’.1 The relationship between Frederick Ringer and Uryū Hajime and the circumstances of the company foundation are mostly undocumented, but it is likely that Uryū’s younger brother Furuu mediated the process. As noted earlier, Uryū Furuu was manager of the Mitsubishi Coal Office in Nagasaki and a close friend and collaborator with Frederick Ringer in the planning of the Nagasaki Waterworks. His brother Hajime was a poet, author, and fluent English speaker who had served previously as principal of the Osaka Science Institute and first chief inspector at Kōbe Customs and so was ide- ally suited for the position of leader, or rather symbolic leader, of the new business enterprise in Shimonoseki. Shipping intelligence carried in The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express shows that Frederick and Carolina Ringer boarded the NYK mail steamer Yokohama-maru on 25 June 1890, travelled together from Nagasaki to Shimonoseki, and returned a week later. Uryū Furuu’s name is evident among the passengers travelling to Shimonoseki in early July, suggesting that he was on hand to assist his brother Hajime and friend Frederick Ringer in launching the new company. The earliest mention of ‘Wuriu Shokwai’ in historical documents is a small article in the 15 October 1890 issue of the above newspaper reporting in a rather triumphant tone that

1 The name would be spelled ‘Uryū’ today, but before the adoption of the Hepburn System of Romanisation it was rendered as ‘Wuriu’. Similarly, the word shōkai (merchant company) was often spelled ‘shokwai’. wuriu shokwai and the shimonoseki connection 115 the company’s steam launch Bertie made its first excursion in Shimonoseki flying the Japanese flag. (Fig. 8.1) As a de facto branch office of Holme, Ringer & Co., Wuriu Shokwai served as agent for the various shipping and insurance companies (including Lloyd’s) with interests in the twin ports of Shimonoseki and Moji. Like the head office in Nagasaki it also engaged in international trade, although exports and imports in the early years were literally black and white, that is, almost exclusively coal from the mines of northeastern Kyūshū and sugar from the Taikoo Sugar Manufacturing Co. of Hong Kong, respectively. The company office was located at No. 27 Nishinabe-chō, a busy waterfront area where Shimonoseki City Hall, the Central Post Office and other government institutions and business offices would later appear. The original staff included Uryū Hajime as figurehead and a few Japanese clerks and errand-runners hired locally. Uryū served briefly as vice-chairman of the Bakan (the old name of Shimonoseki) Chamber of Commerce but soon retired, leaving Wuriu Shokwai in the hands of British employees despatched from the Holme, Ringer & Co. head office in Nagasaki. The first Briton was Matthiessen Smith, who enjoyed the added

Figure 8.1. Foreigners pose for a photograph in Shimonoseki ca. 1895. Frederick Ringer is standing in the rear, third from left. Carolina is sitting in the centre. The young woman wearing a dark skirt and holding a tennis racket on the left is Hana, the daughter of Thomas B. Glover. (Fujiwara Yoshie Memorial Museum) 116 chapter eight distinction of being the first foreign merchant to settle in Shimonoseki. Smith’s successor was Walter G. Bennett, the future husband of Thomas B. Glover’s daughter Hana and Holme, Ringer & Co. representative in Korea. In 1895, Bennett surrendered the manager’s chair to Neil B. Reid, a native of Renfrewshire, Scotland, who would stay in the port until his death in 1920 and become the Shimonoseki equivalent of his employer Frederick Ringer in Nagasaki: trade magnate, merchant-consul, and representative of the foreign community. The revision of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, which came into effect in July 1899, removed restrictions on foreign business and residence outside the foreign settlements. In theory it also allowed Holme, Ringer & Co. to stop camouflaging its Shimonoseki branch office, but ‘Wuriu Shokwai’ had become so well established by the end of the century that no effort was made to change the name. In the summer of 1899, shortly after the treaty revision, British diplomat Ernest Satow visited Moji and Shimonoseki and enjoyed the hospitality of Neil B. Reid. Impressed by the business potential of the twin ports, he sent a message to the Foreign Office recommending the establishment of a consulate at Shimonoseki, which he described as ‘already an important shipping port’.2 The consulate was opened in temporary offices on 2 September 1901. Six months later the first consul, Frank W. Playfair, submitted a confidential report on the situation in the twin ports and suggested that the consulate be formally established in Shimonoseki rather than Moji because ‘the firms on the Shimonoseki side manage most of the steamship agencies, and the larger part of the chartering and other business is done through them as brokers’.3 Playfair also points out that Shimonoseki is a safer refuge for ships in storms, that the water supply is more reliable, and that ‘the inhabitants of Shimonoseki are altogether of a better class than that of Moji’. With regard to the foreigners residing in the district he says: There are nine resident male foreigners in Shimonoseki and the same number in Moji, but of the former eight are British, of the latter only five. Wuriu Shokwai is the trade name of the local branch of Holme, Ringer and Company, the well known British firm of Nagasaki and has three British subjects in its employ here. Browne and Co. of Moji, although an American firm, is worked by two British subjects. The import business chiefly affecting foreigners is refined sugar and is entirely in the hands of the Shimonoseki

2 Ian Ruxton (ed.), The Diaries and Letters of Sir Ernest Mason Satow (1843–1929), (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1998), pp. 272–3. 3 ‘Report on the Site for H.B.M.’s Consulate for the Shimonoseki District’, 1 April 1902 (FO 797). wuriu shokwai and the shimonoseki connection 117

representatives of British firms, except for an occasional transaction by the German firm at this port. Lloyd’s Agents for Moji are stationed at Shimonoseki. Moreover, the British agencies at Shimonoseki are much more numerous than those at Moji. Playfair ends his report with a table showing the number of ships that called at Shimonoseki and Moji in the last four months of 1901 and first three months of 1902. The companies mentioned are, in Shimonoseki, Wuriu Shokwai, Samuel, Samuel & Co., Jardine, Matheson & Co. and Raspe & Co. (German) and, in Moji, Browne & Co., Drewell & Co., Mitsui Bussan Kaisha, Taniguchi, Ōhashi, and Illies & Co. A total of 170 and 99 ships visited Shimonoseki and Moji during the above period, respectively, and 137 or 80% of the former and more than half of the total for the two ports were consigned by Wuriu Shokwai, statistics that reveal the predominance of the company in the area. As Playfair points out in his report, the company’s main role in the business of Shimonoseki and Moji was broker for the export of coal from the Kyūshū colleries, an industry that was rapidly expanding around the turn of the century. (Fig. 8.2)

Figure 8.2. The staff of Wuriu Shokwai in Shimonoseki ca. 1907. The man with the white beard in the centre is Uryū Hajime, company figurehead and brother of Frederick Ringer’s colleague Uryū Furuu. To his right is Neil B. Reid, de facto manager. The foreigner sitting in the second row, second from left, is Robert McKenzie, who would succeed Reid as manager after the latter’s death in 1920. (Harold S. William Collection, National Library of Australia). 118 chapter eight

Fujiwara Yoshie, the ‘Rudolf Valentino of Japan’

Like most of the staff of the Holme, Ringer & Co. head office in Nagasaki, Neil B. Reid and the other British employees stationed in Shimonoseki lived either in rooms attached to the company office or buildings provided for their use. Frederick Ringer’s disapproval of international marriage may explain why not one Holme, Ringer & Co. employee – let alone a Ringer son or grandson – ever married across the border of race, even though opportunities for romantic encounters with Japanese women were obviously far more abundant than those with European women. If they could not find a suitable European partner in Japan, the young Britons coming to work in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki had only two realistic alternatives: either to remain single or to marry a sister, cousin or niece of a colleague introduced though the channels of Holme, Ringer & Co. and sent to Japan from ‘back home’. It is reasonable to assume nevertheless that many of the men who chose bachelorhood engaged in extramarital liaisons with Japanese women and kept the news as far away as possible from the ears of their obstinate employer. As a result, the relationships were skeletons that rarely left the proverbial closet. The brief love affair between Neil B. Reid and the Shimonoseki geisha Sakata Kiku, however, marched down the corridor of history because it produced a son, named Fujiwara Yoshie, who, after an Oliver Twist-like childhood, gained international renown as the ‘Rudolf Valentino of Japan’ and later wrote about his parents in his autobiography.4 Fujiwara reports that, when his mother became pregnant in 1898, Reid promptly terminated the relationship and did what many a gentleman of Meiji Japan did under similar circumstances: gave his consort a bundle of tegirekin (‘severance money’) and banished her from his sphere of activity. Sakata left Shimonoseki for her hometown of Osaka and gave birth to the baby there on 21 August 1898. Fujiwara surmises that his father was persuaded by friends to pay the woman off and avoid the social stigma of fathering a child with a geisha, but the decision may in fact have been informed by the unspoken yet implacable Holme, Ringer & Co. policy forbidding international marriage. This conjecture garners some support from the fact that Reid remained single for the rest of his

4 Fujiwara Yoshie, Ryūten nanajūgonen: opera to koi no hansei (Vagabond for 75 Years: A Life of Opera and Love) (Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Center, 1998). wuriu shokwai and the shimonoseki connection 119 life and later provided generously for his son’s education in Japan and Europe. Sakata Kiku kept her promise to stay away from Reid, but she later returned to Kyūshū and wandered from town to town with her son looking for work. When Yoshie was seven she placed him under the care of a geisha house owner in Ōita Prefecture named Fujiwara Tokusaburō, through whose auspices the boy acquired both Japanese citizenship and the sur- name that he would use for the rest of his life. After that he followed his mother back to Osaka and, rather than attending school, worked as an errand boy and store apprentice. In 1909, at the age of eleven, he came to Shimonoseki at the request of his father, who had apparently corre- sponded with his mother and expressed a wish to give the boy ‘the best education available in Japan’. Fujiwara saw his father for the first time in the Wuriu Shokwai office in Shimonoseki, but the two shared little more than a few hours together. Fujiwara famously recalls that the only thing his father said to him was ‘sayonara’. Reid shuttled the boy back to Osaka with instructions to enter Gyōsei Gakkō, an exclusive international school established by Marianist priests in Tokyo. Despite the change from rags to riches, Fujiwara continued in his wild ways, going on to drop in and out of one posh school after another until finally breaking away at the age of eighteen and finding work as an actor and singer in theatres. It was there that his radiant good looks and beautiful voice attracted attention. In 1919, bent on travelling to Italy to study opera, Fujiwara visited his father in Shimonoseki for the second and last time and asked for financial support. He recalls in his autobiography how he took a rickshaw from Shimonoseki Railway Station to his father’s house, how he ran up the steps and met the faithful servant Mr Muraoka at the door, and how …my father came walking down the corridor making a loud sound with his slippers and pulling a gown over his pajamas. He embraced me with all his might. I had never experienced anything like it before. He took me by the arm and led me into the interior of the house. It took less than an hour to inform him about all the ups and downs of my irresponsible life over the past ten years. After that, I told him about my plan to study opera in Italy and he responded with unreserved delight. ‘I know a little about opera too’, he said. ‘I had an opportunity to see a performance when I was in school. You must know this one…’ With that he walked over toward the veranda singing a phrase from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado with typical British bravado. Aggravated by a cold, his rather off-key rendition was laughably melodra- matic, but it made me happy. I had never and would never again feel the bonds of family love as poignantly as I did during those three happy days with my father. He probably also felt a rush of love for a son who resembled 120 chapter eight

him so uncannily. We enjoyed dinner together looking out over the waters of the Genkai Sea. My father’s appetite was startling.5 Fujiwara Yoshie left Shimonoseki with 300 yen in his wallet and a heart buoyed by a promise from his father not only to fund his trip to Europe but also to provide a monthly allowance of 150 yen for expenses. While preparing to leave Japan at the end of 1919 he accepted an offer to perform in a Japanese production of Faust that he remembered later was so bad that Charles Gounod would have ‘fainted in shock and disgust if he had been there to see it’. In the middle of this production he received a tele- gram informing him of his father’s sudden death. He boarded a train to Shimonoseki to attend the funeral – held on 17 January 1920 at the Wuriu Shokwai manager’s residence – and to join the subsequent procession to the public cemetery. Among the people gathered to bid farewell to Neil B. Reid were Frederick Ringer’s widow Carolina and two sons Freddy and Sydney, former Holme, Ringer and Co. executive James H. Wallace now residing in Hong Kong, Kyūshū coal baron Matsumoto Kenjirō, and Kuraba Tomisaburō – the last two serving as pallbearers at the gravesite. Although the sole remaining family member, Fujiwara went unrecognised at the ceremony and was relegated to the second last rickshaw in the funeral procession. He also discovered later that his father had ignored him in his will and bequeathed his estate to a church in Scotland, a setback that threatened to dash the young man’s hope to study abroad. However, incumbent Wuriu Shokwai manager Robert McKenzie and his fellow employees were aware of Reid’s arrangements for his son and made sure that the necessary funds were provided as promised. Fujiwara travelled to Italy in the summer of 1920 and began a career as an opera tenor that would straddle the globe, win countless accolades and decorations, and span the following half-century.6

House of the Autumn Leaves

The newspaper article on Neil B. Reid’s funeral reports that the cremated remains were carried across Kanmon Strait from Moji ‘for temporary

5 Fujiwara Yoshie, pp. 40–1. Translated from Japanese by the author. 6 Fujiwara returned to Japan an international star and established the Fujiwara Yoshie Opera Company in 1934. His work after the Second World War included presentations of Madame Butterfly, but Fujiwara expressed a dislike for Puccini’s famous opera, not only because it portrayed Japanese characters so disparagingly and inaccurately, but also because it elicited painful memories of his own turbulent childhood. Fujiwara Yoshie died in Tokyo in 1976 at the age of seventy-seven, a legend in his time. wuriu shokwai and the shimonoseki connection 121 sojourn at the “Koyokan”, Shimonoseki (Holme, Ringer & Co.’s Mess), in which house Mr Reid had spent so many happy years before he retired from business’.7 This is evidence that the name ‘Kōyōkan’ (House of the Autumn Leaves) was already being used to refer to the building located on the shoulder of Beniishiyama and acquired by Holme, Ringer & Co. as a residence for the British employees of Wuriu Shokwai. Ernest Satow reports in his diary entry for 23 September 1899, during his first visit to Shimonoseki mentioned above, that Neil B. Reid was renting ‘a house originally built for telegraph operators about 25 years ago’.8 He provides no specific place name but is surely referring to the Western-style wooden bungalow – later to be called ‘Kōyōkan’ – erected for the accommodation of foreign advisers assisting the Japanese government in the installation of a telegraph line between Nagasaki and Tokyo (including a cable across the bottom of Kanmon Strait) in 1872. A panoramic photograph of Shimonoseki taken in 1893 shows the building perched on the hillside overlooking the rooftops of the town and the waterfront area. The distinctive Western features of the building are also evident in picture postcards of Shimonoseki taken from the summit of Beniishiyama in the early twentieth century. In his account of his visit to Shimonoseki in 1909, Fujiwara Yoshie reports that his father was living ‘on the hillside above Kameyama Shintō Shrine, a place with a panoramic view over Kanmon Strait said to be the best in the city’. These facts indicate that Kōyōkan had served as living quarters for Europeans from the early years of the Meiji Period when Shimonoseki and Moji were still tiny fishing and supply ports and that Frederick Ringer, with Uryū Hajime’s assistance, took over the property in 1890 for use as a company residence. On 1 October 1912, the chijōken (above-ground rights) to the Kōyōkan property were officially transferred from Uryū Hajime to Frederick Ringer’s two sons Freddy and Sydney.9 Valid for 999 years (i.e. forever), this contract mimicked the perpetual leases granted by the Japanese government in the foreign settlements of Nagasaki, Yokohama and other treaty ports. Frederick Ringer’s optimistic prediction regarding Shimonoseki and Moji proved true. Combined, the two ports gained such momentum that they surpassed Nagasaki as a centre for trade and international business

7 The Nagasaki Press, 21 January 1920. 8 Ian Ruxton (ed.), The Diaries of Sir Ernest Satow, British Minister in Tokyo (1895–1900): A Diplomat Returns to Japan (Tokyo: Edition Synapse, 2003), p. 392. 9 From documents preserved today by Holme, Ringer & Co. I thank Takemoto Kazuhiro for this information. 122 chapter eight after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. The establishment of the nearby Yawata Steel Works in 1901 also elicited a boost of activity in the two ports. Steamers ferried people back and forth across Kanmon Strait, dodging coal barges and passenger liners and giving the narrow channel all the look of Victoria Harbour separating Hong Kong Island from the mainland at Kowloon. The construction of large new coal-loading facilities at the Moji waterfront brought about a dramatic increase in the volume of the city’s prime export item, while rows of imposing Western-style office buildings and public institutions – including the neo-renaissance- style Moji Railway Station – reminded visitors of its growing wealth and importance. In 1906, the British Consulate moved into a fine new brick and stone building in the Karato-chō neighbourhood of Shimonoseki. Designed by government architect William Cowan, whose next project would be a new consulate in Nagasaki, the building incorporated Western and Japanese styles and materials and remains to this day as a nationally designated ‘Important Cultural Asset’. (Fig.8.3) The fortunes of Shimonoseki were deeply entwined with those of the Korean city of Pusan (Busan). The Sanyō Steamship Co. launched a regular

Figure 8.3. Picture postcard showing the Karato-chō neighbourhood of Shimonoseki. The inscription bears the date 1939 and a note of permission from the local military police. The former Shimonoseki British Consulate, in use since 1929 as the Wuriu Shokwai office, is the two-storey brick building in the centre. (Author’s collection) wuriu shokwai and the shimonoseki connection 123 service between the two ports in 1905, the same year that Japan declared Korea a protectorate and paid for construction of the Gyeongbu Railway line between Pusan and Seoul. After the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910, the Shimonoseki-Pusan ocean route changed from an international to a domestic service and a vital link in Japan’s efforts to expand onto the continent. Holme, Ringer & Co. moved its Korean branch office from Chemulpo to Pusan the same year, clearly to take advantage of the strategic importance of the Shimonoseki-Pusan connection and to offset Nagasaki’s decreasing role in international exchange. The trade returns for the first eleven months of 1911 reveal the widening gap between Nagasaki and Moji in commercial activity: imports and exports valuing 9,788,945 and 3,226,860 yen respectively for Nagasaki and a resounding 18,604,899 and 13,104,357 yen respectively for Moji.10 As in Nagasaki, however, the involvement of foreign firms in this trade was shrinking. The dwindling role of Wuriu Shokwai and other foreign businesses, compounded by a general increase in the cost of living in Japan, convinced the British Foreign Office to close the consulate in Shimonoseki. On 15 February 1922, acting consul Ferdinand C. Greatrex wrote to the embassy in Tokyo expressing his opinion that, after the closing of the Shimonoseki consulate: It seems highly desirable for the smooth working of the Consular Agency that it should be in the hands of Holme, Ringer’s agent and no other, firstly from the point of view of the Superintending Consular Officer at Nagasaki, where the personnel of Holme, Ringer’s head office form the most influential section of the foreign community, and secondly because McKenzie, their agent here, unquestionably has higher qualifications for the post than [other candidates].11 After a few months of discussion – interjected with protests from the mayor of Shimonoseki who wanted his British friends to keep the consulate running as a symbol of the port’s international status – the final decision was made, and Greatrex wrote to Robert McKenzie, manager of Wuriu Shokwai, officially appointing him consular agent in Shimonoseki.12 Greatrex then closed the facility and sent the archives, registers, and other important possessions to the British Consulate in Nagasaki, which assumed jurisdiction over the entire Kyūshū district.

10 The Nagasaki Press, 16 December 1911. 11 F.C. Greatrex to H. Gurney, 15 February 1922 (FO 797/44/29). 12 F.C. Greatrex to R. McKenzie, 4 May 1922 (FO 797/44/86). 124 chapter eight

From this time onward, Kōyōkan functioned not only as a residence for the manager of Wuriu Shokwai but also as a consular enclave, adding a new aura of authority and glamour to the old building on the Shimonoseki hillside. While handling the British consular agency, McKenzie and his successors also served as acting consuls for Norway, Sweden, Belgium and other countries. By November 1929, when Wuriu Shokwai moved its Shimonoseki premises over entirely to the consulate building in Karato- chō, the branch office of Holme, Ringer & Co. was the uncontested hub of international commerce and diplomacy in the port, flying the Union Jack from its rooftop, issuing birth certificates and landing bills, and riding a wave of success as coal exporter, Lloyd’s Agent, and shipping, banking and insurance agent.13

13 The contract signed by Sydney Ringer and the British Foreign Office in November 1929 called for Wuriu Shokwai to take over payment of the 2,500 yen per annum ground rent to the City of Shimonoseki (FO 262/2082/124). CHAPTER NINE

THE SECOND GENERATION

Frederick Ringer’s loyal lieutenants Neil B. Reid, James H. Wallace and Percy J. Buckland kept Holme, Ringer & Co. functioning smoothly after the death of their employer in 1907 and faithfully fulfilled his dying wishes. Reid shouldered responsibility for Wuriu Shokwai and the company’s other interests in Shimonoseki and Moji. Wallace moved to Korea in 1910 to supervise the removal of the Chemulpo (Incheon) branch office to Pusan, later returning to Nagasaki to head the insurance business in that port. He married the daughter of Frederick Ringer’s former partner John C. Smith and lived with his family in the Smith family residence at No. 9 Minamiyamate, a two-storey Western-style building set in a spacious Japanese garden on the skirt of the hill behind the Nagasaki Hotel. Buckland served as interim leader of the Holme, Ringer & Co. trade and ship brokering business as well as acting consul for Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Portugal, in the meantime taking on the unpleasant task of liquidating the Nagasaki Hotel and disposing of all the related property. Neil B. Reid remained single, but Wallace and Buckland took the other alternative available to them as employees of Holme, Ringer & Co., that is, to marry fellow Britons introduced through company channels. They established families in Japan but fastidiously maintained their British identity, manners and social customs and avoided unnecessary excursions into the steamy backdrop of ‘native’ society. They surrounded themselves with European furniture, entertained friends as they would in London or Glasgow, and looked out over Nagasaki Harbour as though confirming a route of escape to the safety of home. They also raised their offspring in the appropriate middle-class British fashion, giving them little more access to Japanese culture than the lullabies sung by the family amah, the distant noise of Buddhist and Shintō festivals, and a few strange foods like abalone, butterbur sprouts and sea chestnut slipped onto the dinner table by the Japanese cooks. The children either attended mission schools in the foreign settlement, where English or French was the lingua franca, or travelled back to Britain to enter boarding schools. Although supported in this lifestyle by troops of faithful Japanese servants and dependent on 126 chapter nine

Japanese employees, colleagues and customers in the realm of business, the residents of the former foreign settlement seldom attained articulacy in the Japanese language. In 1908, the British consul in Nagasaki, asked by the embassy in Tokyo to draw up a list of Britons capable of serving as interpreters in times of emergency, deemed only two men in the entire consular district – which included all of Nagasaki, Saga, Kumamoto and Kagoshima prefectures – sufficiently knowledgeable of the language to be called ‘fluent’.1 (Fig. 9.1) Frederick Ringer’s two sons Freddy and Sydney were not on the list compiled by the consul, which indicates that they lacked a working

Figure 9.1. The members of the Nagasaki Club pose for a photograph ca. 1910. Kuraba Tomisaburō is wearing a black hat and standing in the centre behind veteran NYK captain Wilson Walker. The four young men squatted on the lawn are (left to right) Percy J. Buckland (Holme, Ringer & Co.), William O. Watts (US Army Depot), Freddy Ringer, and P. Rosomon (Holme, Ringer & Co.). (Nagasaki Glover Garden)

1 F.W. Playfair to Sir Claude Macdonald, 25 June 1908 (FO 262/1007). The two men were the cousins Wilson Walker Jr. and Robert Walker Jr., both of whom had been born and brought up in Japan. The latter, whose mother was Japanese, was listed by Playfair as ‘Eurasian, not registered as a British subject’. Both were described as ‘very fluent’ in spoken Japanese but ‘nil’ in the written language. Kuraba Tomisaburō was not on the list because he was already a naturalised Japanese citizen by this time. the second generation 127 knowledge of Japanese and relied like most other Euro-American residents on Japanese employees for help in bridging the language barrier. Still, the brothers cut an unusual figure among their contemporaries in that, although firmly ensconced on the British side of the fence, they were groomed from childhood to follow in their father’s footsteps, to live permanently in Japan, and to continue the business in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki without any change to the old policies of Holme, Ringer & Co. On the one hand this characteristic of the Ringer family reflects a rather stubborn attachment to the old ways of the foreign settlement; on the other it smacks of the Japanese custom of seshū, that is, the assumption that a son should inherit his father’s business and uphold the traditional family occupation. Freddy attended Edinburgh Academy, the Alma Mater of Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson, and returned to Japan around 1905. His name appears in the list of employees at Wuriu Shokwai from 1906 to 1908, indicating that his father sent him to the Holme, Ringer & Co. branch office in Shimonoseki to learn the rudiments of business under Neil B. Reid. Although the circumstances are unclear, it was probably some error or indiscretion committed by Freddy in Shimonoseki that caused the older Ringer to lose faith in his son’s ability and delay the timing of his appointment as a partner in the company. Back in Nagasaki in 1909, Freddy lived with his mother at No.14 Minamiyamate and participated in the gam- bit of sporting and social activities in the former foreign settlement. Sydney Ringer returned to Japan in 1909 after graduating from St. Paul’s School, one of the first nine public schools in England and originally attached to St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The renowned humanist and theologian Erasmus penned many of the textbooks used at the school, a fitting coincidence considering the frequent use of the name ‘Erasmus’ by both the Ringer and Gower families. From the onset, Sydney was his father’s choice as heir to the leadership of Holme, Ringer & Co. and successor to his various business and diplomatic posts in Japan. One of the first social events in which the adult Freddy and Sydney both participated was a dance held in April 1910 by the Nagasaki Rowing and Athletic Club, an institution founded by the boys’ father in the pre-Meiji years. The dance enjoyed good attendance and the added blessing of fine weather and entertainment by Carolina Ringer and other local musicians, and the newspaper articles reporting the event gave every indication of prosperity and continuity. But the Nagasaki Rowing and Athletic Club operating committee announced the closure of the club only weeks later and ran advertisements for the sale of the property. The building, boats 128 chapter nine and other accessories fell into the hands of a Japanese buyer, and the ‘regatta’ fell from the calendar of the former foreign settlement and sank permanently into the lagoon of history. Today, the site of the former club- house and boat-launching beach is an oily tangle of ship-repair yards built on reclaimed land. While the population and energy of the former foreign settlement gradually dissipated, Holme, Ringer & Co. adjusted to the changing times, cutting staff and abandoning unprofitable arms of the company business such as the Nagasaki Hotel, Nagasaki Steam Roller Flour Mill and petroleum storage tanks at Kōzaki.2 In April 1914, the company held an auction in the warehouse at No. 12 Ōura to sell off all the equipment used in the firing and packing of tea, the business activity that had been the mainstay and initial driving force for Holme, Ringer & Co., not to mention Frederick Ringer’s specialty from the early years in China. The auction adver tisement carried in The Nagasaki Press gives a fascinating list of related equipment – everything from tea-firing pans to bamboo hand-held sieves, tea baskets, platform scales and stencils for the printing of tea labels – while at the same time providing a sad testimonial to the end of the tea trade in Nagasaki and especially the involvement of foreign brokers and exporters.3 Buckland and Wallace obeyed the late Frederick Ringer’s injunctions regarding his children, welcoming Sydney as a full partner in the company on 26 February 1912, his twenty-first birthday, and Freddy on 17 June 1913, his twenty-ninth birthday. Buckland played an additional role as a marriage mediator for the two brothers. The first to tie the knot was Sydney, who married Buckland’s niece (Mollie) Aileen Moore in Nagasaki on 3 April 1913. The author of an article in The Nagasaki Press reports that the British Consulate, the site of the civil ceremony, had never been ‘so prettily decorated as for this wedding; graceful bamboos, flowers, and cherry blossoms of the palest shade had been skillfully utilised and the result justified the long hours of loving labour expended’, and in his description of the religious rite conducted later at the English Church in Higashiyamate he points out that the bridegroom’s parents had married at the same church almost exactly thirty years earlier.4 The congregation included most of the

