Baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...

, born , was a Japanese statesman, politician, and businessman in

Meiji-period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

Japan. Maejima founded the Japanese

postal service The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal syst ...

, and is known as , or "Father of the Postal System".

Early life

Maejima was born as Ueno Fusagorō, in the village of Shimoikebe,

Echigo Province was an old province in north-central Japan, on the shores of the Sea of Japan. It bordered on Uzen, Iwashiro, Kōzuke, Shinano, and Etchū Provinces. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Echigo''" in . It corresponds today to Niigata ...

(present-day the city of Jōetsu,

Niigata Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture in the Chūbu region of Honshu of Japan. Niigata Prefecture has a population of 2,227,496 (1 July 2019) and is the List of Japanese prefectures by area, fifth-largest prefecture of Japan by geographic area ...

). In 1866 he was adopted into the Maejima family. He was sent to

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

to study ''

rangaku ''Rangaku'' (Kyūjitai: /Shinjitai: , literally "Dutch learning", and by extension "Western learning") is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Wester ...

,''

medical science Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practice ...

and

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

. In the

Bakumatsu period was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji govern ...

he was considered a radical reformer and proponent of westernization. In 1866, he submitted an unsolicited proposal to ''

shōgun , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakur ...

Tokugawa Yoshinobu Prince was the 15th and last ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. He was part of a movement which aimed to reform the aging shogunate, but was ultimately unsuccessful. He resigned of his position as shogun in late 1867, while aiming ...

that Japan abolish the use of ''

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

'' (

Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...

) in its writing system. In 1868, shortly after the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

, he also proposed to

Ōkubo Toshimichi was a Japanese statesman and one of the Three Great Nobles regarded as the main founders of modern Japan. Ōkubo was a ''samurai'' of the Satsuma Domain and joined the movement to overthrow the ruling Tokugawa Shogunate during the ''Bak ...

that the capital of Japan be moved from

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

to Edo.

Meiji bureaucrat

Ōkubo liked the gall of the upstart Maejima, and appointed him to the new Minbu-shō (Ministry for Popular Affairs) in the new

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji o ...

, where his outspoken attitude caught the attention of

Itō Hirobumi was a Japanese politician and statesman who served as the first Prime Minister of Japan. He was also a leading member of the ''genrō'', a group of senior statesmen that dictated Japanese policy during the Meiji era. A London-educated samur ...

and

Ōkuma Shigenobu Marquess was a Japanese statesman and a prominent member of the Meiji oligarchy. He served as Prime Minister of the Empire of Japan in 1898 and from 1914 to 1916. Ōkuma was also an early advocate of Western science and culture in Japan, and ...

. He was sent to

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

in 1870 to study the workings of the

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...

, and upon his return to Japan in 1871, his proposals for the creation of a similar system in Japan were quickly approved. The Japanese

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

began operation in April 1871 with a daily service linking

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

with

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

, with 65 post offices in between. Maejima personally coined the Japanese word for

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the fa ...

(''kitte''). To make the system self-supporting, and to extend the modern economic system into the Japanese countryside, Maejima also created a system of

postal savings bank Postal savings systems provide depositors who do not have access to banks a safe and convenient method to save money. Many nations have operated banking systems involving post offices to promote saving money among the poor. History In 1861, G ...

s in 1874. This system expanded to include

money order A money order is a directive to pay a pre-specified amount of money from prepaid funds, making it a more trusted method of payment than a cheque. History The money order system was established by a private firm in Great Britain in 1792 and was ...

s in 1875. In 1874, Maejima hired a foreign advisor, Samuel M. Bryan, to negotiate a postal treaty with the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, and to assist in the admission of Japan into the

Universal Postal Union The Universal Postal Union (UPU, french: link=no, Union postale universelle), established by the Treaty of Bern of 1874, is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations, in addition to t ...

in 1877. In 1878, Maejima was appointed to the

Genrōin The was a national assembly in early Meiji Japan, established after the Osaka Conference of 1875. It is also referred to as the Senate of Japan, being the word used to describe the Roman Senate, and other western legislatures named after it. ...

, and in 1879, he was appointed Vice Minister for Home Affairs. By the time Maejima retired in 1881, the Japanese postal system had expanded to 5,099 post offices and was continuing to grow.

Occupations

While establishing the postal system, Maejima somehow also found time to start his own

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

in 1872. The Yubin ''Hochi Shimbun'' was renamed the ''Hochi Shimbun'' in 1894, and was merged with the

Yomiuri Shimbun The (lit. ''Reading-selling Newspaper'' or ''Selling by Reading Newspaper'') is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five major newspapers in Japan; the other four are t ...

in 1942. Not content with two careers, Maejima also found time to assist Ōkuma Shigenobu in establishing the ''Tokyo Semmon Gakkō'' in 1882, of which he served as principal from 1886 to 1890. The school was renamed

Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...

in 1902. Seeing the potential for profit in the rapidly expanding

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

network in Japan, in 1886 Maejima established the Kansai Railroad Company in

. He followed in this career by establishing a second railroad company, the Hokuetsu Railway connecting Niigata with Naoetsu in 1894. Meanwhile. Maejima and Okuma helped establish the

Rikken Kaishintō The was a political party in Empire of Japan. It was also known as simply the Kaishintō. The Kaishintō was founded by Ōkuma Shigenobu on 16 April 1882, with the assistance of Yano Ryūsuke, Inukai Tsuyoshi and Ozaki Yukio. It received fin ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

. He was appointed as Vice Minister of Communications from 1888 to 1891, during which time he established Japan's state-owned

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

service. Ennobled with the title of ''danshaku'' (

baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...

) under the

kazoku The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. They succeeded the feudal lords () and court nobles (), but were abolished with the 1947 constitution. Kazoku ( 華族) should not be confused with ' ...

peerage system in 1902, he served as a member of the House of Peers from 1904 to 1910. He died in 1919 at his summer cottage in

Yokosuka is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city has a population of 409,478, and a population density of . The total area is . Yokosuka is the 11th most populous city in the Greater Tokyo Area, and the 12th in the Kantō region. The city ...

Kanagawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kana ...

. As one would expect, he has been honored on several Japanese postage stamps.

Notes

References

* Cobbing, Andrew. (1989). ''The Japanese Discovery of Victorian Britain''. London: RoutledgeCurzon. . * __________. (2000). ''The Satsuma Students in Britain''. London: RoutledgeCurzon. * Jansen, Marius B. (2000). ''The Making of Modern Japan''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
OCLC 44090600
* Keene, Donald. (2002). ''Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912''. New York:

Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by Jennifer Crewe (2014–present) and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fiel ...

.
OCLC 46731178

External links

National Diet Library The is the national library of Japan and among the largest libraries in the world. It was established in 1948 for the purpose of assisting members of the in researching matters of public policy. The library is similar in purpose and scope to ...