Francis Brinkley
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Captain Francis Brinkley (1841-1912) was an Anglo-Irish journalist and scholar who resided in Meiji period Japan for over 40 years. He was also known as Frank Brinkley.
Brinkley was born in Leinster in Ireland, and was schooled in Dublin. His grandfather was a bishop and professor of astronomy in Dublin University. Brinkley studied at Trinity University and received the highest records in mathematics and the classics.
Brinkley first arrived in Japan in 1867 as a Royal Artillery officer attached to the British legation. He resigned his commission in 1871 to take up a post as a foreign advisor to the new Meiji government, and taught artillery techniques to the new Imperial Japanese Navy at the Naval Gunnery School. He mastered the Japanese language soon after arrival, and could both write and speak well.
In 1878 he was invited to teach mathematics at the Imperial College of Engineering, which later became part of Tokyo Imperial University. While a mathmatics professor, he married Tanaka Yasuko, a daughter of a samurai from the Mito clan. Technically, the marriage was illegal under Japanese law, but Brinkley managed by appealing to the British judiciary.
He owned and edited the Japan Mail newpaper (later merged with the Japan Times) from 1881 until his death, receiving financial support from the Japanese government and consequently maintaining a pro-Japanese stance. He was also the Tokyo-based correspondent for The Times of London, and gained fame for his dispatches during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. He was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure by Emperor Meiji for his contributions to better Anglo-Japanese relations.
He was also an adviser to the Nippon Yusen Kaisha shipping lines.
His last dispatch to The Times was in 1912, to report on the seppuku of General Nogi Maresuke together with his wife on the death of Emperor Meiji, and was written on his own deathbed. He also died one month after Nogi, at the age of 71. At the funeral, mourners included the Speaker of the House of Peers, Tokugawa Iesato, the Minister of the Navy Saito Makoto, and Foreign Minister Uchida Kosai.
He is buried in the foreign section of the Aoyama Reien cemetery in central Tokyo.
His published works include:
- Japan (1901)
- Japan and China (1903)
- A History of the Japanese people(1915)
- Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary'
- various articles on Japan in encyclopedias.
[edit] References
- 'Captain Francis Brinkley (1841-1912): Yatoi, Scholar and Apologist' by J.E. Hoare, Chapter 9, Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume III, edited by James E. Hoare, Japan Library, 1999. ISBN 1-873410-89-1
