PRESS RELEASE
Issued by Custom Media
STRICTLY EMBARGOED UNTIL MAY 16, 2020 (JST)
REMAINS OF FIRST BRITON IN JAPAN FOUND
400 years since death of humble mariner behind first trade deal
May 16, 2020 (TOKYO)—Experts have formally identified the final resting place of the first Briton in Japan, William Adams, who also wrote the two countries’ first bilateral trade deal and became the first foreign samurai and advisor.
It is now confirmed that navigator William Adams (1564–1620), who was born into a humble background at Gillingham, Kent, was buried in Hirado, Nagasaki Prefecture. Adams landed in Japan in April 1600 on a Dutch ship and was forced to stay and later befriended by the first shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616). Multilingual Adams also became Ieyasu’s teacher, adviser and helped negotiate the first Japan-Britain diplomatic and trade agreement, which was signed in 1613.
The 400th anniversary of Adams’ death is being marked this year in a series of high-profile events in Japan, where he is known as Miura Anjin. His story of adventure and diplomacy is taught to all Japanese schoolchildren, but he is not well known in the UK.
The Tokyo-based non-profit-organisation William Adams Club (WAC), established by Robin Maynard MBE in 2015, commissioned a ¥5.4 million memorial monument by Iwate Prefecture- and Edinburgh-based sculptor Kate Thomson, to be erected at the British Embassy Tokyo, and a portrait donated by North Petherton, Somerset artist Nicky Farrell. Maynard says the WAC plans to raise Adams’ profile in the UK and further preserve his legacy and bilateral history in Japan.
Maynard said: “Despite the fact that forensic investigation is ongoing, we feel future results will merely confirm our conclusion—that we have found the burial place of William Adams.”
Thanks to a ¥3 million grant from Maynard and help from the Hirado City Council, Adams’ skeletal remains were found at a site that was long suspected to hold his grave, the William Adams Memorial Park on Sakigata Hill, Hirado. Excavations began in July 2017 and the site was confirmed as Adams’ grave in April this year after conclusive DNA tests on bones and a 1931 newspaper was found reporting evidence of a western-style burial. An ongoing process of elimination using forensic, historical, anecdotal and anatomical analysis has cast “great doubt” that Adams’ remains could belong to anyone else.
WAC member Professor Richard Irving also played a pivotal role in the project. “Nobody realized the extent of the journey being embarked upon. William Adams had expressed a desire to be buried in his own place of choosing, at or near the top of a hill from where his remains could overlook the sea. Doubtless only he had the means and the local status to arrange this.”
Contacts:
Robin James Maynard MBE
Founding President
The William Adams Club
Simon Farrell
Co-founding Publisher
Custom Media
Media Partner & WAC Committee member
The William Adams Club