Glover, Thomas Blake

Japanese: グラバー（英語表記）Glover, Thomas Blake

Born: June 6, 1838, England
[Died] December 16, 1911. Tokyo A British merchant who was active in Japan from the end of the Edo period to the beginning of the Meiji period. He came to Nagasaki (→Nagasaki City) from Shanghai in 1859, and established Glover & Co. in Oura in 1861, where he began exporting marine products. He had particularly strong ties with the Satsuma and Choshu clans, and developed the company by selling weapons and ships. He also mediated the sending of students to England, and supported the travel of five Choshu clan students, including Ito Hirobumi, in 1863, and 15 stowaway students from the Satsuma clan, including Godai Tomoatsu and Mori Arinori, in 1865. During the Keio period (1865-1868), he provided information to the British envoy Harry Smith Parkes and maintained close ties with the local authorities. Glover & Co. went bankrupt in 1870 due to poor management. He later became an adviser to Mitsubishi and was involved in the management of the Takashima Coal Mine. He married a Japanese woman and took the Japanese surname "Kuraba." The former Glover House, where Glover lived, was designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan in 1961 and registered as a World Heritage Site in 2015.

Glover
Glover, John

[Born] 1817
[Died] 1902
English chemical engineer who invented the Glover column in 1859, a device that enabled the regeneration of nitric oxide in the lead-chamber process for the production of sulfuric acid.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia About Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia Information

Japanese:

[生]1838.6.6. イギリス
[没]1911.12.16. 東京
幕末から明治初期にかけて日本で活躍したイギリスの商人。安政6（1859）年に上海から長崎（→長崎市）に渡来し，文久1（1861）年大浦にグラバー商会を設立して海産物の輸出を始めた。薩摩藩，長州藩との関係が特に深く，武器や船舶などを販売して会社を発展させた。イギリス留学生派遣の仲介も行ない，文久3（1863）年に長州藩の伊藤博文ら 5人，慶応1（1865）年には五代友厚，森有礼ら 15人の薩摩藩の密航留学生の渡欧を支えた。慶応年間（1865～68）にはイギリス公使ハリー・スミス・パークスに情報を提供して現地当局とも密接な関係を保った。グラバー商会は経営悪化のため明治3（1870）年に破産。その後は三菱の顧問として高島炭鉱の経営に携わる。日本人を妻に迎え，「倉場」という日本姓を名のった。グラバーの居住していた旧グラバー住宅は，1961年国の重要文化財に指定され，2015年世界遺産の文化遺産に登録された。