Biographical Portraits

BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME VI Sir Winston Churchill saying goodbye to Crown Prince Akihito, the present Emperor of Japan, after lunch at No 10 Downing Street on 30 April 1953. (See Ch. 1) Courtesy Mainichi. BRITAIN & JAPAN: Biographical Portraits VOLUME VI Compiled & Edited by HUGH CORTAZZI JAPAN SOCIETY PAPERBACK EDITION Not for resale BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS Volume VI Compiled & Edited by Hugh Cortazzi First published in 2007 by GLOBAL ORIENTAL LTD PO Box 219 Folkestone Kent CT20 2WP UK www.globaloriental.co.uk © The Japan Society 2007 ISBN 978-1-905246-33-5 [Case] All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library SPECIAL THANKS The Chairman and Council of the Japan Society together with the Editor and Publishers of this volume wish to express their thanks to the following organizations for their support: The Daiwa Anglo- Japanese Foundation, The Great Britain-Sasakawa Foundation. Set in Bembo 11 on 11.5pt by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester Printed and bound in England by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts Table of Contents Introduction by Hugh Cortazzi xi Alphabetical List of Contributors xv Index of Biographical Portraits in Japan Society Volumes xvii PART I: POLITICIANS 1Winston Churchill (1874–1965) and Japan 1 2Prime Minister Yoshida in London 1954: The First Visit to Britain by a Japanese Prime Minister 15 3 Edward Heath (1916–2005) and Japan: The First Visit of a British Prime Minister to Japan in 1972 23 4 Nitobe Inazo¯ in London 34 5 Inagaki Manjiro¯ (1861–1908): A Diplomat who Recognized the Importance of the Asia-Pacific Region to Japan 44 PART II: ROYAL MATTERS 6 The Sho¯wa Emperor’s State Visit to Britain, October 1971 53 7A Royal Alliance: Court Diplomacy and Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1900–41 63 8Japanese Tattooists and the British Royal Family during the Meiji Period 71 PART III: BUSINESS FIGURES The Japanese car industry and Britain 9Toyota and Britain 81 10 Nissan and the British Motor Vehicle Industry (Prior to the Nissan Investment in the UK in 1984) 94 11 Nissan Investment in Britain: History of a Negotiation 1980–84 107 12 Honda So¯ichiro¯(1906–1991) and Honda Motors in Britain 122 Other Business leaders 13 Morita Akio (1921–99), Sony and Britain 133 14 Sir Peter Parker (1924–2002) and Japan 145 15 Lord (Eric) Roll of Ipsden (1907–2005), S.G. Warburg and Shirasu Jiro¯ 158 16 Chino Yoshitoki (1923–2004) and the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation 167 17 Frank Guyver Britton (1879–1934), Engineer and Earthquake Hero 174 18 Ernest Cyril Comfort: The Other British Aviation Mission and Mitsubishi 1921–24 182 .. 19 Uyeno Yutaka (1915– ) 191 - PART IV: LITERARY FIGURES 20 Yoshida Ken’ichi (1912–77), Anglophile Novelist, Essayist, Literary Critic, Translator and Man of Letters 200 21 Somerset Maugham (1874–1965), Novelist, Playwright, Essayist and Traveller 212 22 Ian Fleming (1908–64), Novelist and Journalist 221 23 Frank Tuohy (1925–99): The Best is Silence 234 24 Angela Carter (1940–92): Disorientations 245 PART V: ART COLLECTORS, AN ARCHAEOLOGIST AND AN ARTIST 25 Charles Holme (1848–1923), Founder of The Studio and Connoisseur of Japanese Art 250 26 Augustus Wollaston Franks (1826–97) and James Lord Bowes (1834–1899): Collecting Japan in Victorian England 262 27 William Gowland (1842–1922), Pioneer of Japanese Archaeology 271 28 Elizabeth Keith (1887–1956): A Marriage of British Art and Japanese Craftsmanship 281 PART VI: A JOURNALIST, A TEACHER AND THREE SCHOLARS 29 Hugh Fulton Byas (1875–1945): ‘The fairest and most temperate of foreign writers on Japan’s political development’ Between the Wars 287 ’ 30 Edward Gauntlett (1868–1956), English Teacher, Explorer and Missionary 299 31 Joseph Henry Longford (1849–1925), Consul and Scholar 307 32 Kathleen Mary Drew Baker, British Botanist whose Studies Helped to Save the Japanese Nori Industry 315 . . 33 Maruyama Masao (1914–96) and Britain: An Intellectual in Search of Liberal Democracy 322 ENVOI 34 The Beatles in Japan 1966 333 Report (facsimile) from the British Embassy, Tokyo, on the Beatles’ visit to Japan 336 APPENDIX Course of the Nissan Negotiation 1980–84 343 Notes 365 Index 412 For Phillida Purvis Acknowledgements The editor is most grateful to all the contributors who have received no remuneration for their efforts. Orthography Japanese names are given in the Japanese order of surname followed by the given name with the exception of Japanese contributors whose names are given in the English order of given name followed by the surname. x Introduction HUGH CORTAZZI I 1991, to mark its centenary, the Japan Society sponsored the publication of Britain and Japan 1859–1991: