Foreign government advisors in Meiji Japan Facts for Kids

The foreign employees in Meiji Japan, known in Japanese as O-yatoi Gaikokujin (Kyūjitai: 御雇い外國人, Shinjitai: 御雇い外国人, "hired foreigners"), were hired by the Japanese government and municipalities for their specialized knowledge and skill to assist in the modernization of the Meiji period. The term came from Yatoi (a person hired temporarily, a day laborer), was politely applied for hired foreigner as O-yatoi gaikokujin.

The total number is over 2,000, probably reaches 3,000 (with thousands more in the private sector). Until 1899, more than 800 hired foreign experts continued to be employed by the government, and many others were employed privately. Their occupation varied, ranging from high salaried government advisors, college professors and instructor, to ordinary salaried technicians.

Along the process of the opening of the country, the Tokugawa Shogunate government first hired, German diplomat Philipp Franz von Siebold as diplomatic advisor, Dutch naval engineer Hendrik Hardes for Nagasaki Arsenal and Willem Johan Cornelis, Ridder Huijssen van Kattendijke for Nagasaki Naval Training Center, French naval engineer François Léonce Verny for Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, and British civil engineer Richard Henry Brunton. Most of the O-yatoi was appointed through government approval with two or three years contract, and took their responsibility properly in Japan, except some cases.

As the Public Works hired almost 40% of the total number of the O-yatois, the main goal in hiring the O-yatois was to obtain transfers of technology and advice on systems and cultural ways. Therefore, young Japanese officers gradually took over the post of the O-yatoi after they completed training and education at the Imperial College, Tokyo, the Imperial College of Engineering or studying abroad.

The O-yatois were highly paid; in 1874, they numbered 520 men, at which time their salaries came to ¥2.272 million, or 33.7 percent of the national annual budget. The salary system was equivalent to the British India, for instance, the chief engineer of the British India's Public Works was paid 2,500 Rs/month which was almost same as 1,000 Yen, salary of Thomas William Kinder, superintendent of the Osaka Mint in 1870.

Despite the value they provided in the modernization of Japan, the Japanese government did not consider it prudent for them to settle in Japan permanently. After the contract terminated, most of them returned to their country except some, like Josiah Conder and William Kinninmond Burton.

The system was officially terminated in 1899 when extraterritoriality came to an end in Japan. Nevertheless, similar employment of foreigners persists in Japan, particularly within the national education system and professional sports.

Notable O-yatoi gaikokujin
See also

Notable O-yatoi gaikokujin

Agriculture

William Smith Clark
Edwin Dun
Max Fesca
Oskar Kellner
Oskar Löw, agronomist
William Penn Brooks, agronomist

Medical science

Erwin von Bälz
Johannes Ludwig Janson
Heinrich Botho Scheube
Julius Scriba

Law, administration, and economics

Georges Appert, legal scholar
Gustave Emile Boissonade, legal scholar
Hermann Roesler, jurist and economist
Georg Michaelis, jurist
Albert Mosse, jurist
Otfried Nippold, jurist
Heinrich Waentig, economist and jurist
Georges Hilaire Bousquet, legal scholar
Horatio Nelson Lay, railway developer
Alexander Allan Shand, monetary
Henry Willard Denison, diplomat
Karl Rathgen, economist

Military

Jules Brunet, artillery officer
Léonce Verny, constructor of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal
Klemens Wilhelm Jakob Meckel, Army instructor
Carl Köppen, Army instructor
James R. Wasson, Civil engineer and teacher, army engineer
Douglas R. Cassel, Naval instructor
Henry Walton Grinnell, Navy instructor
José Luis Ceacero Inguanzo, Navy instructor
Charles Dickinson West, naval architect
Henry Spencer Palmer, military engineer
Archibald Lucius Douglas, Naval instructor

Natural science and mathematics

William Edward Ayrton, physicist
Edward Divers, chemist
Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, physicist
Edward S. Morse, zoologist
Charles Otis Whitman, zoologist, successor of Edward S. Morse
Heinrich Edmund Naumann, geologist
Curt Netto, metallurgist
Sir James Alfred Ewing, physicist and engineer who founded Japanese seismology
Cargill Gilston Knott, succeeding J.A. Ewing
Benjamin Smith Lyman, mining engineer

Engineering

William P. Brooks, agriculture
Richard Henry Brunton, builder of lighthouses
Charles Alfred Chastel de Boinville, architect
Josiah Conder, architect
William Kinnimond Burton, engineering, architecture, photography
Horace Capron, agriculture, road construction
Henry Dyer, engineering education
Hermann Ende, architect
François Perregaux, mechanical watchmaker
Albert Favre Zanuti, mechanical watchmaker
George Arnold Escher, civil engineer
John G.H. Godfrey, geologist, mining engineer
John Milne, geologist, seismologist
Colin Alexander McVean, civil engineer
Edmund Morel, civil engineer
Johannis de Rijke, civil engineer, flood control, river projects
John Alexander Low Waddell, bridge engineer
Thomas James Waters, civil engineer
William Gowland, mining engineer, archaeologist
James Favre-Brandt, mechanical watchmaker
Jean Francisque Coignet, mining engineer
Henry Scharbau, cartographer
Wilhelm Böckmann, architect
Anthonie Rouwenhorst Mulder, civil engineer, rivers and ports

Art and music

Edoardo Chiossone - engraver
Luther Whiting Mason, musician
Ernest Fenollosa, art critic
Franz Eckert, musician
Rudolf Dittrich, musician
Antonio Fontanesi, oil painter
Vincenzo Ragusa, sculptor
John William Fenton, musician

Liberal arts, humanities and education

Alice Mabel Bacon, pedagoge
Basil Hall Chamberlain, Japanologist and Professor of Japanese
James Summers, English literature
Lafcadio Hearn, Japanologist
Viktor Holtz, educator
Raphael von Koeber, philosopher and musician
Ludwig Riess, historian
Leroy Lansing Janes, educator, missionary
Marion McCarrell Scott, educator
Edward Bramwell Clarke, educator
David Murray, educator

Missionary activities

William Elliot Griffis, clergyman, author
Guido Verbeck, missionary, pedagoge
Horace Wilson, missionary and teacher credited with introducing baseball to Japan

Others

Francis Brinkley, journalist
Ottmar von Mohl, court protocol

Foreign government advisors in Meiji Japan facts for kids

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