2 Holme, Ringer & Co. sold its interests in the flour mill to a local Japanese merchant, who continued to run it until it was completely destroyed by fire in 1907. The petroleum tanks went to the Rising Sun Petroleum Co., and their antecedents can still be seen today at the entrance to Nagasaki Harbour. 3 The Nagasaki Press, 7 April 1914. 4 The Nagasaki Press, 5 April 1913. the second generation 129 foreign residents of Nagasaki and a large number of Japanese guests, including the governor of Nagasaki Prefecture and mayor of Nagasaki City, their wives, and the leaders of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard and other local companies, proof of the continuing importance of Holme, Ringer & Co. in the port. After the ceremony, the bridal party and guests proceeded to the Buckland residence at No. 33 Minamiyamate for a celebration and, when the Chikugo-maru steamed out of Nagasaki Harbour carrying Sydney and Aileen on the way to their honeymoon, made a further loud demonstration that echoed from the lawns on the Minamiyamate hillside across the deck of the departing ship. Freddy followed on the heels of his brother on 27 November 1913, marrying Buckland’s sister Alcidie in a ceremony at Christ Church near the Buckland family residence in Wanstead, London. The couple returned to Nagasaki in March 1914 and moved into the family mansion in Minami yamate, where Carolina Ringer threw a welcoming party decorated with wedding gifts from England and Japan and attended by another large group of foreign and Japanese guests who danced ‘until a late hour’. From that time onward the old stone houses at No. 14 and No. 2 Minamiyamate, standing adjacent to each other like monuments on the verdant hillside overlooking Nagasaki Harbour, became the respective residences of Freddy and Sydney Ringer and their families. In 1915, as though taking a cue, Neil B. Reid, James H. Wallace and Percy J. Buckland withdrew from the service of Holme, Ringer & Co. and handed the reins of the family business to Freddy and Sydney Ringer. Reid retired to a hillside house in Shimonoseki and left the management of Wuriu Shokwai to his assistant Robert McKenzie; Wallace sold the house at No. 9 Minamiyamate and moved with his family to Hong Kong; Buckland pulled up stakes in the summer of the same year, announcing his intention to represent a Hokkaidō lumber company in England but going on to live for only two years after returning to his homeland. Freddy and Sydney filled the spaces vacated by their mentors, assuming control over business activities, participating in the official round of parties and commemorative events, and serving as acting consuls for Norway, Sweden, Belgium and other countries in the ports of Nagasaki and Shimonoseki. (Fig. 9.2)

Troubles at Home and Abroad

The establishment of the Ringer brothers as successors to Holme, Ringer & Co. coincided with a number of changes in conditions surrounding residents of the former foreign settlements. One was the increased financial 130 chapter nine

Figure 9.2. Frederick (Freddy) E.E. Ringer ca. 1930. (Courtesy of Richard Bjergfelt) burden associated with the soaring cost of living in Japan, a trend that continued unabated after the Russo-Japanese War. Like the loss of foreign control over tariffs and customs duties, this helped to correct the huge economic advantage enjoyed by foreigners during the foreign settlement period, but it reduced the profits of companies involved in trade and caused increasing hardship throughout the country. By 1919, the rise in the cost of various staples was causing cries of agony in the Japanese as well as foreign community. One resident compared prices before and after the First World War and pointed out that: ‘Coal rose by 200 percent, sugar by 47 percent, rice by 178 percent, pork by 108 percent, beef by 160 percent, potatoes by 150 percent, and eggs, chickens, flour, fruits, vegetables, canned foods, clothing and shoes by 80 percent.’ The editor of The Nagasaki Press chipped in with the comment that, ‘One can buy five sen [1/100 of a yen]’s worth of almost anything in Nagasaki for fifty sen nowadays.’5 Still another sea change was Japan’s remarkable speed in acquiring pro- ficiency in the ways of Western civilisation. Foreign experts in various

5 The Nagasaki Press, 13 July 1919. the second generation 131 fields of industry, business and education had assisted Japan in gaining the skills and equipment necessary to step out of the shadow of seclusion, but a generation of bright young Japanese was now emerging from schools at home and abroad and replacing foreign supervisors in factories, business offices, laboratories and hospitals and eliminating one of the foreign settlement’s primary raisons d’etre. Take for example the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard. From the time of its inception in 1884 the shipyard had emulated the model of Clydeside shipbuilding and enlisted the help of British experts in a wide range of fields, everything from naval architect and engine draughtsman to boiler maker, diver, rigger, moulder, crane operator and accountant. Holme, Ringer & Co. and other firms in the foreign settlement meanwhile assisted in the import of raw materials, negotiations with the international shipping companies purchasing ships, and the various procedures of Lloyd’s classification and ship insurance. But the foreigners were like teachers in a school from which students eventually and necessarily graduate. On 14 September 1907, the grandest passenger ship ever built on the shores of the Pacific Ocean slid down the ways at Tategami. Christened the Tenyō-maru, the ship (the first over 10,000 tonnes built in Japan) boasted a gross tonnage of 13,500 tonnes, a thrust of 16,850 horsepower generated by oil-burning Parson’s steam turbine engines, a double bottom and frame using more than twice as much steel as any ship built previously at the yard, three manganese bronze propellers, and richly decorated cab- ins and saloons. Except for the engines, everything had been made by Japanese hands either at the shipyard or one of the subsidiary workshops in Nagasaki. Indeed, by the time the Tenyō-maru left its concrete womb and began a career on the Oriental Steamship Company’s Yokohama – San Francisco line, Nagasaki was taking on all the characteristics of a kigyō jōkamachi (corporate castle town), that is, a city that thrives around a single major industry just as certain towns in Edo-Period Japan flourished under the shadow of the castle and daimyo they served. The fact that the tonnage of domestically-built ships surpassed that of imported ships for the first time in 1908 tells everything about the mood of Japan and Nagasaki that year.6 The emergence of Japan as an industrial and military power in the early years of the twentieth century caused a drain on the foreign presence in Nagasaki and other former treaty ports. One organisation after another

6 Nagasaki City Chronology, p. 142. 132 chapter nine transferred to Japanese hands, and the number of foreign residents declined with each passing year. Statistics reveal the trend: the foreign population of Nagasaki decreased from a peak of 1,918 in 1900 (including 1,258 Chinese, 142 Russian, 126 American and 110 British residents) to 1,262 at the end of 1908 (including 843 Chinese, 69 Russian, 88 American and 103 British residents), a 35% drop. Another, exogenous factor was exerting demographical changes on the former treaty ports. Despite its rapid technological progress, Japan was consistently frustrated in attempts to join Britain and the United States in the inner parlour of world power. The Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) stunned the international community with the audacity of an Asian country, just yesterday a quaint little mystery-world of paper lanterns and seaweed soup, defeating one of the world’s great military powers. But the astonishment aroused as much fear as respect. In the summer of 1904, the Japanese minister in Vienna, Makino Nobuaki, responded to a question from a reporter about the ‘yellow peril’, a term that had come into vogue in newspaper editorials about the war. Makino pointed out tactfully that Japan had adopted a policy of national isolation in the seventeenth century in reaction to what it had perceived to be a ‘white peril’, namely the spread of Christianity, and that this decision had strangled the modern development of the country. Then he assured his interviewer that, ‘Our ambition is to be recognized as collaborators of Europe and America in the great development of commerce, industry and culture. Our aim is to contribute to the economic and scientific riches of the world. I hope that in the intelligent circles of the West no one will consider our legitimate wishes and ambitions a “Yellow Peril”.’7 But anxiety over Japan’s new military presence only mounted, especially when The San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers trumpeted the dangers of a powerful Japanese presence in the Pacific and stirred up concerns about unrestricted Japanese emigration to California. The official voice of the Japanese government remained silent on the matter because most politicians dismissed the anti-Japanese sentiments as hot air from extremists. But complacency turned to dismay in 1906 when the San Francisco Board of Education issued an order to exclude Japanese children from public schools. The Japanese consul at San Francisco condemned the decision as an act of racial discrimination, but the Board of

7 The Nagasaki Press, 18 July 1904. Quoted from the Neue Freie Presse. the second generation 133

Education refused to change it, calling the consul’s attention to Article 10 of the School Law of California promulgated in 1903: ‘Trustees shall have the power to exclude all children of filthy or vicious habits or children suffering from contagious or infectious diseases and also to establish separate schools for Indian children and for children of Mongolian or Chinese descent. When such separate schools are established, Indian, Chinese or Mongolian children must not be admitted into any other school.’8 As erroneous as it was racist, this rhetoric monopolised headlines in Japan and elicited a demand from the Japanese government for inter- vention by President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt indeed persuaded the San Francisco Board of Education to rescind the segregation order, and his administration signed a ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’ with the Japanese government announcing a ban on discriminatory immigration policies in exchange for Japan’s promise to deny passports to blue-collar workers trying to leave for the United States. The two countries also agreed to honour their respective interests in the Philippines and Korea. Little overt hostility or discrimination was shown towards foreigners living in Japan, but the turbulence on the other side of the Pacific could only galvanise Japanese determination to transcend its dependence on Western countries and to erase every indication of inferiority. This in turn was bound to hinder the operations of foreign companies like Holme, Ringer & Co., which in the past had enjoyed a virtual monopoly on international trade. At the height of the troubles in California, the Japanese newspaper Ōsaka Mainichi published an editorial gloating over the recent successes of Japanese trading companies: Between the China-Japanese war and the hostilities with Russia, the Japanese importers and exporters greatly developed their businesses, encroaching more and more on the sphere of the foreign merchants… The war has had, indeed, the effect of a good shower of rain in fostering the growth of Japan’s foreign trade. The natural result is that trouble and diffi- culty have come to the foreign merchants in this country… With regard to the present circumstances, it is believed that the Japanese merchants, if they make constant efforts in that direction, will in time obtain the entire interest in Japan’s foreign trade.9 In 1909, the British Embassy in Tokyo conducted a survey of British merchant firms operating in Japan and published the results in a booklet ‘only

8 The Nagasaki Press, 18 November 1906. Quoted from the Neue Freie Presse. These quo- tations were also carried widely in Japanese newspapers. 9 Translated in The Kōbe Herald (quoted in The Nagasaki Press, 31 August 1907). 134 chapter nine for the use of H.B.M. officials’.10 The stated purpose of the booklet was to ‘facilitate the work in the Commercial Intelligence Branch of the Board of Trade in H.B.M. Consulates in Japan’, but another motivation was the need to deal with the growing predominance of Japanese merchants in the import and export trade and their wish, expressed in the above newspaper article, to eliminate foreign competitors. The booklet is divided into three sections. The first two sections present lists of import and export items, everything from acetic acid to zinc ore, along with the names of British companies involved in the trade. Holme, Ringer & Co. is mentioned frequently in these lists, evidence of its wide-ranging business. The third section of the booklet lists all the known companies in the region, the vast majority of the 114 firms named there being shown as having headquarters in either Yokohama or Kōbe. Nagasaki is mentioned only four times in the column of addresses: the offices of Holme, Ringer & Co. and F.H. Hunt (chemist) and the branch offices of Jardine, Matheson & Co. and J. Curnow & Co. (import food store). Aside from Wuriu Shokwai, Shimonoseki and Moji meanwhile appear only as the site of branch offices of Jardine, Matheson & Co., Samuel, Samuel & Co., and Morrison & Co. This information shows that British commercial activity in Japan was still confined almost exclusively to the former foreign settlements, even a decade after the treaty revisions, and that Holme, Ringer & Co. was the main player in western Japan.

Willmott H. Lewis

Frederick Ringer’s only daughter Lina Jessie Ringer followed a path entirely different from her brothers. While Freddy and Sydney married Britons with solid Holme, Ringer & Co. connections and settled in Nagasaki according to Frederick Ringer’s wishes, Lina ignored her father’s protests and married Willmott H. Lewis, the dashing Welsh-born editor of The Nagasaki Press who not only stole the heart of his employer’s daughter but also went on to fulfil the old man’s worst fears by abandoning her for the limelight of the world stage. Born in Cardiff in 1877, Willmott Harsant Lewis received his early education in France and Germany and worked for a newspaper in England

10 ‘List of British Merchants in Japan, Formosa and Tairen, Together with the Imports and Exports They Deal in’ (Compiled in the Office of HBM Commercial Attaché, November 1909) (FO 796/165/164–90). the second generation 135 before securing a job as a reporter with The North China Daily News in Shanghai. He came to Nagasaki in 1902 to serve as editor of The Nagasaki Press and remained in that position until accepting an offer from J.G. Bennett of The New York Herald to report on the Russo-Japanese War. According to his biographer, Lewis spent the following months hobnob- bing with foreign correspondents and political pundits and roaming around Korea, Japan and the United States – ‘handsome, lighthearted, ready to sing, to play poker, to experiment with his talent for “keeping his head above alcohol”.’11 He continued to make Nagasaki a base and to participate in social events, even after leaving his post at the newspaper, and it was around this time that he began to court Lina Ringer and to earn the ardent animosity of her father. The pioneer merchant had seen more than a few unreliable ‘globe-trotters’ dally in Nagasaki over the decades and probably reeled in disgust at the prospect of having one for a son-in-law. Lewis’s capricious resignation from The Nagasaki Press as well as loose- ness in financial matters may also have infuriated the ever responsible and thrifty Ringer. For example, the Nagasaki British Consulate records include a series of letters from an accountant in Shanghai complaining about the journalist’s failure to pay debts incurred in that port.12 The Japanese government decorated Lewis with a medal of honour for his coverage of the Russo-Japanese War, but this was not enough to modify Frederick Ringer’s loathsome assessment. Lina Ringer returned from schooling in England around the same time as Lewis’s arrival in Nagasaki and met him at social events such as charity concerts, parties at the Nagasaki Club, and outings to the rowing beach at Kosuge and hot spring resorts at Obama and Unzen. Both were talented singers, a common interest that may have drawn them together. The Nagasaki Press carried a short article in its 5 December 1906 issue about a recital in the former foreign settlement at which ‘Mrs Ringer and Miss Ringer performed a charming duet on the piano’ and, near the end of January, named Lewis as a participant in a meeting to discuss the affairs of the Public Hall, showing that Lina and Willmott were both in Nagasaki in early 1907. On 6 April, the newspaper reported in an article on another concert at the Public Hall that ‘the instrumental selections were relieved by songs ably rendered by Miss Ringer and Mr W.H. Lewis. The former sang The Rosary and My Secret by Frank Lambert, both being much

11 Maxine Davis, ‘Britain’s Ambassador Incognito’, The Saturday Evening Post, 25 January 1941. 12 Arthur R. Leake to E.H. Holmes, 10 February 1903 (FO 796/150). 136 chapter nine appreciated by the audience. Mr Lewis sang Son of Mine and The Outlaw and as an encore piece The Night Has a Thousand Eyes.’ The tension between Frederick Ringer and his daughter escalated into a passionate standoff when the latter insisted on marrying Willmott H. Lewis. In a letter to historian Harold S. Williams in 1969, James Jordan, a friend of the Ringer siblings who was in Nagasaki at the time, reports that Frederick Ringer was so relentless in his objection that Lina had to ‘flee’ to the house of her friend Claire Bowie.13 The British merchant’s sudden retirement to his villa at Lake Chūzenji and return to England that autumn may also have been instigated by stress over Lina’s decision. The marriage certificate issued by the Yokohama British Consulate-General shows that the couple formally wed on 8 July 1907, and it includes an addendum stating that they had been married in a religious ceremony at the English Church in Nagasaki on 30 May of the same year. Oddly enough, neither the ceremony at the church nor the marriage at the consulate is mentioned in the English-language press, which invariably reported on foreign wed- dings in Japan, especially those of prominent residents like the Ringer family. This suggests that the couple’s union was an elopement, not a sanc- tioned and celebrated marriage. In his last will and testament signed in September 1907, Ringer set out a strict provision concerning his daughter. He states that he had intended to bequeath the Holme, Ringer & Co. head office and land at No. 7 Ōura to Lina, but he instructs his trustees to hold the property under the following condition: It is my will that my said daughter shall receive nothing from my estate so long as she remains the wife of the said Willmott Harsant Lewis, and my trustees shall allow the incomes received from the said property to accumu- late in a separate fund, they being authorised to invest the same in their discretion, until the death of the said Willmott Harsant Lewis, or until the granting of an absolute decree of divorce terminating the marriage relation between him and my said daughter. Lina and Willmott H. Lewis took up residence in the former Yokohama Foreign Settlement while the latter continued his work as a freelance foreign correspondent. Lina gave birth to a daughter, named Lina, in 1908. Two years later, Lewis accepted the position of editor at The Manila Times and moved with his family to the Philippines, where Lina gave birth to a second daughter, named Sydney in an apparent tribute to her uncle.

13 HSWC (MS 6681/2/32/1906). the second generation 137

During their sojourn in the Philippines, the Lewis family made frequent trips to Nagasaki, which seems to show that they had made amends with their relatives or in fact that it was only Lina’s father who had opposed their marriage in the first place. They were there again in December 1913, joining in a party at which Willmott rendered ‘several songs – in English, French and German – in delightful style, the general opinion being that his fine voice was as good as ever and his style even improved.’14 In 1916, however, Willmott and Lina separated, the former drifting to Europe to take up a position with the Committee on Public Information established by the American government in Paris, and the latter returning to Nagasaki to live with her mother at No. 14 Minamiyamate. Willmott H. Lewis displayed his usual powers of observation and analysis – not to mention a chameleon-like ability to cross linguistic barriers – and won a Legion of Honour decoration from the French government for reportage on the war in Europe. By 1917 he was working for The New York World as an ‘editorial expert on Far Eastern affairs’ and contributing erudite commentary to newspapers around the world, including his Alma Mater The Nagasaki Press, where his long article entitled ‘Japan Isolated: One View of the Ishii Mission’ was undoubtedly read by Lina, sitting in a sunlit room at No. 14 Minamiyamate and waiting patiently with her daughters for the Welshman’s return. But Lewis’s journalistic achievements took him in the opposite direction. In 1920, propelled by the recommendation of Lord Northcliff, he assumed the prestigious position of correspondent for The Times of London and moved to Washington DC, abandoning his family and giving truth to his late father-in-law’s darkest predictions. Lina led a quiet life at No. 14 Minamiyamate, supported by her mother Carolina Ringer and brothers Freddy and Sydney. She joined Carolina in the usual round of social events, especially concerts and garden parties held to raise funds for various causes during and after the First World War. Her name appears in related newspaper articles, including a report on a bazaar held in November 1917 to assist refugees of the Russian Revolution passing through Nagasaki in distress.15 While Carolina Ringer supervised the musical entertainment, Lina dressed up as Madame de Pompadour and told fortunes, collecting thanks from the Russian consul in Nagasaki as well as financial contributions from guests. The editor of the English- language newspaper also reported in June 1919 that Lina had sung several

14 The Nagasaki Press, 9 December 1913. 15 The Nagasaki Press, 20 November 1917. 138 chapter nine songs at a concert held by the Nagasaki Philharmonic Orchestra, adding that ‘Mrs Lewis is a real “Nagasakian”, being well know as a member of the Ringer family, to mention which is to immediately cause one to think of Nagasaki.’16 When they came of age, Lina’s daughters were sent to the Sacred Heart Convent (Seishin Jogakkō) at No. 16 Minamiyamate, a short walk from the two Ringer residences.17 Lina accompanied her mother on a holiday to Europe in 1921. The two apparently intended to return to Nagasaki, but Carolina’s health failed and Lina stayed with her mother in London. Carolina Ringer died in September 1924 and ended a colourful life of sixty-seven years, the majority of which had been spent in Italy and her second hometown of Nagasaki. In March 1925, Lina filed a petition for divorce in the British High Court of Justice, charging her husband with three counts of adultery between 1920 and 1925 with ‘a woman unknown to your Petitioner’.18 The judge hearing the case approved the divorce and ordered Willmott H. Lewis, who did not contest any of the charges, to pay Lina £330 a month in ali- mony and a further £150 a month for the education of his two daughters. As it turned out, however, the famous journalist was quickly relieved of the greater part of this burden: Lina died in Epsom, Surrey in 1929 at the age of forty-three, her early demise attributed to a ‘broken heart’ by her descendants. Her daughters Lina and Sydney were twenty-one and seventeen years old at the time. Willmott H. Lewis continued to climb the ladder of journalistic fame, becoming Britain’s ‘ambassador incognito’ in the United States and enjoying celebrity status as a writer and public speaker. After divorcing Lina, he married Ethel Noyes, the daughter of Washington Star owner and first president of the Associated Press, Frank Noyes. He was playing cards with friends in the parlour of the Washington Press Club in 1931 when word came that he was to be made a ‘Knight Commander of the British Empire’ for his journalistic achievements and contributions to Anglo-American cooperation. He lived out the rest of his life as Sir Willmott H. Lewis, fathering a son, divorcing and marrying a third time, and perhaps sometimes recalling the scent of camphor trees and the distant report of fog- horns in Nagasaki Harbour.

16 The Nagasaki Press, 22 June 1919. 17 Personal communication from Wendy Herbert, granddaughter of Willmott and Lina Lewis. 18 ‘L.J. Lewis vs. W.H. Lewis’ (NAUK, J 77/2167). CHAPTER TEN

ROARING TWENTIES, SOURING THIRTIES

The outbreak of the First World War in the summer of 1914 brought shock- waves to Nagasaki but did not significantly alter relationships or ways of life. On the contrary it tended to strengthen bonds among the small expa- triate community and to provide a basis for Anglo-Japanese unity more solid than ever before. Even the Germans living there fared better than in most other countries. The Nagasaki Press reported on the exodus of German nationals en masse from Yokohama, Hong Kong and other ports of East Asia, but it had little to convey about events at home, aside from the closure of the German Consulate and departure of the consul and his family. In fact, the most prominent German-related local interest piece carried by the newspaper in 1914 was an announcement of the death of Carl Boeddinghaus, a German merchant who had lived in Nagasaki for more than fifty years and whose funeral and burial were attended by a throng of leading residents including the governor of Nagasaki Prefecture and the British and Russian consuls. When the German colony of Tsingtao (Qingdao) fell to Japanese forces in November the same year, a mass celebration was held at Suwa Shinto Shrine and a lantern parade of some 50,000 people snaked through the city to the front of the British Consulate and Holme, Ringer & Co. office at Nos.6 and 7 Ōura, where loud cheers of banzai echoed on both sides. However, no damage was done to the former German Consulate down the street at No. 11 Ōura or to the offices and homes of German families remaining in the port. Nagasaki clearly felt as much regret as exhilaration over the armed conflict scorching Europe and disrupting peaceful international trade and communication. During the war, the British consul in Nagasaki responded to orders from the British Foreign Office for lists of Britons eligible for military service, but none of the employees of Holme, Ringer & Co. or other British concerns in the consular district were called to serve. Freddy and Sydney Ringer were in fact deleted from the list ‘on the ground of their eyesight being below the standard required’. Another unstated reason may have been that the Foreign Office considered Holme, Ringer & Co. to be indispensable to British trade and communication in Japan and the two brothers to be important representatives of British interests in the region. 140 chapter ten

Both Freddy and Sydney were also fathers of infant children by the end of 1914. Freddy’s wife Alcidie had given birth to a daughter, named Alcidie Jennie Ringer, in August 1914, and Sydney’s wife Aileen had given birth to a son, Michael Cartmer Gower Ringer, in 1913. Sydney and Aileen became the parents of a second son, born in April 1916 and named Vanya, bringing further happy noise to their house on the Minamiyamate hillside. The British residents of Nagasaki came together on various fronts like their counterparts in the other outposts of East Asia to support the war effort. Local branches of the Patriotic League of Britons Overseas and the British Ladies Patriotic League were formed, and a variety of events was held to raise funds, one of the most notable being the ‘Garden Fete’ held in May every year from 1916 to 1918 in the Ringer residence at No. 14 Minamiyamate. The long reports published by The Nagasaki Press each year read like a roll call of foreign residents of Nagasaki and a testimony to British-Japanese cooperation in the First World War. The participants raised large sums of money from ticket sales, stalls selling refreshments and crafts, and a concert arranged by volunteers from both the foreign and Japanese community. ‘Young ladies and children sold sweets, flags, pro- grammes, fans, etc.,’ reported the newspaper in May 1916, ‘and were conspicuous by reason of charming dresses, reluctance to give change, and inability to remember faces. Their efforts resulted in substantial additions to the receipts.’1 Carolina Ringer, who served as hostess, maître d’hôtel and pianist, orchestrated the festivities, while Lina Lewis joined her mother in duets and sang from the stage set up on the veranda of the Ringer residence. The songs included Love is a Bubble by Frances Allitsen and Till the Boys Come Home (Keep the Home Fire Burning) by Ivor Novello, both expressive of what may have been Lina’s own growing apprehension about her absent husband’s fidelity. By this time, Carolina Rosina Ringer was the unrivalled grande dame of the Nagasaki foreign community, leading anniversary and public holiday celebrations and charity events, throwing open her palatial house for garden parties and concerts and keeping an authoritarian eye not only on her children and grandchildren but also on a generation of young Europeans growing up in the former foreign settlement or arriving to work for Holme, Ringer & Co. James Jordan, son of the Danish superintendent of the Great Northern Telegraph Co. Nagasaki Branch, remembered her as the ‘Nagasaki Mrs Post’ and related the following story heard from her second son:

1 The Nagasaki Press, 23 May 1916. roaring twenties, souring thirties 141

My friend Sydney Ringer told us that his mother was travelling across the U.S. and stopped off to visit a friend in a small mid-Western town. Very annoyed that the railway baggage man dawdled over sorting the bags, she demanded that he bring hers immediately. ‘Do you know who I am?’ she asked grandly. ‘I’m Mrs Ringer of Nagasaki.’ ‘Where’n the hell’s that?’ the man grunted.2 As war raged in 1916 and 1917, various developments exerted an influence on the economy of Nagasaki and established turning points for Holme, Ringer & Co. and other foreign-run businesses. Aside from the seizure of German possessions in northern China at the outset of the war, Japan had little military participation in the conflict and so was able to expand and strengthen its interests in East Asia while the other Allies battled away in Europe. The Mitsubishi Co., which experienced a wartime boom in production, unveiled Japan’s first civilian torpedo factory in the Mōri- machi neighbourhood in 1917, cementing Nagasaki’s role as a cog in the burgeoning military-industrial complex. In a matter of a few short years, Mōri-machi and the other neighbourhoods comprising the northern Urakami district – destined for near-obliteration in the 1945 atomic bombing – became the site of Mitsubishi factories, steel works, dormitories and worker housing. Foreign trade, particularly exports, also saw a sharp increase, although this time Japanese companies were circumventing the former foreign settlement and clutching the lion’s share of profits. The Japanese government actively supported domestic enterprises by providing construction bounties and subsidies and by imposing stiff tariffs, sometimes as high as 100%, on imported manufactures.3 The steam trawlers that had landed rich catches for foreign companies during the pre-war years were sold off one after another to serve as Allied mine sweepers and patrol boats, and by the end of 1917 not a single one remained in Nagasaki. Many international shipping companies also suspended service during the war and refitted their luxury liners for use as hospital ships and troop carriers, thus depriving Holme, Ringer & Co. of one of its most important business activities. Tellingly, the most prominent Holme, Ringer & Co. announcement carried in The Nagasaki Press during the war years was the daily advertisement for White Horse whisky, which the company – as sole agent for Mackie & Co. Distillers, Glasgow, in Japan and Korea – sold at twenty-two yen for a case of a dozen bottles.