Themes and Personalities. When, as Chairman of the Society’s Council I proposed that we should mark the occasion with a volume of this kind, Ian Nish, a member of the Council, strongly supported the proposal and was a contributor to the volume which I edited together with Gordon Daniels. Ian also backed the idea of a follow-up volume, which we decided to call Britian and Japan: Biographical Portraits.He agreed to edit this volume, which was published in 1994, as well as Volume II, which appeared in 1997. Jim Hoare undertook to edit Volume III, which followed in 1999. I was keen to see the project continue and have edited the three subsequent volumes IV (2002), V (2004) and VI (2007). I also edited another volume on British Envoys in Japan 1859–1972, published in 2004, which incorporated some already published biographical portraits and a good deal of new material. Ian Nish has since edited a companion volume on Japanese Envoys in Britain (2007). I want to thank both Ian Nish and Jim Hoare not only for all their contribu- tions to these volumes but also for their enthusiastic support for the whole project. I also want to express my particular thanks to Phillida Purvis, to whom this volume is dedicated, for her help and advice over the present volume. Volume V, published in 2005, contained an index of biographical portraits published in previous volumes. This index, incorporating the portraits in Volume VI, is reproduced in this volume. Volume IV, published in 2002, included a list of individuals about whom monographs had been published. The present volume contains thirty-three biographical portraits and relevant essays and brings the total in the volumes listed above to nearly 250 essays. The coverage has been wide. We have already covered adequately British and Japanese diplomats, but I have included some portraits of important British and Japanese politicians who have played significant roles in our relationship. The first essay in this volume by Eiji Seki explores Sir Winston Churchill’s interest in, and his dealings with xi BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME VI Japanese affairs. Although Churchill never visited Japan he played a crucial role in many issues affecting Japan. The first British Prime Minister to visit Japan was Sir Edward Heath and the first Japanese Prime Minister to visit Britain while in office was Yoshida Shigeru; both are the subjects of a biographical portrait by me. Other politicians who are commemorated in this volume are Nitobe Inazo¯(by Ian Nish) and Inagaki Manjiro¯(by Noboru Koyama). The next section continues our coverage of royal and imperial personalities and events. Antony Best in his essay on court relations in the first four decades of the twentieth century underlines the political aspects of royal exchanges. Noboru Koyama’s essay on Japanese tattooists and the British royal family draws attention to a feature which will be new to most readers. Economic and trade relations have been particularly important, especially in the second half of the twentieth century. So it is right that almost a third of the chapters in this volume deal with businessmen. The first section on the Japanese car industry and Britain begins with a memoir by Toyoda Sho¯ ichiro¯, Honorary Chairman of Toyota, and ends with a biographical portrait by me of the charismatic and eccen- tric Honda So¯ichiro¯. The Nissan investment in Sunderland in 1984 was of great significance for Britain and the negotiations leading up to it are covered in a comprehensive and unique account by Robin Mountfield who was the senior official in the Department of Industry leading the negotiations. The earlier relationship between Nissan and the British motor industry is covered in an essay by Christopher Madeley. The second section begins with portraits by me of Morita Akio of Sony and Sir Peter Parker. In their very different ways and roles they were outstanding figures in the business relationship between our two countries in the last decades of the twentieth century. The subjects of the next two portraits of Eric Roll by Martin Gordon and of Chino Yoshitoki by Nick Clegg were important not only for the friendships which they developed in Japan and Britain but also for the establish- ment of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation which has made a significant contribution to the cultural relationship. Frank Britton, another British businessman who is the subject of a portrait by his daughter, played a brave role during the great Yokohama earthquake of 1923. Ernest Comfort, the subject of a biographical portrait by Jim Hoare, is interesting for the light which it sheds on the assistance which British engineers gave to the development of the Japanese aviation industry.

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