| William George Aston | |
|---|---|
William George Aston, 1911 |
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| Born | August 28, 1840 Derry, Ireland |
| Died | November 22, 1911 (aged 70) Beer, Devon, England |
| Nationality | Anglo-Irish |
| Occupation | diplomat, educator |
William George Aston (9 April 1841 – 22 November 1911) was a British diplomat, author and scholar-expert in the language and history of Japan and Korea.[1]
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Aston was born near Derry, Ireland.[2] He distinguished himself at Queen's College, Belfast (now Queen's University Belfast), which he attended 1859-1863. There he received a very thorough philological training in Latin, Greek, French, German and modern history. One of his professors was James McCosh.[3][4]
Aston was appointed in 1864 student interpreter to the British Legation in Japan. He mastered the theory of the Japanese verb, and in Edo began, with Ernest Mason Satow, those profound researches into the Japanese language which laid the foundations of the critical study of the Japanese language by western scholars.[4] Aston passed the examination for entry to the Consular Service in 1884, and served in the British consular service in Tokyo, Kobe and Nagasaki.[3]
From 1884-1885, Aston served as the United Kingdom's consul-general in Korea. He returned to consular duties in Tokyo as Secretary of British Legation in 1885.[4] Aston retired from the foreign service on a pension in 1889 because of ill-health[3][4] and settled in England.[5]
Aston made a major contribution to the fledgling study of Japan's language and history in the 19th century. Along with Ernest Mason Satow and Basil Hall Chamberlain, he was one of three major British Japanologists active in Japan during the 19th century.
Aston was the first translator of the Nihongi into the English language (1896). Other publications were two Japanese grammars (1868 and 1872) and A History of Japanese Literature (1899). He lectured to the Asiatic Society of Japan several times, and many of his papers are published in their Transactions.[4]
In 1912 Cambridge University Library acquired 10,000 rare Japanese volumes from the collections of Aston and Satow which formed the starting point of the Library's collection.
In 1884, Aston was the first European diplomatic representative to reside in Korea. Political instability caused him to leave in 1885.[3] In 1885—1887, Aston continued Korean language studies in Tokyo with Kim Chae-guk. This Korean teacher composed a number of stories for Aston to use as practice.[3] Aston donated these manuscript versions of Korean folk tales to the Asiatic Museum in St. Petersberg, Russia[6] and they were published in 2004.[7] This part of Aston's personal collection is now preserved in the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg.[3]
After retiring from the consular service, Aston published books on Japanese literature and Japanese religion as well as a number of articles on Korean subjects.[3] He died November 22, 1911 at Beer, Devon.[2] Along with the Japanese books already mentioned Aston's substantial collection of Chinese and Korean books was acquired by Cambridge University Library after his death.[3]
The only known likeness of Aston is in the National Portrait Gallery in London. A 1911 crayon drawing of Aston by Minnie Agnes Cohen only suggests what he might have looked like as a younger man. Very little is known about Aston's personal life because he left no letters or diaries.[3]
In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about William George Aston, OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 90+ works in 200+ publications in 4 languages and 3,000+ library holdings.[8]