Kishichiro Okura
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Baron Kishichiro Okura (大倉 喜七郎 Okura Kishichiro?, 1882–1963) studied at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1903 to 1906 but he did not manage to graduate from Cambridge University. He was the playboy son of Kihachiro Okura (1837-1928) who as an entrepreneur built up the Okura-gumi and founded the giant Okura zaibatsu (family trust) and the Okura Shogyo Gakko which later became Tokyo Keizai University (Tokyo University of Economics) in 1949.
Okura competed in the first ever car race held at Brooklands in Surrey on July 6, 1907 and came second. He is one of the pioneers who introduced the motor car to Japan. He was the President of the Imperial Hotel, and the Okura luxury hotel chain is still an important one in Japan today.
Okura Kishichiro was a primary patron in the establishment of the Nihon Ki-in or Japanese Go Association in 1924, organizing and supporting professional go players in Japan following the Meiji Restoration and subsequent ceasing of government support for the four go houses.
[edit] See also
- Suematsu Kencho
- Kikuchi Dairoku
- Inagaki Manjiro
- Cambridge University
- Anglo-Japanese relations
- Japanese students in Britain
[edit] External links
- Reminiscences from the website of the Cambridge & Oxford Society, Tokyo
- Japanese Students at Cambridge University in the Meiji Era, 1868-1912: Pioneers for the Modernization of Japan, by Noboru Koyama, translated by Ian Ruxton, (Lulu Press, September 2004, ISBN 1-4116-1256-6)
