Koichi Nishikawa (西川浩一 Nishikawa Koichi) was born in October 1903 and grew up in a middle-class family in what is now Seido-cho, Ashiya-shi, midway between Kobe and Osaka in Central Japan. Seido-cho is the setting for Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s novel Sasameyuki (細雪) known in English as ‘The Makioka Sisters’. Set in the 1930s, the world the novel describes would have been very familiar to the Nishikawas.

Koichi, the elder of two brothers, attended Kansai Commercial High School, and in 1922, entered Kobe Higher Commercial School—what we would call a business school, offering degrees in commerce. He went on to captain the school rugby team. For his final-year dissertation, he wrote a study of the British Wool Trade, the first step in starting a career in the textile trade [1].

To an outward-looking middle-class Japanese man intent on a business career, the textile trade was a natural choice—by the mid-1920s, it represented 70% of Japanese exports by value, principally in the form of raw silk and cotton yarns [2]. At the same time, the UK was the dominant player in the trade in processed textile products, especially cotton fabrics [3]. Taken together, this made the UK a natural place for Nishikawa to continue his studies. Thus, in 1927, a year after graduating from Kobe Higher Commercial School, he set sail for England to pursue a higher degree in Economics and gain experience in British business methods.

Cover of the March 1947 issue of Fujin Koron, illustrating the first installment of Sasameyuki. Author’s own collection.

The May 1927 issue of the New Anglo-Japanese Journal (日英新誌, Nichiei Shinshi), lists Nishikawa among new arrivals from Japan alongside another student, Hidehiro Takaki (高木秀寬氏, Takaki Hidehiro) [4]. There seems at one time to have been a plan for Nishikawa to study at Cambridge, but, in the event, he settled on a college in Portsmouth, Hampshire [5]. Just six months later, on 17 November 1927, in what must have been an even more unexpected change in plan, he married an Englishwoman by the name of Nina Isabel Goldsmid [6].

Postcard. Author’s own collection

Nina Isabel Goldsmid was born in July 1891 in Portsea (Portsmouth). Her father, Sydney, died when she was five, and her mother, Julia, remarried a few years later. The family, which at the time, included Nina’s older sister, Gwendoline, and younger brother, Sydney, settled in Southsea [7]. It seems probable that on his arrival, Nishikawa became a lodger in the home of his future bride, as this was a common beginning to relationships between Japanese men and English women in this period [8]. Such proximity allowed relationships to proceed more quickly to marriage than would otherwise have been the case, as was the case with Nishikawa and his new bride.

After his marriage, Nishikawa—now styling himself David Koichi Nishikawa—settled down to student life in Portsmouth with his new English wife. Amongst his studies and married life, he found time to renew his interest in rugby, turning out for the Portsmouth Casuals, forerunners of the current Portsmouth Rugby Football Club, in the 1927–28 and 1928–29 seasons [9,10].

He may have also, like his shipmate, Takaki, taken up golf, which, along with tennis, was the most popular sport amongst both men and women of the expatriate Japanese community in the UK [11]. In short, despite their cultural differences, the Nishikawas, supported financially by Koichi’s parents, spent the first few years of their marriage living a very typical, provincial, middle-class life.

The Hakone Maru, the ship that carried the Nishikawas to Japan in 1929. Postcard, author’s own collection

Nina gave birth to her first child, a son, in August 1928 [12]. Once the little boy and his mother were strong enough to travel, the family set sail for Japan, departing on 20 April 1929 [13]. Although the journey would take six weeks, it would be a comfortable one, as the Nishikawas were travelling first class [14]. In this period, a ticket for an NYK line first-class cabin for the trip from England to Japan cost £110, roughly equivalent to the average annual salary in the UK at the time [15]. They were away for just under a year (travel time included) [16]. Evidently, the subject of Nishikawa’s future career had featured in his conversation with his parents, as, within a year of their return to the UK, the Nishikawas had moved to London and gone into business with a man named Bindloss, opening ‘Nish Isabel’, a women’s clothing boutique specialising in lingerie made from Japanese silk, on the Brompton Road SW3, Kensington, just down the street from Harrods Department Store [17].

Postcard. Author’s own collection.

With the opening of this store, Nishikawa joined the ranks of what was probably the largest sector of the, admittedly small, Japanese community in the UK in the interwar years: small independent business owners [18]. Nina ran the shop and Koichi designed the clothes. Nishikawa had found his career in the textile trade, as the maker and seller of women’s apparel made from Japanese silk.

Fueled by the wave of Japonisme that swept across Western Europe at the end of the 19th Century, and stoked by the import of large numbers of kimonos, happi coats, and other Japanese-made fashion items for women, the ‘Japan Craze’ burned hot in British fashion in the 1900–10s [19]. Although it was imports that drove the craze initially, British manufacturers were not slow in producing their own versions of Japanese designs, and this was one of the contributing factors to women’s apparel becoming the main destination of much of the silk imported into the UK. This paralleled developments in women’s apparel in general and underclothes in particular. As women’s outerwear shed its layers and rigid supports, women’s innerwear increased in its variety and design, going through cycles of utility over aesthetic appeal and vice versa, but moving firmly in the direction of being lighter, harder-wearing, and permitting more freedom of movement. Japanese garments such as the kimono and the happi coat (‘suitable for packing when travelling, also for the beach and boudoir’ [20]), either imported or locally produced, were a perfect fit for this paradigm. And silk was the ideal material for this revolution in innerwear [21].