2 James Jordan to Harold S. Williams, 27 May 1969 (HSWC, MS 6681/2/32). 3 William W. Lockwood, The Economic Development of Japan: Growth and Structural Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954) pp. 381–2. 142 chapter ten

Decline of an International Port

The construction of buildings in the former Nagasaki Foreign Settlement stopped as the foreign population of the port ebbed away during the first two decades of the twentieth century, leaving an architectural legacy of some 800 buildings of unique quasi-Western design competing for room in the Ōura and Sagarimatsu commercial districts or sinking into the shade of camphor and ginkgo trees in the residential neighbourhoods of Higashiyamate and Minamiyamate. A half a century earlier the settlement had struck a glaring contrast with the traditional Japanese city surrounding it, but now the two townscapes blended together seamlessly and presented a familiar face to ships entering the harbour, like a husband and wife coming to resemble each other after long cohabitation. In 1918, the row of buildings on the Ōura waterfront consisted, from north to south, of the Nagasaki Customhouse, Chinese Consulate, Mitsui Bussan Co. Nagasaki Branch Office, Russian Volunteer Fleet Office, Jardine, Matheson & Co. Nagasaki Branch Office, British Consulate, Holme, Ringer & Co. Office, Genchō Money Exchange, Standard Oil Company of New York Office, Nagasaki Club, and former German Consulate. The buildings facing the harbour on the other side of Ōura River included the Nagasaki Customs Matsugae branch office and No. 6 Customs Jetty, Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Nagasaki Office, and the Nagasaki Hotel – sold off by Holme, Ringer & Co. the previous year but still closed. This long façade included a representation of foreign governments, businesses and banks, but behind it sprawled a gaggle of warehouses, hotels, taverns and shops all once owned and operated by foreigners but now mostly taken over by Japanese entrepreneurs and converted for other purposes. As the volume of harbour traffic decreased and Japanese commercial enterprises took on an ever larger share of the foreign trade, Holme, Ringer & Co. and Wuriu Shokwai moved away from the import and export business and industrial undertakings and concentrated on their well- established role as Lloyd’s agents in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki and representatives for the Canadian Pacific Railway Co., Russian East Asiatic Co. and dozens of other foreign shipping, banking and insurance companies. In a list of foreign steamship companies represented by Nagasaki businesses published in the 1918 issue of the Chronicle and Directory, Jardine, Matheson & Co. and Nippon Yūsen Kaisha are shown as sharing five companies, while the list under Holme, Ringer & Co. runs for more than half a page and includes forty-nine companies. By the time of the Armistice, Holme, Ringer & Co. and Wuriu Shokwai had become Nagasaki roaring twenties, souring thirties 143 and Shimonoseki landmarks as familiar as the historic customs jetties on the waterfront and the old Buddhist temples nestling in hillside forests. The Canadian Pacific Railway Co. liners visiting Nagasaki on the regular voyage between Vancouver and Hong Kong returned to their former schedules after the First World War and brought a particularly welcome gust of activity to Nagasaki Harbour and to the shipping division in the Holme, Ringer & Co. office. Of the three original ‘white empresses’, only the Empress of Japan remained in the Pacific service; the Empress of China had suffered irrevocable damage after running aground in Tokyo Harbour in 1911, and the Empress of India had been purchased by the Maharaja of Gwalior in 1914 and converted into a troopship. However, Canadian Pacific Ocean Services Ltd. had built two new luxury liners for the Pacific service in 1913 – the 16,900-tonne, three-funnel sister ships Empress of Russia and Empress of Asia – and these resumed their visits to the ports of Japan after the war, going on to break every record for speedy passage across the Pacific Ocean.4 (Fig. 10.1) In Nagasaki on the inward voyage, the liners took on mail, luggage, bunker coal and local produce such as rice, oranges, ginger, and canned fish, everything arranged beforehand by Holme, Ringer & Co. One person travelling in 1913 described the scene as follows: Into the hill-girt bay came to anchor a towering white liner, the Empress of Russia, promising home and swift escape from lands in which we would be forever strangers. Our hotel, its rose-garden still flowering forlornly in November, was a stopping-place where the lost souls of Joseph Conrad’s nov- els might have yawned and drunk stupidly to ease their homesickness.5 In 1919, the Globe Encyclopedia Company of Chicago published a 931-page leather-bound book entitled Present-Day Impressions of Japan, probably the first of its kind to provide detailed information on the history, culture and businesses of almost every major city in this country, along with hundreds of photographs depicting people, buildings and scenery. The section on Nagasaki begins with a rundown on the history of the port and continues with descriptions of the three major business entities in the city, that is, Holme, Ringer & Co., Eighteenth National Bank and Sawayama & Co. The photographs include an exterior shot of the Holme, Ringer & co. office on the Ōura waterfront and another of the house at No. 14 Minamiyamate

4 W. Kaye Lamb, Empress to the Orient (Vancouver Maritime Museum Society, 1991), p. 70. 5 Vincent H. Gowen, Sunrise to Sunrise (Victoria: Trafford Publishing, 2008), p. 19. 144 chapter ten

Figure 10.1. Canadian Pacific Ocean Services, Ltd. advertisement in a 1918 issue of The Nagasaki Press. The ‘White Empresses’ called at Nagasaki on the voyage between Hong Kong and Vancouver. (Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture) roaring twenties, souring thirties 145 with the caption ‘A beautiful European residence at Nagasaki’. (Fig. 10.2) The writer of the article describes Nagasaki’s famous foreign firm as follows: To the traveller and merchant of the Far East the name of Holme, Ringer is almost synonymous for that of the port, so intimately associated is its history with Nagasaki. The firm will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary on November 2nd of this year (1918), and has, therefore, the unique record of being the sole representative of foreign trade in this centre for half a century, during which period it has been connected with the various progressive commercial and industrial movements to a most interesting degree, and, indeed, is responsible for the inception of many… The present partners are Mr Sydney Ringer, the senior partner, who is in charge of the business at Nagasaki, and Mr Frederick Ringer, who travels considerably in the interests of the firm… Messrs. Holme, Ringer are the owners of a number of lighters, also fine steam and electric launches. They are large holders of both business and residential property in Nagasaki and it may be added that the firm is the centre of those organizations which have given this small community so honourable a position amongst the supporters of war charities.6

Figure 10.2. Photograph of the Ringer house at No. 14 Minamiyamate published in the book ‘Present-day Impressions of Japan’ in 1919. The photographer had to use a convex lens in order to capture the entire building from the lawn.

6 W.H. Morton-Cameron (ed.), Present-Day Impressions of Japan (Chicago: The Globe Encyclopedia Co., 1919), pp. 808–809. The Eighteenth Bank was founded in 1877, as the name indicates, the eighteenth in a series of national banks launched by the Meiji Government and the hub of modern financial services in this port. The shipping firm Sawayama & Co. was founded in 1909 by the sons of Sawayama Kumaemon, who had worked for many years as a stevedore in the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement. 146 chapter ten

This book appeared on the heels of the Armistice and the worldwide sigh of relief over the cessation of hatred and bloodshed. The citizens of Nagasaki celebrated the end of the First World War as enthusiastically as people in other cities but in fact faced losses, not benefits, from the long- awaited return of peace. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 had brought foreign trade to a virtual standstill, and the enforcement of martial law and stationing of troops had assigned the city a role in the Japanese military machine that permanently changed its economic underpinnings. Mitsubishi Co. had shouldered the greater part of this burden before and during the First World War, accepting orders from the Imperial Navy for the construction of warships and establishing manufacturing facilities in the city. However, for the very reason that military-related projects predominated at the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, the increasing world cry for peace and disarmament in the aftermath of the war spelled hardships for the city. In the summer of 1921, American President Warren G. Harding asked Japan, Britain and several other leading countries to send delegations to Washington to discuss military and territorial issues related to East Asia. One of the topics was the future of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, up for renewal that year but still an object of criticism because it seemed, particularly to the United States, exclusive and out of synchrony with the post-war changes in world politics. On 13 December 1921, the United States, Britain, France and Japan signed the ‘four-power treaty’, agreeing to respect one another’s territorial possessions in the Asia-Pacific region and to terminate the Anglo-Japanese Alliance as of 17 August 1923. The First World War had given Japan and Britain a common purpose, as evidenced by the many expressions of solidarity in Nagasaki during the conflict, but when the above treaty eliminated that link, the two countries began to drift apart politically and psychologically. Another topic of global discussion was the balance of naval power. The ‘Washington Naval Treaty’ signed by Japan, France, Great Britain, Italy and the United States on 6 February 1922 limited the naval armaments of the five signatories and required Japan to scrap several warships including the Tosa, a super dreadnought launched at the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Ship yard the previous December and still undergoing fitting in the harbour.7

7 Work on the Tosa was stopped on 5 February 1922, one day before Japan signed the Washington Naval Treaty, and the project was formally cancelled on 5 May the same year. The ship, still incomplete, was towed to Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, in August and later used as a dummy for shell and torpedo tests. roaring twenties, souring thirties 147

Although widely welcomed even among Japanese people, the treaty exerted a devastating effect on Nagasaki because military-related industries had become such an important driving force for employment and economic activity in the city. The number of workers employed in the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard and affiliated factories, always an accurate index of the city’s economic well-being, plummeted from a peak of 18,008 in 1921 to only 7,716 in 1925.8

Passing of an Iconic Hotel and Newspaper

In 1922, Nippon Yūsen Kaisha announced plans to start a ‘rapid express service’ between Nagasaki and Shanghai, using two British-built steamers that would slash the usual day-and-a-half voyage to less than twenty-six hours. This investment was justified by the dramatic increase in Japanese commercial activity in Shanghai and the expansion of the Japanese expa- triate community to some 80% of the entire foreign population of the port. The link between Nagasaki and Shanghai had become so strong that people jokingly referred to the latter as the capital of Nagasaki Prefecture and told stories about Japanese travellers wearing slippers and carrying no luggage on voyages between the two ports. Christened the Nagasaki-maru and Shanghai-maru, the 550-tonne ships were built at William Denny and Brothers of Dumbarton on the River Clyde. The former reached Japan first and left on its maiden voyage to Shanghai in February 1923. The Shanghai- maru followed a few weeks later and joined its sister ship on the semi- weekly service. The inauguration of this service, which was extended to Kōbe in May 1924, accelerated the construction of dockside facilities on the reclaimed land at Dejima and the extension of the railway line to the waterfront. In former years, large steamships had had to anchor in the middle of the harbour, but now they could pull right up the wharf and disgorge passengers and cargo without the assistance of lighters. Still, none of this was enough to recall Nagasaki’s former glories as an international port. In fact it exerted the opposite effect on the former foreign settlement because the majority of visitors landed at Dejima, several hundred metres north of the old landing steps and customs jetties in Ōura,

8 Nishi-Nippon Jūkōgyō Kabushikaisha Nagasaki Zōsenjo (ed.), Mitsubishi Nagasaki zōsenjoshi zokuhen (Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard History Volume II), (Nagasaki, 1951), p. 38. The number decreased to a low of 6,127 in 1932, the lowest point in Nagasaki’s post- First World War depression, and then climbed back to a high of 25,013 in 1941 during the construction of the battleship Musashi (ibid., p. 66). 148 chapter ten and the new NYK service convinced many of the foreign shipping lines carrying passengers between China and Japan to reduce or cancel their Shanghai-Nagasaki services. The latter development was a particularly hard blow to Holme, Ringer & Co., agents for so many of the foreign ships formerly calling at Nagasaki. Moreover, the new facilities at Dejima were built for the exclusive use of the NYK steamers, which meant that the Empress of Russia and other foreign liners were unable to enjoy any benefit from the improvement. A Kōbe journalist, who had accepted an invitation to join the first voyage of the Nagasaki-maru from Kōbe to Nagasaki and back in May 1924, published a long article about his impressions of the ship and its southerly stopover. In the article he praises the honesty of Nagasaki shopkeepers, the beauty of the town’s famed tortoiseshell ware and the dexterity of labourers relaying coal from harbour barges to ships’ bunkers, but his only observation about the foreign settlement is: At a sailor’s bar-house, the old barkeeper and his foreign wife are taking in some cases of whisky. One hesitates to name their nationality, but they seem rather pathetic reminders of the time when Nagasaki was a busy port… And so back to busy Kobe, in strange contrast to the quietude of Nagasaki, and with many thanks to NYK for a pleasant trip which may be strongly recom- mended to all who wish to get a little sea air and a change of scenery.9 Nagasaki’s unique ikoku jōcho (exotic atmosphere) and long history of international exchange captured the imagination of a new generation of Japanese artists and writers. Takehisa Yumeji (1884–1934) was among them. Takehisa had gained fame in the post-Russo-Japanese War period for his modernistic illustrations, particularly his dreamy portraits of Europeanised Japanese women and children. His works graced the covers of magazines and books throughout the country and epitomised the lighthearted, fashion-conscious tone of the interlude known today as ‘Taishō romanticism’. After a prolonged visit to Nagasaki in the summer of 1918, Takehisa published Nagasaki jūnikei (Twelve Scenes of Nagasaki), a series of watercolours that skilfully evoke this city’s cosmopolitan and slightly decadent atmosphere. Like the journalist from Kōbe, however, he gained inspiration, not from the gleam of a busy international port, but from the afterglow of a once prosperous town in sad but strangely beautiful decline. One victim of the times was the old Nagasaki Hotel. Holme, Ringer & Co. had finally found someone willing to purchase the property collecting

9 The Japan Weekly Chronicle, 15 May 1924. roaring twenties, souring thirties 149 dust on the Sagarimatsu waterfront since 1908. Japanese records identify the buyers as Furumi Yasuroku, Watanabe Teitarō and Matsuo Denzō, and the date of transfer of ownership as 23 October 1917.10 However, the three- some had borrowed heavily and quickly proved unable to either pay off debts or resuscitate the hotel. Mori Arayoshi, a Nagasaki greengrocer and one of the principal creditors, took over ownership in November 1919 and opened the doors to guests the following month, but despite his efforts the hotel never regained its former glory as a posh stopover for affluent foreign travellers or pivot of activity in the former foreign settlement. The loss of patronage resulting from the completion of Dejima Wharf was the coup de grace. Mori closed the doors permanently in November 1924, only a few weeks after the death of Carolina Ringer in England. Sadly, the demise of this historic monument on the Nagasaki waterfront and elegant creation of the famous Josiah Conder elicited little interest or regret in the newspapers, a fact that underlines just how low its profile had sunk. The Nagasaki Prefecture government tried to have the hotel converted into a dormitory for Japanese emigrants to South America, but this plan never came to fruition. A Japanese ice manufacturer later purchased the lot and summarily tore the building down, and today nothing as much as a foundation stone remains.11 The decline was evident on other fronts as well. The old Public Hall at No. 31 Ōura, once a busy social hub for European residents, was sold off and soon torn down and replaced by a Japanese Protestant church. The Nagasaki Masonic Lodge was also declared dormant as a result of the depletion of members, particularly the retirement of the last foreign employees of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard who had formed the core of the lodge since its inception in 1885. Almost every issue of The Nagasaki Press published after the First World War carries an advertisement for the auction of furniture and household utensils by departing foreign residents. A virtual stream of dining room tables, leather chairs, Venetian mirrors, chests-of-drawers and sideboards, Sheffield silverware sets, brass beds, cut glass and other imported items flowed out of the houses in the former foreign settlement and disappeared into the Japanese

10 Kyūtochidaichō (Old Land Register), Nagasaki Legal Affairs Bureau. 11 The exact date and circumstances of the removal of the building are unclear. The entry in the Kyūtochidaichō (Old Land Register) indicates that the property (Nos 43, 44, 45 Sagarimatsu) was purchased by the Ryūmon Ice Company on 13 December 1927. In its 30 March 1928 issue, The Nagasaki Press reports the intention of the Ryūmon Ice Company to build a factory on the ‘former site’ of the Nagasaki Hotel, indicating that the building had already been torn down by that date. 150 chapter ten market. The dissolution of foreign settlement culture was at hand: the end of opulent parties and dances attended by a clique of wealthy foreigners and decorated with Empire pennants, corsets and white table cloths; the end of the leading role of foreigners in local trade and industry and their smug assumption that the West was the wise teacher and the East the eager pupil in international engagements. The keynote event was undoubtedly the shutting down of The Nagasaki Press, the last of a series of English-language newspapers serving as a voice for the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement since 1861. In 1917, Holme, Ringer & Co. had announced its decision to close the already troubled newspaper, but a group of Japanese businessmen had stepped in, hoping to keep it in print as one of the last indications of Nagasaki’s status as an international port. By the summer of 1928, however, the red ink was too deep and the readership too shallow to allow further hesitation. The final issue on 31 July proclaimed the end of English-language journalism in Nagasaki with the terse comment: ‘We beg to announce to our subscribers and advertis- ers, as well as to the general public, that on and after 1 August 1928, the publication of the “Nagasaki Press” will be suspended until further notice.’ The editor of The Japan Chronicle in Kōbe hailed The Nagasaki Press as ‘the oldest foreign newspaper in Japan’ and reported on its demise as follows: For several years past such an ending seemed inevitable; in fact from the time of the Russo-Japanese War, when the trade of the port sustained a severe blow by the stoppage of the lucrative trade with North China and Siberia. When the war ended the business, or the greater part of it, went to the newer ports of Moji and Tsuruga. In course of time the trade would have gone to those ports, as they are better situated for its conduct, but the war provided an opportunity for summary transfer which would otherwise have been lacking. The great improvement in means of communication also gravely affected the Press, as much larger journals published at Shanghai and Kobe reached Nagasaki in twenty-four hours with world news in greater detail than could possibly be supplied by the local paper. Another factor, possibly, was the lack of support from the foreign community, which is small and transient, few residents expecting to make a permanent stay in the port and fewer still being interested in its business prosperity.12 The headaches of foreigners remaining in the former foreign settlement worsened in 1924 when the American government passed a bill to completely suspend Japanese immigration. The United States was traditionally

12 The Japan Chronicle, 8 August 1928. roaring twenties, souring thirties 151

‘open’, but when unemployment and housing shortages increased after the First World War, the racial intolerance already brewing on the west coast spilled across the continent and tipped public opinion in favour of limitations. During deliberations in Congress, a proposal was presented for the exclusion of all persons ineligible for naturalisation, which meant non-white ‘Asiatics’. This legislation, widely known by its nickname ‘the Japanese exclusion bill’, was passed on 18 April and approved by President Calvin Coolidge on 26 May. The news from Washington caused an erup- tion of anger and dismay in Japan. People throughout the country joined in demonstrations, parades and public meetings to denounce the bill. Newspapers trumpeted outrage over the insult to Japanese pride. Public address systems rattled with cries for the permanent designation of 26 May as ‘National Dishonour Day’, for boycotts on American goods, and for a ban on American literature and the Hollywood movies recently in vogue. The principal of the Nagasaki Higher School of Commerce suggested at a gathering in Nagasaki that: ‘The Japanese people should persevere and strive to attain real power, economically, politically, and in military affairs, but particularly in economics, while conducting their relations with foreign countries in such a way as to win the respect of other nations.’13 This moderate position generally prevailed thereafter, but the exclusion order also blew the lid off a pressure cooker of nationalist fury and gave a confident new voice to militant activists. The residents of the former Nagasaki Foreign Settlement did not suffer any direct consequences but nevertheless found themselves in an awkward position. If Japanese are barred from the United States, their Japanese neighbours might ask, why are Americans and Britons allowed to stay in Japan? In short, the failure of Japan to win parity and respect abroad eroded patience at home with legal remnants of the former foreign settlements, especially the cozy loophole of the ‘perpetual lease’ and other obsolete privileges enjoyed by the foreigners still living there. (Fig. 10.3) The ‘Peace Preservation Law’, enacted by the Japanese government the following year, sprang from a hotbed of conservative reaction to the insult from the United States, to increased leftist activity around the country, and to the spread of Western culture and customs. In effect, it empowered the government to silence political dissent and to impose a system of thought control on the Japanese population. At the core of the system was kokutai. Translated as ‘national essence’, this concept had been expounded

13 The Nagasaki Press, 6 May 1924. 152 chapter ten

Figure 10.3. Alcidie Ringer (daughter of Freddy and Alcidie) prepares to fly a kite with Ringer family amah Obama Yoshi ca. 1925. Nagasaki Harbour is visible in the background. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Newton) in the Edo Period by scholars trying to break Japan’s adherence to Confucianism and other imported systems and to revive indigenous Shinto doctrines. The scholars applied the term to the unbroken imperial line descending from the sun goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami and to the unique status of the Japanese people as a family with the emperor as patri- arch. The inclusion of the term in the Peace Preservation Law of 1925 transformed it from a bookish abstraction to the moral responsibility of every Japanese person to avoid all diversions from the ideological main- stream. Needless to say, there was no room in the edifice of kokutai for foreigners. As though sensing the beginning of the end, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank closed its Nagasaki branch office in April 1931 and sold its property in this port. The buyer was an eccentric resident of Shanghai named S.J. Halse who took a romantic interest in Nagasaki but never actually lived there. Completed in 1904, the imposing Western-style building on the Sagarimatsu Bund, like the Nagasaki Hotel standing beside it, had appeared at the peak of Nagasaki’s prosperity as an international port but become increasingly incongruent as the local economy spiralled downward and the world stumbled through the Great Depression. The bank roaring twenties, souring thirties 153 enlisted Holme, Ringer & Co. to serve as its agent in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki, an obvious choice in view of the fact that the company was by far the most important and well-established business presence in Nagasaki. An investigation regarding perpetual leases still in effect in the former Nagasaki Foreign Settlement, conducted by the British Consulate in 1931, revealed that, either individually or jointly, the Ringer brothers held the rights to twenty lots including the company office at No. 7 Ōura, the houses and other residential property in Minamiyamate, a wide swath of land in the Ōura commercial district, and the Nagasaki International Club at No. 7 Dejima. In addition, the brothers held the ‘above-ground rights’ to the spacious Kōyōkan property in Shimonoseki, the timber rights to more than two acres of forested land in Nara Prefecture, the facilities associated with the branch office in Pusan (Busan), Korea, and a jointly-owned lumber business in Otaru, Hokkaidō, and a large number of shares in various leading Japanese companies. The villa at Lake Chūzenji had been sold off at some point, presumably because the Ringer family no longer used it as a holiday destination. A small team of Britons including Freddy and Sydney, P.R. Rosomon and William Sainton continued to supervise the business in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki, but the bulk of work was now in the hands of more than fifty section managers, clerks and other Japanese employees pulling up the rear. Kuraba Tomisaburō (T.A. Glover) also remained at his desk, playing an indispensable role as a bridge between the foreign and Japanese communities of Nagasaki.

Collision on the Continent

The ‘Mukden Incident’ of 18 September 1931 marked the beginning of a dark chapter in Japanese history and a new set of tribulations for foreign residents. A dynamite explosion destroyed a section of the Japanese- owned South Manchurian Railway near Mukden, and Japanese authorities promptly blamed Chinese insurgents for the crime. The Chinese government and much of the international community meanwhile denounced the incident as a plot hatched by the Imperial Japanese Army. Although the true nature of the event remains a subject of controversy to this day, Japan had sufficient reason to seek control over the northeastern Chinese province of Manchuria and block further Russian encroachment in the region. Industries were languishing in the midst of the crippling economic depression, food production was failing to keep pace with a population that had more than doubled in sixty years, the ranks of the 154 chapter ten unemployed were swelling, emigration had been limited by exclusion from the United States and other Pacific-rim countries, and the inhabitants of farming and fishing villages were teetering on the brink of starvation. The extension of Japanese control to Manchuria promised to solve these problems by providing an outlet for the surplus population and access to rich sources of oil, coal, minerals, timber and grain. As Japanese troops swept into the area and laid foundations for a puppet government, China called for a boycott on Japanese products and appealed to the League of Nations for help. While all this was transpiring, the British Foreign Office proposed to close the consulate at Nagasaki and, as at Shimonoseki a decade earlier, to engage a British resident to serve as consular agent. The reasons included the soaring cost of living in Japan and the reduced role of Nagasaki in trade. Freddy and Sydney Ringer were prime candidates, but Ferdinand C. Greatrex, who had assumed the position of consul in 1927, deemed them unfit for the job of consular agent because of their habit of taking turns going on furlough to England, so regularly that ‘neither would ever become familiar with Consular routine any more than they can be considered properly conversant with their own business, which is run by their Manager Rosoman.’14 In spite of every indication to the contrary, the Foreign Office decided to keep the Nagasaki Consulate open after all. The principal reason was that: ‘All classes of Japanese set great store by the historical associations of this place with foreign countries, and the first suggestion of our withdrawal will, I am sure, cause a much greater outcry than that heard in the case of Hakodate or Shimonoseki.’ In other words, just as the foreign settlement had become a mere ghost of its former self, Nagasaki’s position in British-Japanese relations was more in the realm of nostalgia than economic profit or strategic importance. (Fig. 10.4) The Foreign Office charged Ferdinand C. Greatrex with jurisdiction over British interests in the entire Kyūshū district, including the area of northern Fukuoka Prefecture encompassing the prefecture capital of Fukuoka, the trade port of Moji, and the city of Kokura which was gaining clout as a steel-manufacturing centre. The Ringer brothers, meanwhile, continued their custom of yearly holidays, serving as acting consuls for Britain and other countries while leaving the daily drudgery of Holme,

14 F.C. Greatrex to Sir Francis O. Lindley, 18 October 1931 (FO 796/192). P.R. Rosoman worked for Holme, Ringer & Co. without break from 1905 until the 1930s, rising from junior assistant to a signing partner in the company. roaring twenties, souring thirties 155

Figure 10.4. Picture postcard showing the Ōura waterfront street ca. 1920, with the Union Jack flying in front of the British Consulate and the Holme, Ringer & Co. office on the far right. (Author’s collection)

Ringer & Co. and Wuriu Shokwai to faithful employees. Freddy’s wife Alcidie joked that the company name should be changed to ‘Home Ringer’ because one of the brothers was always away. While in England, Sydney and his family rented Sutherland Lodge, a country manor on the edge of the North York Moors near the home of Dr Sydney Ringer in Lastingham. Constructed of Yorkshire sandstone with a Welsh slate roof, the grand Victorian house boasted a labyrinth of spacious rooms, crenellated watchtower, and several outbuildings including a coach house, storage rooms and servants’ quarters, all set in some seven acres of pristine pasture and woodland. Although the Ringer women may have thought differently, this pastoral location was ideal for Sydney and his many guests because it allowed them to indulge freely in their favourite pastime, namely bird hunting. It probably also gave them a sense of relief from the physical and spiritual constraints of life in Japan. Family photographs capture Sydney and Freddy and Sydney’s two sons Michael and Vanya relaxing with friends in front of Sutherland Lodge, many equipped with shotguns for excursions to the woods nearby. Other photographs show the young brothers sitting on a flight of stone steps in front of the gothic front door, both of which remain intact to this day and whisper forgotten tales of the Ringer family sojourn. 156 chapter ten

In January 1932, Henry B. Hitchcock, the American consul in Nagasaki, submitted a report to the American Embassy pointing out that Nagasaki was suffering more than any other Japanese port in the aftermath of the invasion of Manchuria and attributed it to Nagasaki’s proximity to the troubled Chinese continent.15 The geographical characteristic that had given this port a great advantage in times of peace was now causing its economic ruin. Hitchcock also commented on the remarkable lack of discussion on the subject, despite its grave importance to the people of Nagasaki: Where the national interests are involved, it is practically impossible to find in vernacular publications, or to elicit in conversations with Japanese, opinions which are in the least at variance with the declared policies of the actual heads of the government. The charge, or even a hint, that one is unpatriotic is more than a normal Japanese can face. This characteristic keeps the population entirely docile while operations are in progress. The people of Japan knew nevertheless that their country was heading into dangerous uncharted territory. They celebrated Empire Day (kigen- setsu) with special fervour in February 1932, and newspapers noted trium- phantly that 2,592 years had passed since the first emperor, Jimmu, acceded to the throne and established his capital in ‘Yamato’. At the same time, however, an odd innuendo caught the common imagination, the observation that the year 1932, if rendered digit by digit, reads i ku sa ni, which means ‘to war’, while 2592, the corresponding year on the Japanese calendar, reads ji go ku ni, which means ‘to hell’.16 How remarkably pro- phetic this play on words would turn out to be. That summer, an overblown ‘spy scare’ caused Henry B. Hitchcock new headaches. An American resident of Shanghai wrote to the consul asking for his advice about bringing a car to Japan to drive to Nagano Prefecture. He wanted to know what procedures would be necessary and, if it proved impossible to import the car, how much it would cost to hire a car in Nagasaki with or without a chauffer. Hitchcock visited the Nagasaki Prefecture Office with representatives of the Japan Tourist Bureau and a local car company to make enquiries. The following day, a local newspaper

