was one of the first modern commercial

shipyard A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance a ...

s in Japan, and was active in the early

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 ...

. It was located in what is now part of

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

History

Onohama Shipyards was established by Edward Charles Kirby, a British expatriate merchant during late

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 ...

and early

Japan. Kirby came to Japan in 1865, as soon as the country ended its national isolation policy and was opened to foreign trade, and established a chandlery, Kirby & Co in the foreign settlement at

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

. He later opened a branch in Kobe. In 1869, together with two British partners, Robert Huggin and John Taylor, he established the Kobe Iron Works on the Ikuta River about a mile from the foreign settlement, which had an iron foundry, blacksmiths, and a deepwater dock. In 1878, Kirby bought out his partners and established the Onohama Shipyards, bringing his brother Alfred from

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

as engineering director. The company engaged in repair work, marine salvage, and built small vessels. In 1882, the company launched Japan's first commercial iron-ribbed steamship, the , which operated on

Lake Biwa is the largest freshwater lake in Japan, located entirely within Shiga Prefecture (west-central Honshu), northeast of the former capital city of Kyoto. Lake Biwa is an ancient lake, over 4 million years old. It is estimated to be the 13th ol ...

. The success of this venture led to a contract from the

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

to construct the second of the s, the . However, due to problems with financing, and delays in completion of ''Yamato'' caused when suppliers in the UK went on strike, Kirby faced foreclosure on a 50,000

Mexican dollar The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight ( es, Real de a ocho, , , or ), is a silver coin of approximately diameter worth eight Spanish reales. It was minted in the Spanish Empire following a monetary reform in 1497 with content ...

loan from the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, and committed suicide in 1883. After Kirby's death, the company survived under Japanese government receivership, coming under the control of the

Kure Naval Arsenal was one of four principal naval shipyards owned and operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy. History The Kure Naval District was established at Kure, Hiroshima in 1889, as the second of the naval districts responsible for the defense of the J ...

in 1890.

Louis-Émile Bertin Louis-Émile Bertin (23 March 1840 – 22 October 1924) was a French naval engineer, one of the foremost of his time, and a proponent of the "Jeune École" philosophy of using light, but powerfully armed warships instead of large battleships. ...

, the French

naval engineer A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

and senior foreign advisor to the

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 ...

and director of the

Yokosuka Naval Arsenal was one of four principal naval shipyards owned and operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and was located at Yokosuka, Kanagawa prefecture on Tokyo Bay, south of Yokohama. History In 1866, the Tokugawa shogunate government established the ...

recommended that the shipyard concentrate on the production of

torpedo boat A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of se ...

s. In 1893, the name “Onohama Shipyards” was dropped, and the facility as designated a branch of the Kure Naval Arsenal until it was closed in 1895.

References

*Ennas, Peter. ''Opening a Window to the West: The Foreign Concession at Kobe, Japan, 1868-1899''. University of Toronto Press (2013). , pages 165-166 {{coord, 34, 41, 30, N, 135, 12, 33, E, display=title Shipbuilding companies of Japan Defunct companies of Japan Defunct defense companies of Japan Japan–United Kingdom relations Imperial Japanese Navy