Ōshima Takatō (大島 高任, May 11, 1826–March 29, 1901) was a Japanese engineer who created the first reverberation
blast furnace
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being "forced" or supplied above atmospheric ...
and first Western-style gun in Japan.
Ōshima was born of
samurai
were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...
status in
Morioka City
is the capital city of Iwate Prefecture located in the Tōhoku region of northern Japan. On 1 February 2021, the city had an estimated population of 290,700 in 132,719 households, and a population density of . The total area of the city is .
G ...
, Nanbu Domain which is now
Iwate Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. It is the second-largest Japanese prefecture at , with a population of 1,210,534 (as of October 1, 2020). Iwate Prefecture borders Aomori Prefecture to the north, Akita Prefectur ...
in 1826.
Around this time the feudal clans of Japan were competing to develop superior Western-style armaments. The government of
Mito Domain
was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was associated with Hitachi Province in modern-day Ibaraki Prefecture.mortars over the next year. These mortars, however, failed due to the inferior quality of iron used.
Ōshima returned to Nanbu-han where he built a new Western-style blast furnace at
Kamaishi
is a city located on the Sanriku rias coast in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 32,609, and a population density of 74 persons per km2, in 16,230 households. The total area of the city is
Geography
Kamaishi is ...
to produce a higher quality
pig iron
Pig iron, also known as crude iron, is an intermediate product of the iron industry in the production of steel which is obtained by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a high carbon content, typically 3.8–4.7%, along with silic ...
from the local
magnetite
Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula Fe2+Fe3+2O4. It is one of the oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetized to become a permanent magnet itself. With the ...
mined there. For this work he was assisted by an engineer on loan from the Satsuma feudal domain. They used a design from a Dutch book ''Het Gietvezen in s'Rijks Ijzer-Geschutgieterij'te Luik'' by Huguenin. Their efforts were rewarded with success on December 1, 1857 when they fired the new furnace for the first time.
Returning to Mito the next year Ōshima successfully produced three mortars and one cannon. In April a large shipment of pig iron arrived from Kamaishi and he produced three more large cannons. After 1868 he helped in the development of Japan's mining operations.
References
Japan Encyclopedia, Louis Frederic; Harvard Uaniversity Press; 2002