JAPAN THROUGH WESTERN EYES
Manuscript Records of Traders, Travellers, Missionaries and Diplomats, 1853-1941

Part 8: The Papers of Harold S Williams (1898-1987) from the National Library of Australia - Additional Subject Files

This microfilm project brings together a wide range of subject files relating to the history of foreign settlement in Japan and its influence on, and adaptation to, Japanese society. The papers also relate to Japanese culture, individual expatriate residents, other foreigners, foreign businesses, communities and clubs in Japan throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These files contain the primary material used by Williams in his many published books and articles.

Topics covered include the early Dutch and German settlers at Deshima, Nagasaki and the port of Hirado, first contacts by Westerners with Japan, the Dutch East India Company, the English mission school in Kobe, missionary work, Buddhism, journalism in Japan, the Pacific War, the Sorge spy scandal, baseball, horse racing and other sports in Japan, material on Japanese foreign relations, foreign business houses such as Jardine Matheson & Co, Kobe Engineering and Ship Building Works founded by the Kirby family, foreign clubs and societies, customs, fine arts, festivals, natural disasters, the army, politics, economic conditions, local history, laws, education and many other themes.  There are also files on key figures such as William Elliot Griffis, William Lackie, Lafcadio Hearn, Sir Ernest Satow, Ishii Black, Ewell Slade, Samuel Sokobin, Harry Solomon, Carl Boehringer, and William Willis (first British doctor in Japan), and documentation on important cities such as Tokyo, Hakodate, Osaka, Kobe and Yokohama, as well as on other parts of East Asia, including China, Hong Kong and Korea.

Part 8 contains additional subject files, most of which were originally in spring-back folders with a few in scrapbook form. Like Series 1, the files include copies of typescripts of Williams’ published articles, correspondence, notes, references, press cuttings of his own and other people’s articles, photographs and other miscellaneous material assembled in the course of his research from 1949 to 1987. Again, these files are arranged alphabetically by the names given to them by Harold Williams.

Born in Melbourne in 1898, Williams first went to Japan in 1919. He decided to stay and, except during World War II when he served in the Australian Army, he lived there until his death in 1987.

He studied medicine at the University of Melbourne. At his father’s urging he also received Japanese language lessons from a Mr Inagaki who ran a local laundry business. In 1919, Harold Williams visited Japan on holiday to improve his Japanese, but deferred his return to Australia as he found an interesting position with a foreign business firm. From this beginning he went on to pursue a highly successful commercial career in Japan. While on leave in 1935 he visited New Zealand and met and married Gertrude Fortune MacDonald, better known as Jean. Together they retuned to live in Japan.

During World War II Harold Williams had a distinguished military career. Jean and their young daughter had returned to Melbourne in December 1940, and with hostilities imminent he followed in August 1941 in a Dutch ship which sailed via Java. He immediately enlisted and served in Australia, Africa, the Pacific and Burma, attaining the rank of Major. In 1945 he returned to Japan with the Occupation Forces, and was attached to General Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters in Tokyo, where his knowledge of the country and its language proved invaluable. In 1949 he resumed his business career, first as Managing Director of A. Cameron and Company, later as Proprietor.

With his wife Jean, he began his research into the history and culture of the foreign settlements. During his more than sixty years in the country Harold Williams built up an extensive library of books, manuscripts, pictures, serials, and other materials dealing particularly with the opening up of Japan to the West in the mid-nineteenth century. As he wrote to the National Librarian in Australia, Sir Harold White, in 1969: “...my purpose has been to gather as much information as possible bearing upon the contributions made by foreigners to Japanese life and culture, the manner in which they have impinged upon Japanese history, and all matters relating to the Foreign Settlements.” 

He was the author of numerous books on Japan including Tales of Foreign Settlements in Japan (1958), Shades of the Past, or Indiscreet Tales of Japan (1959), and Foreigners in Mikadoland (1963).  His wife Jean, an artist, illustrated these titles with appropriate drawings at the ends of chapters.

For about thirteen years, starting in 1953, Williams contributed articles to the Mainichi Daily News in the series ‘Shades of the Past’. In a final piece, published posthumously on 16 February 1987, he explains his commitment to careful documentation of the past: “The need for accurate accounts of the happenings in pre-war Japan and especially of the early foreign settlement days had become evident from the amazingly superficial accounts which were then appearing.” He was also a frequent contributor to other English language newspapers, both in Japan and other countries.  All this material is to be found in the subject files.

In 1967 he was awarded the International Cultural Award of the Hyogo Prefectural Government. In 1972 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to historical research. Gertrude F. (Jean) Williams shared her husband’s interests and contributed to the development of his collection. Together they travelled extensively throughout Japan and overseas, visiting libraries and other institutions, undertaking research and copying from English language newspapers. After his death she published a two-volume collection of their writings entitled West Meets East: The Foreign Experience of Japan (1992).