Background
Kentarô Ôi was born in 1832 in Takanami in the province of Buzen, present-day Oita Prefecture.
大井 健太郎
Kentarô Ôi was born in 1832 in Takanami in the province of Buzen, present-day Oita Prefecture.
He first applied himself to Chinese studies, but at the age of nineteen went to Nagasaki and took up .Western studies. In 1865 he went to Edo and entered the Kaiseijo, a school for Western studies that had been set up by the shogunate, where he studied French and chemistry.
He worked in the Chemistry Bureau attached to the shogunate. After the Meiji Restoration, he taught Western studies for a time and entered the Daigaku Nanko, a school that later became Tokyo Imperial University. In 1871 he took a post in the Ministry of Military Affairs and in 1875 became an undersecretary in the Genroin (Senate). At the same time, he became active in the popular rights movement. In 1876 he resigned his official position and became a lawyer.
He also acted as a lawyer in cases such as the Fukushima incident of 1882, when the party members clashed with the government. In 1885 he and his associates began collecting money and arms to support the Korean independence movement. When his activities were discovered, he was arrested, but released from prison as a result of the general amnesty in 1888.
When the Jiyuto (Liberal Party) was formed in 1881 he became a member and went about the country making speeches.
He resumed his participation in the popular rights movement and helped to revive the Liberal Party, but resigned from the party because he felt it cooperated too readily with the government.
In 1892 he founded a party of his own called the Toyo Jiyuto and in 1894 was elected to the Lower House of the Diet. From early in his career he took an interest in social problems and the rights of labor, but after the turn of the century the advocates of socialism came forward to replace him as the leaders of such causes. In his late years he was active in the movement for universal suffrage.