15 Henry B. Hitchcock, ‘Annual Report on Commerce and Industry’, 27 January 1932 (US Consulate Records Nagasaki, Record Group 84, UD598, Vol. 262, US National Archives [NARA], College Park). 16 The Japan Chronicle, 27 February 1932. roaring twenties, souring thirties 157 published an article with the prominent headline ‘A Foreigner’s Pleasure Tour of Japan; Negotiations at Nagasaki for a Motor Car to Drive with no Japanese Whatsoever in Car; Some Special Object in View?’17 However unfounded and later refuted, the suggestion of espionage made an indeli- ble impression on the public and paved the way for similar accusations that dug a moat between Japanese and foreign residents. The report issued by the Lytton Commission, the investigatory body appointed by the League of Nations to look into the causes of the bloodshed in China, crowded newspaper headlines at home and abroad during the last months of 1932. While trying to maintain impartiality, the commission rejected the Japanese claim that the Imperial Japanese Army had acted in self-defence after the Mukden Incident and concluded that the puppet state of Manchukuo had been established under duress. In February 1933, the general assembly of the League of Nations raised a motion to name Japan the aggressor and call for the withdrawal of troops; Japan replied by pulling out of the League of Nations, ignoring international opinion, and strengthening its grip on Manchuria. American scholar Herbert Adams Gibbons had warned of this consequence a year earlier: Because we have not allowed Japan to share in the development of the two Americas, Australasia and Africa, she is going to insist eventually on playing the major role in her own part of the world. There is an eminently practical aspect to a European-American ‘hands off’ policy in the Far East. The strong- est of bottles, if filled too full, will break when you jam in the cork. And somebody is likely to get hurt by the flying pieces.18 Nagasaki’s military-related industries jerked into motion, and people yielded, willingly and otherwise, to the patriotic fever spreading through the land. On 23 May 1933, the mayor of Nagasaki wrote to the foreign consuls in the city announcing that air-raid drills were to be held the following week and requesting that all foreign residents be informed of the rules related to blackouts and simulated evacuations. The letters contained an illustrated pamphlet showing the proper manner of shrouding lights in order to make the city inconspicuous to bombers approaching at night.19

17 Nagasaki Nichi Nichi Shimbun, 7 September 1932. English translation from the report in the American Consulate Archive. 18 From an article in The New York Times reprinted in The Japan Chronicle, 17 February 1932. 19 Kusama Hideo to the foreign consuls, 23 May 1933 (NARA Record Group 84, UD598, Vol. 270). 158 chapter ten

Then in June the following year, the foreign consuls received a notice from the Japanese Foreign Ministry demanding that measures be taken to urge all foreign residents and visitors to strictly obey the yōsaichitaihō (Fortified Zone Law) banning photography, sketching and unnecessary observation of areas of importance to national defence throughout the country. The entire port of Nagasaki was a fortified zone, but, because of its other status as a tourist destination, it became the site of repeated infractions of the above law, mostly by unwitting sightseers pointing their cameras at Shintō shrines and other forbidden objects. The enforcement of the law was left to the kempeitai (military police) and tokkō (special civilian police force), who clamped down ruthlessly on legal violations and any other form of thought or behaviour that strayed from the main- stream. (Fig. 10.5) The aggression in Manchuria and broken international relationships translated into a general mood of xenophobia and, as a matter of course,

Figure 10.5. The roof of ‘Niban’ and Nagasaki Harbour ca. 1930. Photographs of this sort were officially banned because they revealed the line of mountains and the industrial facilities of Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard on the opposite shore, both considered military secrets at the time. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Newton) roaring twenties, souring thirties 159 into animosity towards the colonial powers of East Asia, namely Britain, the United States and the Netherlands, obstructing Japan’s aspiration to establish a new order in East Asia. This often showed its head in odd ways, such as the decision to replace English-language captions on picture postcards with captions in Esperanto, a constructed auxiliary language that apparently seemed less imperialistic to Japanese legislators. Another peculiar measure was the implementation of a new method of romanisation of the Japanese language. The Hepburn System had been widely adopted after J.C. Hepburn used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language in his 1887 Japanese-English dictionary. Although based on English phonology, this system provided a relatively accurate rendering of Japanese words and names. Under the new system, the sounds shi, ji, chi, and tsu were rendered as si, zi, ti and tu, transforming the city names of Moji and Karatsu into Mozi and Karatu, sushi into susi, and Shintō into Sintō. Clearly, the new system was enforced, not to provide a more accurate method of transliteration, but to repudiate foreign influences and assert Japan’s authority in matters related to the national language. In some cases however it backfired. Prince Chichibu, the younger brother of Emperor Hirohito and a well-known Anglophile, suddenly found himself being referred to in the press and official documents as ‘Prince Titibu’, a name reminiscent of the town of ‘Titipu’ in the Gilbert and Sullivan farce The Mikado which had caused Japan such great offence over the years. The Japan Tourist Bureau, strung between the Fortified Zone Law and its mission to promote tourism in the 1930s, published a stylish English- language pamphlet entitled ‘From the Car Window: Between Mozi and Nagasaki’ to serve as a guide for foreigners travelling by train between the two ports. The first page of the pamphlet provides, not a welcoming message, but a large map showing the fortified zones en route, along with the message: ‘Travellers are advised to bear in mind the fact that the Nagasaki Line starts and terminates in fortified zones and that photographing or sketching is strictly forbidden in these zones.’ (Fig. 10.6) 160 chapter ten

Figure 10.6. Picture postcard showing the Ōura waterfront, incorrectly translated as ‘pier’. The inscription bears the date 1934 and a note of permission from the local military police. The three buildings to the left are (left to right) the American Consulate (moved to No.5 Ōura in 1921), British Consulate, and Holme, Ringer & Co. office. The large building on the Higashiyamate hillside is Kwassui Jogakkō (women’s school). The line of the hill has been deliberately erased to meet the demands of censors. (Author’s collection) CHAPTER ELEVEN

DOGS OF WAR

The condemnation of Japan for its actions in northeastern China coincided with the happy return of Ringer grandchildren from schooling in England, as though the business of Holme, Ringer & Co. and the position of Ringer family members in Nagasaki were invulnerable to the conundrums on the world stage and the economic difficulties beleaguering Japan. Lina Lewis’s elder daughter Lina Marion Lewis moved back to Japan after her mother’s death and took a job as a stenographer at Holme, Ringer & Co. while living with her aunt and uncle at No. 2 Minamiyamate. She married Holme, Ringer & Co. employee William Sainton in Nagasaki in 1930 and later accompanied him to Shimonoseki, where he assumed the position of manager of Wuriu Shokwai and British consular agent resident at Kōyōkan after the death of Robert McKenzie in February 1936. When the tide of militarism began to constrict foreign business activity in early 1939, Sainton moved to Shanghai with his wife and daughter to take up a new position at Wheelock & Co., a prominent British-run freight and coal broker in that port. After his departure, Sydney Ringer accepted the position of British consular agent in Shimonoseki and began to spend most of his time there. Freddy and Alcidie Ringer’s only daughter Alcidie Jenny Ringer returned to her parents’ home at No. 14 Minamiyamate around the same time and took up studies of Japanese painting and the esoteric art of bonkei, or ‘scenery on a tray’. She gained such expertise in the latter art that her Japanese teacher granted her a licence to teach along with the gagō (professional name) ‘Keichō’. Her deft painting of a Japanese woman in a kimono executed on a kakemono scroll is preserved today in Nagasaki and still bears the red seal showing the initials ‘AJR’ and a handwritten signature using the Chinese characters 林賀 (literally ‘forest felicitation’ but pronounced ‘ringa’, thus simulating ‘Ringer’). Alcidie’s interest in Japanese arts represented a rather belated aspiration among foreign residents to learn the Japanese language and cross the cultural divide. In October 1936, at the age of twenty-two, she married Folmer Bjergfelt, a Danish employee of the Great Northern Telegraph Co., and moved with him to Yokohama. (Fig. 11.1) 162 chapter eleven

Figure 11.1. Ringer family members pose for a photograph with Holme, Ringer & Co. employees in front of the house at No. 14 Minamiyamate ca. 1935. An adult Alcidie J. Ringer is standing on the far left. Sydney Ringer is sitting on the lawn in front of her with a dog in his lap. Beside him is Tomita Susumu, son of Tomita Ikutarō. Freddy and Alcidie, as well as Kuraba Tomisaburō and Aileen Ringer, are standing with Ikegami Heizō (third from left). (Courtesy of Elizabeth Newton)

Sydney and Aileen Ringer’s sons Michael (born in 1913) and Vanya (born in 1916) – heirs to the family business in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki – studied at Malvern College in England and like their cousin returned to Nagasaki in the early 1930s to begin a new career as young adults in their hometown. The two brothers brought a breath of life to the dusty former Nagasaki Foreign Settlement and new hopes for an upturn in the fortunes of Holme, Ringer & Co. They also seem to have achieved a certain level of ability in the Japanese language and even enjoyed celebrity status in the Japanese community: Tomita Sumiko, daughter-in-law of Ringer family gardener Tomita Ikutarō, relates that girls in the neighbourhood almost swooned every time Michael or Vanya passed nearby wearing suits and silk hats of the latest fashion. Photographs capture them posing with Japanese friends and fellow Nagasaki Club members (among whom they are conspicuously youthful) and frolicking at costume balls and parties in Japanese restaurants. In a letter to historian Harold S. Williams in 1967, Michael Ringer dogs of war 163 remembers the Beach Hotel in Mogi, a favourite resort of foreign residents and travellers, and adds: ‘My brother and I when bachelors had very good times there entertaining the lonely wives and daughters from China!!’1 (Fig. 11.2) In May 1935, the Ringer family and other foreign residents of Nagasaki celebrated the silver anniversary of the coronation of King George V, first with a service at the Holy Trinity Church in Ōmura-machi made available by Nippon Seikōkai (the Japanese arm of the Church of England) and later a garden party and fancy dress ball at the Ringer family houses at No. 14 and No. 2 Minamiyamate, respectively. The organisers had to bring the events forward to 5 May, the day before the actual anniversary, because all the local clergymen were required to attend a general synod in Sendai. As a result the Nagasaki celebration was hailed as the first in the British

Figure 11.2. Michael (left), Sydney and Vanya Ringer in chairs on the lawn in front of ‘Niban’ ca. 1935. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Newton)

1 HSWC (MS 6681/2/32). 164 chapter eleven

Empire. Freddy and Alcidie Ringer hosted the garden party, which was blessed with fine weather and attended by leading members of the community who took seats at tables arranged along the flagstone veranda of the house and in the garden around the Italianate fountain erected by William Alt in 1865. The festive mood and smiling faces captured in photographs give no hint of the growing confrontation between Britain and Japan over the latter’s occupation of Manchuria. Images of the fancy dress ball thrown at Niban similarly portray only merriment among the attendees, Japanese and foreign, disguised as everything from Charlie Chaplin to Madame Butterfly. Michael and Vanya were also present, the former dressed as a genie and the latter as a kind of clown with a top hat and the Japanese name ‘Tarō’ printed on his shirt. The author of a newspaper report on the event described the Ringer family house in Minamiyamate as ‘not only a beautiful place, but one that was especially appropriate owing to the long connection of the family with the port and the many occasions when it has been similarly used by the British community.’2 By this time, Sydney Ringer had stationed one of his sons in Nagasaki and the other in Shimonoseki to acquaint them with the business and social duties of Holme, Ringer & Co. Michael Ringer was also despatched to Otaru, Hokkaidō, to handle the affairs of the Japan and Eastern Trading Co., a London-based company half-owned by Holme, Ringer & Co.3 Vanya’s signature is evident on a request, typed on the Holme, Ringer & Co. let- terhead and dated 25 July 1936, to the American consul in Nagasaki asking for a bill of health for the CPR Empress of Russia, which was scheduled to extend its usual voyage from Hong Kong to Manila after calling at Nagasaki and Shanghai. The offices in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki were now devoted almost entirely to the work as agents for the Canadian Pacific Ocean Services Ltd. and a few other foreign shipping, insurance and banking companies, while Sydney Ringer and his sons filled the various consular posts in the two ports. (Fig. 11.3) The same year, Sydney built a large new house on the lot behind the old Wuriu Shokwai residence (Kōyōkan) in Shimonoseki for the use of family members sojourning in the port, a clear sign that he expected his sons to succeed the family business and Japan to continue needing the help of foreign agents. The new building differed from both Kōyōkan and the Ringer family houses in Nagasaki in that it was of reinforced concrete

2 The Japan Chronicle, 10 May 1935. 3 Michael Ringer to Harold S. Williams, 16 October 1967 (HSWC, MS 6681/2/32). dogs of war 165

Figure 11.3. The Ringer men stand with a friend at the front entrance to the house at No. 14 Minamiyamate ca. 1935. (Right to left) Sydney, Michael, Freddy and Vanya. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Newton) construction and borrowed little from either traditional Japanese architecture or the hybrid styles of the former foreign settlements. The three-storey split-level building had whitewashed walls stripped of orna- mentation other than cutback awnings and green-painted window frames. The roof was flat, giving the impression of American Art Deco architecture. The two-storey north side and three-storey south side were divided into spacious rooms gathering around a wooden stairwell. The third- storey balconies commanded a panoramic view over the blue channel of Kanmon Strait and the townscape of Moji in the distance. Nicknamed ‘Rinkyōkan’ (House Overlooking the Strait), the house enhanced the already castle-like appearance of Holme, Ringer & Co.’s hillside compound and made it conspicuously visible throughout the twin ports. When their father was absent, Michael and Vanya served as British consular agent in Shimonoseki as well as honorary vice consul for Greece and acting honorary consul for the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Portugal. (Fig. 11.4) 166 chapter eleven

Figure 11.4. The waterfront in Shimonoseki with Beniishiyama in the background. Kōyōkan, the old Western-style building used by foreigners since the early Meiji Period, is visible on the crest of the hill, with the newly built Ringer family residence ‘Rinkyōkan’ behind it. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Newton)

Like Nagasaki, the twin ports of Moji and Shimonoseki were fortified zones and therefore subject to the same strict scrutiny and xenophobic attitudes of the military police. It was only a matter of time before the grandiose presence of the Ringer family on the Beniishiyama hillside and the Shimonoseki waterfront conflicted with the objectives of military fac- tions strengthening their grip on Kanmon Strait and squashing all forms of noncompliance. In May the previous year, Sydney and Aileen Ringer and their two sons (now twenty-one and nineteen years old) had made their last trip to England to holiday at Sutherland Lodge in Yorkshire, travelling east across the Pacific Ocean on a CPR steamer and traversing the vast expanses of Canada on the transcontinental route from Vancouver to Montreal. In 1919, the Canadian Pacific Railway Co. had inaugurated a new daily service using trains composed entirely of sleepers – plus a glass-domed observation car and dining car – that slashed the journey to less than four days. As they watched Japan disappear from the stern of their ship and gazed at the scenery of the Rocky Mountains and Great Lakes peeling back from the train windows, Sydney and his family may have stopped to enjoy dogs of war 167 a moment of satisfaction, knowing that Holme, Ringer & Co. had played, and continued to play, a role in the establishment and maintenance of this vital line of communication. It was probably during the stay in England that Vanya met and proposed marriage to Prunella Frank, the daughter of a prominent family in Pickering, only a few miles from the Ringer family retreat. By accepting Vanya’s proposal, Prunella became an exception to the Holme, Ringer & Co. norm in that she had no family connection with the company, let alone any experience of Japanese culture or life in East Asia. She also swam bravely against the current, agreeing to come to Japan at a time when the drums of war were pounding more loudly than ever and the employees of foreign companies, businesses and consulates were busy buying tickets to sail in the opposite direction. The wedding ceremony was convened at the Nagasaki British Consulate in January 1937 and followed by a celebration in the family house attended by dozens of guests decked out in formal attire. Photographs taken at the time show the twenty-year-old groom and his nineteen-year-old bride posing beside a Christmas tree left intact for the occasion and foreign and Japanese friends mingling with glasses in hand near tables strewn with wedding presents. The smiles captured in these photographs give no hint of concern for the future, but the fact was that this Ringer wedding reception was to be the last of the grand parties held on the Minamiyamate hillside since the early years of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement. (Fig. 11.5) The optimism of the Ringer family building new houses and throwing parties contrasted sharply with Japan’s deteriorating international relationships and the spectre of militarism haunting the country. British, American and Japanese delegates had met in London in 1935 to discuss the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, which was up for renewal. The Japanese representatives, keenly aware of the domestic backlash caused by previous compromises, issued an unequivocal demand for complete parity among the three nations in all warship categories and, when this was refused, angrily withdrew from the conference, simulating Japan’s dis- engagement from the League of Nations and clearing away the last obstacle to military and territorial expansion. The number of factory employees in Nagasaki rebounded as orders poured in for the construction of warships and the production of arms. By 1936 not a single dock or berth was empty at the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard. The company’s steel works, electric plants and arms factories bustled with renewed activity and the people of Nagasaki revelled in relief, unaware that they were taking 168 chapter eleven

Figure 11.5. Ringer family members pose at the front door of ‘Niban’ with a guest and Japanese employees on the day of Vanya’s wedding in 1937. The young man on the far right is Michael Ringer. Sydney and Aileen are standing behind. The Westerner is the centre is unidentified. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Newton) irrevocable steps towards the calamity that would devastate their city a decade later. In July 1937, Japanese and Chinese forces exchanged fire at Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing, and the Imperial Japanese Army launched its doomed career of aggression on the continent. The military police established civilian defence headquarters in city halls around the country to supervise preparations for air raids, including blackout simulations and anti-air raid drills, and the Japanese government initiated a ‘national spiritual mobilisation movement’ to enhance national unity and reinforce wartime attitudes. The nationwide effort to strengthen defence systems resulted in an order for the organisation of civilian guards and the compulsory establishment of neighbourhood groups called tonarigumi that assisted as a kind of peer-police in weeding out slackers and dissenters. It also served as an impetus for the New Military Secrets Protection Law, which gave authorities even more far-reaching powers than the Fortified Zone Law to arrest and imprison anyone suspected of collecting sensitive information or dogs of war 169 leaking military secrets.4 The government further tightened the screws in May the following year by imposing strict rules regarding the registration of foreign residents and visitors and severe penalties for infractions. After eight decades of cooperation with foreign countries and emulation of Western culture and systems, Japan seemed to be closing the national doors and re-asserting its Edo-Period isolation. The same held true in the realm of business and industry, where enterprises and associations throughout the land found themselves incorporated into the machinery of war preparations. Companies in a wide range of key industries, including electric power, shipping, and automobile, ship and aircraft construction, had to apply to the government for approval of capital outlays. The enactment of the National Mobilisation Law (kokkasōdōinhō) in March 1938 placed Japan firmly on an arc to war by limiting freedom of speech in the media, extending government control to all civilian organisations including labour unions, and making war production the foremost priority in budget allocations. The pressure on foreign-run businesses to shut down and leave Japan was reaching a crescendo. The same month as the enactment of the above law, a ceremony was held at the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard to mark the beginning of a secret building project. After withdrawing from the Washington Naval Treaty, the Imperial Japanese Navy had commenced preparations for the construction of two 70,000-tonne battleships, the largest and most formidable of their kind ever to swagger across the world’s oceans. The Yamato was laid down at the Imperial Japanese Navy Shipyard at Kure (Hiroshima Prefecture), but the order to build the Musashi went to the civilian-run Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard. Mitsubishi Co. reinforced and modified the No. 2 building berth at the shipyard, added auxiliary facilities and equipment, and mobilised thousands of workers under a strict oath of secrecy. Authorities hid the building berth from view behind rope curtains and rolled out a tight blanket of security to ensure that outsiders, particularly foreigners, remained unaware of the activity in the shipyard. All ships entering the harbour including the CPR Empress of Russia and other foreign steamships, were instructed beforehand to close their hatches and to keep passengers under deck until anchoring. To prevent observation from the American and British consulates and the Holme, Ringer & Co. office at

4 The British ambassador to Japan sent a circular to his consuls in Nagasaki and other ports providing an English translation of the new law and advising them to warn all British subjects about its purport (FO 796/197). 170 chapter eleven

Nos.5, 6 and 7 Ōura, Japanese authorities ordered the reclamation of land from the harbour and the construction of wooden warehouses directly in front of the buildings on the Bund. These structures garnered the nickname mekakushi sōko (blindfold warehouse) because they were used solely to prevent the American and British consuls – and the staff of Holme, Ringer & Co. – from spying on the shipyard from their second- floor windows. Anything left of the peaceful and cosmopolitan port of Nagasaki disappeared into the shadow of the city’s new role as a military stronghold.5 The military police supervising the efforts at camouflage were vexed by the stubborn presence of the Ringer family and other foreign residents on the hillsides near Nagasaki Harbour and Kanmon Strait in Shimonoseki, but even after the outbreak of war with China they had no legal way to prevent foreigners from sitting on their verandas or looking at the harbour from their gardens. (Fig. 11.6) The pot began to boil however as the weeks and months marched on. In July 1938, Sydney Ringer received a letter from Aoki Sakuo, a Japanese politician and member of the Diet Members’ League for the Development of Asia, urging him to move out of his Shimonoseki house to avoid suspicion that he was spying ‘on behalf of the Chiang Kai-shek government.’ Said the politician at the end of his English- language letter: If your duty is nothing more than a peaceful one it is disadvantageous as well as needless for you to carry the affair to the worst simply for the sake of your honour and freedom. There might be an expedient to clear away suspicion without taking your building to pieces. Your family might live in peace and comfort at any place in the lower part of the city, keeping your house locked out during the war. I recommend it to you for the mutual interest. They say you were born in Japan and are a man of good sense. I hope you will understand the public opinion here and show your everlasting friendship by an earliest consent to my proposal.6 Although it carried little more weight than a personal request, this letter and its thinly-veiled threat to tear down the house in Shimonoseki tested Sydney Ringer’s determination to stay in Japan and to carry on as before with business activities. In an attempt to keep the dogs at bay, Sydney

5 For a detailed account of the construction of the Musashi, see Senkan Musashi Kenzō Kiroku Kankōiinkai, (ed.), Senkan musashi kenzō kiroku: yamatogata senkan no zenbō (The Construction of the ‘Musashi’: A Portrait of the Yamato-class Battleships) (Tokyo: Atene Shobō, 1994). 6 The letter is preserved by Elizabeth Newton, Sydney Ringer’s granddaughter residing today in England. dogs of war 171

Figure 11.6. The Ringer family relaxing on the front steps of Rinkyōkan, Shimon oseki ca. 1939. (Left to right) Sydney, Aileen, Vanya, Elizabeth (Vanya and Prunella’s daughter born in 1937), Prunella and Michael. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Newton) decided to dispense with the name Holme, Ringer & Co. and to apply ‘Wuriu Shokwai’ to the entire family business. He also sought and received official recognition from the Japanese government as British consular agent for Shimonoseki as well as honorary consul for Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands in the twin ports, thereby acquiring a certain measure of immunity from the arrows being fired his way. His descendants in England still have the card with attached photograph issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in December 1939, and an official certificate of Sydney’s appointment as honorary vice consul for the Netherlands, handwritten with brush and ink and signed by both Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) and Foreign Minister Arita Hachirō. (Fig. 11.7) Another person attracting suspicion was Kuraba Tomisaburō, whose family house on the Minamiyamate hillside – the famous ‘Ipponmatsu’ – commanded a view not only of the No. 2 building berth where the Musashi 172 chapter eleven

Figure 11.7. Sydney Ringer’s certificate of consular status issued by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 7 December 1939. The credentials are ‘consular agent for Britain, honorary consul for Norway, and honorary vice-consul for the Netherlands and Sweden in Shimonoseki and Moji’. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Newton) was taking shape but of the entire panorama of the harbour from the mouth of the Urakami River to the islands dotting the entrance to the bay. Kuraba sold the house and surrounding land to the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard on 11 April 1939 for 32,800 yen and moved with his wife Waka to the house at No. 9 Minamiyamate, the former home of John C. Smith and James H. Wallace.7 The exact circumstances of the transaction remain unclear to this day. The predominant theory is that he succumbed to pressure from military authorities unwilling to have a person with such strong foreign connections living in a house that overlooked the shipyard, but it has also been surmised that he was in dire financial straits at the time and agreed willingly to the sale.8 As legal foreign residents with consular credentials, Freddy and Sydney Ringer were able to brush off flack from the

7 From documents preserved at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. Nagasaki Shipyard and Engine Works. I thank Naitō Hatsuho for this information. 8 Senkan musashi kenzō kiroku: yamatogata senkan no zenbō (The Construction of the ‘Musashi’: A Portrait of the Yamato-class Battleships), p. 77. dogs of war 173 military police and remain in their Minamiyamate houses without fear of harassment. But a different set of conditions affected Kuraba, a naturalised Japanese citizen who may have wanted to go with the flow and avoid causing a ‘nuisance’ to his friends in Nagasaki. Whatever the reason, Kuraba’s transaction abruptly terminated the Glover family connection with the famous Minamiyamate house. Freddy Ringer died in Nagasaki on 23 February 1940, his sickness probably aggravated by the collapse of friendly relations between Japan and Britain and the grim situation facing the family company. An article on the funeral carried in the Kōbe newspaper The Japan Chronicle gives little indication of the tension in Nagasaki, reporting that the Holy Trinity Church in Ōmura-machi was …crowded with a very large attendance, representative of every section of the Japanese and foreign community, and the esteem and affection with which the late Mr Ringer was regarded was shown by the very large number of floral tributes, not only by members of the local community, but by those placed in the Church by the instructions of his many friends in Japan, China and abroad.9 Among the Japanese attendees were ‘the wife of the governor of Nagasaki Prefecture, who himself was unavoidably absent’ and the mayor of Nagasaki and chief justice of the Nagasaki Court of Appeals. Also on hand were the chief of police and chief of the water police, the very men who were supervising efforts to hide the battleship Musashi from foreign eyes and who in a few short months would be ordering the arrest and detainment of Ringer family members. Freddy’s remains were cremated and the ashes strewn according to his will, and no gravestone was erected.

