Count Matsudaira Yorinaga ( 松 平 頼 寿 , December 10, 1874 - September 13, 1944 ) is a Japanese aristocrat and politician at the end of the Meiji period and the beginning of the Show period , 6th chairman of the House of Peers in the Japanese Parliament ( 1937 - 1944 ).
| Matsudaira Yorinaga | |||||||
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| jap. 松 平 頼 寿 | |||||||
 Matsudaira Yorinaga with Bonsai | |||||||
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| Predecessor | Matsudaira Yoroshoshi | ||||||
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| Predecessor | Konoe Fumimaro | ||||||
| Successor | Tokugawa Kuniyuki | ||||||
| Birth | December 10, 1874 | ||||||
| Death | September 13, 1944 (69 years old) Tokyo | ||||||
| Burial place | |||||||
| Kind | Tokugawa | ||||||
| Father | Matsudaira Yoroshoshi | ||||||
| Mother | Ii Chiyoko | ||||||
| Spouse | Tokugawa Akiko | ||||||
| Education | |||||||
| Religion | Buddhist | ||||||
| Awards |  | ||||||
Biography
The eighth son of Matsudaira Yoritoshi ( 1834 - 1903 ), the 11th daimyo of Takamatsu Khan ( 1861 - 1871 ) and the 11th head of the Takamatsu Matsudaira clan ( 1861 - 1903 ). His mother was Chiyoko ( 1846 - 1927 ), the second daughter of Minister Ii Naosuke ( 1815 - 1860 ), the daimyo of Hikone Khan and the tyro shogunate.
Matsudaira Yorinaga was married to Akiko, the daughter of Tokugawa Akitake ( 1853 - 1910 ), the last daimyo of Mito Khan ( 1868 - 1871 ) and the 11th head of the Mito Tokugawa clan ( 1868 - 1883 ).
He studied at the Gakushyuin noble school in Tokyo , then, with the sponsorship of Okuma, Shigenobu graduated from the Faculty of Law at Waseda University .
In 1903, after the death of his father, Matsudaira Yorinaga inherited the title of count (伯爵 伯爵 hakushyaku) and became the new head of the Takamatsu Matsudaira clan. In 1909, he became a member of the House of Peers, in which he worked every year (break in 1911 - 1914 ) until his death.
A staunch supporter of education, he donated large property in central Tokyo to build Hongo Gakuin School .
In 1933, Count Matsudaira Yorinaga was elected vice chairman of the House of Peers. In 1937 , when Fumimaro Konoe was appointed Prime Minister of Japan, he became chairman of the House of Peers in the Japanese parliament.
In September 1944, 69-year-old Matsudaira Yorinaga died at his workplace. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Class 1 . He was buried in the Yanaka Cemetery in Tokyo .
Matsudaira Yorinaga was known as a collector of miniature bonsai and was the honorary president of the Kofuku Bonsai association. His collection reached thousands of samples, but many of them were destroyed after his death during the Second World War . About two hundred copies of the bonsai were preserved by his widow, who in 1953 wrote the article "Handbook on Dwarf Potted Trees" ("A Handbook of Bonsai Trees"), published by the Brooklyn Botanical Garden . In 1975, the widow of Akiko Matsudaira published a Japanese book, Matsudaira Mame Bonsai Collection Album.
Sources
- Lebra, Sugiyama Takie. Above the Clouds: Status Culture of the Modern Japanese Nobility. University of California Press (1995). ISBN 0-520-07602-8 .