Basil Hall Chamberlain

Background

Chamberlain was born in Southsea (a part of Portsmouth) on the south coast of England, the son of an Admiral William Charles Chamberlain and his wife Eliza Hall, the daughter of the travel writer Basil Hall. His younger brother was Houston Stewart Chamberlain. He was brought up speaking French as well as English, even before moving to Versailles to live with his maternal grandmother in 1856 upon his mother's death. Once in France he acquired German as well. Chamberlain had hoped to study at Oxford, but instead started work at Barings Bank in London. He was unsuited to the work and soon had a nervous breakdown. It was in the hope of a full recovery that he sailed out of Britain, with no clear destination in mind.

Career

Chamberlain landed in Japan on 29 May 1873. He taught at the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in Tokyo from 1874 to 1882. His most important position, however, was as professor of Japanese at Tokyo Imperial University beginning in 1886. It was here that he gained his reputation as a student of Japanese language and literature.

Chamberlain also translated the works of Fukuzawa Yukichi and other Japanese scholars into English. During his tenure at the Tokyo Imperial University, he sent many Japanese artifacts to the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford.

He left Japan in 1911 and moved to Geneva, where he lived until his death in 1935.

Works

• Other Work

  • The Classical Poetry of the Japanese

    1880

  • The Language, Mythology, and Geographical Nomenclature of Japan Viewed in the Light of Aino Studies.

    1887

  • Aino Folk-Tales.

    1888

  • A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese.

    1887

  • Things Japanese. Six editions

    1890

  • A Handbook for Travellers in Japan. Co-written with W. B. Mason.

    1913

  • Essay in Aid of a Grammar and Dictionary of the Luchuan Language

    1895