At Yokosuka the busts of Oguri Kōzukenosuke Tadamasa and of the French engineer Verny stand side by side. Yet these two busts were planned at first as a bust of Verny alone. Oguri's was added because one naval officer objected to the plan.
From Sakurai Jōji to Kuroi Teijirō
The movement to raise a bust was begun by scholars who owed Verny a debt in engineering. They wished to raise a bust of Verny in gratitude, and it was the chemist Dr Sakurai Jōji who brought the proposal to Vice-Admiral Kuroi Teijirō, then head of the Yokosuka naval arsenal.
Vice-Admiral Kuroi pointed out the error in the plan on the spot. The arsenal as it now stood had certainly not been opened by Verny. It had been done by the decision of Oguri Kōzukenosuke, and Oguri had merely engaged Verny, then at Shanghai, through Roches, the French minister. If a bust of Verny was to be raised, the right order would be to raise the bust of Lord Kōzukenosuke first, and his afterwards — so he said.
So it was settled that a bust of Oguri Kōzukenosuke should be raised. Abe Dōzan, writing that he heard this course of events more than once, both from Admiral Kuroi himself and from Oguri Sadao of the thirteenth generation of the house of Oguri, set it down because “it seemed to me better for posterity to make this fact known” (Abe Dōzan, Kaigun no Senkusha Oguri Kōzukenosuke Seiden).
1915: the document the head of the arsenal issued
It was not over the busts alone that Kuroi Teijirō guarded Oguri's name. On 27 September 1915, for the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Yokosuka naval arsenal, Kuroi as its head published an account of the origins of the founding of the Yokosuka naval yard. As a document published by the naval authorities, this was the first.
It happened that Oguri Kōzukenosuke, commissioner of finance, held the business of the naval office besides. He saw early into the times, set aside the objections with all his strength, and argued that the founding of a yard was urgent. The shogunate accepted this at last and ordered Kōzukenosuke and the inspector Kurimoto Sebei to consult Roches, the French minister plenipotentiary resident in this country.
The document goes on to say that the minister, taking counsel with Jaurès, commander of the French squadron lying at Yokohama, recommended the French naval engineer Verny as chief of the yard's founding. It is a text that sets the order down plainly. Oguri engaged this Verny at 13,000 ryō a year. The document was cut into a copper plate and set before the entrance of the arsenal.
That the fiftieth anniversary fell on 27 September is no accident. The twenty-seventh day of the ninth month of 1865 was the day of the ground-breaking ceremony for the Yokosuka ironworks. A four-year plan, 2,400,000 dollars in all. Of that, 2,000,000 dollars were repaid to France through Oguri's hands.
The grant from the empress
A sum of money was granted by the empress of the day towards the fund for building the busts. Ōmori, the chamberlain of the empress's household, visited Oguri Sadao's house at Senzoku-chō in Meguro ward, Tokyo, to convey her wish. The chamberlain is said to have told Sadao: he himself had not known at all that Oguri Kōzukenosuke was the founder of the naval port of Yokosuka, nor of his part in the cultural history of the Meiji era; but a question had come down — “what kind of man was Oguri Kōzukenosuke?” — and on looking into it he had found clearly that Oguri was a servant of the state such as the country could ill spare, and had respectfully reported so. At that, it is told, the empress said: “A man to be pitied. I should like to see a photograph.” Sadao at once sent a photograph of Oguri respectfully to the chamberlain.
Abe Dōzan records that he heard this story directly from old Oguri Sadao. The raising of the busts themselves is given as 1922 (Tatsunami, the journal of the memorial society).
Surrendered, and cast again
These busts had to be surrendered in the collection of metal during the Pacific War. For a time a concrete figure is said to have stood in their place in the children's park in front of the Yokosuka city hall. In 1952, for the first post-war festival of the opening of the port, the busts of Oguri and of Verny were cast again in bronze. The concrete figure, no longer needed, was set up in a corridor of the chamber of commerce and industry.
Ōtsubo Motoji notes of the unveiling on 27 September 1952 that, after the peace conference, representatives of the United States and France attended by international courtesy, and that Oguri Kōzukenosuke is the only man whose bronze statue has been unveiled with the honours of a French naval guard.
A man who handled the plant day by day as head of the arsenal objected to the plan itself and had the bust of the man who conceived the works raised first. The affair shows well that the regard for Oguri at Yokosuka rested on what people there knew at first hand.
Sources: Abe Dōzan, Kaigun no Senkusha Oguri Kōzukenosuke Seiden (a true life of Oguri Kōzukenosuke, pioneer of the navy), Kaigun Yūshūkai, 1941; Ōtsubo Motoji, Oguri Kōzukenosuke Tadamasa Kakei oyobi Ryaku-nenpu (the genealogy and short chronology of Oguri Kōzukenosuke Tadamasa), Oguri Kō Kenshōkai, 1957; Tatsunami, the journal of the memorial society
→ The Empress, and a photograph
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