End of the Foreign Community

The foreign population of Nagasaki shrivelled to a fraction of its peak around the turn of the century after the outbreak of war between Japan and China in 1937. Chinese residents found themselves under virtual house arrest, and the military police added insult to injury by banning dragon boat races, firecracker displays, and other Chinese customs that had been part of Nagasaki culture since the seventeenth century. The Chronicle and Directory meanwhile reveals the almost compete exodus of

9 The Japan Chronicle, 2 March 1940. 174 chapter eleven

Westerners in the last years of the decade: many foreign businesses are listed as ‘closed’, and the Euro-American community, once numbering several hundred, is comprised of a tiny band of American and French missionaries and a few brave employees of companies such as the Standard- Vacuum Oil Co. and Great Northern Telegraph Co. In late 1939, only three foreigners remained in the employ of ‘Wuriu Shokwai’ in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki: Sydney Ringer and his two sons. The hot-spring resort of Unzen, frequented by foreign residents since the early years of the Meiji period when Frederick Ringer and colleagues visited the area on bird-hunting expeditions, also saw a sharp drop in visitors after the outbreak of hostilities with China. The Japanese government had designated Unzen and environs as one of the country’s first national parks in 1934 and encouraged the construction of Unzen Kankō Hotel, a secluded mountain lodge opened the following year to accommodate Euro-American guests. In still another endeavour, Nagasaki investors had pooled their resources to build a narrow gauge railway along the coast of Tachibana Bay from Aino to Obama (the port town at the base of the road leading to Unzen) and thus to provide foreigners with a comfortable, scenic approach to the resort. The railway closed in 1938 after only eleven years of service, as though heaving a sigh of despair, and the Unzen Kankō Hotel would not enjoy another burst of activity until the Allied Occupa tion forces requisitioned the building in 1945.10 The Great Northern Telegraph Co. was the next to capitulate. The Nagasaki office still employed eight foreigners in 1940 and continued to clutch, not only the rights to the submarine telegraph cables connecting Japan with the continent, but also the perpetual leases to a number of choice lots in the former settlement including the main office at No. 2 Umegasaki, next door to the Nagasaki Post Office. The Japanese government had tried several times over the years, without success, to buy out the company’s operations and to gain control of the cables. On 1 June 1940, when government animosity toward Western countries was at high tide, the Great Northern Telegraph Co. finally acquiesced to an ultimatum from the Ministry of Communications and transferred all rights and property to the Japanese government, thus relinquishing its seventy-year-long grip on the artery of international telecommunications. A local Japanese

10 The Unzen Kankō Hotel remains in business to this day. Authorities removed the railway tracks during the Second World War, but many of the former platforms and tunnels are intact along the former line, now in use as a road. dogs of war 175 newspaper, trotting out the official government opinion, stated in its columns that: Since 1871, when it laid cables from Nagasaki to Vladivostok and Shanghai, the Great Northern Telegraph Co. has monopolised Japan’s international telecommunications and ignored the repeated pleas of our government for an amendment to the humiliating treaty in force. Its office stands on a Nagasaki corner like a relic of the foreign settlement years, exempt from government control, transmitting and receiving biased messages that are detrimental to our country.11 The complete transfer of the company’s submarine cables was to be effec- tuated by 30 April 1943. Among the handful of Great Northern Telegraph Co. employees who stayed in Japan to wrap up the affairs of the company was Folmer Bjergfelt, Freddy Ringer’s son-in-law living with his family in Yokohama. Another last vestige of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement, the Christian Endeavour Home for Seamen at No. 26 Ōura, closed its doors permanently around the same time. Established in 1896, the home had provided foreign sailors with a refuge from the boredom and loneliness of months at sea and a diversion from the siren call of alcoholic oblivion and prostitution that awaited them in the port. On 5 June 1940, the American consul in Nagasaki, Arthur F. Tower, submitted a report to the embassy in Tokyo entitled ‘Foreign Interests at Nagasaki Diminishing’, describing the demise of the Great Northern Telegraph Co. branch office and other foreign organisations. About the Christian Endeavour Home for Seamen, he reports that: The decline of Nagasaki as a coaling and trade port for foreign ships, the rar- ity of foreign naval visits in recent years, and the lack of indication that foreign shipping will revive to any great extent in the future were the considerations that led to a vote by the electoral board on April 22 to liquidate the seamen’s home although its financial situation continued to be satisfactory.12 The large Western-style wooden building – which ironically enough had started its career in the foreign settlement years as a saloon – was later sold off and torn down to create a fire break in case of air raids. In the above report, Arthur F. Tower also mentions Holme, Ringer & Co.,

11 Nagasaki Nichinichi Shimbun, 6 June 1940. Translated from Japanese by the author. 12 Arthur F. Tower to Joseph C. Grew, 5 June 1940 (NARA Record Group 84, UD598, Vol. 308). 176 chapter eleven identifying it as the ‘only foreign firm in commercial business in Nagasaki… now reorganized under the laws of Japan as Wuriu Shokwai and operating on a very reduced scale as agents for the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company and others, and for Lloyd’s and other insurance companies.’ After The Nagasaki Press fell silent in 1928, Japan’s former ‘window to the world’ all but fell off the map of foreign-language media. Most of the foreign residents remaining south of the Kantō district depended for news and commentary on The Japan Chronicle published in Kōbe and, to a lesser degree, The Japan Advertiser in Tokyo. During the 1930s the Japanese government stepped up pressure on these newspapers to desist from criticism and to sympathise with the Manchurian campaign and other national efforts. When pressure was turning to intimidation in October 1940, The Japan Advertiser sold its interests to the already Japanese-run The Japan Times. American owner B.W. Fleisher left Japan shortly thereafter, commenting that ‘We couldn’t conscientiously support the Axis and couldn’t support the Anglo-American policy without getting into trouble.’13 The Japan Chronicle continued to report gleefully on British military successes in Europe and to publish related photographs, including one depicting a German Luftwaffe bomber shot down in England with the caption ‘Contribution to Britain’s scrap metal collections’. However, as soon as The Japan Times, renamed The Japan Times and Advertiser, took it over two months later, The Japan Chronicle lined up with other newspapers in ignoring British successes and applauding Japanese heroism on the battlefields of China. The last independent English-language newspaper, Japan News-Week published by the indefatigable W.R. Wills (a.k.a. Raymond Walter Baranger), grappled bravely with Japanese censorship until accepting the inevitable on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack. The Japan Chronicle continued in name until being dissolved at the end of 1942. From January 1943, The Japan Times and Advertiser became The Nippon Times, and the last vestige of foreign journalism – persisting since Albert W. Hansard established The Nagasaki Shipping List and Advertiser in 1861 – disappeared into the shadow of war.14 The hammer quivering over the heads of the Ringer family fell unexpectedly, not on Sydney, but on his two sons. Vanya was taken into custody by the military police as he set out to visit the Empress of Russia, which had called at Nagasaki on 27 July 1940 on its regular voyage from Hong Kong to

13 The Japan Chronicle, 26 November 1940. 14 Peter O’Connor, The English-Language Press Networks of East Asia, 1918–1945 (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2010), pp. 232–72. dogs of war 177

Vancouver. Michael Ringer was detained in Shimonoseki the same day, as were several other British businessmen accused of participating in a spy ring. One of the arrestees was Melville J. Cox, the Reuter’s correspondent in Tokyo who died two days later after falling – or, as many people believed, being pushed – out of a window in the Kempeitai headquarters in Tokyo. Britain retaliated by detaining Japanese businessmen in London. The Nagasaki Nichinichi Shimbun carried articles on the subject over the following days, congratulating the Japanese military, expressing indignation over the arrest of ‘innocent’ Japanese nationals in Britain, and calling on its readers to be wary of foreigners. However, the newspaper never actually mentions the name ‘Ringer’ or provides any details of the arrest or later conviction in Nagasaki, revealing how it had devolved into an obedi- ent government mouthpiece conveying information and opinion from Tokyo. British traveller Richard Dobson, visiting Kōbe in the summer of 1940, wrote about the ‘spy fever’ spreading through the country and reported that the detainees included ‘two brothers in Shimonoseki who had been good citizens of that port all their lives, and had contributed much to its prosperity’. About the collapse in friendly relations, Dobson adds the following observation: Up till a very few years before, foreigners had really loved living in Japan: the friendliness, naïveté, gaiety and enthusiasm of this clever child-like people, with their good manners and attractive habits, had made the life of their Western guests a continuous delight. It was as if with adolescence a child had lost its natural affections, turned moody and bitter, and become suspi- cious of its friends and resentful of its parents.15 Pressure also came to bear on Sydney Ringer, despite his supposed diplomatic immunity. On 5 August 1940, three political organisations in Shimonoseki wrote to Sydney as the British consul in that port (in Japanese with English translation) charging Britain with deliberately undermining Japan’s ‘holy war’ in China and submitting the following three demands ‘to be realised immediately’: 1) All kinds of spy and stratagem shall hereafter be prohibited in the Embassy and Consulates in the Empire; 2) The Uryū Shōkai [Wuriu Shokwai] shall at once be dissolved and its site shall at once be returned; 3) The private residence of Mr Ringer’s family (Consul) shall at once be withdrawn.’16

15 Richard Dobson, China Cycle (London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1946), pp. 189–90. 16 ‘Shimonoseki Branch Junbikai of the Tobokai’, ‘Shimonoseki Branch of Junbikai of Dai Nippon Seinento’, and ‘Seiji Taisei Kyoka Seinen Domei’ [sic] to Sydney Ringer, 5 August 178 chapter eleven

Like the letter Sydney had received from diet member Aoki Sakuo in 1938, these demands carried no legal weight but revealed the animosity brewing in Japanese officialdom and the dilemma faced by foreign companies trying to carry on as before. In early September, while Sydney fret- ted over the future of his company and the fate of his sons still languishing in jail, American consul Arthur F. Tower submitted a detailed report to his superiors in Tokyo, mentioning the arrest of the Ringer brothers and the predicament of the family: This was the time when similar arrests of British subjects were made simultaneously at various places in Japan as suspected members of a ‘spy ring’. On the same day, Mr Michael Ringer, a member of the firm stationed at Shimonoseki, was also placed under arrest, but Mr Sydney Ringer, their father, who is Honorary British Vice Consul in Shimonoseki and also a member of the firm, was not detained. Very shortly after the arrests all of the Japanese employees of both the Nagasaki and Shimonoseki offices were detained for questioning and quantities of office records were removed by the gendarmerie for examination. Rigorous searches of the residential premises at Nagasaki were also made and private papers removed. The British Consul at Nagasaki has not been permitted to visit Mr Vanya Ringer but has been able to send and receive short personal messages. His wife was allowed to see him on one occasion… It is reported that all Japanese employees of Wuriu Shokwai both in Shimonoseki and Nagasaki have been admonished to sever their connection with the firm and in Shimonoseki several have already done so, having been offered suitable employment elsewhere. It is not yet clear what the result will be in Nagasaki but it seems doubtful that Wuriu Shokwai can carry on its business as heretofore.17 Tower goes on to report that the recent police activity in Nagasaki ‘has failed to arouse pronounced anti-foreign feeling and there have been no incidents of public agitation up to the present time.’ He points uninten- tionally to a misfortune oft repeated in the modern history of Nagasaki as a trade port, namely the interference of outside wars and conflicts in the essentially harmonious if eclectic culture of the city. The same thing had happened in the early seventeenth century when Christian persecutions rocked the city, in the dying years of the Edo Period when rōnin angered by the opening of Japan’s doors roamed the city looking for scapegoats, and again in 1904 when the Russo-Japanese War disrupted commercial

1940 (possession of Sydney’s granddaughter [Vanya’s daughter] Elizabeth Newton [née Ringer]). 17 Arthur F. Tower to Joseph C. Grew, 3 September 1940 (NARA Record Group 84, UD598, Vol. 308). This report was augmented by two further reports on 3 October and 20 October under the same title (‘Foreign Interests in Nagasaki’). dogs of war 179 activities and turned the port into a military hub. However drummed into line by the military police and indoctrinated by the media, Japanese residents were just as bewildered as their foreign neighbours by the omi- nous events blackening the mood of the city. Arthur F. Tower posted a notice in the American Consulate the following month advising that American citizens ‘men as well as women and children, whose continued presence in the Far East is not urgently required, make arrangements without delay to use the transportation facilities to the United States that are now available.’ The Nagasaki District Court did not bring Vanya Ringer to trial until 17 September 1940, nearly two months after his arrest. The judge hearing the case imposed a fine of 150 yen and eighteen months of penal servitude, with a five-year stay of execution, on the grounds that Vanya had asked someone about the name of a ship anchored in Nagasaki Harbour and had passed that information to British consul Ferdinand C. Greatrex, thus vio- lating the New Military Secrets Protection Law. The court also found him guilty of illegally storing 1,500 shotgun shells in one of the company warehouses. The confiscation of the shells brought an abrupt and ironic end to the sport of bird hunting pursued so avidly by Frederick Ringer and his sons since the early years of the foreign settlement.18 In Shimonoseki, Michael Ringer was found guilty of similar charges and sentenced to fourteen months of penal servitude and a fine of 120 yen. Vanya was now the father of a three year-old daughter named Elizabeth Sutherland Ringer, the middle name gleaned from Sutherland Lodge in Yorkshire where Vanya and Prunella had met and fallen in love. Sydney, Aileen, Michael and Vanya assembled at Niban and spent the following week discussing their few remaining alternatives. This was to be the last, and the saddest, gathering of the Ringer family in Japan. Britain was now engaged in a bloodbath with Germany and Italy, Japan’s newfound friends. Luftwaffe bombers had launched an air-raid campaign against the British homeland, shocking the world and bringing death and destruction to London and other British cities, and Japan was openly preparing to unleash the dogs of war in East Asia. The end of Holme, Ringer & Co. was at hand. On 29 September 1940, two days after Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact and formalised the Axis Powers, the Ringer brothers left Nagasaki for China and travelled to India to undergo training as cadets in

18 From the English translation of court documents currently in the possession of Elizabeth Newton. 180 chapter eleven the British Indian Army, Michael as an intelligence officer and Vanya as a lieutenant in the elite Punjab Regiment. Prunella and Elizabeth accompanied Vanya and stayed with him at camps in India, Burma and Malaya until his battalion was called to serve. In Nagasaki, meanwhile, Sydney Ringer closed the company offices and made hasty arrangements to settle his affairs. He entrusted the family property and company account books to Ikegami Heizō, the senior member of the Nagasaki staff, and disbanded Wuriu Shokwai. He also locked up the office and family residence in Shimonoseki, where Okamura Hirozō, another longtime employee, accepted the role of custodian. In a letter to Nagasaki British consul Ferdinand C. Greatrex, Sydney offered his resignation as consular agent in Shimonoseki and stated that: It is with the deepest regret, and after careful consideration, that I feel compelled to take this step in circumstances of which his Excellency the Ambassador and you yourself are well aware: In the first place, following on the inquisition instituted by the Gendarmerie, I am compelled to liquidate my business, Wuriu Shokwai, owing to the insidious pressure which has brought about the resignation of my Japanese staff and which would of course be exerted with equal force against any new employees I might seek to engage. In the second place the continued occupation of my Shimonoseki residence has been made virtually impossible by a powerful local ‘patriotic’ movement against which the authorities have shown themselves powerless to defend me, and which in fact they may be said to be supporting. In spite of the fact that the house which is now alleged to provide intolerable opportunity for espionage was built a few years ago with the full approval of all the local Japanese officials.19 Greatrex relayed this information to the Foreign Office in London along with the comment that: Although Mr Ringer has scrupulously refrained from any action that could be reasonably expected to rouse any suspicion on the part of the Japanese authorities that he might be making improper use of his opportunities to obtain information for His Majesty’s Government, it is an indubitable fact that the persecutions which have compelled him to withdraw from Shimonoseki and leave his business in process of liquidation arose primarily from his official associations as Consular Agent, and I venture to suggest that the appreciation of His Majesty’s Government is due to him all the more on this account.20

19 Sydney Ringer to F.C. Greatrex, 4 October 1940 (FO 262/2030). 20 F.C. Greatrex to His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State, Foreign Office, London, 11 October 1940 (FO 262/2030). dogs of war 181

Frustrated and heartbroken, Sydney and Aileen Ringer packed a few steamer trunks and sailed out of Nagasaki Harbour on 20 October 1940. Neither their departure nor the demise of Nagasaki’s oldest commercial enterprise earned a word of mention in local newspapers. The Empress of Russia, the last grand liner on the trans-Pacific route, graceful symbol of British-Japanese exchange, and Holme, Ringer & Co. lifeblood, made her final voyage around the same time, skipping the ports of Japan and proceeding to Hong Kong where, in November 1940, the British government requisitioned her for military service and gave her a new mission as an Allied troop carrier.21

Launching of the Musashi

Less than two weeks after Sydney and Aileen Ringer left Nagasaki, the Musashi lurched down the slipways from the No. 2 building berth at Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard and anchored beside a rigging dock. A shroud of secrecy almost completely obscured the event. At the prescribed time of launching, policemen working in pairs and disguised as census- takers visited the houses of all remaining foreign residents and engaged them in a prolonged questionnaire. Simultaneously, they ordered all Japanese people living on the hillsides to close their shutters and remain indoors and closed roads and paths leading to spots from where the launching might be witnessed. A large cargo vessel was anchored in front of the shipyard to block the view from the waterfront, and a rare autumn fog unexpectedly provided a further layer of security. The total effect was that no one, even the police, witnessed the launching of the great battleship, let alone recorded the event with cameras or sketchpads. Even Arthur F. Tower, reporting meticulously on the situation in Nagasaki from the American Consulate at No.5 Ōura, makes no mention whatever of the battleship or the heightened security surrounding the launching. The people of Nagasaki and environs were swept up willy-nilly into the gale of war preparations. The Mitsubishi shipyard, factories and steel works, along with hundreds of subsidiary workshops and housing blocks, formed a sprawling industrial complex that stretched from the mid- section of Urakami River all the way to the mouth of Nagasaki Harbour.

21 W. Kaye Lamb, p. 123. The Empress of Russia suffered fire damage after the Second World War and was eventually scrapped, and the Canadian Pacific Railway Co. never resumed the ocean service to Japan and China. 182 chapter eleven

The thousands of people employed in the area included not only salaried labourers and office personnel but also a large number of students mobilised to provide ‘volunteer service’. By early 1941, young men were also responding in swelling numbers to conscription and leaving Nagasaki by train to join army and navy regiments. The platforms at Nagasaki Railway Station echoed daily with the cheers of mass send-offs, and newspapers trumpeted Japan’s noble efforts to establish a ‘sphere of co- prosperity’ in East Asia free from the colonising tentacles of Western imperialism. Despite the patriotic fervour, however, ordinary citizens faced increasing hardships and restrictions on daily activities, everything from the rationing of staple foods and fuel to compulsory participation in air-raid drills, strict rules about clothing and hairstyles, and interference by military police in life and business. Authorities instructed theatres to cancel all motion pictures, plays and music of Anglo-American origin. They also removed the signs in English dotting the old shopping districts, not to mention the Holme, Ringer & Co. office and other businesses in the former foreign settlement. Even the signs in railway stations and tourist destinations, including the ubiquitous ‘W.C.’ over washroom doors, had to come down. Interestingly, the newspaper articles conveying the latter decision use the term igirisu moji (English letters) rather than the usual rōmaji (Roman letters) to refer to the alphabet, perhaps so as not to offend Japan’s Italian allies. The authorities clamped down with special fervour on luxurious commodities. In a letter to the governor of Nagasaki Prefecture dated 9 January 1941, American consul Arthur F. Tower points out that, according to an agreement reached by the American Embassy and Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in June 1940, his consulate was entitled to purchase fifty kin (about thirty kilogrammes) of sugar per month. He goes on to complain that a recent order to a local dealer had been intercepted by prefecture authorities and limited to only fifteen kin.22 There is no record of the reply, but sugar should have been the least of the American consul’s worries in 1941. Arthur F. Tower closed the American Consulate on 30 June 1941 and moved to Kōbe, where he orchestrated American diplomacy in that port until the Pearl Harbor attack on 8 December. He was repatriated along with Ambassador Joseph C. Grew and other stranded American citizens on the exchange ship USS Gripsholm in August 1942. The British consul in

22 Arthur F. Tower to Taira Toshitaka, governor of Nagasaki Prefecture, 9 January 1941 (NARA Record Group 84, UD598, Vol. 308). dogs of war 183

Nagasaki, Ferdinand C. Greatrex, meanwhile remained at his desk in the consulate on the Ōura waterfront like a captain refusing to budge from the helm of a sinking ship. The last foreigner clinging to the illusion of privilege and safety on the sun-washed Minamiyamate hillside was Alcidie Eva Ringer, the sixty-four- year-old widow of Freddy Ringer. Alcidie perhaps considered herself neu- tral because her living companion Molly Andersen was the widow of a former chief of the Great Northern Telegraph Co.’s Nagasaki bureau and her son-in-law Folmer Bjergfelt had received permission to remain in Japan as an employee of the same company. She stayed in her opulent house at No. 14 Minamiyamate, assisted in her daily affairs by faithful servants and apparently free from harassment or pressure to leave Japan. However, on the morning of 8 December 1941 – the day that Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighters rained bombs on Pearl Harbor – policemen knocked at her door and announced bluntly that both she and Molly were under arrest. (Fig.11.8)

Figure 11.8. The living room in the Ringer family residence at No. 14 Minamiyamate ca. 1930, with coal burning in the English-style fireplace. (Courtesy of Richard Bjergfelt) 184 chapter eleven

Alcidie’s experience – from the day of her detainment until she was finally allowed on board an exchange ship in Yokohama the following year – is recorded in detail in a report compiled by Ferdinand C. Greatrex for submission to the United Nations War Crimes Commission.23 Accord ing to Greatrex, the police escorted Alcidie to the Umegasaki Police Station, interrogated her, and then charged her with espionage on the grounds that she had listened to radio reports from Shanghai. The police were obviously grasping at straws, because the radio in question, which had been in the house for years, was no different from any other radio decorating homes in Nagasaki at the time. Oddly enough, they made no mention of the possibility that she had spied on the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard during the construction of the Musashi, even though the shipyard was plainly visible from No. 14 Minamiyamate. Two weeks later, without anything in the way of a court hearing, she was transferred to the city prison and placed in solitary confinement. In a passage entitled ‘Particulars of the Alleged Crime’, Greatrex describes the city prison as follows: On arrival at the prison on the 20th December, under wintry conditions, Mrs Ringer was deprived of all her clothes at the entrance of her cell and left for several hours with no protection against the cold but a thin prisoner ‘kimono’ and a pair of quilts on the matted floor. Her clothes were returned the same day, and her own bedding was brought a day or two later, but no heating was ever provided and, as she was not allowed slippers in the cell, she suffered severely from chilblains. The cell was about 10 ft. by 8, equipped with very primitive toilet and washing appliances and she had to carry the receptacle out and back herself each day. The examiner, while sometimes courteous, at other times adopted the most offensive bullying tactics, such as pointing at her and shouting: ‘You spy. Greatrex spy’, calling her a liar and saying that in Japan liars were treated like beasts, namely thrashed. On one occasion when he was evidently about to strike her, he restrained himself when she rose and indignantly asked the interpreter whether that was a Japanese gentleman’s way of treating an elderly unprotected woman. Being thrown in prison on false charges and treated roughly were one thing, but many of the alleged evils – such as the lack of heating, ban on slippers in the tatami-matted cell, thin kimono and quilts, and ‘primi tive toilet’ – were the norm in Japan at the time and so hardly constituted torture. In this sense Alcidie’s charge of war crimes is reminiscent of Marie Antoinette, the pampered queen oblivious to the realities of life

23 NAUK, TS 26/283. Greatrex, who boarded the same exchange ship from Yokohama, interviewed Alcidie Ringer on the voyage to Britain and wrote the report on the basis of her recollections. The case was apparently never taken up as a war crime. dogs of war 185 outside the castle gate. Alcidie Ringer and Molly Andersen were released from prison in April 1942 and interned in a school on the outskirts of Nagasaki along with Ferdinand C. Greatrex and his wife, as well as a few intrepid missionaries, elderly men with Japanese wives, and other foreigners who for whatever reason had ignored the many injunctions to leave Japan. Although declared guilty of all the charges made against her and ordered to pay a fine of 300 yen, Alcidie never stood in front of a judge or learned on what authority the punishments were meted out. Greatrex ends his report with a paragraph about letters written but never delivered, followed by both his signature and that of Alcidie Ringer: Mrs Ringer was not allowed to write any letters until the 2nd February, when the prison authorities allowed her to write to ‘her Consul’ asking him to convey to her daughter in Yokohama a message that she was well and hoping to hearing from her, etc. She was informed on 11th February that her note had been delivered to the Consul by hand (Note: Actually the note was never delivered). Later she received a letter from her daughter through Argentine Consular channels, and the reply which she wrote duly reached its destination, but two subsequent letters supposed to have been despatched were suppressed and returned to her when she left the prison. At the internment establishment she was able to exchange letters with her daughter with a maximum delay in transit of about three weeks. In May 1942, while interned at the school, Alcidie managed to arrange for the transfer of the house at No. 14 Minamiyamate to the ownership of her daughter in Yokohama, apparently to avoid the disposal of the building as enemy property by the Japanese government. On 21 July the police finally allowed her to go to her house and prepare for evacuation. In her affidavit to Ferdinand C. Greatrex she reports that ‘wanton pilfering’ had taken place during the search of the premises after her arrest. When Alcidie descended the familiar path to the Nagasaki waterfront, the old family houses at No. 14 and No. 2 Minamiyamate stood empty and incongruent in the hot sunlight, already relics of a bygone way of life and a chapter in Japanese history irrevocably terminated. A week later she travelled under guard to Yokohama, where the NYK steamship Tatsuta- maru was scheduled to collect British diplomats and civilians as part of an exchange deal concluded among the governments of Japan, Britain and the United States.24

24 Bob Hackett and Sander Kingsepp, ‘KOKANSEN: Stories of Diplomatic Exchange and Repatriation Ships’ (http://www.combinedfleet.com/Kokansen.htm). The Tatsuta-maru and Kamakura-maru brought British nationals as far as Mozambique and collected 186 chapter eleven

The last Ringer family member to see Nagasaki was Alcidie’s daughter, who passed through the port with her husband Folmer Bjergfelt and two infant sons in October 1943 on her way from Yokohama to Shanghai.25 Despite their official exemption from enemy status, the family must have attracted stares of curiosity on the long train ride to Nagasaki and the taxi ride from Nagasaki Railway Station to the Golden Eagle Hotel, the vener- able old hotel/tavern at No. 40 Ōura where they stayed – undoubtedly the last foreign guests before it closed down during the war. Whether Bjergfelt visited the family house at No. 14 Minamiyamate or made arrangements for its sale remains unclear to this day. By now all of the last vestiges of foreign activity in the port had been eliminated. The Japanese government had issued Ordinance No. 272 in March the previous year, annulling all of the existent perpetual leases in Nagasaki, Kōbe and Yokohama and solving in one swift stroke the problem exasperating this country since the establishment of the foreign settlements in 1859. Authorities then sold off, as enemy property, most of the real estate and buildings owned by former British, American and Dutch residents and deposited the funds in accounts at a local bank to be admin- istered by government-appointed custodians. The rights to all of the Ringer family properties had been transferred by the summer of 1943, that is, twenty lots totaling some 13,000 tsubo or ten acres in area.26 The principal buyer was Kawanami Industries Co., a private firm operating a shipyard on Kōyagi Island near Nagasaki. Like zebra mussels occupying empty sea- shells, company employees and Kawanami family members used the office as Nagasaki headquarters and took up residence in the two houses in Minamiyamate. Military forces also took advantage of the panoramic view over Nagasaki Harbour by requisitioning some of the old Western-style buildings and establishing batteries, searchlights, radar units and weather stations at various points in the Minamiyamate neighbourhood.27 Nagasaki Fortress Headquarters, the command centre of the military police, moved into the former Nagasaki Club at No. 4 Minamiyamate, a Ringer-owned property lying like the brim of a hat below the grand old residences on the crest of

Japanese nationals brought from Britain and other countries. Ringer and Greatrex then boarded a British ship for the voyage to Liverpool. 25 Personal communication from Richard Bjergfelt, Alcidie’s second son. 26 From a list of perpetual leases still in effect in the former Nagasaki Foreign Settlement compiled by the Nagasaki British Consulate in October 1931 (FO 796/193/108–11). 27 Nagasaki City, (ed.), Nagasaki genbaku sensaishi (Record of the War Damages Caused by the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1991), pp. 37–41. dogs of war 187 the hill. The vistas once enjoyed by the Ringer family and other European residents relaxing in their gardens were now being viewed through army surveillance binoculars and the finders of three-inch guns waiting to fire on intruders. When they boarded the Shanghai-maru at Dejima Wharf, Alcidie Bjergfelt and her family could never have imagined that it would be the British-built ship’s last safe voyage. The Shanghai-maru collided with a Japanese troop carrier on the return voyage from Shanghai to Nagasaki, taking hundreds of passengers to a watery grave and joining – along with its sister ship the Nagasaki-maru which had detonated a Japanese-laid mine and sunk the previous year – the debris of Japan’s failed aspirations on the bottom of the East China Sea. The Bjergfelt family remained in the International Settlement in Shanghai for the rest of the war, protected from incarceration by the agreement reached between the Japanese government and the Great Northern Telegraph Co. of Denmark.28

