J.C. Eldridge

J.C. Eldridge was a purser (i.e. financial officer) in the United States Navy who accompanied Commodore Matthew Perry on his trip to Japan in 1854. On 1854/5/20, Eldridge and his clerk William Speiden completed negotiations with Tokugawa shogunate officials regarding currency exchange rates and coal prices to be relevant following the opening of the ports of Hakodate and Shimoda.

References

• Matthew Calbraith Perry, Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan, 1856.
• Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 1 (1937), 604.