Hayashi Tadasu

Count Hayashi Tadasu (林 董, Hayashi Tadasu^?, 11 April 1850 – 10 July 1913^[1]) was a Japanese diplomat in Meiji period Japan.

Early life

Hayashi was born in Shimosa province (present-day Chiba prefecture, as the son of Sato Taizen, a physician practicing Dutch medicine for the Sakura clan. He was adopted as a child by Hayashi Dokai, a physician who served the Shogunate, from whom he received the family name of ‘Hayashi’, but he sometimes referred to himself as ‘Sato Tosaburo’. From 1866-1868, he studied in Great Britain with Kikuchi Dairoku at University College School, as one of fourteen young Japanese students sent by the Tokugawa bakufu. He returned home in the midst of the Boshin War, 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 at the Battle of Hakodate and imprisoned. Released in 1870, he started to work for the Meiji government in 1871 and because of his language abilities and previous experience was selected to accompany the Iwakura mission to Europe and the United States from 1871-73.

Political career

On his return to Japan, he 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 later appointed as resident minister to Qing Dynasty China at the Japanese legation in Beijing, then resident minister to Russia in St Petersburg, and finally resident minister to Great Britain in London. As minister to Great Britain from 1900 he worked to bring about the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and signed it for Japan on 30 January 1902 in London. On 2 December 1905 Hayashi became the first Japanese ambassador to the Court of St. James's, as diplomatic relations were upgraded. 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 (Russo-Japanese Agreements of 1907-1916). He served as Minister of Communications in the second Saionji cabinet and temporarily as foreign minister (1911-12).

Trivia

• Baron Matsumoto Ryojun, the onetime private physician to Tokugawa Yoshinobu who became founder of the Imperial Japanese Army Medical Corps, was Hayashi’s brother.

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