Kawaji Toshiakira
- Died: 1868
- Japanese: 川路聖謨 (Kawaji Toshiakira)
Kawaji Toshiakira served as Nara bugyô (Nara City Magistrate) from 1846-1851. He then served as Osaka machi bugyô from 1851 until 1852, as kanjô bugyô beginning in 1852, and as gaikoku bugyô (Foreign Affairs Magistrate) for a time, before killing himself in 1868 as the Tokugawa shogunate fell.
Kawaji was one of three signers of the 1854 Treaty of Shimoda, along with Tsutsui Masanori and Koga Masaru; Kawaji and Tsutsui also played prominent roles in a number of other diplomatic events of the time, including negotiation discussions with Yevfimy Vasilyevich Putyatin in 1853 to 1854,[1] and discussions and preparations pertaining to the visit of US consul general Townsend Harris to Edo in 1857.[2]
Following a fire at the Kyoto Imperial Palace in 1854, Toshiakira helped oversee the palace's reconstruction.[3] He was reassigned from the position of Kanjô bugyô to Nishinomaru rusui in 1858.[4] In 1859, he was dismissed from his position and sentenced to house confinement amidst the dismissal and house confinement of a number of prominent officials associated with foreign affairs.[5]
References
- Plaque on-site at stele erected in Kawaji's honor, at Sarusawa Pond, Nara.
- Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 1 (1937), 376.
