Prince Arisugawa Takehito
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| HIH Prince Arisugawa Takehito | |
|---|---|
| 13 January 1862&ndash 4 July 1913 | |
  His Imperial Highness Prince Arisugawa Takehito |
|
| Place of birth | Kyoto, Japan |
| Place of death | Tokyo, Japan |
| Allegiance | Empire of Japan |
| Years of service | 1874–1913 |
| Rank | Fleet Admiral |
| Commands | Imperial Japanese Navy |
| Battles/wars | First Sino-Japanese War Russo-Japanese War |
| Awards | Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath Order of the Golden Kite (3rd Class) Collar of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum. |
His Imperial Highness Prince Arisugawa Takehito (有栖川宮威仁親王 Arisugawa-no-miya Takehito-Shinnō?) (13 January 1862 – 4 July 1913 was the 10th head of a cadet branch of the Japanese imperial family and a career officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy.
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[edit] Early life
Prince Takehiko was born in Kyoto as a scion of the Arisugawa-no-miya (有栖川宮家?) house, one of the shinnōke branches of the Imperial Family of Japan, which were eligible to succeed to the Chrysanthemum Throne in the event that the main line should die out.
[edit] Marriage & family
On 11 December 1880, Prince Takehito married Maeda Yasuko (15 March 1864 – 30 June 1923), the fourth daughter of Maeda Yoshiyasu, the last daimyo of Kaga Province (modern Ishikawa prefecture), by whom he had three children.
Prince and Princess Arisugawa made an extensive tour of Europe and America in 1889.
In 1896, the prince represented Emperor Meiji at the Diamond Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria. Takehito succeeded to the Arisugawa-no-miya title upon the death of his half-brother, HIH Prince Arisugawa Taruhito, on 15 January 1895.
The prince and his wife returned to Europe in 1905 to represent the Emperor at the wedding of the German Crown Prince Wilhelm (1882-1951) to Duchess Cecile of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He visited Great Britain again on his way back to Japan. King Edward VII granted Prince Arisugawa the Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath.
[edit] Miltary career
In 1874, the prince attended the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy and five years later, embarked upon the HMS Iron Duke, the flagship of Britain's Royal Navy, for further training. He served in the Channel squadron. In 1881, he was a cadet at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich in England.
His first naval command was that of the cruiser Takao in 1890. He was assigned to the escort of Russian Crown Prince Nikolai (later Tsar Nicholas II) of Russia during his tour of Japan in 1891. While under Prince Takehito's care, Nikolai was wounded in an assassination attempt (the Otsu Scandal), which led to a considerable worsening of diplomatic relations between Japan and Russia.
During the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), he commanded the cruiser Matsushima, and subsequently the Hashidate, The Prince attained the rank of rear admiral on 11 November 1896.
Promoted to full admiral on 28 June 1905, Emperor Meiji awarded the prince the Order of the Golden Kite (3rd Class) for his service during the Russo-Japanese War. He advanced to the honorary rank of fleet admiral on 2 July 1913, and died two days later. He was awarded the Collar of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum posthumously.
Since the prince died without a male heir (his son having died of appendicitis while attending the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy), the directly line of descent of the house of Arisugawa-no-miya became extinct.
However, the Emperor Taishō revived the house (which reverted to its original name of Takamatsu-no-miya) in favor of his third son, Prince Takamatsu Nobuhito (1905 - 1987), in 1924.
[edit] Trivia
- The site of Prince Arisugawa’s Tokyo palace is now the Arisugawa Memorial Park. It is located in Minami Azabu, Minato Ward, Tokyo and its extensive gardens are open to the public. The site of his seaside summer home in Hayama, Kanagawa Prefecture is now the site of the annex of the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Modern Art
- A large standing bronze statue of Prince Arisugawa exists outside the site of his former summer residence in Fukushima Prefecture, north of Tokyo.
[edit] References
- Dupuy, Trevor N. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1992. ISBN 0-7858-0437-4
- Jansen, Marius B. The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000.
- Keane, Donald. Emperor Of Japan: Meiji And His World, 1852-1912. Columbia University Press (2005). ISBN: 0231123418
