Yamakawa Kenjiro
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Yamakawa Kenjiro (山川健次郎 Yamakawa Kenjirō?);(1854-1931) was an author of a history of the Boshin War in early Meiji period Japan and a noted physicist.
Yamakawa was born as the third son to a senior samurai family of the Aizu domain (present day Fukushima Prefecture. He became a member of the Byakkotai, a paramilitary militia composed mostly of boys aged 15 to 17 years old who fought in defense of Aizu during the Boshin War.
After the Meiji Restoration, he was sent by the new Meiji government to study physics at Yale University, where he was the first student from Japan to attend. On his return to Japan, he was posted to Tokyo Imperial University, and became Japan’s first professor of physics in 1879.
During the Meiji and Taisho period he served as president of Tokyo Imperial University, Kyoto Imperial University, and he helped found the found the Kyushu Institute of Technology in 1907. He was later ennobled with the title of danshaku (baron) under the kazoku peerage system.
He and his brother Yamakawa Hiroshi are known amongst historians of the late Edo period as authors of two monumental texts-- Kenjiro's being "Aizu Boshin Senshi," which catalogues the actions of his home domain during the war. He also authored another history text, "Hoshu Aizu Byakkotai Jukyuushi-den," with fellow Aizu native Munekawa Toraji.
[edit] References and further reading
- Hoshi Ryōichi, Yamakawa Kenjiro Den, Heibonsha, 2003 ISBN 4-582-83181-8
- Marshall, Byron K. The Tradition of Conflict in the Governance of Japan's Imperial Universities. History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Winter, 1977), pp. 385-406
- Yamakawa Kenjiro, Aizu Boshin Senshi. Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1931.
