The Japan-British Society Centenary Book
Published by the Japan-British Society, Tokyo, March 2009 (anyone interested in obtaining a copy of this book should contact the Japan British Society in Tokyo: http://www.japanbritishsociety.or.jp/)
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
The Japan-British Society celebrated its centenary in 2008. It was established as “The British Society” at an inaugural meeting on 20 October 1908. Its first annual dinner was held at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo on 27 November 1908. A branch of The Japan Society in London had been set up in Tokyo in 1902 and the British Society in Japan developed from this branch. The name of the Society was changed to “The Japan-British Society” in April 1923. Its last meeting before the outbreak of war was a lunch held at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo on 28 March 1940. The Society was revived at a general meeting on 25 October 1951. Since then it has maintained and expanded a wide range of activities which like the work of the Japan Society in London have contributed to Anglo-Japanese understanding and friendship.
This centenary volume is the result of much painstaking research and is a valuable record of the activities of the Society over the last 100 years. It begins with forewords from the honorary patron HIH Prince Tomohito, from David Warren, the British Ambassador and current president of the Society, and from Sadayuki Hayashi, the chairman of the council of the Society and former Japanese Ambassador to Britain.
The first part deals with the activities of the society in the years up to the outbreak of the Second World War. As the pre-war records of the Society were destroyed during the war this is largely based on newspaper reports and is thus not as full as the subsequent parts covering the post-war era. The second dinner of the Society was held on 14 November 1909. Whereas the menu for the first dinner had consisted of French cuisine, the menu on this occasion was Japanese. The dinner was held in three large Japanese tatami rooms with various Japanese objets d’art on display including a painting by Kano Tanyū in the toko no ma. The guest of honour on this occasion was Field Marshal Lord Kitchener.
In 1911 the Society was reported to have had 213 members. Its objective was described as being “the encouragement of the study of British affairs and the furtherance of Anglo-Japanese friendship”（目的―英国の事物に関する研究を奨励し且つ日英両国の交誼を増進せしむろにあり.） The Society’s first honorary patron was Prince Fushimi; its second was Prince Yamashina.
It is interesting to note that a speaker at a meeting of the Society on 9 October 1911 was the Fabian socialist Sydney Webb who was visiting Japan with his wife Beatrice. Colin Holmes gave an account of the Webbs’ visits to Japan in Britain and Japan 1859-1911 Themes and Personalities, (Routledge 1991).
The visit of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) to Japan in 1922 attracted much publicity and he was given a warm welcome by the Prince Regent (later the Showa Emperor) and by Japanese crowds. Somewhat oddly this volume records the visit by quoting comments on it by the French Ambassador Paul Claudel. There are accounts of the visit in The Prince of Wales Eastern Book published by Hodder and Stoughton for St Dunstan’s in 1922 and in With the Prince in the East by Sir Herbert Russell, published by Methuen also in 1922. The former includes many photographs of the visit, but neither account mentions a Japan British Society occasion, although no doubt members of the Society attended many of the functions which marked the prince’s visit.
A noteworthy pre-war development was the establishment of a Shakespeare medal. This was awarded every year from 1929-1938 and revived after the war. The last Shakespeare medal was awarded in 1982 to NHK, the Japanese public broadcasting organization, for broadcasting the series of productions of Shakespeare plays made for the BBC.
Parts 2-7, which are supplemented by an appendix in the form of a record with dates of the Society’s functions, contain a detailed account of the activities of the Society between 1951 and 2008 and include photographs of many of the Society’s functions. (One photograph of a dinner, while Sir Esler Dening was British Ambassador and president of the Society, states that the lady on the extreme left of the photograph was Dening’s wife. This is an error as Dening never married. The lady in question was probably the wife of the British Minister, Dening’s deputy.)
A significant development for the Japan-British Society was the establishment in 1986 of the annual Chichibu memorial lecture. This has led to a number of important lectures being given at Society functions. We should also note the frequency of seminars on various topics of mutual interest to Japanese and British members.
It is interesting for us at the Japan Society to note the success of the Japan-British Society in hosting events not only for senior visiting Ministers from Britain but also Japanese Prime Ministers. Among these were Shigeru Yoshida, Hayato Ikeda, Eisaku Sato, Kakuei Tanaka and Takeo Miki. The Japan Society here has never managed to host a party attended by the British Prime Minister. At one stage the Japan Society managed to host parties for visiting Japanese Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers as well as for members of the Imperial family. But perhaps because of the pressure of their busy schedules we have been less successful in recent years.
I was impressed by the many excursions arranged by the Society to historical places in Japan and by the overseas visits organized by the Society. We at the Japan Society should consider what we can learn from the work of our sister society in Japan.
After the accounts of the Society’s activities in the years since 1951 the book includes an account by Mrs Setsuko Soma of the establishment and development of the Elizabeth Kai which has brought the ladies of both communities together in a wide range of activities. This is supplemented by an essay by Dorothy Britton (Lady Bouchier) entitled “Remembering the Birth of the Elizabeth Kai.”
This section is followed by accounts of the activities of the Junior Group of the Society. This includes a piece by Sir Graham Fry looking back on his participation as a young man in the activities of the group. He recalls visits to Miyakejima and Karuizawa. .
Finally the book contains short accounts of the Japan-British Societies established in places outside Tokyo. Of these only the Kansai Japan-British Society, which was established in 1935, dates from before the Second World War. The other societies are Tōhoku (Sendai), Fukuoka, Hokkaido, Iwate, Shizuoka, Hiroshima, Fukui, Ehime, Asahigawa, Hakodate, Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Ishikawa-ken, Nagasaki, Aomori, Aichi, Miyazaki and Yamaguchi. This is an impressive list and shows that interest in Britain extends to all parts of Japan. British Council scholars have undoubtedly helped to develop interest in Britain among Japanese throughout the country.
The book is in Japanese apart from the brief pieces in English by David Warren, Dorothy Britton and Graham Fry. This will unfortunately limit its circulation among members of the Japan Society here.