Reverend Walter Weston - memorial plaque at Kamikochi in the Japanese Alps

Japanese Alps

The Reverend Walter Weston (25 December 1860 - 27 March 1940), was an English clergyman, missionary, and mountaineer.

[edit] Background and early life

Weston was born at 22, Parker Street, Derby, the sixth son of John Weston, an elastic manufacturer, and his wife, Emma Butland. He was educated at Derby School between 1876 and 1880, where he held the school record for running the mile distance (viz., four minutes, 47 seconds). He then went up to Clare College, Cambridge, graduating BA in 1883 and MA in 1887.^[1] He studied for the Church of England's priesthood at Ridley Hall, Cambridge.

[edit] Early career

Ordained a deacon in 1885, priest in 1886, Weston was appointed curate of St John's, Reading, Berkshire, in 1885. He was already a mountaineer, and in 1886 and 1887 spent periods climbing in the Alps.

[edit] Weston in Japan

Weston went to Japan as a missionary of the Church of England's Church Missionary Society in 1888, working first at Kumamoto, then serving as chaplain in Kobe from 1889 to 1895. Between 1888 and 1915 he spent a total of fifteen years there, in three long periods, including his service in Yokohama (St. Andrew's Cathedral (Yokohama)).

He began mountain climbing while expressing a strong interest in Japanese landscapes, traditions, customs and culture. He published Mountaineering and Exploring in the Japanese Alps (1896). As a writer and lecturer he continued to introduce Japan to an overseas audience. He gave universal currency to the term Japanese Alps, though it was first used before he came to Japan. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Japanese Alpine Club in 1906, and became its first honorary member.

[edit] Legacy in Japan

Weston's legacy remains, with the climbing season in the Japanese Northern Alps commencing with a festival named after him.

He is almost unique as an individual westerner identified with the emergence of a new sport in Japan, the other such figure being Edward Bramwell Clarke.

By the end of Weston's life, some British climbers referred to him as ‘the father of mountaineering in Japan’. In 1937, Emperor Hirohito conferred on him the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasures (fourth class) and the Japanese Alpine Club erected a bronze tablet in his honour at Kamikochi in the Japanese Alps.

[edit] Later career

After returning to England during the First World War, Weston settled in London and became an active member of the Alpine Club of Great Britain, the Japan Society of London (serving on its council), and the Royal Geographical Society, which in 1917 awarded him its Back Grant for his work in Japan.

He was a lecturer for Cambridge University and the Gilchrist Educational Trust and established himself as a writer.

[edit] Books

Weston's published books include:

• Mountaineering and Exploring in the Japanese Alps (1896)
• The Playground of the Far East (1918)
• A Wayfarer in Unfamiliar Japan (1925)
• Japan (1926)

[edit] See also

• Anglo-Japanese relations

[edit] References

• Weston, Walter (1860–1940), mountaineer and missionary by Peter H. Hansen in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004)
• In Memoriam: Walter Weston by T. A. Rumbold and H. S. Bullock in The Alpine Journal, vol. 52 (1940), pages 271–275

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Walter Weston

• The Collected Works of Walter Weston
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography