The Adventure of William K. Burton in Japan
The Adventure of William K. Burton in Japan is an article written by Takashi Ishii published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 8, 1998).
This research article reconstructs William K. Burton's life and work in Japan, correcting errors about his career, grave, marriage, death, and public contributions. It also explores Burton's links to Conan Doyle and suggests that his Japanese experiences, especially with sumo and martial culture, may have indirect relevance to Doylean studies.
The Adventure of William K. Burton in Japan
W. K. Burton's gravestone in the Aoyoma cemetery.
W. K. Burton with the giant Sumo wrestler, Ozutsu.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has had a great influence on my life. But although I grew up with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, the name of William K. Burton, ACD's earliest and closest friend, who stayed and died in Japan, was not known to me until more recently.
The Imperial University of Tokyo invited Burton to become Professor of Sanitary Engineering in 1887. From that time onwards he lived in Japan until his untimely death in 1899. During these last twelve years of his life, as the professional of the modern water supply system in the College of Engineering of the University, he trained many students, but he also contributed to the diffusion of public hygiene as consulting engineer of the Home Department.
Burton was known as 'Baruton-San' by the Japanese people, but little is known of him today, even though he was famous as a skilful photographer during his lifetime. Few people would even know that the great tower, Asakusa Ryo-Un-Kaku, which collapsed in the great earthquake of 1923, was designed by Burton. So many misleading things have been said, even that he died in Formosa.
Possibly this stems from the fact that ACD's non-Sherlockian work, The Firm of Girdlestone, has never been translated into Japanese. As a result, Japanese Sherlockians, who recognized that Conan Doyle did not have any particular interest in Japan, failed to make the connection to the man to whom Conan Doyle dedicated this novel.
I believe it is our duty to know more of W. K. Burton's adventure. in Japan, and in this article I should like to correct what has been said about him so far.
1. W. K. Burton's Gravestone
Burton is buried in the Aoyama cemetery in Tokyo, and I visited his grave in December 1997. The gravestone is approximately 2.5 metres high, and the cost of erecting it was probably met by volunteers of the Engineering Society in Japan. Exactly when it was erected is not known, but in November and December 1899 Burton's friends advertised regarding fund-raising in the Journal of Engineering Society.
The front of the gravestone has detail of his life in both English and Japanese:
- IN MEMORY
- OF
- Wm. KINNINMOND BURTON
- A.M.I.C.E.
- Born in Scotland. May 11, 1856
- Sometime Professor of Engineering
- in the
- Imperial University, Tokyo
- Afterwards Engineer to the Home Department
- and to the
- Formosa Administration Bureau
- of the
- Imperial Japanese Government.
- Died in Tokyo. August 5, 1899.
- This stone is erected by his numerous friends.
It is generally noted that Burton's middle name was 'Kinnimond', but the engraving of 'Kinninmond' has been confirmed as correct by Miss Carol Arrowsmith, acting archivist of the Institution of Civil Engineers in the U.K. He is listed as BURTON (WILLIAM KINNINMOND) in the British Library Catalogue of Printed Books to 1975 (Vol. 49, p.38). According to his mother, Katharine Burton, his grandfather's name was William Kinninmont Burton ('Memoir of Author' in John Hill Burton, The Book-Hunter).
A.M.I.C.E. is, of course, an indication that Burton was an Associate Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. His obituary in ICE Minutes and Proceedings (Vol. 139, 1899-1900) indicates that he was elected on 5 May 1891. But it is only in the Japanese inscription on the gravestone that we learn that he was awarded the fourth order by the Emperor of Japan in 1896 for his merit as professor.
It seems that the first signs of failing health appeared in 1895. The following appeared in a magazine of photography to which Burton contributed occasional essays:
- Our friend Prof. W. K. Burton is not in good health for two months. He is not so bad as to be confined in his bed, but not able to attend any business.
- (Shasin Sowa, English Edition, Vol. 4, No. 7, Feb. 1896)
The disease which laid him low at this time seems, however, not to have been too serious, and soon after his contract with the Imperial University expired, he became a consulting engineer for the Formosan Administration in June 1896. In the nineteenth century many epidemics were still prevalent in Formosa, and Burton told his assistant that if the Japanese wanted to govern Formosa, they should have considered it sufficiently important to thoroughly improve sanitary conditions. Burton made journeys deep into the mountains to look for the source of a river in order to supply clean water to cities.
After contracting dysentery, Burton died of acute inflammation of the liver at the University Hospital in Tokyo, at 9.10 p.m. on 5 August 1899. (1) He had been about to make a journey to the United Kingdom and had been granted a sixty-day vacation by the government. His friends notified his death in a leading newspaper, the Yomiuri on 7 August, stating that the hearse would leave his house, 1-7 Nagata-Cho, Kojimachi-ku, at 9 a.m, with the funeral service being held in the Aoyama cemetery on that same day.
Burton left a widow and a small daughter. On the rear of the gravestone there are two sentences about the death of Mrs Matsu Burton, his wife, on 3 January 1918. Matsu was born as the second daughter of Zenshichi Arakawa at Kanda-ku, Tokyo in March 1872. She and Burton were married in May 1894, but how they came to meet is not known.
According to materials in the possession of the Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, Mr J. H. Longford, a vice-consul of the British Consulate, advised that it would be better to hold the wedding ceremony at his official residence. Because, at that time, marriages between English and Japanese were not always effective in the U.K., Longford seems to have been giving advice that would have obviated any possible problems. The ceremony took place on 19 May. The couple subsequently had a daughter, Tama.
To date, I have been unable to discover anything about descendants, except that Tama's children lived in Kyoto thirty years ago. When I visited the gravestone, it appeared that someone had been tending it, although the flowers in the vase had completely dried up. One day, I hope to contact the person who carried out this work.
