- Born: 1844
- Died: 1925
Robert Walker Irwin was a prominent figure in relations between Japan, the United States, and Hawaii in the 1880s, serving for a time as acting Hawaiian Consul in Japan.[1], succeeding Harlan P. Lillebridge in that position.[2] A businessman descended from Benjamin Franklin[3] and involved with the Mitsui Trading Company, he was one of the first Americans to obtain Japanese citizenship, and married a Japanese woman named Takechi Iki. In 1885, he played a prominent role in negotiating agreements related to the beginning of Japanese immigration to Hawaii.
After marrying his wife and becoming a naturalized Japanese citizen, Irwin remained in Japan the rest of his life, until his death at 81. He is buried at Aoyama Cemetery in Tokyo.[4]
His summer home in Ikaho (伊香保), Gunma prefecture, still stands and has been designated a historical site by the city. In conjunction with his summer home being located there, Ikaho is host to an annual Hawaiian Festival, and was sister cities with the Hawaiian city of Hilo until Ikaho's merging into Shibukawa City in 2006.[5]
References
- John Van Sant, et al, ”Irwin, Robert Walker,” Historical Dictionary of United States – Japan Relations, The Scarecrow Press (2007), 117.
- ↑ David Kalakaua, in a letter to John Owen Dominis, governor of Oahu, May 12 1881, as reproduced in Richard Greer (ed.), "The Royal Tourist - Kalakaua's Letters Home from Tokio to London," Hawaiian Journal of History 5 (1971), 82.
- ↑ Ralph Kuykendall, The Hawaiian Kingdom 1874 - 1893: The Kalakaua Dynasty, University of Hawaii Press (1967), 155.
- ↑ Donald Keene, Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912, Columbia University Press (2002), 791n7.
- ↑ "Robert Walker Irwin (1844-1925)," Find A Grave.com.
- ↑ "Hawai ôkoku kôshi bettei ハワイ王国公使別邸," Shibukawa City Official Site. Accessed 20 June 2014.