Background
Shungaku Matsudaira was born in 1829 in Japan.
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Shungaku Matsudaira
Edit Profile慶永 松平
also known as
Matsudaira Keiei, Matsudaira Yoshinaga
Career
In 1862, Shungaku received a document containing "three emergency measures" from Kiyokawa Hachirô. He then formed the Rôshigumi, hiring a group of ronin to help guard Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi on a 1863 trip to Kyoto. In conjunction with these responsibilities, Shungaku was named seiji sôsaishoku, a high-ranking government oversight position.
In the last years of the Bakumatsu period, Shungaku, along with Yamauchi Yôdô, were among those who debated the possibility of a more democratic form of government, based on public opinion.
In 1870, Shungaku invited William Griffis to Japan, to teach physical sciences as an oyatoi gaikokujin. In 1881, he helped compile the Tokugawa reiten roku, alongside Ikeda Mochimasa and Date Munenari.
Personality
Shungaku is known to have been an avid collector of ukiyo-e woodblock prints, and it has been suggested that the production of pictorial records of Iemochi's trip to Kyoto by ukiyo-e artists rather than by those of the Kanô school may have been his idea.
