Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850-1935) was a writer and prominent Japanologist, inspiring a generation of influential students. In this chapter, his life and career are assessed.  

Arthur Lloyd (1852-1911) is best known as a missionary, teacher, author and pioneer in the study of Japanese Buddhism. He is also regarded - along with David Murray and Guido Verbeck - as one of.the pioneers of Japan's modern educational system.

This chapter details Arthur Waley's (1899-1966) career as one of the great translators of Japanese literary works and as an inspiration to generations of Japan scholars. 

Captain Francis Brinkley provides the subject of this essay, in particular his journalism and scholarship regarding Japan over his forty year career in the country.

Carmen Blacker (1924-2009) became one of Britain's most original and perceptive scholars of Japan, and this account charts the development of her love for the country and the impact this had upon her choice and pursuit of a career in academia.

Carmen Blacker visited Japan in 1952 on a post-graduate studentship granted by HM Treasury, to study the 19th century scholar Yukichi Fukuzawa. While there she was invited to summer with the novelist Jiro Osaragi, during which time she began her work on Japanese religion and spent a week at the famous temple of Engakuji at Kamakura.

Eric Ceadel was lecturer in Japanese at the University of Cambridge, and visited Japan in 1950 to buy books for the University Library.

Charles Alfred Fisher (1916-82) was an ex-prisoner of war, who played a significant, if forgotten role, in the rise of Japanese Studies.

Charles Dunn (1915-1995) was one of the scholars responsible for the expansion of Japanese studies after the Second World War. This essay details his career as a scholar and dealings with the Japanese language.

This essay details the contribution of Frank Daniels (1900-83) towards teaching Japanese during the Second World War, and also his role in establishing a major centre for Japanese Studies at SOAS.

The subject of this portrait is the remarkable life and career of Eric Bertrand Ceadel (1921-79), founding father of Japanese studies at Cambridge University.

This essay provides a re-assessment of 'forgotten figure' Frederick Victor Dickins' (1838-1915) career in Japan as a scholar, lawyer and contributor to Japanese Studies.

Geoffrey Bownas was the first British scholar to study in Kyoto after the war, arriving there in 1952. Here he describes his experience, particularly with regard to the movement towards senzogaeri - 'returning home to the values of our ancestors'.

Scottish Doctor who lived in Japan treating Ainu communities. An amateur archaeologist and anthropologist who discovered evidence of the prehistoric people of Japan.

Ian Nish had been in Japan during the Occupation, and in the late 1950s was a lecturer at Sydney University. He visited Japan every year from 1957 to '63 for research.

This chapter puts the individual accounts included within Japan Experiences into the context of Anglo-Japanese post-war relations.

This essay details the scholarly and journalistic efforts of J.W. Robertson-Scott (1866-1962), who wrote on Japanese foreign affairs, rural communities and agriculture during the First World War.

Even though John Batchelor (1855-1945) was not an expert in linguistics, ethnology or folklore, his contributions to the understanding of the Ainu people is nonetheless significant. This essay details his missionary career and a life devoted to the Ainu people.

Dubbed a 'master of the various problems of our Far Eastern Ally', John Harrington Gubbins (1852-1929) enjoyed a remarkable and significant diplomatic career in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Detailing John Harrington Gubbins's (1852-1929) long relationship with Japan, beginning as a student interpretor with the Far East Consular Service through to dealings with the British Legation in Japan. 

This essay provides an account of the life and career of Joseph Longford (1849-1925), one of the forgotten scholars of the Japan service.

Anthropologist Joy Hendry describes her time conducting fieldwork, studying family life in rural Japan.

This essay provides an account of sociologist Keith Thurley's (1931-92) lifelong commitment to industrial cooperation between Europe and Asia, and to the study of contemporary Japan.

Ken Gardner was a Japanese language student during the war and returned to SOAS afterwards, becoming assistant librarian responsible for Japanese books. He then worked as Keeper of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts at the British Museum, and visited Japan in 1967.

Kenneth Gardner (1924-95) held senior posts in the British Museum and British Library, and was instrumental in these posts in promoting Japanese culture and Anglo-Japanese relations. This essay charts his career and significance within his field and beyond, including his war service as part of Translators V.

The outstanding Western interpreter of Meiji Japan, Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), provides the subject for this portrait; his time in America, Japan, and his relationships to his contemporaries.

This portrait details the life and career of scholar Louis Allen (1922-91), especially his wartime service and postwar reconciliation efforts.

Louis Allen studied Japanese at SOAS during the war, and worked in Burma as a translator and interrogator. Here he describes his experiences of that time, as well as a remarkable reunion twenty years later.

F.S.G Piggott was one of a small number of japanophiles left in post-war Britain, preferring to overlook the worst excesses of Japan's pre-war leaders. This chapter details his nostalgic view of life in pre-war Japan.

