Togawa Anchin

• Titles: Nakatsukasa-shôfu
• Japanese: 戸川 安鎮 (Togawa Anchin)

Togawa Anchin was a Tokugawa shogunate official who, in the position of Metsuke, played a notable role in coastal defense and related matters in the first years of the Bakumatsu period.

Anchin was named Chôsen shinshi heirei yôkakari (official in charge of the reception of Korean embassies to Edo) in 1847, though no Korean embassy ultimately materialized. In 1848, he was assigned to help oversee coastal defenses, and on several occasions over the ensuing years he performed inspection tours of the coastal defense areas around Edo Bay and Uraga. Alongside fellow metsuke Udono Nagatoshi and others, he was one of a number of officials who pressed the shogunate in 1853 to allow Tokugawa Nariaki, former lord of Mito han, to participate in determining shogunate policy.

Anchin continued to participate in coastal inspection tours and other aspects of service to the shogunate through 1853, but in 1854 was dismissed from his position as metsuke.

References

• Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 1 (1937), 95, 147, 243, 424, 431, 433, 456, 476, 477, 596.