More than 140 years after their ancestors started tending the grave of a British man who died in obscurity, a Japanese family has finally learned his identity — and received an official message of thanks from the British government.
For much of that period, members of the Murai family, who live in Ishikawa Prefecture on the coast of the Sea of Japan (known as the East Sea in South Korea and the East Sea of Korea in North Korea), thought they were maintaining the last resting place of a man named Philip Ward.
It has been determined that the grave belongs to Bernard George Littlewood, who came to Japan to teach English in 1870, just as the nation was beginning to modernize.
Littlewood taught English at a school in what is now the city of Kaga, but died of smallpox the following year, aged just 30, according to the Asahi Shimbun.
Local officials erected a tombstone for Littlewood at a Buddhist temple, but months later, when feudal domains were replaced with prefectures, no one was given responsibility for its upkeep.
The Murai family, who lived nearby, decided to clean and weed the area themselves, a routine they continued throughout World War II.
Years later, the family received a letter from the British embassy thanking them for tending what was believed to be Ward’s grave.
It was not until Susumu Koyata, a volunteer who promotes international exchanges in the city, researched the grave’s history that its occupant’s true identity emerged.
Koyata attributed the confusion to the tombstone’s engraving, which was etched in kanji characters, making it difficult to pronounce.
Earlier this month, Kumiko Murai received a second letter of thanks from the British embassy thanking her for her family’s modest tribute to a forgotten expatriate.
Murai, 81, told the newspaper that she had been “speechless” when the letter arrived from UK Ambassador to Tokyo Timothy Hitchens, who thanked her family for their kindness and for contributing to friendly ties between Japan and Britain.
However, the job was not without controversy. Murai recalled her father-in-law saying that the family had had a “hard time” during WWII due to their insistence on maintaining the grave of a citizen of Japan’s then-enemy.
Her 58-year-old son, Yasushi, will carry on the family tradition, she told the paper.
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