In the course of Oguri Kōzukenosuke's rehabilitation there is one event of decisive importance: the empress asked what sort of man Oguri Kōzukenosuke had been, and said that she wished to see his photograph. The empress of the day was the consort of the Taishō emperor, later the dowager empress Teimei.
It began with the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Yokosuka
It started in 1915. That year Yokosuka held the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of its opening. Oguri Tadamasa came up again, with Kurimoto Joun, as the first man of merit in the opening, and the newspapers reported his achievements in grand style.
In September of the same year an official document entitled “An outline of the origin and the development of the founding of the Yokosuka naval shipyard” was published in the name of the Yokosuka naval arsenal. It set down plainly that the achievement of Verny, who gave himself to his post for twenty years from his appointment and carried the founding through, was “together with the great achievement of Oguri Kōzukenosuke, who set aside all objection with his utmost strength and brought the proposal for founding a shipyard into being, rightly to be transmitted imperishably”. The achievement of a shogunal official beheaded as a rebel was acknowledged squarely in a document of state.
And the matter reached the ears of the court.
What Ōmori, the chamberlain of the empress's household, reported
Ōmori, the chamberlain of the empress's household, called at the residence of Oguri Sadao, head of the house of Oguri, at Senzokuchō in Meguro ward, Tokyo. He conveyed a grant of two hundred yen from the empress's privy purse, and told him this.
In truth I knew nothing at all of Oguri Kōzukenosuke's having founded the naval port of Yokosuka, nor of his great work in the cultural history of the Meiji era; but a question was put as to what sort of man Oguri Kōzukenosuke had been, and on looking into it at last it became clear that he was a servant of the state hard to find the like of, and so I reported it with respect. At that time Her Majesty the Empress was pleased to say, “a man to be pitied; I should like to see his photograph”.
The chamberlain of the empress's household himself had not known Oguri's name. Only on being asked did he look into it, and he reported that Oguri was “a servant of the state hard to find the like of”. What the empress said on hearing that report was the words “a man to be pitied”, and that she wished to see a photograph.
Hearing this, Sadao was overcome and moved, and at once submitted a photograph of Oguri with respect to Chamberlain Ōmori. One photograph went up to the court.
This course of events is recorded in Ninagawa Arata's writings as well, but Abe Dōzan, the abbot of Fumon'in, set it down as something he had heard directly from Sadao himself. Sadao is said to have spoken thus.
Whatever the world may misreport and put about, as a descendant of Kōzukenosuke I have not the least regret left … that a photograph of Oguri should have the honour of being shown before Her Majesty the Empress at court — what a …
How the bust came to be raised
With this grant, the plan of raising a bust of Oguri at Yokosuka was realized. It was made by the sculptor Asakura Fumio. On 27 September 1922, on the height of Suwayama at Yokosuka, the unveiling of Oguri's bust, standing beside the statue of Verny, was carried out by the Japanese navy. It looks down on the naval port into which Oguri had poured himself.
With the raising of this bust, the house of Oguri considered its own position settled. In May 1924 Sadao contributed a piece to Toyokuni Kakudō, editor of Jōmō oyobi Jōmōjin, saying that “by such facts as the grant from Her Majesty the Empress's own funds and the raising of a bust of Oguri Kōzukenosuke, the clearing of the false charge is by now fully accomplished”. Recommendations for a posthumous rank went on being submitted from Gunma prefecture, and the governor showed such zeal as to visit Oguri's grave himself some ten days before the enthronement ceremony; but no rank was granted. The family, even so, took it that “the false charge of rebellion has been wiped away” by the grant and the bust.
Nor did that bust remain as it was. During the war it had to be surrendered for metal collection, and for a time a concrete substitute stood in the children's park in front of the Yokosuka city hall. The two statues were recast in bronze only in 1952, when the first post-war opening festival was held.
One official document reaching the court, a question put, a photograph submitted, a bust raised, that bust melted down and cast again. Rehabilitation was the piling up of events like these.
Sources: Abe Dōzan, Kaigun no Senkusha Oguri Kōzukenosuke Seiden (a true life of Oguri Kōzukenosuke, pioneer of the navy), Kaigun Yūshūkai, 1941; Koitabashi Ryōhei, Oguri Kōzukenosuke Ichizoku no Higeki (the tragedy of the Oguri family); Tatsunami, the journal of the Oguri Kōzukenosuke memorial society; Ōtsubo Sadakata and Hozumi Odoroki, Oguri Kōzukenosuke, Oguri Kōzukenosuke o Shinobu Kai, 1975
→ The statue was at first to be of Verny alone ／ Ninagawa Arata and the rehabilitation ／ The commemoration of the Taishō years