This essay details the miltary and diplomatic career of Major-General F.S.G. Piggott (1883-1966), whose efforts to secure peace and improve relations between Japan and Britain were fatally clouded by an uncritical love for Japan. Following the Pacific War he devoted his life to the restoration of Anglo-Japanese friendship.

This essay considers the remarkable scholarly career of the brilliant but eccentric polymath Minakata Kumagusu (1867-1941), an expert in natural history, folklore and classicism, as well as an assessment of the significance of his time in London to his work.

This portrait details the scholarly career of P.G. O'Neill (1924-2012), his study of the Japanese language, Japanese festivals and Nō theatre.

In this chapter Peter Kornicki describes how he became the first non-Japanese since the end of the war to be given a professorial position at a Japanese national university.

Peter Swan went to Japan in 1953 to study Chinese painting, and during his time there covered many facets of Japanese art. Here he gives an account of his visit.

Among the outstanding students of Japanese during the war, Ronald Doore was so succesful that he was asked to stay on at SOAS as an additional teacher. He had to wait five years after the war for his first trip to Japan, and here he gives his account of Japan in the penultimate year of the Occupation.

Richard Ponsonby-Fane (1878-37) was a prodigious scholar and writer on Japan, and yet his name is absent from encyclopaedias or bibliographies. Here Dorothy Britton celebrates his personal legacy.

Richard Storry was in Japan teaching before the war, and afterwards was a research fellow in Oxford. This chapter details his 1958 visit to Japan to collect material on Prince Fumimaro Konoye, Japanese Prime Minister from 1937 to '39 and 1940 to '41. It also describes a visit made in 1973, at the height of the oil crisis.

Sir Charles Eliot (1862-1931) became British Ambassador at Tokyo in 1919. This chapter details his life and career as an often overlooked figure in Anglo-Japanese relations, who made significant contributions to scholarship and whose time as ambassador coincided with the end of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.

This profile considers the career of Sir Charles Eliot (1862-1931) including his contributions to the field of oriental scholarship and his time as ambassador, overseeing the end of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. 

This profile considers equally Sir George Sansom's (1883-1965) career as a diplomat, in which he pioneered the serious study of the Japanese economy, and historian. 

This profile considers equally Sir George Sansom's (1883-1965) career as a diplomat, scholar and historian. 

This essay provides an account of the life and career of Sir John Figgess (1909-97), businessman, intelligence officer, diplomat and art expert.

This essay describes how Sir John Pilcher (1912-90), as British ambassador in Japan between 1967 and 1972, helped to revive Anglo-Japanese friendship after the Second World War and was long remembered with affection both in Japan and by his friends and colleagues.

This essay describes how Sir John Pilcher (1912-1990), as British ambassador in Japan between 1967 and 1972, helped to revive Anglo-Japanese friendship after the Second World War and was long remembered with affection both in Japan and by his friends and colleagues.

Businessman Sir Peter Parker (1924-2002) made an outstanding contribution to Anglo-Japanese relations in the final decades of the twentieth century. This essay offers an account and analysis of his career and impact in relation to Japan.

Vere Redman (1901-1975) worked, throughout his career as a journalist, press attaché, and in the British Ministry of Information, to contribute to understanding between British and Japanese. This essay recounts his journalistic efforts as they relate to Anglo-Japanese relations.

This volume was published on the occasion of the centenary of the Japan Society, and in this chapter Sir Hugh Cortazzi chronicles its hundred year history, from its founding at the 1891 Congress of Orientalists, via the two world wars and a number of royal visits, through to the 1991 Japan Festival and an assessment of the Society's then challenging state of affairs.

In this chapter, the lives of Sir Francis Taylor Piggott (1852-1925) and his son F.S.G. Piggott (1883-1966) are detailed in their relation to Japan and involvement with the Japan Society of London. Sir Francis was one of the founders of the Society, and his son was the guiding energy behind its post-war revival.

Having served in Japan during the Occupation, Bill Beasley returned there to carry out post-doctoral research during a sabatical year in 1950, and again in 1956 and 1963.

This essay details the two halves of Walter Dening's (1846-1913) career in Japan, first as a missionary with the CMS, and later as an agnostic teacher and journalist, when he became one of the best informed Western authorities on Meiji religious and literary thought.

This chapter assesses the life of William George Aston (1841-1911), a diplomat and prominent scholar of Japan. Though Aston remains somewhat of a shadowy figure due to the lack of knowledge of his private life, this appraisal details how his scholarly works in the fields of linguistics and religion have stood the test of time.

This profile details William George Aston's (1841-1911) career in the consular service and his scholarly achievments as a writer of Japanese language learning books. 

William Beasley (1919-2006) was a pioneer in introducing Japanese history into British academic circles as a teacher, researcher and author. This essay recounts his career in academia.

Dr. Wolf Mendl (1926-1999) was one of a small number of British academics focussed upon the history of regional conflict in East Asia, with a particular interest in China-Japan relations during the Cold War. This portrait looks at the impact of his time in Japan on his personal life and scholarly career.