Kirin Brewery and Thomas Blake Glover

[Mulboyne]

I've been meaning to post for a while about the fact that Kirin Brewery was originally started and run by FGs. The story goes off at several tangents but I finally got around to it on a quiet Sunday. Apologies for the length.

[floatl][/floatl]Thomas Blake Glover and James Dodds founded the Japan Brewery Company in 1885. They rebuilt a facility in Yamate, Yokohama, which had been previously operated by American William Copeland. Glover has a fascinating history in Japan. He worked for Jardine Matheson in Shanghai and moved to Nagasaki in 1859 to trade in green tea on their behalf. His home there was the first western building constructed in Japan and it has since been designated a cultural asset by the government as part of the city's Glover Garden. He set up on his own as an arms dealer to the Satsuma, Choshu and Tosa clans and consequently became embroiled in the upheavals of the Meiji restoration. He arranged for five members of the Choshu clan to leave illegally for England when the Shogunate still forbade overseas travel. He got them there disguised as English sailors on the opium ships of his former employer. He also gave secret support to Sakamoto Ryoma of Tosa. Although Sakamoto's clan was relatively minor, he was to play a visionary role in bringing about the Meiji government and Glover's role served the Scotsman in good stead with Japan's new rulers. He was rewarded with some lucrative middleman commissions as the Imperial Navy sought to use the Aberdeen shipyards to build up their fleet.

[floatr][/floatr]One of the key contacts Glover made in Nagasaki was with Yataro Iwasaki who was running the Tosa clan's trading office there and buying weapons and equipment from Glover. Iwasaki is better known as the founder of the Mitsubishi business empire. Glover had already developed the Takashima coal mine for the Hizen clan which later became a key asset for the Mitsubishi group when Iwasaki bought it in 1881. Iwasaki also took a lease of the Government-owned Nagasaki Shipyard in 1884. He merged with Glover's small shipbuilding business and created the company which was to become Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, then the largest private firm in Japan. Iwasaki's experience in arms procurement served the firm well as it was the dominant supplier to Japan's war machine and responsible for the famous Zero fighter.

Yataro Iwasaki died in 1885 and was succeeded by his younger brother Yanosuke. Baron Yanosuke Iwasaki was approached by Glover to become an investor in his new Yokohama brewery which he agreed to along with legendary financier Eiichi Shibusawa founder of Japan's first national bank, the Daiichi Bank (now part of the Mizuho Financial Group). The German-style beer turned out was first marketed under the Kirin brand in 1888 and distributed by Meidi-ya. Meidi-ya founder, Hakaru Isono had been sent by Mitsubishi to study commerce in London. On his return, he worked in cooperation with Mitsubishi to set up a food import business in Yokohama in 1885 and so was well-positioned to handle Glover's new beer. It was a success and the company was renamed Kirin Brewery in 1907 - it still part of the Mitsubishi keiretsu today. The Yokohama brewery was later destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake but by then other facilities has been developed in separate locations.

[floatl][/floatl]Glover's wife, Tsuru, is sometimes thought to have been the inspiration behind the character Cho-Cho-San in Puccini's Madame Butterfly. The most vocal supporter of this theory is Tokyo-resident Kazuko Noda who is related to Tsuru Glover. Her main evidence is circumstantial, including the fact that Tsuru wore a butterfly crest on her kimono. However, Nagasaki resident Brian Burke-Gaffney contends that the connection was fabricated by the wife of an American Occupation official living in the Glover house and was later picked up by Nagasaki officials to publicize their tourist attraction. There is more support for the idea that the Glovers' son, Tomisaburo Glover (Kuraba Tomisaburo - 倉場富三郎), was the real-life counterpart to Cho-Cho-San's son, Trouble, but Burke-Gaffney has questioned whether Tsuru was actually Tomisaburo's mother since his research revealed that Nagasaki woman Maki Kaga is named in the family records. Although Tomisaburo was raised by Thomas and Tsuru Glover, it is believed that he was actually fathered by Thomas' brother, Alfred. More on this debate can be found here. Tomisaburo had nothing to say on the matter. He committed suicide after the US bombing of Nagasaki.

Thomas Glover is also hailed by the Japan Fly Fishers association for bringing the sport to Japan. Association founding member, Kazuhiro Ashizawa, believes he has found records showing that Glover, in 1897 at latest, enjoyed fly fishing at Yukawa stream in the Nikko area and had it stocked with brook trout in later years. For all of his achievements, Glover was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun (second class). The first foreigner to receive the hounour.

[Mulboyne]

This article covers the same ground as the post above, including a repeat of the disputed connection between Glover's wife and "Madame Butterfly". It's interesting that Scotland might be remembering one of their own again.

Scotsman.com: Scot who helped Japan go full steam ahead

...Glover was instrumental in helping to smuggle several young men from the anti-Tokugawa faction to the west to further their education. Among these youths was Hirobumi Ito, the man who was to become Japan's first Prime Minister. In fact, academic circles in Japan are increasingly coming to reappraise Glover's role, seeing him as the godfather of the Meiji Restoration...On 13 December 1911, at the age of 73, Glover died in Tokyo. Today, a few years short of a century later, Scotland is starting to carry out its own reappraisal of one of its greatest early entrepreneurs...more...

[CrankyBastard]

Fascinating.
Thanks Mulboyne, I enjoyed reading that.

