Background
De Havilland was born in Lewisham, South London on 31 August 1872 the youngest of 8 children. He was the son of Margaret Letitia de Havilland (nee Molesworth) (1826-1910) and the Reverend Charles Richard de Havilland (1823-1901).
De Havilland was born in Lewisham, South London on 31 August 1872 the youngest of 8 children. He was the son of Margaret Letitia de Havilland (nee Molesworth) (1826-1910) and the Reverend Charles Richard de Havilland (1823-1901).
He was a pupil at Harrow and Elizabeth College, Guernsey, and subsequently studied Theology and Classics at Cambridge University.
He was the father of British American film stars Olivia De Havilland and Joan Fontaine
Whilst in Japan he became a university lecturer, first teaching English at Hokkaido University, and later becoming a professor of Law at Waseda University. He also ran a law firm in Tokyo, specialising in patent law. Whilst in Japan, de Havilland discovered the game of and became quite obsessed with lieutenant
Although not the first Westerner to take up the game, he was, according to John Fairbairn, the first with a reasonably high level of skill in the game.
His teacher was Yoshida Toshio. A game between the two of them from 1908 was considered good enough for publication in the magazine kai Shinpo, with commentary from Iwata Kei (later President of the Hoensha).
In 1910, de Havilland published a short work entitled The American Broadcasting Company of. The National War-Game of Japan, which brought him minor celebrity in the -playing world.
In 1919 she took them both to live in California.
After Lilian divorced him in 1925 he was remarried twice. First to Yuki Matsu-Kura (previously his housemaid) and later to Rosemary Beaton Connor. In later life de Havilland retired in British Columbia.
He died in 1968.
After graduation, he worked as a patent attorney, becoming a member of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, and moved to Japan to study patent law there.