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Joseph Longford described how Japan had changed from the day he first joined the Japan Consular Service to the day he retired as Consul in Nagasaki.
From 1869 to 1902, Joseph Longford served in the Japan Consular Service, and retired after six years as Consul in Nagasaki to become the first Professor of Japanese at King’s College in London. During that time he witnessed the transformation of Japan from feudal backwater to bustling industrial society, but as the Great War moved into its second year he was glad that the nation’s fighting spirit was as strong as ever.
Posted August 23 2020
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In the Great War, the Japanese were among Britain’s allies, and the Japanese cherry was a symbol of the courage demanded by the times.
In 1915, Britain entered the second year of what later proved to have been the most appalling and wasteful war in human history. Joseph Longford, former Consul in Nagasaki and from 1903 the first Professor of Japanese at King’s College in London, contributed an essay to a series on ‘The Spirit of the Allied Nations’ in which he spoke of the Japanese cherry tree as a symbol of sacrifice.
Posted August 23 2020
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In 1932, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession, the Jam Sahib brought vanished days back to Nawanagar with a lavish hand.
In 1932, Colonel His Highness Shri Sir Ranjitsinhji, Jam Sahib of Nawanagar (Jamnagar), celebrated his Silver Jubilee. Lord Irwin, the outgoing Viceroy, had pushed hard for democracy and efficiency, and the Jam Sahib had overseen the development of a modern and prosperous State. But the man remembered by English cricket fans as the swashbuckling ‘Ranji’ showed he was an Indian prince too.
Posted August 19 2020
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In the year that Ranjitsinhji put aside his bat to concentrate on being the Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, journalist A. G. Gardiner looked back on his dazzling career.
In 1907, Sir Ranjitsinhji Vibhaji Jadeja (1872-1933) triumphantly ascended the throne of Nawanagar (Jamnagar) in India, twenty-three years after the bitter disappointment of seeing a rival displace him. It was not part-time work, so in 1912 Ranji called ‘stumps’ on his spectacular career in English cricket, and A. G. Gardiner of ‘The Star’ bade him an affectionate farewell.
Posted August 17 2020
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Ann Sancho would be in better health, said her husband, if she did not worry quite so much about him.
Several years after his death, some letters of Ignatius Sancho, a grocer trading from King Charles Street in London and a former slave, were presented to the public in the hope of demonstrating that he was a writer quite as accomplished as many a native English literary man. In this extract, dated October 24th, 1777, he talks (as he often does) about his wife Ann.
Posted August 17 2020
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At the very centre of Sir Robert Peel’s idea of policing was the constable’s beat: a few streets, shops and families that he must know and care about.
Whenever newspapers print letters from anxious correspondents demanding more ‘constables on the beat,’ letters are sure to follow reminding us that patrolling a beat is an archaic model of policing not seen in this country for a generation. But back in 1862, the Metropolitan Police still clung to their founding principle that prevention is better than cure.
Posted August 15 2020