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Mutsu Iso (1867-1930)
Jul. 26th, 2024 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnozomiMutsu Iso was born in 1867 in Oxford, England, where she was christened Gertrude Ethel Passingham. She grew up in Cambridgeshire, where her father, a teacher, let rooms to supplement the family income; in 1888, one of his tenants was Mutsu Hirokichi, the son of Count Mutsu Munemitsu, then studying at Cambridge. Hirokichi (who took after his father, once called “the best-looking man in Japan”) and Ethel Passingham apparently fell immediately in love. Although Hirokichi left England for the US the following year, they remained in touch on a regular basis. They had planned to marry in 1893, when Hirokichi returned to Japan, but his father’s opposition meant that the marriage had to be postponed for the remainder of the Count’s lifetime.
In 1899 they met again in the States, but had to live apart and engage in various subterfuges (Ethel posed as a governess) for reasons of publicity, and in 1900 Hirokichi once again had to return to Japan because of his stepmother Ryoko’s ill-health. (His diary notes a moment of relief that Ethel’s period had come, suggesting that they made the most of the time they had.) In 1901 Ethel made her first visit to Japan, welcomed by Hirokichi and his sister Fuyu, and later that year accompanied him on his diplomatic posting to Italy, where they remained until 1904.
The following year, upon permission from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Imperial Household, they were finally able to marry (seventeen years after their first meeting). At this time Ethel took her husband’s nationality and adopted a Japanese name, Iso, suggested by her husband for its similar sound and its meaning of “seaside,” due to her fondness for the sea.
Hirokichi was subsequently posted to London, where their son Yonosuke (Ian) was born in 1907. In 1910 they returned to Japan and bought a house in Kamakura, a seaside town (now) a short train ride from Tokyo. Iso was occasionally employed as an English tutor for various members of the Imperial Family; she also devoted herself to researching and writing a book about her adopted home, Kamakura: Fact and Legend, using her husband as translator and interpreter for interviews and historical reading. Her book covered the history of the town, describing its many temples in particular, and was well received.
She died in 1928. Ian Mutsu, her son, officially renounced his title of Count and became a well-known journalist and documentary producer. He described his parents as “each living independent lives, neither subsuming the other, as if there were always both Japanese and British flags flying at home.”
Sources
https://lugliolove.exblog.jp/14485155/ (Japanese) Photos of Hirokichi (who would certainly be quite handsome without the mustache, speaking personally) and of Ethel in Japanese dress
https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%95%E3%82%A1%E3%82%A4%E3%83%AB:Iso_Mutsu.jpg Very pretty portrait of Iso that appeared in her book
In 1899 they met again in the States, but had to live apart and engage in various subterfuges (Ethel posed as a governess) for reasons of publicity, and in 1900 Hirokichi once again had to return to Japan because of his stepmother Ryoko’s ill-health. (His diary notes a moment of relief that Ethel’s period had come, suggesting that they made the most of the time they had.) In 1901 Ethel made her first visit to Japan, welcomed by Hirokichi and his sister Fuyu, and later that year accompanied him on his diplomatic posting to Italy, where they remained until 1904.
The following year, upon permission from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Imperial Household, they were finally able to marry (seventeen years after their first meeting). At this time Ethel took her husband’s nationality and adopted a Japanese name, Iso, suggested by her husband for its similar sound and its meaning of “seaside,” due to her fondness for the sea.
Hirokichi was subsequently posted to London, where their son Yonosuke (Ian) was born in 1907. In 1910 they returned to Japan and bought a house in Kamakura, a seaside town (now) a short train ride from Tokyo. Iso was occasionally employed as an English tutor for various members of the Imperial Family; she also devoted herself to researching and writing a book about her adopted home, Kamakura: Fact and Legend, using her husband as translator and interpreter for interviews and historical reading. Her book covered the history of the town, describing its many temples in particular, and was well received.
She died in 1928. Ian Mutsu, her son, officially renounced his title of Count and became a well-known journalist and documentary producer. He described his parents as “each living independent lives, neither subsuming the other, as if there were always both Japanese and British flags flying at home.”
Sources
https://lugliolove.exblog.jp/14485155/ (Japanese) Photos of Hirokichi (who would certainly be quite handsome without the mustache, speaking personally) and of Ethel in Japanese dress
https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%95%E3%82%A1%E3%82%A4%E3%83%AB:Iso_Mutsu.jpg Very pretty portrait of Iso that appeared in her book
