This page describes the history of the relationship between the United Kingdom and Japan. This began in 1600 with the arrival of William Adams (Adams the Pilot, Miura Anjin) on the shores of Kyūshū at Usuki in Ōita Prefecture. During the Sakoku period (1641-1853) there were no relations, but the treaty of 1854 saw the resumption of ties which, despite the hiatus of the Second World War, remain very strong in the present day.
1587. Two young Japanese men named Christopher and Cosmas travelled on a Spanish galleon to California, where their ship was seized by Thomas Cavendish. Cavendish brought the two Japanese with him to England, where they spent around three years, before going again with him on his last expedition to the South Atlantic. They are the first known Japanese to have set foot in England.
1600. William Adams, a seaman from Kent, was the first Briton to arrive in Japan. Acting as an advisor to the Tokugawa Shogun, he was renamed Miura Anjin, granted a house and land, and spent the rest of his life in his adopted country.
1605. John Davis, the famous English explorer, was killed by Japanese pirates off the coast of Thailand, thus becoming the first Englishman to be killed by a Japanese.1
1623. The Amboyna massacre occurred. After the accident, England closed its commercial base at Hirado, now in Nagasaki Prefecture, without any notice for Japan. After this, the relationship had been closed over two centuries.
1639. Tokugawa Iemitsu completed its Sakoku policy. Only Netherland kept its limited trade rights among Europe countries.
1673. An English ship "Returner" visited Nagasaki harbour, and asked for revival of trading relations. But the Edo Shogunate refused. The government blamed the withdrawal 50 years before, and it felt also difficult that Charles II of England married Catherine of Braganza, who was from Portugal, and showed friendly for Roman Catholic Church.
1808. HMS Phaeton enters Nagasaki to attack Dutch shipping.
1832. Otokichi, Kyukichi and Iwakichi, castaways from Aichi Prefecture, crossed the Pacific and were shipwrecked on the west coast of North America. The three Japanese became famous in the Pacific North West and probably inspired Ranald MacDonald to go to Japan. They joined a trading ship to the UK, and later Macau. One of them, Otokichi, took British citizenship and adopted the name John Matthew Ottoson. He later made two visits to Japan as an interpreter for the Royal Navy.
1867. The Icarus affair, an incident involving the murder of two British sailors in Nagasaki, leading to increased diplomatic tensions between Britain and the Tokugawa shogunate.
1872. The Iwakura mission visited the United Kingdom as part of a diplomatic and investigative tour of the United States and Europe.
1951. Treaty of San Francisco - the peace treaty in which Anglo-Japanese relations were normalised. One condition of the treaty was Japan's acceptance of the judgments of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (Article 11).
1978 Beginning of the BET scheme (British Exchange Teaching Programme) first advocated by Nicholas Maclean [3]
2001. The year-long "Japan 2001" cultural-exchange project saw a major series of Japanese cultural, educational and sporting events held around the UK.
2008. UK-Japan 2008 celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce [4].
See also the chronology on the British Embassy website in Tokyo.
Britons in Japan
This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy certain standards for completeness. Sourced additions are welcome and you can help by expanding it.
The family name is given in italics. Usually the family name comes first, but in modern times not so for the likes of Kazuo Ishiguro and Katsuhiko Oku, both well-known in the United Kingdom.
This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy certain standards for completeness. Sourced additions are welcome and you can help by expanding it.
Aoki Shuzo - diplomat, signed the 1894 treaty in London
Katsuhiko Oku - Oxford University rugby player, diplomat in Japanese embassy in London who died in Iraq, 2003. Posthumously promoted to ambassador. See also the Oku-Inoue fund for the children of Iraq.
