Oyatoi gaikokujin

The "oyatoi gaikokujin" (Japanese Kyūjitai: _ja. 御雇ひ外國人, Shinjitai: _ja. お雇い外国人, "hired foreigners") -- sometimes rendered "o-yatoi gaikokujin" in romaji, were foreign advisors hired by the Japanese government for their specialized knowledge to assist in the modernization of Japan at the end of the Bakufu and during the Meiji Era. The total number is uncertain, but is estimated to have reached more than 3,000 (with thousands more in the private sector).

The goal in hiring the foreign advisors was to obtain transfers of technology. The foreign advisors were highly paid; in 1874, they numbered 520 men, during which time their salaries came to ¥2.272 million, or 33.7 percent of the annual budget. Despite the value they provided in the modernization of Japan, the Japanese government did not consider it prudent for them to settle in Japan permanently. After training Japanese replacements to take over their places, many found that their contracts (typically for three years) were not renewed.

Some foreign advisors supplemented their activities as government employees by undertaking Christian missionary activities.

The system was officially terminated in 1899 when extraterritoriality came to an end in Japan. Nevertheless similar employment of foreigners persists in Japan, particularly within the national education system and professional sports. Until 1899, more than 800 hired foreign experts continued to be employed by the government, and many others were employed privately.

Notable o-yatoi gaikokujin

Agriculture

* William Smith Clark
* Edwin Dun
* Max Fresca

Medical Science

* Erwin von Bälz, physician [http://www.lib.u-tokyo.ac.jp/tenjikai/tenjikai97/baelz.html] (in Japanese)
* Leopold Müller
* Johannes Ludwig Janson
* Oskar Kellner, [http://www.lib.u-tokyo.ac.jp/tenjikai/tenjikai97/kellnerk.html] (in Japanese)
* Theodor Eduard Hoffmann
* Ferdinand Adalbert Junker von Langegg

Law, Administration and Economics

* Gustave Emile Boissonade — Hosei University
* Hermann Roesler, jurist and economist
* Georg Michaelis, jurist
* Ottmar von Mohl, master of ceremonies
* Albert Mosse, jurist
* Ottfried Nippold, jurist
* Heinrich Waentig, economist and jurist
* Ludwig Loenholm, jurist

Military

* Jules Brunet, French artillery officer.
* Léonce Verny, French constructor of the Yokosuka arsenal.
* Klemens Wilhelm Jakob Meckel

Natural Science and mathematics

* William Edward Ayrton, British physicist
* Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, American physicist.
* Edward S. Morse, zoologist.
* Charles Otis Whitman, zoologist, successor of Edward S. Morse.
* Heinrich Edmund Naumann, geologist. Arrived in August 1875 at the age of 21. Teaching in the University of Tokyo, he became the first professor of geology in Japan. His achievements include, among others, the first tectonic map of the country. [http://www.city.itoigawa.niigata.jp/fmm/ Fossa Magna Museum (in Japanese)]
* Curt Netto
* Gottfried Wagener
* Sir James Alfred Ewing, Scottish physicist and engineer who founded Japanese seismology.
* Cargill Gilston Knott, succeeding J.A. Ewing
* Oskar Löw
* Benjamin Smith Lyman

Engineering

* Wilhelm Boeckmann, architect
* William Brooks, agriculture
* Richard Henry Brunton - builder of lighthouses
* Josiah Conder [http://www.lib.u-tokyo.ac.jp/tenjikai/tenjikai97/conder.html] (in Japanese) [http://www.lib.u-tokyo.ac.jp/tenjikai/tenjikai97/conderk.html] (in Japanese) [http://yma2.hp.infoseek.co.jp/Shobi/06/06-07.html pictures]
* Horace Capron, agriculture, road construction
* Henry Dyer
* Hermann Ende, architect
* George Arnold Escher
* John Milne, geologist
* Edmund Morel, railway engineer
* John Alexander Low Waddell, bridge engineer
* Thomas James Waters

Art and Music

* Edoardo Chiossone
* Luther Whiting Mason, Western music
* Ernest Fenollosa, educator
* Franz von Eckert, Western music
* Rudolf Dittrich, Western music

Liberal Arts, Humanities and Education

* Basil Hall Chamberlain, Japanologist and Professor of Japanese, Tokyo Imperial University
* Antonio Fontanesi, painter
* Emil Hausknecht, pedagogue
* Lafcadio Hearn, Japanologist
* Viktor Holtz, educator
* Raphael von Koeber, philosopher and musician
* Vincenzo Ragusa, sculptor
* Ludwig Riess, historian.

Missionaries

* William Elliot Griffis (1843–1928), American clergymen, author. Taught in Japan 1870–1874.
* Guido Verbeck
* Horace Wilson, U.S. missionary and teacher credited with introducing baseball to Japan.

Others

* Captain Francis Brinkley
* Johannis de Rijke
* William S. Clark — Sapporo Agricultural College (Hokkaidō University)
* Charles Edouard Gabriel Leroux
* Thomas Alexander
* Charles Dickinson West
* Henry Walton Grinnell
* William Gowland

See also

* Anglo-Japanese relations
* Foreign cemeteries in Japan
* Franco-Japanese relations
* German-Japanese relations
* Working Holiday Program
* JET Programme
* Russian people in Japan

External links

* [http://www.dentsu.com/MUSEUM/meiji/index1.html Dentsu Advertising Museum]
* [http://www.lib.u-tokyo.ac.jp/tenjikai/tenjikai97/] (in Japanese)