Stranded in Shanghai

The Nagasaki Foreign Settlement vanished as a legal entity in 1899 and sank into the Japanese background, its foreign population draining away and international colour fading over the following years. But Shanghai – just a short voyage across the East China Sea – persisted as the most cosmopolitan city in the Eastern Hemisphere, a receptacle for everything the world and the Huangpu River could serve up onto its waterfront Bund. The Chinese city, French Concession and International Settlement were run under separate administrations, the latter two entirely by foreigners, and the two million or so population of the city in the late 1930s comprised a Noah’s Ark of world nationalities, races and religions. Notable among the immigrants were thousands of Jewish refugees of Nazism who had fled to the International Settlement, which at the time was the only place on earth willing to admit people without passports or visas. Architectural monuments like the Cathy Hotel, Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, and Shanghai Club lined the waterfront and gave visitors arriving by ship the impression of entering a grand European city. Sprawling behind the

28 Alcidie Eva Ringer and her daughter Alcidie Bjergfelt were reunited in England after the war. Neither ever returned to Japan. The former lived near the Buckland family house in Wanstead until her death in 1955. 188 chapter eleven façade, however, was a labyrinth of grubby back streets teeming with unbridled gambling, squeeze, prostitution, drug abuse and every other vice known to humankind. The disparity between the decadent if mag- nanimous culture of Shanghai and the majestic buildings containing it was evident in nicknames, used in the same sentence, like ‘Paris of the East’ and ‘Whore of Asia’. When Sydney and Aileen Ringer arrived in Shanghai in October 1940, the International Settlement was still under foreign administration and the lurid hotchpotch of Shanghai subculture very much intact, but the Sino-Japanese War was dragging on into its fourth year and Japanese forces were pressing up against the borders while strengthening their hold on the hinterland. The bubble of Japanese-British animosity, inflated by the belligerent arrest of alleged spies in the two countries, was reaching bursting point. Through the medium of foreign-language newspapers, the consulates of Britain, the United States and other countries were already issuing warnings about an impending crisis and urging their citizens to take the next boat home. Whether because the German bombings pounding London and other English cities at the time scared them off, or because they were reluctant to put any great distance between themselves and Japan where all their assets were tied up, Sydney and Aileen resisted the admonitions to leave China and continued to seek shelter in the Shanghai International Settlement. Indeed, with war raging in Europe and Japan rattling its swords in East Asia, Shanghai probably seemed, at least for the moment, like an island of comfort and safety in a shark-infested sea. Everything changed on 8 December 1941. The residents of Shanghai awoke to the roar of airplanes piercing the sky, the thump of shellfire on the Huangpu River, and excited reports of Japan’s declaration of war on the United States and Britain. Over the following weeks, Japanese forces methodically occupied the city, replacing the flags of foreign nations with the Japanese war ensign, stationing armed sentries in key locations, installing Japanese supervisors in government and business offices, and combing the city for weapons, radios and other tools of resistance. The Imperial Japanese Navy and Army requisitioned the Shanghai Club and American Club, respectively, and cleared the buildings of foreign employees and occupants. The Shanghai Municipal Council and Shanghai Municipal Police, which in the past had been staffed by foreigners of various nationalities, were placed under the sole jurisdiction of Japanese residents. The British and American officials controlling essential public services, including the Shanghai Waterworks brought into existence by Frederick Ringer’s older brother John, were kept on at first to avoid chaos dogs of war 189 but later dismissed. All citizens of Allied countries were required to submit registration forms and to allow Japanese investigators into their homes to tag belongings that might be useful for military purposes. The occupation proceeded smoothly, one former resident even writing in her diary that ‘the courtesy and extreme helpfulness of the Japanese is very striking’.29 But on the other hand anyone suspected of subterfuge could look forward to brutal interrogation and torture at the hands of the military police, and the sudden slump in economic activity and spike in the cost of living caused unprecedented hardship in the foreign and Chinese communities. At first, foreigners were generally allowed to carry on with their lives as before, but in October 1942 all Allied nationals over the age of thirteen were required to wear armbands and were banned from restaurants, bars, theatres and other venues of entertainment. The final curtain fell in January 1943 when the Japanese military rulers announced that enemy nationals were to be interned in ‘civil assembly centres’, a term derived from the Japanese euphemism for ‘concentration camp’. Sydney and Aileen Ringer were among 1,355 Britons who reported to Church House for registration and boarded steamers for the voyage to Yangchow (Yangzhou) on the Yangtze River northwest of Shanghai where former mission com- pounds had been converted for the purpose of internment. Of these, 377 people including Sydney and Aileen were sent to ‘Yangchow A’, the former buildings and grounds of the Yangchow Baptist Hospital.30 In April the same year, William Sainton and his wife Lina (elder daughter of Lina Ringer and Willmott H. Lewis) and fourteen year-old daughter Charlotte joined the hundreds of foreign residents herded into the Lunghwa Camp southwest of Shanghai, a former school where Japanese forces had erected barracks during the battles of 1937. J.G. Ballard, the British author who would later immortalise his experience in the novel Empire of the Sun, was the same age as Charlotte when interned along with his parents and sister in the Lunghwa Camp that summer. While all this was going on, British and American representatives signed agreements with the free government of Chiang Kai-shek as partners in the ongoing conflict, consenting to the abolition of extraterritorial rights for foreigners in Shanghai and some twenty other ports along the east

29 Peggy Abkhazi, A Curious Cage: Life in a Japanese Internment Camp 1943–1945 (Victoria: Sono Nis Press, 1981), p. 25. 30 Greg Leck, Captives of Empire: The Japanese Internment of Civilians in China 1941–1945 (Bangor: Shandy Press, 2006), pp. 499–501. 190 chapter eleven coast of China and the Yangtze River. Based on the assumption that Japan would eventually withdraw in defeat, these agreements assured that China would regain its long-challenged autonomy and join the club of nations as an equal member; they also brought a rather unexpected end to the lop- sided privileges and easy wealth enjoyed by foreign entrepreneurs since the days of the tea and opium trade in early nineteenth-century Canton. Yangchow A was closed in September 1943 and the internees moved to the Chapei (Zhabei) camp in a northern suburb of Shanghai.31 Sydney and Aileen Ringer would remain there – and the Sainton family at Lunghwa Camp – until August 1945, when rumours began to circulate that Nagasaki had been devastated by a strange new bomb and the Japanese guards suddenly disappeared from the camps.

Death in the Jungle

While their parents fell out of contact in Shanghai, Michael and Vanya Ringer plunged headlong into the bloodbath of war between Britain and Japan in Southeast Asia. Vanya bid farewell to his wife and daughter in Singapore in late 1941 and went off to join his regiment. Prunella, pregnant with her second child, and Elizabeth boarded a steamship from Singapore before the outbreak of war and made the long voyage back to England via Australia, the Panama Canal, and the troubled waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The now twenty-five-year-old Vanya Ringer – born and brought up in Japan, regaled by Japanese servants, employees and friends, and poised to assume control of one of Japan’s best-established foreign enterprises – took up arms with the rest of the Punjab Regiment, part of the Fifth Battalion of the British Indian Army despatched to Malaya to check the probable line of Japanese advance, and prepared to assist in unleash- ing a barrage of gunfire at Japanese soldiers storming southward towards Singapore. After the outbreak of war on 8 December 1941, the British forces struggled to maintain positions and defend towns against the invading Japanese armies. Reports one survivor of the Punjab Regiment: ‘Christmas Day was celebrated as well as possible, the British Officers enjoying a duck roasted in port by Lieut. Ringer of ‘A’ Company (Pathans), but next day came an order for a further withdrawal to the disappointment of the

31 Ibid., p. 543. dogs of war 191

Jawans who were more than ready for another crack at the Japs.’32 Vanya had acquired the ability to dress and cook a duck while accompanying his father on bird-hunting excursions in Japan, Korea and England, but this was to be his last. The ‘A’ Company engaged Japanese divisions at the Battle of River Slim in January 1942 and suffered terrible casualties, finally retreating into the jungle to regroup. Vanya Ringer died of fever two weeks later. Prunella would not receive official notification of her husband’s death until after the war’s end. Michael Ringer, meanwhile, was commissioned in March 1941 and posted as an intelligence officer at the Third Indian Army Corps headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya. He left Singapore before the surrender of the city but fell into the hands of Japanese captors en route to Java on 17 February 1942. He spent the next three-and-a-half years in prisoner-of-war camps on Bangka Island and later at Palembang, serving as a camp interpreter, working-party officer and assistant adjutant. Although he could never have imagined such a turn of fate, the linguistic ability and cultural empathy cultivated during his upbringing in Japan – not to mention his involvement in the business of Holme, Ringer & Co. and experience of international collaboration in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki – helped to ferry him safely through the ordeal. Only after his release from captivity would he learn that his brother had died at the beginning of the war and that his parents had spent the interim in Shanghai concentration camps.

32 H. Harpham (5th/14th P.R.), The 5th Battalion (Punjab Regiment) in Malaya (‘Children of the Far East Prisoners of War’ website: http://www.cofepow.org.uk).

CHAPTER TWELVE

MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS REMAIN

Nagasaki Prefecture Governor Nagano Wakamatsu and other local representatives met an advance party of the US Sixth Army in early September 1945 and agreed to cooperate in the release of prisoners-of-war and other preparations for the Allied Occupation, expected to begin before the end of the month. The view from the waterfront where the hospital ship USS Haven anchored was bleak: many buildings had been destroyed by fire and their black carcasses left to the mercy of the wind and rain; those still standing were invariably ramshackle and grime-laden. The streets were deserted except for a few stragglers in threadbare clothing and local residents trying to pick up the pieces of their lives and stave off starvation. Conspicuous by their absence were women and girls, most of whom had fled to the countryside assuming that the Allied forces would go on a ram- page of rape and murder as soon as they landed. At night the entire city was shrouded in darkness because the electrical grid had still not been restored. Other essential facilities such as water and gas supply lines, hospitals, schools, transportation, banks, and government offices languished in a similar state of paralysis. These scenes may have been appalling enough, but what the first party of Allied personnel could not see from their ship was the section of Nagasaki directly exposed to the wrath of the atomic bomb. The entire northern half of the city was so devastated that it was difficult to discern even the line of former streets. The remains of the Mitsubishi steelworks and arms factories marched up the Urakami valley, a silent tangle of iron frames twisted wildly out of shape. The carcasses of a few reinforced concrete buildings crouched in the wasteland as though battered with a gigan- tic hammer. Most of the corpses lying in the rubble or festering on riverbanks had been collected and cremated, but the stench of death and conflagration seemed permanently imprinted in the air. Homeless survivors were still sleeping in cave shelters or scavenging through the rubble for scraps of metal and other materials to build shacks. None knew the nature of the apocalyptic new weapon that had destroyed their city. Nor did they understand the impact of radiation, which was already starting to eat away at their bodies. Tallies taken at the end of the year would show that more than 150,000 people, or two-thirds of the 194 chapter twelve

(mostly non-combatant) population of Nagasaki, had been killed or injured as a result of the explosion of a single bomb. Warships carrying the Second Marine Division of the Sixth Army arrived in Nagasaki Harbour on 23 September 1945 and pulled up alongside Dejima Wharf, which only a few years earlier had bustled with the arrival and departure of the Nagasaki-Shanghai steamers. The Americans promptly requisitioned a large number of intact buildings to billet the hundreds of officers and soldiers coming ashore to occupy the city. The many Western- style buildings in the former foreign settlement of course provided ideal accommodation and were earmarked for requisition on the very day of landing. Mission school dormitories were converted into barracks for enlisted men, and the old customhouse on the waterfront was cleared of Japanese employees and converted into Occupation headquarters. (Fig. 12.1)

Figure 12.1. The Ōura waterfront street in October 1945, taken by Allied Occupation forces soon after landing in Nagasaki. The Holme, Ringer & Co. office, British Consulate and American Consulate are visible in the distance on the right. The buildings on the left are the ‘blindfold warehouses’ erected before the war to block the view of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard. Streetcar service was still suspended because of the blackout continuing since the atomic bombing. (US National Archives) mountains and rivers remain 195

After destroying military equipment and arresting suspected war criminals, the marines restored the activities of the municipal administration and local business under Allied supervision and took measures to sup- press typhoid, cholera and other diseases in the squalor of the devastated city. The Sixth Army was inactivated on 1 January 1946 and replaced by a division of the Eighth Army that continued the task of establishing Occupation facilities and extinguishing any spark of resistance still smoul- dering in the Japanese community. Before they left Nagasaki, members of the Sixth Army held a football game in an area of the atomic wasteland cleared to make an airstrip. They called this game the ‘Atomic Bowl’, not scoring too many points for consideration towards the atomic-bomb survivors or the spirits of the countless dead.1 In March 1946, the General Headquarters of the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers (GHQ-SCAP), the body overseeing the Allied Occupation of Japan from buildings near the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, established a unit called the Civil Property Custodian (CPC) to coordinate nationwide surveys regarding assets held by Allied civilians that had been frozen or sold off by the Japanese government during the war. In July 1947, Cooper Blyth, first secretary at the British Embassy Tokyo and representative of the UK Reparations and Restitution Mission, wrote to the CPC with regard to the Ringer family properties, which constituted one of the largest private holdings under investigation, and pointed out that ‘a considerable amount of property in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki is owned by members of the Ringer family. The Trading with the Enemy Depart ment, Board of Trade, has received registrations under the heading of Mrs A.E. Ringer, Ringer Bros., Holme, Ringer & Co. and Wuriu Shokwai but considerable confusion exists as to the actual ownership of the various properties.’ This letter is preserved today along with hundreds of related documents at the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in College Park, Maryland, the sheer volume of the files indicat ing the complicated mass of problems associated with the identifica tion, assessment and retrieval of the Ringer properties after the Second World War.2

1 Photographs and a brief description of the game are included in Pictorial Arrowhead: Occupation of Japan by Second Marine Division, a booklet produced as a souvenir for the departing marines under the supervision of the Division Special Services Section. 2 ‘Ringer Property Volumes I and II’ (GHQ-SCAP files, NARA Record Group 331, Box 3989). 196 chapter twelve

Testimony in Tokyo

Michael Ringer was a major in the British Indian Army at the time of his release from captivity. He returned to England but soon volunteered to join the Allied Land Forces for Southeast Asia, travelling from Singapore to Medan to assist Dutch investigators in the interrogation and conviction of former Japanese military personnel accused of war crimes on the island of Sumatra. These duties were interrupted in late 1946 by a request to testify at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo, an event that brought him back to Japan for the first time since his hasty departure in 1940. Michael was one of three British officers called to the witness stand to relate their experiences both as internees in Japanese prisoner- of-war camps and investigators of war crimes in the Dutch East Indies.3 (Fig. 12.2)

Figure 12.2. Major Michael C.G. Ringer testifies at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in December 1946. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Newton)

3 Yuma Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), p. 111. mountains and rivers remain 197

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), better known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal or simply Tokyo Trials, was convened on 29 April 1946 under orders from General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers and temporary new ruler of Japan. The purpose was to bring top-ranking military and civilian leaders – particularly former Prime Minister Tōjō Hideki and other ‘Class A’ arrestees – to justice for crimes related to the initiation and orchestra- tion of Japan’s war of aggression. The tribunal was rather anticlimactic in view of the fact that numerous trials had already been conducted in the countries victimised by Japanese forces during the war, including Sumatra where Michael Ringer laboured as an interrogator, and that hundreds of Japanese had already been convicted and executed. The record of Michael’s courtroom interview, held in two sessions on 23 and 24 December 1946, runs for fifty pages in the proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.4 The following are excerpts from the questions posed by Dutch lawyer and fellow former POW Lieutenant Colonel J.S. Sinninghe Damste and the answers given by Michael Ringer: Q: What was your occupation prior to the war? A: I was a partner in the company of Holme, Ringer & Co., in Kyushu, Japan. Q: So you had a leading position. A: Yes, I was also the honorary vice consul for Greece, and when my father was away I acted as honorary consul for Britain, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Portugal. Q: What were your principal duties? A: We were shipping, banking and insurance agents. Q: Have you any idea how many prisoners-of-war were concentrated in Sumatra and of what nationality they were? A: At the maximum time, in early 1944, some 2,000 British and 6,500 Dutch. Q: About how many died up to the time of the Japanese surrender? A: Approximately 1,400. Q: What kind of accommodation was provided for the prisoners of war in camps?

4 Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Major Michael C.G. Ringer appeared as a prosecution witness during testimony on ‘Prisoners of War & Civilian Internees in Netherlands East Indies, Sumatra’ (pp. 13554–604). 198 chapter twelve

A: In our camp in Palembang we were originally quartered in schools. After April 1944, we were in the jungle in atap huts. These atap huts had no flooring and only bamboo beds. The roofs were always leaking and men had no room to sleep when it was raining as they had to sit up. Due to the overcrowding of these huts, they were full of vermin, rats, lice and bedbugs. Q: Was bedding provided? A: No bedding was provided whatsoever. Q: And mosquito nets? A: No mosquito nets were provided. Q: About food: How many meals were given daily? A: We were given a certain amount of rations which we had to make do for the day. In our camp we eked it out for three meals, but in other camps there were only two meals a day. Q: Would you tell us the typical menu? A: In our camp, for breakfast we had very watery rice; for lunch we had watery rice mixed up with leaves of sweet potato; in the evening we had dry rice with a taste of dried fish or dried meat… We received about an average of ten grams a day of dried fish or dried meat. On one occasion, for a week’s ration, we were supplied with dried tapioca roots. We complained, these were uneatable, and the Japanese Quartermaster’s answer was, ‘If you can’t eat it, send it to the pigs.’ Q: How were the Japanese fed? A: The Japanese garrison troops had 600 grams a day of rice and 150 grams a day of fresh meat or fish. This was supplied to them right up to the end of the war. Even the vegetables that we grew in our own garden, which were supposed to be for us, we got the leaves, and the Japanese took the roots; that is, sweet potatoes and tapioca. Q: What was the effect of this diet on the physical condition of the prisoners of war? A: Severe malnutrition resulted. And, owing to the lack of vitamin B, practically everybody in the camp had beri-beri. Out of the camp total strength at the end of May 1945, 1,050, in June we lost forty-two lives; in July ninety-nine; and in August 135. Q: Did your senior officers complain about those conditions? A: Yes. We sent in letters to the Japanese Camp Commandant. Q: With any results? A: No, there was no improvement in our conditions at all. The interpreter advised us not to write so many letters because it was just annoying the camp staff. mountains and rivers remain 199

Q: Didn’t they explain their attitude? A: Their attitude was – one day after we had buried five men, I complained to the Japanese interpreter. He told me that the British shot their sick animals, dogs and horses, and that’s the attitude of the Japanese command to the sick prisoners of war. Q: How were alleged offences against the orders dealt with? A: By corporal punishment, on the spot and mass camp punishments. Q: What was the nature of the corporal punishment inflicted? A: Slappings, beatings with sticks and leather belts. Q: Beatings for a long time or just a few slaps? A: Usually the men were beaten until they fell, and then they were kicked until they were unconscious. Q: Were prisoners tortured? A: Yes. Q: In which way? A: By putting bamboos between the prisoners’ fingers and squeezing the bamboos together until their fingers were crushed. Prisoners were laid in a squatting position and a log of wood was put under their knees and the guards would jump on the ends of the logs. Michael’s testimony was a damning indictment of Japanese violations of the Third Geneva Convention regarding prisoners-of-war, but the Nagasaki native also pointed out that not all the Japanese camp personnel perpe- trated atrocities:

After we signed the parole forms, Major Matsudaira, our Commandant, did his best for us. When the first Red Cross parcels arrived in October he personally supervised the issue of these and none were looted. He even tried to assist us in sending some to the women internees. But this request was turned down by the governor of Pelambang. He, unfortunately, left us in early 1943.

As a sort of quasi-foreigner born and brought up in Japan, Michael differed from the other prosecution witnesses. Despite his harrowing experience in prisoner-of-war camps and grief over the loss of his brother, he probably suffered qualms about the one-sided approach of the Tokyo Tribunal and his role in chastising Japanese leaders without any reflection on the terrible suffering and destruction caused by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the indiscriminate American air raids that levelled virtually every large city in Japan. ‘They deserved it’ was the overriding if unspoken vindication. The charge that the tribunal meted out ‘victor’s justice’ gains support from the selection of only a representative group of 200 chapter twelve

Class A war criminals and the exclusion of the imperial family and many others who were equally implicated but would go on to become post-war leaders of government and industry, not to mention American sympathis- ers. To this day, the greatest target of criticism is the tribunal’s decision not to prosecute Ishii Shirō, the physician and leader of the infamous Unit 731 who supervised heinous experiments on live prisoners but avoided punishment by agreeing to share his research data with American scientists. Michael Ringer returned permanently to England and married Vanya’s widow Prunella, who had been living with relatives at ‘The Lodge’ in Pickering, North Yorkshire. Her now ten-year-old daughter Elizabeth, who remembered her father, called Michael ‘Uncle Mickey’ while Virginia, who was born after the family separation, called him ‘Daddy’. Michael made the rounds of London, Liverpool and other English cities trying to find work in the same field of business as Holme, Ringer & Co., but his efforts proved unsuccessful, the job market overflowing as it was with repatriated military personnel. Finally he decided to become a dairy farmer, first com- muting to a farm near Prunella’s family house in Pickering and later leasing an estate of several hundred acres at Sinnington on the edge of the moors. The estate was called ‘The Hall’ after the twelfth-century stone barn of the same name standing next door to the family house and one of the oldest buildings in northern England.5 Michael raised his late brother’s two daughters, pursuing the quiet life of a country gentleman and dis- closing little indication of his turbulent past. His stepdaughter Elizabeth recalls that he was reluctant to return to Japan because he feared that his former Japanese colleagues and friends might construe his testimony at the Tokyo Tribunal as an act of betrayal. He died in 1978 at the age of sixty-four.

In Nagasaki a Decade Later

Sydney and Aileen Ringer escaped the hardships of the concentration camp after the war’s end but found themselves penniless in Shanghai, still unable to access their assets in Japan or to return to Nagasaki. The ‘Paris of the East’ looked more like an American naval base, with warships lined up at the old jetties on the Huangpu River, sailors spilling out of bars and cafes, and even cars now driving on the right instead of the left of the street. The administration of the city was in Chinese hands, and many

5 http://homepage.mac.com/philipdavis/English%20sites/4543.html. mountains and rivers remain 201 former foreign residents were making arrangements to transfer their homes and businesses to Hong Kong, which remained a British colony. There is no record as to how Sydney and Aileen fared after leaving Chapei Camp, but Michael later reported that when he visited them in 1946 he was ‘horrified to see how father and mother were living and managed to help them a little’.6 Sydney eventually found employment as secretary of the British-run Hungjao Golf Club, near the villas of affluent foreign residents of Shanghai enjoying a last spurt of colonial opulence as the port headed towards a new future as a hub of Communist China. The couple sailed back to England at Michael’s behest in 1948 and took up residence with the family in Sinnington. Sydney and Aileen finally returned to Nagasaki in February 1951, after the lifting of restrictions on civilian travel and the removal of most American military personnel. They found a city very different from the one they had watched disappear from the stern of their departing ship in 1940. The atomic bomb had left the city in a virtually prehistoric state of chaos and destitution. Five years later, however, restoration work was well underway and a new urban landscape was emerging. The debris of the Mitsubishi factories lining Urakami River had been cleared to make space, first for an airstrip and football field used by Occupation forces, and later for a municipal bicycle racecourse providing Nagasaki with a source of post-war recreation and revenue. The military police and civilian guards who had bullied the people of Nagasaki during the war were gone, replaced by a smiling, clean-cut police force dedicated to the upkeep of law and order. Young women, released from the baggy mompe trousers forced upon them in wartime, were now wearing pleated skirts and bobby socks and other fashions inspired by information from a peace-minded, globally-oriented media. The downtown Hamanomachi shopping street where English had been banned as the language of the enemy was now decorated with advertisements pandering to the fancies of the American and British tourists arriving in increasing numbers. Even the vegetation had changed: despite the prediction that nothing would grow in the hypocentre area for seventy years, a new generation of greenery had returned to the streets and hillsides like legions of wild animals peeking out from their hiding places after a storm. To Sydney and Aileen and other people seeing the city for the first time since the pre-war years, Nagasaki must have evoked emotions similar to those expressed by eighth-century Chinese poet Dufu:

6 Michael Ringer to Harold S. Williams, 16 November 1967 (HSWC, MS 6681/2/32). 202 chapter twelve

The country is defeated but mountains and rivers remain Spring arrives, and the town is overrun with weeds and trees Feeling the passage of time, I weep at the sight of flowers Reluctant to bid farewell, I gasp in surprise when birds take flight. The neighbourhoods north of Nagasaki Railway Station had borne the brunt of destruction, but much of the urban core had also succumbed to secondary fires that rampaged through the city in the aftermath of the atomic bombing. Among the victims was the Nagasaki Prefecture Office, a grand neo-renaissance building constructed in 1911 at the cusp of this city’s golden age as an international port. The former foreign settlement had not suffered any severe damage because of its distance from the hypocentre and the protection of hills and canals, but many of the old Western-style buildings had been deliberately demolished during the war to create fire breaks, including buildings on rear lots owned by the Ringer family. One dear to the hearts of Sydney and Aileen Ringer, the Holme, Ringer & Co. office at No. 7 Ōura, had actually fallen victim to fire, although the conflagration had occurred not while Kawanami Industries Co. established its office there during the war but in April 1947 when the Occupation forces were using it as an officers’ club. All that remained in 1951 was a weed- infested empty lot strewn with scorched roof-tile fragments and bricks from the broken chimneys. The British Consulate building next door was intact but boarded up and silent, never to reopen.7 (Fig. 12.3) Sydney and Aileen climbed the path to the gate of Ōura Catholic Church and its adjacent rectory and proceeded to the base of the former Glover house. After selling the property to the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard in 1939, Kuraba Tomisaburō and his wife Waka had taken up residence at No. 9 Minamiyamate and quietly endured the suspicions of the military police that they might somehow engage in spying. Waka died in 1943. Tomisaburō survived to experience the atomic bombing on 9 August 1945 and Japan’s surrender six days later, but he hung himself to death on 26 August, his despair apparently exacerbated by fear that the Allied forces soon to land in Nagasaki would charge him with treason for adopting Japanese citizenship.8

7 The British government sold the former consulate building to Nagasaki City in 1955. It housed the Nagasaki Children’s Science Museum until 1990 when it was designated an ‘Important Cultural Asset’ by the Japanese government and converted into an art gallery. Although an elegant example of early twentieth-century Western-style architecture in Japan, it is out of use and closed to the public at the time of this writing. 8 Brian Burke-Gaffney, ‘The Man Who Could not Take Sides: A Sketch of the Life of Kuraba Tomisaburō’, Crossroads: A Journal of Nagasaki History and Culture, No. 3, Summer 1995, pp. 51–73. mountains and rivers remain 203

Figure 12.3. The charred ruins of the Holme, Ringer & Co. office at No. 7 Ōura, captured in an Allied Occupation photograph taken in July 1947. The British Consulate is visible on the right. (US National Archives)

The American Occupation forces had requisitioned the former Glover house in September 1945 and used it over the following years as a residence for officers and their families. At first they referred to the building by the code name ‘JPNR1163’, but by 1947 they were using the term ‘Madame Butterfly House’ as a catchphrase among themselves. Nagasaki is indeed the setting for Puccini’s famous opera – and the house certainly evokes the hillside villa where the heroine waits for the return of her fickle American lover – but there is no mention of the house or even the Minamiyamate neighbourhood in either the opera or the story Madame Chrysanthème from which it borrows. Nor did the Glover family have any connection with the opera, aside from the fact that Thomas B. Glover’s wife was Japanese, which in any case was probably unbeknownst to the Americans. The first use of the term outside the circle of the Occupation was an article entitled ‘House of “Madame Butterfly” Discovered’ published in the Mainichi newspaper in August 1948. Joseph C. Goldsby, an American 204 chapter twelve engineer who had arrived in Nagasaki in September 1945 with the Sixth Army, was living in the house at the time with his wife Barbara. The article includes a photograph of Barbara Goldsby posing in front of the house with a parasol held over her shoulder, apparently to imitate the heroine of the opera. The Japanese writer says that the building is the ‘most probable house in which “Madame Butterfly” lived’, but he completely ignores the Glover family, revealing the truth that the pre-war history of the building had nothing to do with the ‘Madame Butterfly House’ naming.9 By the time Sydney and Aileen Ringer returned to Nagasaki, the whim- sical appellation ‘Madame Butterfly House’ had been embraced enthusiastically by municipal leaders hoping to bolster the tourism industry and help Nagasaki pull itself up from the ashes of war. One local authority went as far as to say: Nagasaki means Madame Butterfly, and Madame Butterfly means Nagasaki. Nagasaki is famous worldwide for the atomic bomb and Madame Butterfly, but there is nothing here to remind visitors of Madame Butterfly. Because of this, a group of interested persons including myself is working on a project to establish a Madame Butterfly monument. And so what about the place to put it? Of course the [former Glover] house in Minamiyamate is the best choice. It fits perfectly with the image of Madame Butterfly.10 Sydney and Aileen Ringer and other people who remembered Nagasaki in its golden age as an international port, however, recognised the ‘Madame Butterfly House’ sensation for what it was: a hoax.11 On 23 December 1952, Sydney sent a picture postcard from Nagasaki to his sister-in-law Alcidie Bjergfelt in England. The postcard, still in the Bjergfelt family collection, bears a photograph of the post-war Glover house with the garbled English caption ‘Glover Mansion Affinity Mrs Otyo [i.e. Madame Butterfly]’s “Nagasaki”.’ In his message, Sydney asks Alcidie, ‘What do you think of this?’

