Thomas Blake Glover

Thomas Blake Glover was a true innovator. Leaving his home in Aberdeen at the age of 18, he joined the trading company Jardine, Matheson & Co, and was initially posted to China. Three years later, in 1859, he moved to Nagasaki, Japan, soon after the country had opened to foreign trade. He became a key figure in the industrialisation of Japan, brokering ships for the fledgling modern Japanese Navy and was an important figure in the development of the Mitsubishi Corporation.

Shortly after Thomas Blake Glover arrived in Nagasaki, Japan, he founded his company Glover & Co. Through his relationship with the Japanese clans and early Meiji government, Thomas commissioned what was to become the strongest warship

in the Imperial Japanese Navy, the Jha Shoo Maru. The ship was built by Alexander Hall and Company in Aberdeen and launched in March 1869. In 1908 Emperor Meiji recognised Thomas’s outstanding contribution to the industrialisation of Japan by bestowing on him the honour of the Order of the Rising Sun.

Of Thomas’s many legacies, one of the most enduring was his role in the development of the shipbuilding company which became the Mitsubishi Corporation of Japan. He also introduced the first steam railway locomotive, the Iron Duke, to the country and played a crucial role in founding what would become the Kirin Brewery Company.