Japan (1862–1883) ,
Yokohama, 1865 painting Ernest Satow is probably best known as the author of the book
A Diplomat in Japan (based mainly on his diaries) which describes the years 1862–1869 when Japan was changing from rule by the
Tokugawa shogunate to the
restoration of Imperial rule. He was recruited by the Foreign Office straight out of university in London. Within a week of his arrival by way of China as a young student interpreter in the
British Japan Consular Service, at age 19, the
Namamugi Incident (Namamugi Jiken), in which a British merchant was killed on the
Tōkaidō, took place on 21 August 1862. Satow was on board one of the British ships that sailed to
Kagoshima in August 1863 to obtain the compensation demanded from the Satsuma clan's
daimyō,
Shimazu Hisamitsu, for the slaying of
Charles Lennox Richardson. They were fired on by the Satsuma shore batteries and retaliated by
bombarding Kagoshima. In 1864, Satow was with the allied force (Britain,
France, the
Netherlands and the
United States) that attacked
Shimonoseki to enforce the right of passage of foreign ships through the narrow
Kanmon Straits between
Honshū and
Kyūshū. Satow met
Itō Hirobumi and
Inoue Kaoru of Chōshū for the first time just before the
bombardment of Shimonoseki. He also had links with many other Japanese leaders, including
Saigō Takamori of Satsuma (who became a friend), and toured the hinterland of Japan with
A. B. Mitford and the cartoonist and illustrator
Charles Wirgman. Satow's rise in the consular service was due at first to his competence and zeal as an interpreter at a time when English was virtually unknown in Japan, as the Japanese government still communicated with the West in
Dutch and available study aids were exceptionally few. Employed as a consular interpreter alongside Russell Robertson, Satow became a student of Rev.
Samuel Robbins Brown, and an associate of Dr.
James Curtis Hepburn, two noted pioneers in the study of the Japanese language. His Japanese language skills quickly became indispensable in the British Minister Sir
Harry Parkes's negotiations with the failing
Tokugawa shogunate and the powerful
Satsuma and
Chōshū clans, and the gathering of intelligence. He was promoted to full Interpreter and then Japanese Secretary to the
British legation, and, as early as 1864, he started to write translations and newspaper articles on subjects relating to Japan. In 1869, he went home to England on leave, returning to Japan in 1870. Satow was one of the founding members at
Yokohama, in 1872, of the
Asiatic Society of Japan whose purpose was to study the Japanese culture, history and language (i.e.
Japanology) in detail. He lectured to the Society on several occasions in the 1870s, and the
Transactions of the Asiatic Society contain several of his published papers. His 1874 article on
Japan covering various aspects including
Japanese Literature that appeared in the
New American Cyclopædia was one of the first such authentic pieces written in any European language. The Society is still thriving today. During his time in Japan, Satow devoted much effort to studying
Chinese calligraphy under Kōsai Tanzan 高斎単山 (1818–1890), who gave him the artist's name Seizan 静山 in 1873. An example of Satow's calligraphy, signed as Seizan, was acquired by the
British Library in 2004. poet
Wang Bo 王勃 (650–676) in Satow's calligraphy (
British Library Or. 16054)
Siam, Uruguay, Morocco (1884–1895) Satow served in
Siam (1884–1887), during which time he was accorded the rare honour of promotion from the Consular to the
Diplomatic service,
Uruguay (1889–93) and
Morocco (1893–95). (Such promotion was extraordinary because the British Consular and Diplomatic Services were segregated until the mid-20th century, and Satow did not come from the aristocratic class to which the Diplomatic Service was restricted.)
Japan (1895–1900) Satow returned to Japan as
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary on 28 July 1895. He stayed in Tokyo for five years (though he was on leave in London for
Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and met her in August at
Osborne House, Isle of Wight). On 17 April 1895 the
Treaty of Shimonoseki (text here) had been signed, and Satow was able to observe firsthand the steady build-up of the Japanese army and navy to avenge the humiliation suffered by Russia, Germany and France in the
Triple Intervention of 23 April 1895. He was also in a position to oversee the transition to the ending of
extraterritoriality in Japan which finally ended in 1899, as agreed by the
Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation signed in London on 16 July 1894. On Satow's personal recommendation,
Hiram Shaw Wilkinson, who had been a student interpreter in Japan 2 years after Satow, was appointed first, Judge of the
British Court for Japan in 1897 and in 1900 Chief Justice of the
British Supreme Court for China and Corea. Satow built a house at
Lake Chūzenji in 1896 and went there frequently to relax and escape from the pressures of his work in Tokyo. Satow did not have the good fortune to be named the first British
Ambassador to Japan - the honour was instead bestowed on his successor Sir
Claude Maxwell MacDonald in 1905.
China (1900–1906) Satow served as the British High Commissioner (September 1900 – January 1902) and then Minister in
Peking from 1902 to 1906. He was active as plenipotentiary in the negotiations to conclude the
Boxer Protocol which settled the compensation claims of the Powers after the
Boxer Rebellion, and he signed the protocol for Britain on 7 September 1901. He received the Knight Grand Cross of the
Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in the
1902 Coronation Honours list. From December 1902 until summer 1903 he was on leave back home in England, during which he received the Grand Cross in person from King
Edward VII on 18 January 1903 during a visit to
Sandringham House. Satow signed the
Convention Between Great Britain and China in 1904. He also observed the defeat of Russia in the
Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) from his Peking post.
Retirement (1906–1929) In 1906 Satow was made a
Privy Councillor. In 1907 he was Britain's second plenipotentiary at the
Second Hague Peace Conference. In retirement (1906–1929) at
Ottery St Mary in
Devon, England, he wrote mainly on subjects connected with
diplomacy and international law. In Britain, he is less well known than in Japan, where he is recognised as perhaps the most important foreign observer in the
Bakumatsu and
Meiji periods. He gave the
Rede lecture at Cambridge University in 1908 on the career of
Count Joseph Alexander Hübner. It was titled
An Austrian Diplomat in the Fifties. Satow chose this subject with discretion to avoid censure from the
British Foreign Office for discussing his own career. As the years passed, Satow's understanding and appreciation of the Japanese evolved and deepened. For example, one of his diary entries from the early 1860s asserts that the submissive character of the Japanese will make it easy for foreigners to
govern them after the "
samurai problem" could be resolved; but in retirement, he wrote: "... looking back now in 1919, it seems perfectly ludicrous that such a notion should have been entertained, even as a joke, for a single moment, by anyone who understood the Japanese spirit." Satow's extensive diaries and letters (the Satow Papers, PRO 30/33 1-23) are kept at the
Public Record Office at
Kew, West London in accordance with his last will and testament. His letters to
Geoffrey Drage, sometime MP, are held in the Library and Archives of
Christ Church, Oxford. Many of his rare Japanese books are now part of the Oriental collection of the
Cambridge University Library and his collection of Japanese prints are in the
British Museum. He died on 26 August 1929 at
Ottery St Mary, and is buried in the graveyard of
St Mary's Church, Ottery St Mary. == Japanese family ==