9 The Mainichi, 6 August 1948. The article, translated verbatim, was published in the Japanese-language edition of the newspaper on 10 August. 10 Words of Nagasaki historian and municipal official Shimauchi Hachirō, quoted in Yanagimoto Kenichi (ed.), Gekidō nijūnen (A Turbulent Twenty Years) (Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1965), p. 172. Translated from Japanese by the author. 11 In an essay entitled Miss Butterfly and Miss Chrysanthemum, Harold S. Williams criti- cised Nagasaki City for advocating the false association between the opera and the former Glover house, but he refrained from mentioning this in his Holme, Ringer & Co. history because the mayor of Nagasaki contributed a message to the book. The house is still the centrepiece of Glover Garden, and the fraudulent ‘Madame Butterfly’ theme is still trotted out for the entertainment of visitors. mountains and rivers remain 205

Beloved ‘Niban’

The former Glover house had taken on a new life as a tourist attraction, but the rest of the Minamiyamate neighbourhood remained mostly unchanged in 1951. One family friend later described the atmosphere of post-war Minamiyamate as follows: I had a look at the Ringer house when I was in Nagasaki. Hadn’t been near it since Freddy poured gin liberally down our salty throats at the end of our sailing trip to Nagasaki in 1931. For an hour or two I wandered around the haunts of the old foreign community in Nagasaki – above and below Minamiyamate – and my sensitivity to atmosphere responded readily. Largely unaffected by the hand of time, there were all the old monuments. Huge retaining walls, steep ramps, glimpses of dignified residences cloaked with trees and unmodernised, quiet and relatively trafficless roads, peopled by unidentifiable ghosts.12 For Sydney and Aileen the most haunting ghost of all was that of their dead son. Their memories of Vanya Ringer probably intensified with every step up the old stone stairs to No. 2 Minamiyamate, the beloved ‘Niban’ where Vanya grew up and the family spent so many happy years. The house was intact and relatively undamaged but anything but deserted: Japanese families had occupied each room, making it look like a crowded tenement building with children running about and underwear drying on clothes lines tied between the old veranda pillars. The front garden, once the site of parties where foreign residents mingled and danced to music played by a navy band visiting the port, had been ploughed during the war for the cultivation of vegetables and was now planted with rows of sweet potatoes and winter squash. (Fig. 12.4) The couple had no choice but to retreat in disappointment and take up temporary lodgings at the Beach Hotel in Mogi, a facility on the other side of Nagasaki Peninsula that they and their sons had patronised for decades before the war and which was now the only hotel in Nagasaki capable of accommodating foreign guests. Almost four years had passed since GHQ-SCAP initiated investigations into the state of the Ringer properties, but the issue was still caught in a tangle of bureaucratic and logistical red tape over questions such as how to deal with the claims of Japanese squatters and individuals who had purchased the properties during the war (thinking that they were gaining legal ownership), as well as where to place responsibility for the repairs

12 Arnold Graham to Harold S. Williams, 16 December 1968 (HSWC, MS 6681/2/33). 206 chapter twelve

Figure 12.4. The Ringer house ‘Niban’ in 1947, when the building was still occupied by Japanese squatters. The roof shows evidence of blast damage from the atomic bomb. (US National Archives) needed to restore buildings to their former state. On 13 February 1951, Sydney wrote to his lawyer in Tokyo describing the situation: I arrived in Nagasaki yesterday evening and today inspected three houses, two of which are fully occupied by Japanese. I asked that they be removed at once and that necessary repairs be started in order to return the properties. Will you please urge CPC to get the authorities to give the necessary evacuation orders, as the Kencho [prefecture authorities] here are trying to ‘pass the buck’ on to Tokyo central government.13 The problem saw little progress over the following weeks. On 27 April, Sydney sent a message to the UK Reparations and Restitution Mission in Tokyo, again appealing for assistance in stirring the CPC (Civil Property Custodian) into action and restoring his rightful ownership to the Nagasaki properties: Yesterday I had a long conversation with Mr Hamano, chief of the Foreign Affairs Section, Nagasaki. He advised me that he had just returned from inter viewing the Finance Department in Tokyo and that they, with I presume the

13 Sydney Ringer to K. Yuasa, 13 February 1951 (GHQ-SCAP files). mountains and rivers remain 207

acquiescence of CPC, had decided no further funds were to be spent on the Ringer properties; this was in special reference to the following properties: No. 10 Minamiyamate The roof requires repairing and much of the outside wall planking has rotted owing to neglect in not painting the buildings, this of course cannot now be done efficiently, owing to the fact that some 150 human beings are lodging in the buildings. No. 23 Oura One wooden godown [warehouse] has collapsed due to neglect. I presume I can insist on vacant possession of any properties, as I consider that No. 10 building may collapse at any time and kill a large number of people. May I express my surprise that such a decision was come to, without a previous inspection by CPC or your goodselves, and would ask for such an inspection to protect my rightful demands. It is my intention to live on the property known as No. 2 Minamiyamate my former private residence but can hardly do so with five families living in my pantry. This is no exaggeration. There are also one family in my kitchen and three more families in the servants’ quarters and the children have already damaged the paintwork and broken the typhoon shutters. In the course of conversation regarding the building on the property known as No. 7 Oura, burnt down during occupation by the US Army, Mr Hamano mentioned that a similar case had occurred in Nagasaki and that the matter had been dealt with by the ‘Special Procurement Agency’, Iwanaga-cho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo. Compensation having already been paid. Is this correct? The same source advised me that No. 7 buildings were insured by the illegal owners and fire insurance collected by them. This of course does not come under your jurisdiction, but your valued opinion and advice will be most gratefully received. It is now more than three months since application for return of properties and shares was made to the Government and the cost of living is so high here that if I cannot get some kind of assurance that the necessary papers will be forthcoming in the next two months I will return to England and come back around the time the Peace Treaty may be signed, i.e. December.14 Sydney and Aileen Ringer returned to England soon after posting this letter, not because of the high cost of living in Nagasaki but because of the tragic news, received from their son Michael, that Prunella had died suddenly in the middle of a minor surgical procedure, still only thirty-seven years old. By the time Sydney and Aileen came back to Nagasaki the following year, the Minamiyamate house had been vacated and repaired according

14 Sydney Ringer to C. Blyth, 27 April 1951 (GHQ-SCAP files). 208 chapter twelve to their instructions and they were finally able to take up residence there once again. Family photographs capture the ageing couple in front of the house with their faithful gardener Tomita Ikutarō and his family, posing for a group portrait with former Holme, Ringer & Co. employees, and enjoy ing dinner parties with Japanese friends in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki. But there is an odd sense of distance and resignation in the faces, a common recognition that, on the other side of the schism caused by war, the Ringer family presence was no longer valid or sustainable. (Figs 12.5 and 12.6) From around February 1952 the various properties in Nagasaki officially returned to the family’s possession. The ‘Old Land Register’ (kyūtochidaichō) preserved today by the Nagasaki Legal Affairs Bureau records the fact, cit- ing Alcidie Eva Ringer as half-owner and Michael and Vanya Ringer as quarter-owners of the properties in the former foreign settlement acquired by Frederick Ringer over the years and owned jointly by Freddy and Sydney prior to the Second World War. Sydney Ringer strove relentlessly to regain possession of the family house at No. 2 Minamiyamate, of which he had been the sole owner prior to the Second World War, but for some reason his efforts did not extend to

Figure 12.5. Sydney and Aileen Ringer with their gardener Tomita Ikutarō (right) and his family in front of ‘Niban’ in 1952. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Newton) mountains and rivers remain 209

Figure 12.6. Sydney and Aileen Ringer with former Holme, Ringer & Co. employees in 1952. The five from right to left are Ikegami Heizō, unknown, Tomita Susumu, Matsuda Ariyoshi, and Okamura Hirozō. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Newton)

No. 14 Minamiyamate, the grand former residence of his mother Carolina Ringer and older brother Freddy. The aforementioned ‘Old Land Register’ shows that Freddy’s widow Alcidie transferred ownership to her daughter Alcidie Bjergfelt on 19 May 1942 while she was interned in Nagasaki prior to repatriation. It also states that Kawanami Industries Co. acquired the property on 29 March 1943. There is no difference between this register entry and those showing that the same company acquired the house at No. 2 Minamiyamate and the former Holme, Ringer & Co. office at No. 7 Ōura on 7 May. Moreover, the files in the GHQ-SCAP archive regarding No. 14 Minamiyamate include a list of household effects and personal property compiled by the Japanese government under orders from the CPC in 1947. If No. 14 Minamiyamate was the bona fide property of Kawanami Industries Co., it should not have been necessary to compile such as list. Clearly, both parties considered the house illegally occupied and subject to the same rules governing the return of other foreign-owned properties seized by the Japanese government during the war. Starting with the heading ‘The status of household effects and personal property owned by Mrs Alcidie Eva 210 chapter twelve

Ringer when they were taken by the Japanese government,’ the list includes everything from silverware to a refrigerator, ping pong table, and electric hairdryer, the lot totalling more than 4,000 yen in value and almost all items cited as ‘whereabouts unknown after the A-bomb explosion’. In short, the only difference between No. 14 Minamiyamate and the house at No. 2 Minamiyamate and the Holme, Ringer & Co. office at No. 7 Ōura may be that, while Sydney Ringer campaigned for the return of his property from the ‘illegal owners’, Alcidie Bjergfelt and her mother were content to collect the revenue from the wartime sale of the house and to waive any claim to ownership. Japanese tenants reoccupied the house after the departure of American Occupation personnel and let it revert to a state similar to that described by Sydney Ringer when he saw Niban: people lodging by the dozen in the former bedrooms and parlours, fireplaces plugged to keep out draughts, pictures pinned haphazardly on walls, and the old wooden floors covered with tatami mats. Nagasaki photographer Kobayashi Masaru visited No. 14 Minamiyamate in April 1966 and reported in a later book that ‘several families had been living in the house since the post-war period’.15 Purchased by Nagasaki City in 1970, the building underwent restoration work from 1977 to 1979 as an ‘Important Cultural Asset’ designated by the Japanese national government. It is open to the public today as ‘The Former Alt House’ and can still be seen – albeit with its former moods and fragrances lost and turbulent history largely undocumented – on the original site in Nagasaki’s Glover Garden theme park. (Fig. 12.7)

Post-war Shimonoseki and Moji

While war raged in the Asia-Pacific region, the Japanese government rolled out a blanket of security in the twin ports of Shimonoseki and Moji as heavy as that in Nagasaki, and from the summer of 1944 American forces subjected the two cities to air raids, dumping hundreds of tons of incendiary bombs into the wooden neighbourhoods and sprinkling the surface of Kanmon Strait with mines. By war’s end the death toll had climbed into the thousands and the former international ports had been reduced to rubble. Ironically, it was the noncombatant civilian population

15 Kobayashi Masaru, Nagasaki no meiji yōkan (Nagasaki Western-style Buildings of the Meiji Period) (Nagasaki, 1993), p. 197. mountains and rivers remain 211

Figure 12.7. The former Ringer family residence at No.14 Minamiyamate is preserved today as the ‘Former Alt House’ in Nagasaki Glover Garden, an ‘Important Cultural Asset’ designated by the Japanese government. (Photograph by the author, 2009) that suffered the greatest death and destruction; the various military installations and factories in the area went all but unscathed.16 The former Shimonoseki British Consulate building in Karato-chō, used since 1929 as the office of Wuriu Shokwai, had escaped the fires that con- sumed most of the neighbourhood but stood neglected in the wake of the war, like an obsolete monument forgotten on the waterfront.17 Kōyōkan and Rinkyōkan, the Wuriu Shokwai manager’s residence and Ringer family house on the hillside, had also escaped destruction but were shockingly

16 Shimonoseki City History Editing Committee (ed.), Shimonoseki shishi: shisei hakkō – shūsen (Shimonoseki City History: From Municipal Inauguration to the Postwar Period) (Shimonoseki City Hall, 1983), pp. 832–4. 17 The British government sold the building to Shimonoseki City in 1954, and it was used from 1958 to 1968 as a police station with the ‘British Consulate’ insignia intact. From 1974 the building housed the Shimonoseki Archaeological Museum. It was designated a National Important Cultural Asset in 1999 and is undergoing renovations at the time of this writing. 212 chapter twelve rundown. The two houses had been requisitioned by Japanese military forces in 1942 and converted for use by the Shimonoseki Fortress Headquarters, their hillside location providing an ideal lookout over the city and strait. As soon as the war ended, the military forces had quickly retreated and abandoned the houses to the mischief of thieves and vandals. A representative of the Kōbe British Consulate visited Shimonoseki and inspected the Ringer properties in June 1947. His informal report was submitted to the UK Reparation and Restitution Mission in Tokyo and relayed to the CPC in July, including the following description of Kōyōkan and Rinkyōkan: The older wooden building is well known locally as Koyo-kan, and the newer, concrete mansion is immediately behind it. Both are unoccupied and dere- lict. Apparently they were looted and ransacked shortly after the end of the war. Nobody, of course, knows who did it. The damage was willful and quite illogical; for instance, heavy doors have been wrenched from their hinges and simply left where they fell. Both houses look as though the looters were surprised in the middle of their labours, which might well have been the case. Neither house was bomb-damaged. Both were obviously occupied by Defence Forces or similar Japanese organisations during the war. Arrows painted in luminous paint still show staircases, etc. to assist movement during black-outs.18 When Sydney and Aileen Ringer saw them again in early 1951, the two houses had already undergone repairs funded by the Japanese government. On 27 September the same year, Fukuda Taizō, the mayor of Shimonoseki, submitted a letter to British authorities in Japanese and English saying: ‘This is to certify that the buildings in the possession of Mr S. Ringer inclusive of their internal and external arrangements and attached facilities, which are located at Sotohama-cho, Shimonoseki City, were damaged and carried away by Japanese and Korean nationals immediately after the surrender of Japan.’ The letter is included in the GHQ- SCAP archive along with a note from a CPC officer adding that ‘CPC has no record of further claims with respect to this very much over-repaired property.’ Aside from the writer’s impatience with Sydney Ringer’s complaints, the memorandum shows that the Ringer houses in Shimonoseki were ready for re-habitation no later than the autumn of 1951.

18 C. Blyth to Civil Property Custodian General Headquarters, 22 July 1947 (GHQ-SCAP files). mountains and rivers remain 213

Okamura Hirozō and other former Wuriu Shokwai employees welcomed Sydney back to Shimonoseki and expressed a hope to revive the company and restore the business of shipping and insurance agents in western Japan. Sydney was delighted to know that the family company would persist and even offered the house in Shimonoseki as a company residence. The Hong Kong and Eastern Shipping Co., Ltd. and Dodwell & Co. of Tokyo came together as investors and partners, holding a 50% and 49% share in the company, respectively, while Sydney Ringer kept a token 1%. (Fig. 12.8) Holme, Ringer & Co. Ltd. filed for registration in Hong Kong in November 1951 under the old name and started operations in January the following year in a small pre-war building on the waterfront in Moji (present-day Moji-ku, Kitakyūshū City, Fukuoka Prefecture). Angus A. Mackenzie, a retired Royal Navy officer and founder of the Hong Kong and Eastern Shipping Co., was the first managing director of the post-war Holme, Ringer & Co.19 The British government revived the post of consular agent in Moji/Shimonoseki In October 1952 and appointed Thomas Malcolm, the first area manager and Lloyd’s agent, to the post. Malcolm and his wife moved to Shimonoseki and took up residence at Rinkyōkan, restoring the plaque engraved with the words ‘British Consular Residence’ – removed when Sydney Ringer and his sons left Japan in 1940 – to its old spot on the front gate.20 The activities of the new company were similar to those conducted by its predecessor in the pre-war years: ‘Shipping Agents, Lloyd’s Agent, British Consular Agent and Marine Surveyors of Cargo, Hull and Machinery in Western Japan West of Longitude 133°E (Kure).’ Sydney Ringer visited the office occasionally and joined the staff in parties at Japanese restaurants, where he surprised young employees with his knowledge of drinking games played with geisha. He also kept a motorboat with the name ‘Sydney A. Ringer’ emblazoned on the stern and used it to cross Kanmon Strait and to go out on bird-hunting expeditions. But his role in the work of the company was mostly symbolic. (Figs 12.9 and 12.10) Angus A. Mackenzie later received the Third Class Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Japanese government, a decoration that had eluded Frederick Ringer and his sons despite their remarkable contributions to that country over a period of seventy years. The contrast is testimony to the fragility of world peace and the perfidy of national interests: Sydney

19 http://www.holywellhousepublishing.co.uk/Mackenzie.html. 20 Harold S. Williams, The Story of Holme, Ringer & Co. Ltd in Western Japan, 1868–1968, pp. 68–74. 214 chapter twelve

Figure 12.8. Sydney Ringer enjoys dinner at the Sanyō Hotel in Shimonoseki with former Wuriu Shokwai employees ca. 1953. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Newton)

Figure 12.9. Staff members of the new Holme, Ringer & Co. pose for a photograph in front of the office in Moji, Fukuoka Prefecture in 1968, the year after Sydney Ringer’s death in England. Okamura Hirozō MBE is seated in the centre, with P.D.F. Hill (managing director) and W.E. Banks (area manager) to the left and right. (Harold S. Williams Collection, National Library of Australia) mountains and rivers remain 215

Figure 12.10. The Holme, Ringer & Co. office in Moji is still in operation today, one of the oldest names in the Japanese business world. (Photograph by the author, 2009)

Ringer being hounded out of Japan for his business activities and diplomatic connections in 1940; Angus A. Mackenzie receiving a prestigious award from the same country for similar activities and connections two decades later. Kōyōkan, the Western-style wooden house that had served as a residence for foreigners in Shimonoseki since the 1870s, was demolished in 1959 due to typhoon damage and the site cleared to make a lawn. The name ‘Kōyōkan’ was subsequently applied to the grand three-storey house standing behind it, built by Sydney Ringer in 1936 and formerly called ‘Rinkyōkan’. The British ambassador to Japan visited Shimonoseki in 1968 to confer the Order of the British Empire (honorary) on Okamura Hirozō for his contributions to British-Japanese cooperation, and the presenta- tion ceremony was held at Kōyōkan. From 1952, a series of Britons, many former Royal Navy officers, assumed the position of Holme, Ringer & Co. area manager and Lloyd’s representative and, as a matter of course, took up residence with their families in Kōyōkan and served as British consular agent. The last foreign area manager and British consular agent, Perry S. Mihara, moved out of 216 chapter twelve

Kōyōkan in 1972 because the climb up the long flight of steps had become too demanding.21 By this time the property was registered in the names of Freddy’s daughter Alcidie Bjergfelt and Sydney’s two granddaughters Elizabeth and Virginia. Holme, Ringer & Co. put the property up for sale at the request of the Ringer descendants, but no suitable buyer came forward because of the lack of an essential amenity: access to automobiles. Okamura and Mihara lobbied for the preservation of the building as a museum and eventually won the sympathy of Akama Shintō Shrine, located on the plot of land adjacent to the Kōyōkan property. Interested parties collected artifacts related to Fujiwara Yoshie, the famous opera singer and son of former Wuriu Shokwai manager Neil B. Reid, and opened the former Ringer house to the public as the ‘Fujiwara Yoshie Memorial Museum’ in 1982.22 (Fig. 12.11) The removal of the ‘British Consular Residence’ plaque signified the disappearance of the last vestige of foreign settlement culture lingering on the Shimonoseki hillside, but to this day the stone steps, red-brick walls and cast-iron gate at the entrance to Kōyōkan remain beautifully frozen in time, if only because no effort has been made to build a driveway or to exploit the building as a tourist attraction.

The Sun Sets

Sydney and Aileen Ringer made it a habit to spend the winter in Japan and the rest of the year with their son Michael and his family in Yorkshire. In May 1954, after clearing away all the remaining legal issues related to the family house in Nagasaki, Sydney registered his sons Michael and the late Vanya as co-owners of the No. 2 Minamiyamate property. The timing suggests that Sydney was still clinging to a sliver of hope that his descendants would find a way to maintain the Nagasaki connection, but this was suddenly cancelled by Aileen’s suicide in England the following year. Sydney and Aileen were living in a caravan parked in an open area near the house in Sinnington. Vanya’s elder daughter Elizabeth recalls that

21 Personal communication from Takemoto Kazuhiro, current president of Holme, Ringer & Co. Mihara and his wife moved to a more convenient location in Shimonoseki. In 1975, Mihara became president of the company and remained in that position until his retirement in 1982. No other foreign employee was appointed in the wake of his departure from Japan, and the post of British consular agent was dissolved. 22 http://gipsypapa.exblog.jp/9620283/. mountains and rivers remain 217

Figure 12.11. The Ringer family residence in Shimonoseki was renamed ‘Kōyōkan’ in 1959 and later designated as a heritage building by the Japanese government. Beautifully intact, the building and gardens are in use today as the Fujiwara Yoshie Memorial Museum. (Photograph by the author, 2011)

Sydney asked her to go and call Aileen when she did not appear for lunch but changed his mind and said he would go and fetch her himself. This saved the teenager the trauma of finding her grandmother dead from a wound inflicted with one of Sydney’s shotguns. The accumulation of grief over her son’s death and the subsequent shock of Prunella’s untimely demise, profound fatigue over the bitter experiences during and after the war – and perhaps even a sense of homelessness with all the comings and goings between England and Japan – may have compelled her to pull the trigger. Whatever the reason, the tragedy hammered a final nail into the coffin of the Ringer family presence in Japan. Sydney returned to Japan on a few subsequent occasions, although now he was more of a seasoned traveller than a returning resident. One of these trips was made in the company of Valerie Turner, the wife of the town clerk of York whose relationship with the ageing Nagasaki native and reasons for joining him remain unknown. The last existing photograph of Sydney Ringer in Japan captures him enjoying dinner with Turner, 218 chapter twelve

Ikegami Heizō and other former Holme, Ringer & Co. employees in a Nagasaki restaurant around 1960. (Fig. 12.12) All of the Ringer properties in Nagasaki eventually passed into Japanese hands. The lot at No. 7 where the Holme, Ringer & Co. office had stood was sold to the Nagasaki Jidōsha Co. in 1952 and turned into a car park and fuelling station for buses. Nagasaki City purchased the former Nagasaki International Club at No. 7 Dejima for a municipal museum and the land in the rear quarter of Ōura for use as a junior high school compound. The latter included No. 20 Ōura, the former site of The Nagasaki Press office and printing shop, and No. 21 Ōura, the first property acquired by Thomas B. Glover in 1860 and later the site of warehouses owned by Alt & Co. During a discussion recorded in 1966, Ikegami Heizō states that the market value of the Ōura lots at the time was 8,000 to 10,000 yen per tsubo (one tsubo is equivalent to about 3.3 square metres). He says that Sydney Ringer agreed to a price of 3,500 yen per tsubo when assured that the land would be used for a school, only to see Nagasaki City turn around later and sell pieces along the road to shop owners for 8,000 yen per

Figure 12.12. The last photograph of a Ringer family member in Japan shows Sydney enjoying dinner with Ikegami Heizō (sitting, second from left), Tomita Ikutarō (far right) and other Nagasaki friends ca. 1960. Sydney’s companion Valerie Turner is in the centre. (Nagasaki Glover Garden) mountains and rivers remain 219 tsubo.23 The undeveloped Minamiyamate hill lots, formerly the site of veg- etable gardens and a dairy maintained by Frederick Ringer, also went to Nagasaki City for rock-bottom prices, one being turned into a playground that to this day bears a sign saying ‘Ringer Park’. No. 4 Minamiyamate, the thin strip of land lying below the former Ringer and Glover houses, was sold to the Regional Government Employees Union and converted into a recreation facility. It is now the site of the Museum of Traditional Performing Arts in the Glover Garden complex. No. 10B Minamiyamate, site of the former Nagasaki Bowling Club acquired by Frederick Ringer in 1904, remained in the hands of the person who had purchased it during the war and was later cleared of buildings and made into a car park. Sydney transferred sections of land to former employees including Tomita Susumu, whose father Ikutarō had served the Ringer family for decades as a gardener, and Ikegami Heizō, who had kept track of the family accounts during the war. The Ikegami family house at No. 23 Ōura remains to this day as one of only a few foreign settlement buildings remaining in the former Ōura commercial district. The last Ringer property to go was the house at No. 2 Minamiyamate, the family residence referred to affectionately as ‘Niban’ since Frederick and Carolina Ringer moved in as newlyweds in 1883. From 1958 to 1964, Sydney rented the property to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, an institution established in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the American government to monitor the effects of radiation exposure among atomic bomb survivors. The American physicians who inhabited the house enjoyed the verdant hillside location and the panoramic view over the harbour but probably had little appreciation of the building’s storied history. After negotiations with the Ringer family through their legal representatives, Nagasaki City purchased the land and building in 1965 for eighteen million yen and opened it to the public the following year along with the former Glover house, which had been donated to Nagasaki City by the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard in 1957. To commemorate the inauguration of the former Ringer house as part of the Minamiyamate tourist attraction, Nagasaki Newspaper Co. invited several former Holme, Ringer & Co. employees to participate in a round- table discussion about Frederick Ringer and the contributions of his family to Nagasaki.24 The account of this discussion – entitled Ringāsan wo megutte (‘Regarding Mr Ringer’) and published in July 1966 – is surprising

23 Nagasaki Bunka (Nagasaki Culture) (Nagasaki Shinbunsha Co., Vol. 18, July 1966), p. 13. 24 Ibid., pp. 6–14. 220 chapter twelve in that, aside from Ikegami Heizō, the participants display little knowledge of or interest in the subject. An editor who simply wanted to produce a lighthearted article and stimulate interest in a new tourism resource may have inaccurately recorded the conversation. Still, the shallow comments, mistaken historical facts, and strangely jocular tone point to the ‘wipe-the- slate-clean’ attitude of many Japanese as they emerged from the night- mare of the Second World War and embarked on an era of prosperity and forward-looking international cooperation. Shipbuilding, fishing and tourism were the new pillars of the local economy; no one felt any special nostalgia for Nagasaki in its heyday as an international port-of-call, as a haunt for merchant-adventurers, bluejackets and vagabonds, and as a romantic outpost of colonial empires. Even fewer people were interested in analysing the sad events of the Second World War and its aftermath. Sydney Ringer died in England the year after the publication of the round- table discussion. He was seventy-six years old at the time. (Fig. 12.13)

