Kikuchi Dairoku (菊池大麓 Kikuchi Dairoku, March 17, 1855 – August 19, 1917) was born in Edo, the second son of Mitsukuri Shuhei.

Kikuchi's life and career

Kikuchi was the first ever Japanese student to graduate from Cambridge University (St. John's College) and the only one to graduate from London University in the 19th century. He first came to Britain in 1866 aged 11, the youngest of a group of Japanese sent by the Tokugawa shogunate (Bakufu) which was enrolled at University College School on the advice of the then British foreign minister Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby.

Kikuchi later became a President of Tokyo Imperial University, Minister of Education and President of Kyoto Imperial University. He was made a baron in 1902, and was the eighth president of Gakushuin and briefly the first President of the Science Research Institute of Japan (Rikagakukenkyusho or RIKEN, the equivalent of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University). He died in 1917.

Mitsukuri family

Kikuchi was a member of Japan's most distinguished and outstanding family of scholars, the Mitsukuri family, and at the centre of Japan's educational system in the Meiji Era. His grandfather had been a student of Dutch studies (Rangaku). His father Mitsukuri Shuhei had taught at the Bansho-shirabesho (Institute for investigating Barbarian books). His children were famous scientists, and his grandson Ryokichi Minobe became Governor of Tokyo.

See also

General

• Japanese students in Britain
• Tokyo Imperial University
• Cambridge University
• Anglo-Japanese relations
• Hayashi Tadasu — another member of the group who went to Britain in 1866, sent by the Bakufu
• Imperial Rescript on Education

Japanese at Cambridge

Other Japanese who studied at Cambridge University after Kikuchi:

• Inagaki Manjiro
• Okura Kishichiro
• Suematsu Kencho
• Tanaka Ginnosuke

British contemporaries at Cambridge

British contemporaries of Kikuchi at Cambridge University:

• Donald MacAlister
• Karl Pearson — a close friend and contemporary of Kikuchi at University College School and Cambridge University
• Charles Algernon Parsons

External links

• Japanese Students at Cambridge University in the Meiji Era, 1868–1912: Pioneers for the Modernization of Japan, by Noboru Koyama, translated by Ian Ruxton ([http://www.lulu.com/content/71869 Lulu Press, September 2004, ISBN 1411612566). Kikuchi is the central figure in this book.

• 'Kikuchi Dairoku, 1855–1917: Educational Administrator and Pioneer of Modern Mathematical Education in Japan,' by Noboru Koyama, Chapter 7, Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits Volume 5, Global Oriental 2005, ISBN 1901903486

• Portrait of Kikuchi Dairoku on the National Diet Library database, Tokyo

• RIKEN — The Science Research Institute of Japan

1855 births | 1917 deaths | Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge | Old Gowers | Japanese people | Japanese people in Britain | People from Tokyo

菊池大麓