Книга: Hayashi Tadasu «The Secret Memoirs of Count Tadasu Hayashi, G. C. V. O..»

Count Hayashi Tadasu, GCVO (林 董^?, April 11, 1850 – July 10, 1913^[1]) was a career diplomat and cabinet minister in Meiji period Japan. Baron Matsumoto Ryōjun, the onetime private physician to Tokugawa Yoshinobu and founder of the Imperial Japanese Army Medical Corps, was Hayashi’s brother.

Early life

Hayashi was born in Sakura city, Shimōsa Province (present-day Chiba prefecture, as the son of Sato Taizen, a physician practicing Dutch medicine for Sakura Domain. He was adopted as a child by Hayashi Dokai, a physician in the service of the Tokugawa Shogunate, from whom he received the family name of ‘Hayashi’, but he sometimes referred to himself as ‘Sato Tosaburo’. He learned English at the Hepburn Academy in Yokohama (the forerunner of Meiji Gakuin University).

From 1866-1868, Hayashi studied in Great Britain at University College School and King's College London as one of fourteen young Japanese students (including Kikuchi Dairoku) sent by the Tokugawa government on the advice of the then British foreign minister Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby.

Hayashi returned home in the midst of the Boshin War of the Meiji Restoration, and joined with Tokugawa loyalists led by Enomoto Takeaki, whom he accompanied to Hokkaidō with the remnants of the Tokugawa fleet. He was captured by Imperial forces after the final defeat of the pro-Tokugawa Republic of Ezo at the Battle of Hakodate and imprisoned in Yokohama.

Released in 1871 by then Kanagawa governor Mutsu Munemitsu, he was recruited to work for the Meiji government in 1871, and because of his language abilities and previous overseas experience was selected to accompany the Iwakura mission to Europe and the United States from 1871-1873.

Political career

On his return to Japan, Hayashi worked at the Ministry of Public Works, and later was appointed governor of Kagawa Prefecture, and then of Hyōgo Prefecture. In 1891, he was appointed Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs. He was elevated to the title of baron (danshaku) in the kazoku peerage in 1895.

Hayashi was appointed as resident minister to the court of Qing Dynasty China at the Japanese legation in Beijing, then resident minister to Russia in St Petersburg, and finally resident minister to Great Britain. While serving in London from 1900, he worked to successfully conclude the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and signed on behalf of the government of Japan on January 30, 1902. He was elevated to the title of viscount (shishaku) in 1902.

On December 2, 1905 Hayashi became the first Japanese ambassador to the Court of St. James's, as diplomatic relations were upgraded between the Empire of Japan and the British Empire. At that time Sir Claude MacDonald was Hayashi's opposite number in Tokyo.

On becoming Foreign Minister in the first Saionji cabinet in 1906, Hayashi concluded agreements with France (the Franco-Japanese Agreement of 1907) and Russia (the Russo-Japanese Agreements of 1907-1916). He served as Minister of Communications in the second Saionji cabinet and as interim foreign minister (1911–12). He was elevated to the title of count (hakushaku) in the in 1907.

Hayashi died in 1913, and his grave is at Aoyama Cemetery in Tokyo.

Honors

• Order of the Sacred Treasure, 1st class (1895)
• Order of the Rising Sun, 1st class (1899)
• Order of the Rising Sun, Grand Cordon (1906)
• Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO)=1905

See also

• Anglo-Japanese relations
• Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne - who signed the Anglo-Japanese alliance of January 30, 1902 for Britain when Hayashi signed for Japan
• Japanese students in Britain
• Kikuchi Dairoku
• Imperial Rescript on Education

Notes

1. ^ Who's Who 1914, p. xxii

References

• The Secret Memoirs of Count Hayashi Tadasu, edited by A.M. Pooley, 1915, reprinted 2002 ISBN 1-4039-0334-4

External links

• Portrait of Hayashi Tadasu on the website of the National Diet Library, Tokyo