2. How did W. K. Burton come to Japan?
Ever since the Meiji Restoration (1868-), cholera had repeatedly swept over Japan, and an urgent plan was needed to counteract the disease.
In 1884 the Japanese government sent Mr Kyu-Ichiro Nagai, a director in charge of public hygiene, to the World Exhibition of Hygiene in London where he became acquainted with W. K. Burton, the junior partner in the firm of Innes & Burton. When he returned to Japan, Nagai suggested to his superior, Mr Sensai Nagayo, that Burton was the very man they were looking for. However, from materials in the possession of the Diplomatic Archives of the Foreign Office, it appears his suggestion was that Burton was only a possible candidate.
The first record concerning Burton's appointment is surprisingly dated 1 December 1886 — the Minister of Education, Viscount Arinori Mori, requested the Foreign Secretary, Count Kaoru Inoue, to look for someone who would be the right man for the post of Professor of the Imperial University, Tokyo. It is important to note that Viscount Mori did not note any name or subject that he needed. He stipulated that the terms of employment should properly pay the person concerned 350-400 Yen per month, and that the person would have to depart from the U.K. for Japan within the month of January.
The second record, dated 6 December, is Count Inoue's instruction to Mr Kawase, an acting minister extraordinary and plenipotentiary in London. The third is dated 5 March and shows Kawase apologizing to the Foreign Secretary over the delay of interviews with candidates. He was not yet able to decide. Burton's name finally appeared on a record dated 16 March.
In this record, Mr Kawase reported that he decided to employ Mr Burton, the best man for the job. Although I did not see their agreement, Kawase also wrote to Inoue that Burton would be paid a salary of 350 Yen with an additional 40 Yen for the monthly hotel expenses. His monthly salary corresponded to about £66 7s, or just over £800 per annum. Added to this, from 1889 he was also paid a yearly salary of 500 Yen (£95) by the Home Department.
Burton's arrival in Japan was recorded in the Official Gazette and in an English newspaper, The Japan Weekly Mail. Burton sailed aboard the City of Sydney, an American ship, which departed from San Fransisco for Yokohama on 5 May. How Burton travelled to San Francisco is unknown, but it would almost certainly have been to New York by ship, then across the continent by rail. This would have probably been a shorter route than sailing direct from Britain via the Indian Ocean.
3. Burton and Sumo Wrestling
I am continuing my researches into Burton's life in Japan by considering his interest in Sumo wrestling. He seems to have produced a picture album titled Wrestlers and Wrestling in Japan. This was published and exported to the U.K. in 1895 by K. Ogawa.
Burton invited sumo wrestlers to his house, and, with the assistance of his friend Mr Seibei Kajima, photographed the Japanese system of wrestling. The book contained twelve photographs reproduced in collotype. The last picture in the book is a portrait of Burton alongside a giant wrestler, Ozutsu, or Taiho. Burton compared his measurements with famous prizefighters:
- He is 6 feet 4 inches high, in bare feet, measures 48 1⁄2 inches round the chest, and weighs 400lbs! The measurements of Corbett and Mitchell, the two great prize fighters, were given in an American newspaper some little time ago, and I afterwards made corresponding measurements of Taiho. I found that his measurements were greater in every case but one, than either of those two. The exception was the 'reach'. The 'reach' of both Corbett and Mitchell is greater than that of Taiho. 'Reach', as a matter of fact, is a thing that gives the very greatest possible advantage in boxing, but gives little or none in wrestling at any rate in wrestling of the kind practised in Japan.
Ozutsu later became the 18th Yokozuna, the grand champion in 1901. Jim Corbett (Gentleman Jim, 1866-1933) was a world heavyweight champion of boxing who knocked out Charley Mitchell on 25 January 1894. Corbett's measurements were 6 feet 1 inch high, and he weighed 184lbs.
I would like to know why Burton was so interested in the boxing championship in the United States. The names of Corbett and Mitchell were certainly, of course, familiar to Conan Doyle, the author of Rodney Stone. Burton and Conan Doyle might, possibly, have shared an interest in the martial arts and could have exchanged information about it. And it seems probable that Burton might have sent his book to Conan Doyle. I can only speculate that sumo wrestling may have been an indirect source for 'baritsu'.
Burton was not a Japanologist, but he did love Japan, and there are photographs of him wearing Japanese clothes, Kimono. He was acquainted with some members of the Asiatic Society of Japan, like John Milne, Josiah Conder, and Sir Ernest Mason Satow. Satow in particular was the friend of successive Prime Ministers and stayed as the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Japan from 1895 to 1900.
Satow met Burton for the first time at a dinner in the legation on 21 November 1895, and was later elected as a member of the Photographic Society of Japan, on Burton's proposal, on 22 May 1896. The two men had been to Hakone, a famous resort, for three days in June 1899, shortly before Burton's death.
According to Christopher Redmond in Welcome to America, Mr Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle might have met John Harrington Gubbins, Second Secretary of Her Majesty's Legation in Tokyo, on board the Elbe, a ship bound for New York in September 1894. Who can know whether they talked about martial arts at that time? At least it is possible, however, that Gubbins had heard of Burton from Satow. And if Conan Doyle and Gubbins chatted about Japan, they must have talked about W. K. Burton. (2)
Notes
1. W. K. Burton had a drinking problem. His students could often smell liquor on his breath. The obituary in Japan Times dated 8 August 1899 suggested he had been suffering from a liver complaint for some time.
2. Gubbins was one of the founding members of the Asiatic Society of Japan. Burton was elected as an ordinary member at the Society's meeting on 12 October 1887. Burton also delivered a lecture on the sanitation in Japan on 10 October 1888.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
