Augustus Leopold Kuper

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Admiral Sir Augustus Leopold Kuper, GCB (1809-1885), whose ancestry was German, joined the Royal Navy in 1823. In 1841 he was promoted to Captain and fought in the first China war (1840-1842) including the operations which led to the capitulation of Canton, China (now Guangzhou). In 1842 he was made a Companion of the Bath (CB).

In 1861 he was promoted to Rear-Admiral and in 1862 he succeeded Admiral Sir James Hope as Commander-in-Chief, East Indies and China. In August 1863 he led a British squadron of seven warships to Kagoshima to coerce the Daimyo of Satsuma into paying the £25,000 demanded by the British Government as reparation to the British victims of the Namamugi Incident. In 1864 he was in command of the International fleet at the Shimonoseki Expedition, Japan, the action fought to reopen the Inland Sea and the Straits of Shimonoseki. His interpreter at Shimonoseki was Ernest Satow. Kuper was made a KCB in 1864 'in acknowledgement of his services at Kagoshima'. He was in due course made a GCB and promoted to the rank of Admiral.

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Kuper island, British Columbia, was named after Augustus Leopold Kuper.

[edit] References

'The British Bombardment of Kagoshima, 1863: Admiral Sir L. Kuper and Lt. Colonel Neale', Appendix One, British Envoys in Japan 1859-1972, edited and compiled by Hugh Cortazzi, first published by Global Oriental for the Japan Society, 2004. ISBN 1-901903-51-6