[otakuden]

wow. i never knew. but, i still like Sapporo better

[Greji]

Scotsman.com: Scot who helped Japan go full steam ahead

...Glover was instrumental in helping to smuggle several young men from the anti-Tokugawa faction to the west to further their education. Among these youths was Hirobumi Ito, the man who was to become Japan's first Prime Minister. In fact, academic circles in Japan are increasingly coming to reappraise Glover's role, seeing him as the godfather of the Meiji Restoration...On 13 December 1911, at the age of 73, Glover died in Tokyo. Today, a few years short of a century later, Scotland is starting to carry out its own reappraisal of one of its greatest early entrepreneurs...more...

It is also interesting that the second son of the Iwasaki family remodeled the residence of a Tokugawa lord and it became one of his residences as well as the one time home of Shunsuke Ito (later Hirofumi) as furnished by his owner, Baron Yanosuke Iwasaki, who had picked up Ito on rent from his brother before he died.

This residence still stands and is a unbelievable sight in downtown Tokyo. It is located right in front of the Shinnagawa LaForet Hotel although not visable from the outside. (Mulboyne, it's in that group of trees that looks like a large park right in front of the main enterance). I believe Glover was involved with the design, either designing himself, or obtaining the design from UK for Yanosuke.

It is still maintained by the Mitsubishi Trust Zaidanhojin and functions as a restaurant and meeting facility for their members. Other access to it is out of the question!

[Mulboyne]

This residence still stands and is a unbelievable sight in downtown Tokyo. It is located right in front of the Shinagawa LaForet Hotel although not visable from the outside...It is still maintained by the Mitsubishi Trust Zaidanhojin and functions as a restaurant and meeting facility for their members. Other access to it is out of the question!

I always wondered what that was. If I'd been a bit bit more curious I suppose I could have gone and had a look but it is good to finally know.

[Captain Japan]

This residence still stands and is a unbelievable sight in downtown Tokyo. It is located right in front of the Shinnagawa LaForet Hotel although not visable from the outside. (Mulboyne, it's in that group of trees that looks like a large park right in front of the main enterance). I believe Glover was involved with the design, either designing himself, or obtaining the design from UK for Yanosuke.

To the left?

[Mulboyne]

I think greji means the patch of green to the bottom right covered by the word "Tokyo".

[Greji]

[Mulboyne]

It seems there is a novel based on Glover's life due for publication later this month. It was orginally meant to be a film:

Scotland on Sunday: Land of the rising Scot

WORKING on my new novel, The Pure Land has been an amazing experience - exhausting but ultimately exhilarating...It was a story that quite simply wouldn't leave me alone...[Glover] was a huge, charismatic larger-than-life character. It's a fantastic ripping yarn of a story, an absolute gift to a writer, especially when the political intrigue is interwoven (as it was) with a number of love stories...My attention was drawn to an article in the local Aberdeen press saying a young would-be director - Richard Scott Thomson - was planning a film version of Glover's life. Also involved was Alex McKay, author of the only biography of Glover, Scottish Samurai, from which I had gleaned most of my information. I contacted Richard, and Alex, and offered my services to write the screenplay. With Alex as archivist and researcher, we launched into the project...I started working on the screenplay which foundered, some years and several drafts later, stranded in development hell. The final nail in the coffin was the release of Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai - a truly awful film, but set in the same historical period, with the same background events...Time passed, as time does, and I thought I'd revisit Glover, salvage some of the work I'd done...more...

[Mulboyne]

It seems there is a novel based on Glover's life due for publication later this month. It was orginally meant to be a film

I just spotted it today for the first time although it has been on Amazon for a while. I'm pleased the publisher avoided the usual Japan clichés when choosing the cover.



One of the reviewers on Amazon claims to be Japanese:

The book is certainly exciting - or at least it coveys a sense of excitement and adventure of the ninenteenth century which has probably lost to us. But I could not continue reading, most likely because I am Japanese and there are so many little things in the story that have troubled me. The Japanese characters in the book keep saying 'hai, sodesu'. Well, this is what the Japanese might have said to the occupying Americans after WWII. People of the nineteenth century, certainly of the warrior class would not have spoken like this. While there were plenty of impoverished samurai around at that time, no daughter would be sent to a brothel without being cut off from the family, and the depiction of the first wife therefore is very unconvincing. I also sensed a hint of orientalism in his depiction of Japanese women. Well, men are always men, and Western men remains Western, it seems. And I am always puzzled with the over-appreciation of of the influence of Buddhism in Japanese society, present and past, by Western authors - believe me, if you go around saying 'existence is suffering', you would not start a quasi-revolution to modernise/Westernise a country. However, if you are not familiar with Japanese history and society, perhaps this reads like a great story.

[Mulboyne]

Japan Times: The Scot who shaped Japan

History has not been generous in crediting the crucial roles played by maverick trader Thomas Blake Glover in casting off feudalism and ushering in the modern age. But as the centenary of this most singular Victorian nears, Michael Gardiner sets the record straight...more...

[matsuki]

[SIZE="1"]Mrs. Glover: Tsuru Yamamura, Glover's wife from 1870 until her death in 1899, also bore the couple a daughter. [/SIZE]

Unfortunately the FG marrying the first lemur they meet syndrome can be traced back further than we'd like to admit...w00f!

[Doctor Stop]

Unfortunately the FG marrying the first lemur they meet syndrome can be traced back further than we'd like to admit...w00f!

And the first lemur he met had one arm.