Saigô Kikujirô was a son of Saigô Takamori. His mother, Ryû Aiko (Aikana) was a local woman from Amami Ôshima. He had one younger sister, Kikugusa, and a number of half-siblings.
Born in what is now Tatsugô-chô on Amami Ôshima, at age nine Kikujirô was taken to Kagoshima by his father. Three years later, he was sent to the United States for study.
Kikujirô returned to Japan in the mid- or late 1870s, and fought alongside his father Takamori in the Satsuma Rebellion. He suffered a gunshot wound to his right leg, which was then amputated by physician and Saigô family relative Adachi Baikei.
After the end of that war, Kikujirô later worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then under the Governor-General of Taiwan, before becoming governor of Yilan county on Taiwan. Kikujirô then served as mayor of Kyoto City for a time and oversaw three of the city's most famous and major late Meiji period infrastructure projects. Finally, he worked for a time as the head of Shimadzu Corporation mining operations in Nagano, Kagoshima prefecture.
Kikujirô married a woman known as Hisa or Hisako. They had seven sons and seven daughters together.
He died at age 67 of a heart attack.
Children
- Ryûkichi (1893-1965) - worked at Kirishima Shrine
- Hana (1895-1953)
- Takaharu (1899-1977) - judo instructor
- Haru (b. 1898)
- Shimako (b. 1901)
- Yoshi (b. 1903)
- Yasu (1905-1931)
- Takahide (1907-1985) - board chairman of Takushoku University
- Takayasu (1908-1979) - his sons Takafumi and Hitoshi are prominent pottery artists
- Sumiko (1910-2005)
- Takakiyo (1912-1916)
- Kiyo (1914-2010)
- Hitoshi (1916-1945) - died in battle in Luzon
- Kiyoshi (1919-1921)