Figure 12.13. Sydney Arthur Ringer ca. 1960. (Nagasaki Glover Garden) mountains and rivers remain 221

The Japanese government designated the house at No. 2 Minamiyamate an ‘Important Cultural Asset’ in June 1966, an honour based mostly on the architectural value of the building. The refurbishment that followed cleared away all the dust and clutter and restored the house to its original state of beauty, like a pot washed clean in preparation for a new meal. Today, as part of the Glover Garden complex, the house continues its vigil on the hillside overlooking Nagasaki Harbour, a witness to the years of European expansion in East Asia and Japan’s dramatic emergence as an industrial and economic titan in the twentieth century. Outside, its Amakusa sandstone façade and hipped roof with chimneys and kawara roof tiles reveal the first mingling of European and Japanese architectural styles after the opening of Japan’s doors in 1859. Inside, the walls and fireplaces and dark wooden floors whisper forgotten tales of a British family that built a bridge over the cultural gap and served for three generations – amid the relentless tumult of changing times – as business and social leaders in a land across the seas. (Fig. 12.14)

Figure 12.14. Japanese postage stamps (issued in 2002) showing the former Glover house (right) and the former Ringer family residences at No. 14 (left) and No. 2 (above) Minamiyamate. All three buildings are preserved today in Nagasaki Glover Garden as National Important Cultural Assets.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abkhazi, Peggy. A Curious Cage: Life in a Japanese Internment Camp 1943–1945. Victoria: Sono Nis Press, 1981. Beasley, William G. Great Britain and the Opening of Japan 1834–1858. London: The Japan Library, 1995. Boxer, C.R. The Christian Century in Japan 1549–1650. Berkley: University of California Press, 1951. —— . The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600 to 1800. London: Penguin Books, 1990. Burke-Gaffney, Brian. ‘The Man Who Could Not Take Sides’, Crossroads: A Journal of Nagasaki History and Culture, No. 3. Nagasaki, 1995. —— . Starcrossed: A Biography of Madame Butterfly. Norwalk: EastBridge, 2004. —— . Nagasaki: A History in Picture Postcards. Nagasaki: Nagasaki Bunkensha, 2006. —— . Nagasaki: The British Experience, 1854–1945. Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2009. Cortazzi, Hugh. Victorians in Japan in and around the Treaty Ports. London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: The Athlone Press, 1988. —— . Britain and the ‘Re-opening’ of Japan: The Treaty of Yedo of 1858 and the Elgin Mission. London: Japan Society Publications, 2008. Cortazzi, Hugh and Gordon Daniels, eds. Britain and Japan, 1859–1991: Themes and Personalities. London and New York: Routledge, 1991. Cortazzi, Hugh, Ian Nish, Peter Lowe, James E. Hoare, eds. British Envoys in Japan, 1859-1972. Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2004. Davis, Maxine. ‘Britain’s Ambassador Incognito’. The Saturday Evening Post, 25 January 1941. Dobson, Richard. China Cycle. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1946. Earns, Lane. Nagasaki kyoryūchi no seiyōjin (Westerners of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement) (Nagasaki: Nagasaki Bunkensha, 2002). Finn, Dallas. ‘Josiah Conder (1852–1940) and Meiji Architecture’. Britain and Japan 1859– 1991: Themes and Personalities. London: Routledge, 1991. Fortune, Robert. Yedo and Peking: A Narrative of a Journey to the Capitals of Japan and China. London: John Murray, 1863. Fujiwara, Yoshie. Ryūten nanajūgonen: opera to koi no hansei (Vagabond for 75 Years: A Life of Opera and Love). Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Centre, 1998. Fukasaku, Yukiko. Technology and Industrial Development in Pre-War Japan: Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard 1884–1934. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. Gowen, Vincent H. Sunrise to Sunrise. Victoria: Trafford Publishing, 2008. Hart, John W. The Shanghai Water-Works (Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Volume 100, Issue 1890). Hodgson, C. Pemberton. A Residence at Nagasaki and Hakodate in 1859-1860. London: Richard Bentley, 1861. Inuzuka, Takaaki. Satsumahan eikoku ryūgakusei (Students of the Satsuma Domain in England). Tokyo: Chūōkōronsha, 1974). Itoh, Eiichi. ‘The Danish Monopoly on Telegraphy in Japan: A Case Study of an Unequal Communication System in the Far East’, Keio Communication Review, No. 29, 2007. Japan Commission on Large Dams, ed. Dams in Japan: Past, Present and Future. London: Francis & Taylor Group, 2009. Kipling, Rudyard. From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches: Letters of Travel. London, 1900. Kagoshima City ed. Jūyōbunkazai bōsekisho gishikan shūrikōji hōkokusho (Report on the Repair of an Important Cultural Asset: The Cotton Mill Foreigner’s Residence). Kagoshima, 1979. 224 bibliography

Kaminaga, Eisuke. ‘Hokutō ajia ni okeru kindaihogeigyō no reimei’ (The Dawn of Modern Whaling in Northeast Asia). Slavic Studies. Hokkaidō University, Vol. 49, 2002. Kitano Norio, Amakusa kaigai hattenshi (History of the Involvement of Amakusa in Overseas Development). Fukuoka: Ashi Shobō, 1985. Kobayashi, Masaru. Nagasaki meiji yōkan (Western-style Buildings of the Meiji Period in Nagasaki). Nagasaki, 1993. Lamb, W. Kaye. Empress to the Orient. Vancouver Maritime Museum Society, 1991. Leck, Greg. Captives of Empire: The Japanese Internment of Civilians in China 1941–1945. Bangor: Shandy Press, 2006. Lockwood, William W. The Economic Development of Japan: Growth and Structural Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954. Loti, Pierre. Madame Chrysanthème. Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1888. Macpherson, Kerrie L. A Wilderness of Marshes: The Origins of Public Health in Shanghai, 1843–1893. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Maekawa Masao, Tankōshi: Nagasaki-ken sekitanshi nenpyō (A History of Coal Mining: Chronology of Major Events in Nagasaki Prefecture). Fukuoka: Ashi Shobō, 1990. McKay, Alexander. Scottish Samurai: Thomas Blake Glover 1838–1911. Edinburgh: Canongate Press, 1997. Miller, David. A Solution for the Heart: The Life of Sydney Ringer (1836–1910). London: The Physiology Society, 2007. Mitsubishi Shashi Kankōkai, ed. Mitsubishi shashi (Mitsubishi Company Records). Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1981. Morton-Cameron, W.H., ed. Present-Day Impressions of Japan. Chicago: The Globe Encyclopedia Co., 1919. Murakami, Masayuki. Nagasaki no denshin denwa shi (History of the Telegraph and Telephone in Nagasaki). Nagasaki, 1973. Nagasaki City, ed. Nagasaki shisei rokujūgonenshi (A Sixty Five Year History of the Nagasaki Municipal Administration). Nagasaki, 1959. —— . Nagasaki shishi nenpyō (Nagasaki City Chronology). Nagasaki, 1981. —— . Nagasaki genbaku sensaishi (Record of the War Damages Caused by the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1991. Nagasaki City Board of Education, ed. Nagasaki kyoryūchi: dentōteki kenzōbutsugun hozon- taisaku chōsahōkokusho (Nagasaki Foreign Settlement: Report on Measures for the Preservation of a Group of Traditional Buildings). Nagasaki, 1989. —— . Nagasaki koshashinshū kyoryūchihen (Old Photographs of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement). Nagasaki, 1995. —— . Higashiyamate, Minamiyamate no rekishitekiisan wo machizukuri ni ikasu tame ni (Utilising the Historic Assets of Higashiyamate and Minamiyamate in City Planning). Nagasaki, 2002. Nagasaki City Water Bureau, ed. Nagasaki suidō hyakunenshi (One Hundred Year History of the Nagasaki Waterworks). Nagasaki: Nagasaki Bunkensha, 1992. Nagasaki Prefecture, ed. Nagasaki kyoryūchi gaikokujin meibo (List of Foreign Residents of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement). Nagasaki, 2004. Nagasaki Prefecture Civil Engineering Department, ed. Nagasaki shi suidō shimatsu (Nagasaki City Waterworks Beginning and End). Nagasaki, 1888. Naitō Hatsuho. Meiji kenkoku no yōshō: Thomas B. Glover shimatsu (Western Merchant and Contributor to Meiji Country-building: Thomas B. Glover Start to Finish). Tokyo: Atene Shobo, 2000. Nippon Yūsen Kaisha (N.Y.K.), ed. Nippon yūsen kaisha nanajūnenshi (Seventy-Year History of the Nippon Yūsen Kaisha). Tokyo, 1956. Nish, Ian, ed. Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits. Folkestone, Kent: The Japan Library, 1994–1999. Nishi-Nippon Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. Nagasaki Shipyard, ed. Mitsubishi Nagasaki zōsenjoshi zokuhen (History of the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard. Nagasaki, 1951). bibliography 225

O’Connor, Peter. The English-Language Press Networks of East Asia, 1918–1945. Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2010. Osborn, Sherard. A Cruise in Japanese Waters. Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1859. Paske-Smith, M. Western Barbarians in Japan and Formosa in Tokugawa Days, 1603-1868. Kobe: J.L. Thompson and Co., 1927. Ruxton, Ian, ed. The Semi-Official Letters of British Envoy Sir Ernest Satow from Japan and China (1895–1906). Japan: Lulu.com, 2007. Senkan Musashi Kenzō Kiroku Kankōiinkai, ed. Senkan musashi kenzō kiroku: yamatogata senkan no zenbō (The Construction of the “Musashi:” A Portrait of the Yamato-class Battleships). Tokyo: Atene Shobō, 1994. Shibata, Keishi. Nagasaki no shokikisen to torōru gyogyō (Early Steamships in Nagasaki and the Trawling Industry). Kaijishi Kenkyū, Vol. 59, 2002. Shiboi, Toshio. Erasmus H.M. Gower to sono keirui (Erasmus H.M. Gower and his Descendants). Tokyo: Bunka Sōgō Shuppan, 1979. Shigefuji, Takeo, Nagasaki kyoryūchi to gaikokushōnin (Nagasaki Foreign Settlement and Foreign Merchants). Tokyo: Kazama Shobō, 1967. Shimonoseki City History Editing Committee, ed. Shimonoseki shishi: shisei hakkō – shūsen (Shimonoseki City History: From Municipal Inauguration to the Postwar Period). Shimonoseki, 1983. Stephan, John. The Russian Far East: A History. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1996. Sugiyama, Shinya. ‘Thomas Glover: A British Merchant in Japan, 1861–1870’. Business History, Vol. 26, No. 2, 1984. —— . Meiji ishin to igirisu shōnin: tomasu gurabā no shōgai (The Meiji Restoration and a Takeuchi, Hiroshi, ed. Rainichi seiyōjinmei jiten (Dictionary of Western Visitors to Japan). Tokyo: Kinokuniya Shoten, 1995. Tønnessen, Johan and Johnsen, Arne O. The History of Modern Whaling. Berkley: University of California Press, 1982. Totani, Yuma. The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008. Tōyō Hogei Kabushiki Kaisha, ed. Honpō no noruweishiki hogeishi (History of Norwegian- style Whaling in Japan. Tokyo, 1910. UNESCO Higashi Ajia Bunka Kenkyū Sentā, ed. Oyatoi gaikokujin (Foreigners Employed in Meiji Japan). Tokyo, 1975. Williams, Harold S. The Story of Holme Ringer & Co., Ltd. in Western Japan, 1868-1968. Rutland, Vt. & Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1968. Wray, William D. Mitsubishi and the N.Y.K.: Business Strategy in the Japanese Shipping Industry. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1984. Yamaguchi, Mitsuomi. Nagasaki no yōfū kenchiku (Western-style Architecture in Nagasaki). Nagasaki: Nagasaki City Board of Education, 1967. Yanagimoto, Kenichi, ed. Gekidōnijūnen (A turbulent twenty years). Tokyo: Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1965.

APPENDIX ONE

RINGER FAMILY TREE

APPENDIX TWO

HOLME, RINGER & COMPANY (WURIU SHOKWAI) AGENCY LIST FOR 1918*

Banks

Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China Comptoir National d’Escompte de Paris National Bank of China Banque de l’Indo-China International Banking Corporation Thomas Cook & Son

Insurance Companies

Lloyd’s (London) London Salvage Association The Liverpool Underwriters’ Association National Board of Marine Underwriters, New York Marine Insurance Co., London Union Insurance Society of Canton, Ltd. Yangtze Insurance Association. Ltd. North China Insurance Co. Marine Insurance Co. North British and Mercantile Insurance Co. Commercial Union Insurance Co., Ltd. Norwich Union Fire Insurance Society Law Union & Rock Insurance Co. South British Insurance Co., Ltd. London and Lancashire Insurance Co. Board of Underwriters of New York Sun Insurance Co. Royal Insurance Co. Helvetia General Insurance Co. Ltd.

* ‘From the 1918 issue of the Chronicle and Directory.’ 230 holme, ringer & company agency list for 1918

Baloise Transport Insurance Co., Ltd. Switzerland General Insurance Co. Ltd. Swiss National Insurance Co. Ltd. China Mutual Life Insurance Co. Ltd. Tokyo Marine Insurance Co. Ltd. British & Foreign Marine Insurance Co. Ltd., Liverpool London Steamship Owners’ Mutual Insurance Association Travellers’ Baggage Insurance Association, Ltd. Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co., San Francisco Western Australian Insurance Co. Ltd., Perth World Marine & General Insurance Co. Ltd., London Companie d’Assurances de Paris Atlantica Insurance Co. Ltd., Oporto Assuranceforeningen Skuld, Christiana Casa Navale d’Assicurazioni, Genoa

Steamship Companies

P&O Steam Navigation Co. Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes Canadian Pacific Ocean Services Ltd. Toyo Kisen Kaisha (Oriental S.S. Co.) China Navigation Co., Ltd. China Mutual S.N. Co., Ltd. Ocean S.S. Co., Ltd. American and Oriental Line Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Co., Ltd. Auchen Steam Shipping Co., Ltd. Charles Barrie & Son (Den Line, etc.) T. & J. Brocklebank, Ltd. Burrell & Son (Strath Line) Compania Transatlantica Camillo Eitzen & Co. H. Fredricksen Furness Withy & Co., Ltd. (Gulf Line) Gallatly Hankey & Co. Gow Harrison & Co. Greenshields Cowie & Co. (Knight Line) Houlder Middleton & Co. Jebsen, M. appendix two 231

Menzell & Co. Northern S.S. Co., Ltd. (Petrograd) Prince Line, Ltd. Rankin, Gilmour & Co., Ltd. Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. Russian East Asiatic Co. Russian Steam Navigation & Trading Co. Steamship Co. “Ocean” Ltd., (Odessa) G.M. Steeves & Co. Swedish East Asiatic Co. Turner Brightman & Co. China Mail S.S. Co. John Warrack & Co. Watts, Watts & Co., Ltd. Andrew Weir & Co.’s Lines of Steamers (Bank Line, etc.) West Hartlepool S.N. Co., Ltd. Eastern & American S.S. Co. “Ben” Line of Steamers “Shire” Line of Steamers Mogul S.S. Co., Ltd. East Asiatic Co., Ltd. British India S.N. Co., Ltd. Pacific Mail S.S. Co. Java-China-Japan Line Apcar Line Barber Line of Steamers American Asiatic S.S. Co.

General Agencies

Japan & Eastern Trading Co., Ltd. Taikoo Sugar Refining Co., Ltd. British Anti-Fouling Composition & Paint Co., Ltd. Castle Steam Trawlers Co., Ltd. (Sole Agents for Japan) Evan Thomas and Williams Mining Lamps and Accessories (Sole Agents for Japan) Excelsior Wire Rope Co., Ltd. (Sole Agents for Japan) Mackie & Co. Distillers, Ltd., Glasgow (Sole Agents for Japan and Korea) Smith’s Dock Co. Middlesbro’ and S. Shields (Sole Agents for China and Japan)

INDEX

Ackerman, G.H. 61 Cowan, William 122 Aino to Obama railway 174 Cox, Melville J. 177 Allied Occupation 174, 193–5, 201–3 ‘all-red route’ 65, 79 Denbigh, George 36, 103 Alt, William J. 15, 18, 164 Dobson, Richard 177 Andersen, Molly 183–5 Dodwell & Co. 213 Angier, H. Elgin 69 Drysdale, Thomas M. 5 Anglo-Satsuma War 21 Dufu 201–2 Ansei Five-Power Treaties 12 dynamite 40–2 Aoki, Sakuo 170, 178 arms trade 19 Eighteenth National Bank 114, 143, 145 Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission 219 eirojinkumiai 102–3 Elgin, Lord 9–12 Ballard, J.G. 189 Empress of Russia 143, 148, 164, 169, 176, 181 Bangka Island (camp) 191 Enslie, James J. 58, 63 Banks, W.E. 214 exchange ship 182, 184–5 Baranger, Raymond Walter. See W.R. Wills. First World War 110, 130, 137, 139–43, Beach Hotel (Mogi) 163, 205 146–9 Belle Vue Hotel 26, 35, 37, 59 Fletcher & Co. 4, 5, 16 Bennett, Walter G. 77, 116 Fleischer, H.M. 57 bird hunting 31, 155, 179, 191, 213 Fleisher, B.W. 176 Bjergfelt, Folmer 161, 175, 183, 186–7 Fortified Zone Law 158–9, 168 blindfold warehouse 170, 194 ‘four-power treaty’ 146 Blyth, Cooper 195 Frank, Prunella 167, 171, 179–80, Boeddinghaus, Carl 139 190–1, 200 Bower, Alexander 3, 4 Fujiwara, Yoshie 118–20 Bowie, Robert I. 90, 92 Fujiwara Yoshie Memorial Museum 216–7 British Indian Army 180, 190, 196 Fukaye-maru. See Steamship Fishery Co. Bruce, Sir James. See Lord Elgin. Fukuda, Taizō 212 Bryner, Julius 36 Fukuoka 63, 154, 213–4 Buckland, Percy J. 92, 96, 125–6, 128–9 bund 17, 24, 51, 84, 152, 170, 187 GHQ-SCAP 195, 205, 209 Ginsburg, Morris 79–80, 91 Canadian Pacific Railway Co. (CPR) 63–4, Glover & Co. 14–20, 22, 24–29, 32 78, 142–4, 164, 166, 169 Glover, Alexander 18, 20, 45 Canton (Guangzhou) 2–3, 190 ‘Glover Fish Atlas’ 111 Chapei (camp) 190 Glover Garden (theme park) 46, 210–1, Chemulpo (Incheon) 77, 123, 125 219, 221 Chiang Kai-shek 170, 189 Glover house 25, 40, 171–3, 202–5, 219, 221 Chichibu, Prince 159 Glover, Thomas B. 14–20, 22, 24–9, 32–3, China & Japan Trading Co. 45, 55 40–1, 43–45, 47, 67, 72–4, 77, 87, 109 Christian Endeavour Home for Goldsby, Joseph C. 203–4 Seamen 175 Gower, Erasmus H.M. 37–8, 41–4 Chūzenji, Lake 94, 96, 136, 153 Great Northern Telegraph Company 35, Civil Property Custodian (CPC) 195, 57, 93, 140, 161, 174, 175, 183 206–7, 209, 212 Greatrex, Ferdinand C. 123, 154, 179–80, Conder, Josiah xi, 80, 149 183–6 234 index

Grew, Joseph C. 182 Lloyd’s agency 49, 115, 124, 131, 142, 176, Gribble, Henry 18, 20, 31, 32 213, 215 Longford, Joseph H. 76 Hall, The See Sinnington. Loti, Pierre 50–1 Halse, S.J. 152 Lunghwa (camp) 189–90 Hansard, Albert W. 32, 176 Harston, William 94–5 Mackie & Co. Distillers 141 Hart, John W. 53–4 ‘Madame Butterfly House’ 203–4 Hepburn, J.C. 159 Mackenzie, Angus A. 213–5 Hill, P.D.F. 214 Mackenzie, Kenneth R. 12–4 Hirohito, Emperor 159, 171 Malcolm, Thomas 213 Hitchcock, Henry B. 156 Makino, Nobuaki 132 Holme, Edward Z. vii,20, 22–24, 27, 34, 44, ‘Manchester Seven’ 22 81, 96, 98 Marco Polo Bridge incident 168 Holme, Ryle 18, 22, 44 Matsuda, Ariyoshi 209 Hong Kong and Eastern Shipping Co., Matsuo, Miyoji 71–2, 74, 114 Ltd. 213 Matsumoto, Kenjirō 120 Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank 18, 79, 85, McKenzie, Robert 117, 120, 123–4, 129, 161 87, 95, 142, 152, 187 mekakushi sōko. See blindfold Hungjao Golf Club 201 warehouse. merchant consul 66–8, 116 Ikegami, Heizō 162, 180, 209, 218–20 Michinaga, Ei 65 International Military Tribunal for the Far Mihara, Perry S. 215–6 East. See Tokyo Tribunal. Mikado, The 51, 119, 159 ‘Ipponmatsu’. See Glover house. Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard 49, 58, 61, 84, 87, 93, 109, 129, 131, 146, 147, 167, Japan and Eastern Trading Co. 163 169, 219 Japan Tourist Bureau 156, 159 Miyamoto, Musashi 113 Jardine, Matheson & Co., 12, 14, 15, 18, 19, Moji 113–7, 120–3, 134, 150, 154, 159, 165–6, 26, 42, 44, 117, 134, 142 172, 210–5 Jordan, James 136, 140 Mori, Arayoshi 149 Mukden Incident 153 Kagoshima, 21–24, 72, 126 Musashi (battleship) 147, 169–73, 181, 184 Kawanami Industries Co. 186, 202, 209 Myōgyōji 13 Kempeitai (military police) 122, 158, 160, 166–8, 177, 179, 182, 186, 189 Nagano, Wakamatsu 193 kerosene, import of 70–2 Nagasaki Kejzerling, H.H. 101–6 American Consulate 45, 160, 179, Kipling, Rudyard 51–2 181–2, 194 Kobayashi, Masaru 210 atomic bomb 141, 186, 193–5, 199, kokutai 151–2 201–2, 204 Korea 37–8, 72, 75–7, 101–5, 116, 122–3, 153 Bowling Club 59, 219 Kosuge Ship Repair Dock 102 British Consulate 13, 28, 30, 35, 40, 41, Kōyōkan 121, 124, 153, 161, 164–6, 211–2, 45, 59, 60, 123, 128, 135, 139, 142, 153, 215–7 155, 202 Kusaka, Yoshio 53–6, 58–9, 61 Chinese Consulate 59, 142 Kwassui Jogakkō (women’s school) 160 Club 79, 88, 93, 126, 135, 142, 186 Kyūshū Railway 8, 65 Electric Light Company 84 English Church 44–562, 128, 136 League of Nations 154, 157, 167 Fish Market 110 Lessner, Sigmund 110 foreign population 25, 26, 132, 142, 147 Lewis, Lina Marion. See William Sainton. Fortress Headquarters 186 Lewis, Willmott H. 134–8 German Consulate 139, 142 Liefde 7 International Club 87–9, 153, 218 index 235

Jidōsha Co. 218 Ringer, Alcidie Jennie. See Folmer Masonic Lodge 149 Bjergfelt Public Hall 32, 63, 135, 149 Ringer, John M. 2, 4, 43, 53, 81 Racing and Athletic Committee ‘Ringer Park’ 219 (NRAC) 33 Ringer, Sydney (Dr) 2, 82, 155 Regatta 17, 18, 32, 128 Rinkyōkan 165–6 Steam Roller Flour Mill 60–2, River Slim, battle of 191 114, 128 Rosomon, P.R. 126, 153 Waterworks 53–6 Rothwell, Love & Co. 2 Nagasaki-maru 147–8, 187 Royal Hotel (Norwich) xi–xiii,98 Nagasaki Press, The Russo-Japanese War xii,91, 105, 108, 122, inauguration 83 130–2, 135, 146, 148–50, 178 shutting down 150 Ryley, Charles 34 National Mobilisation Law 169 New Military Secrets Protection Law Sainton, William 153, 161, 189–90 168, 179 Sakata, Kiku. See Fujiwara Yoshie. Nicholas II 65 Samuel, Samuel & Co. 70–1, 117, 134 Nikolay Aleksandrovich. See Nicholas II. Saris, John 8 Nippon Seikōkai 163 Sasaki, Kōjirō 113 Nippon Yūsen Kaisha (NYK) 36, 62, 63, Satow, Ernest M. 22, 23, 116, 121 147–8 Satsuma. See Kagoshima. Norwich xi–xiii, 1, 2, 17, 47, 96, 98, 225 Sawayama & Co. 143, 145 Semenoff, Iacob L. 36, 103, 104 Obama, Yoshi 152 Shanghai International Settlement 5, 53, Oka, Jūrō 104–6 187–8 Okamura, Hirozō 180, 209, 213–6 Shanghai-maru. See Nagasaki-maru. Olsen, Fredrik 104–6 Shiboi, Uta. See Erasmus H.M. Gower. Ōmura, Sumitada 7 Shibusawa, Keizō 111–2 Opium War 2, 3 Shimazu (daimyo of Satsuma domain) Ordinance No. 272, 186 21, 22 Oriental Whaling Company 102 Shimonoseki Osborn, Sherard 10 British Consulate 122 Ōura Catholic Church 41, 202 Fortress Headquarters 212 opening as a port 113–5 Pacific Whaling Co. See H.H. Kejzerling. Treaty of 75 Palembang (camp) 191, 198 wartime damage 210–2 Parlett, Harold G. 93 Shūseikan 21–23 Paul, Maurice E. 70, 79–80, 82 Sino-Japanese War (first) xi,72, 75–8 Pearl Harbor 176, 182–3 Sinninghe Damste, J.S. 197 Perry, Commodore Matthew 9 Sinnington 200–1, 216 perpetual lease 14, 18, 89, 90, 121, 151, 153, Sixth Army (US) 193–5 174, 186 Smith, John C. 18, 20, 24, 33, 45, 66–8, 87, Phipps, Gerald H. 108 90, 98, 125 Playfair, Frank W. 116–7 Smith, Matthiessen 115–6 Punjab Regiment 180, 190–1 Standard Oil Company of New York Pusan (Busan) 37, 122–3, 125, 153 142, 174 Pye, Edmund 43 Steamship Fishery Co. 107–10 Stirling, James 9 Quin, John J. 66–8, 70 Sutherland Lodge xiii, 155, 166, 179

Reid, Neil B. 96, 98, 116–21, 125, 127, Taiwan (Formosa) 33, 71, 75 129, 216 Takashima Colliery 20, 27, 33, 39–43, Reparations and Restitution Mission, 45, 52 UK 195, 206, 212 Takehisa, Yumeji 148 236 index

Taikoo Sugar Manufacturing Co. 115 Verstappen, P.A. 69–70 tea trade vii,2–4, 16, 26–7, Vladivostok 34–7, 76–8, 102, 103, 175 36, 128 telephone, introduction of 57–60 Walker, Wilson 27–8 Tokugawa Shogunate 8, 9, 12, 13, 19, 21, 22, Wallace, James H. 96, 120, 125, 128–9, 172 30, 42 Washington Naval Treaty 146–7, 169 Tokyo Tribunal 196–200 Waters, Thomas J. 22–3 Tomita, Ikutarō 162, 208 William Denny and Brothers of Tomita, Susumu 162, 209, 219 Dumbarton 147 tourism 78, 159, 204, 220 Williams, Harold S. iv,35–6, 48, 94, 136, Tower, Arthur F. 175, 178–9, 181 162, 204 trawling, steam 107–10 Wills, W.R. 176 treaty revisions (of 1899) 89–90 Willsher, Albert E. 92–3 Turner, Valerie 217–8 Yangchow A (camp) 189–90 Unzen 78–9, 135, 174 ‘yellow peril’ 132 Uryū, Furuu 52–6, 58–9, 61, 114 Uryū, Hajime 114–5, 117, 121 Zohrab 27–8