Endō Kinsuke
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Endō Kinsuke (遠藤謹助?); (1836-1893) was a Japanese statesman in the early Meiji period.
Endo was born to a samurai family in Hagi, Chōshū domain (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture. He was selected by the domain to be a member of the Chōshū Five who were smuggled out of Japan in defiance of the Tokugawa bakufu's policy of national seclusion to Great Britain in 1863. The Chōshū clan was desperate to acquire better knowledge of the western nations in order to strengthen the domain in its struggle to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogun. Endo returned from England in 1866.
When Sir Harry Parkes, the British minister in Japan 1865-83, visited Chōshū in 1866, Endō served as an interpreter, together with Inoue Kaoru, another member of the Chōshū Five.
After the Meiji Restoration and the establishment of the new Meiji government, Endō served as the head of the new National Mint (造幣局 Zōheikyoku?) in Osaka, from 1881-1883. He is remembered less for his efforts in establishing a unified national currency and more for his policy that the grounds of the Mint should be open for all the people of Osaka in spring, when the sakura trees planted there come into bloom.
[edit] Reference and further reading
- Beasley, W. G. The Meiji Restoration. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972.
- Cobbing, Andrew. The Japanese Discovery of Victorian Britain. RoutledgeCurzon, London, 1998. ISBN 1873410816
- Craig, Albert M. Chōshū in the Meiji Restoration. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961
