Tokugawa Akitake

  • Japanese: 徳川 昭武 (Tokugawa Akitake)

Tokugawa Akitake was the final lord of Mito han, before the abolition of the han in 1871. A son of former lord of the domain Tokugawa Nariaki, he was a younger brother to Nariaki's successor Tokugawa Yoshiatsu, and younger half-brother to Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu.

Akitake served as head of the Tokugawa shogunate's delegation to the 1867 Paris World's Fair and was in France in 1868 when he received news of his brother Yoshiatsu falling deathly ill; he returned home to succeed Yoshiatsu (who had no sons/heirs) as head of the domain, arriving in Japan shortly after the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate.

References

  • Robert Hellyer, Defining Engagement, Harvard University Press (2009), 201-204.
Preceded by
Tokugawa Yoshiatsu
Lord of Mito
1868-1871
Succeeded by
None