Japan dominated the raw silk trade in this period due to its investment in genetic studies leading to the discovery of the F1 hybrid silkworm, which through a combination of the ease with which its cocoons could be worked and the standardisation that resulted from the adoption of the hybrid across Japanese sericulture, fueled a large increase in the production of high-quality silk [22]. This process only accelerated in the late 1920s when the economic collapse that followed the Wall Street Crash sent silk prices plummeting, falling 60% from 1929 to 1931, and only continuing lower in the next few years [23]. This, of course, was disastrous for Japan, so dependent on silk exports, as outlined above, and it took the devaluing of the Yen in 1931 to reverse the trend of failing income from silk exports [24]. Against what might be expected, silk production actually increased in Japan during this time, partly as a result of improved production techniques, as outlined above, and partly as a result of the rationalisation of the industry triggered by the fall in prices [25].

Viewed in this light, the Nishikawas’ decision to open a store that made its own women’s apparel from imported Japanese silk was astute. However, it also placed them at the centre of a growing trade war between Japan and the British Empire, as, in the wake of the economic collapse, the British textile trade became increasingly protectionist in nature. By 1932, the silk producers’ lobby in England was complaining of cheap Japanese imports into the UK undercutting locally produced ‘Macclesfield silk’, even with import tariffs in place—in 1936, there were even claims by the MP for Macclesfield that Japanese producers had renamed a town in Japan ‘Macclesfield’ to market their silk goods as ‘Macclesfield silk’ to Britain’s colonies and dominions. At the Paris Conference of the International Silk Federation of 1933, British producers called for a quota to be placed on Japanese silk imports to ‘all countries’, a plan that Japanese producers initially fought against before withdrawing their opposition in light of already declining sales to most markets [26]. However, the biggest impact on Japanese silk exports was to come from another source.

The withdrawal of the Empire of Japan from the League of Nations in 1933, which placed it beyond the reach of diplomatic means to resolve conflicts, meant that, at the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in March 1937, and, most especially, after the Nanjing Massacre in December 1937, government and non-government organisations looked to economic means to apply pressure to Japan to withdraw from Northern China. A boycott on Japanese goods in general and goods made from Japanese silk in particular, given the role that the silk trade continued to play in the Japanese national economy and balance of trade, was seen as a particularly important instrument.

Even before formal calls for a boycott, there were spontaneous acts of boycott, especially in the days immediately following the news of the capture of Nanjing and the evolving situation in the city. In early December 1937, British dockworkers refused to unload Japanese silk from a ship newly arrived at Southampton; the ship was forced to transport the cargo across the Atlantic and unload it at Halifax, Nova Scotia [27]. After viewing a newsreel that showed Japanese dive bombers attacking the US Navy gunboat, the Panay, female students at Vassar were reported to have made a bonfire of their Japanese silk stockings and underwear [28].

Given the destination of most Japanese silk imports into the UK, it is not surprising that when calls for a formal boycott came, women’s apparel was targeted especially [29].

Nineteen Thirty-Seven was also the year that Koichi’s younger brother, Hidezo ‘H’ Nishikawa, came for an extended visit [30]. He arrived in the Spring and the fact that this trip had been arranged, with the plan for Hidezo to stay with his brother and family, suggests that, at this point at least, Nish Isabel was still prospering. However, the store made its last appearance in the London Street Directory just one year later [31].

It was at this time, or perhaps earlier, that Koichi began working for the Japanese Embassy in London as a ‘local employee’ (現地雇) of the Military Attaché’s Office (陸軍武官室). While the records are silent as to what his job was, in post-war Japan, he took on a series of roles that made use of his knowledge of UK Trade and government, as well as his English-speaking and negotiation skills (liaison for the Osaka Prefecture government with Allied Occupation authority (SCAP), overseas trade advisor to the Osaka Prefecture government, and, ultimately, the first head of the Japanese External Trade Organisation (JETRO, ジェトロ) trade mission in Chicago, USA). He also wrote a research paper on the structure of UK local government. All of this suggests that he provided the attaché’s office with insights into the UK wartime economy; but this is speculation [32].

Hidezo returned to Japan in early 1939, with reports from China only growing worse, and the situation in Europe deteriorating. Back in London, for Koichi and his family, it was a matter of waiting to see how events would play out. As Nishikawa’s family were English there was no thought of sending them to Japan. In this respect, at least, Koichi Nishikawa’s situation stands in contrast to the situation of many of his peers in the Japanese community in the UK and the silk trade. Take, for example, another Koichi, Koichi Kaji. Born the same year as Koichi Nishikawa, Koichi Kaji (加地幸一, Kaji Koichi) was a silk merchant and manager of the London office of trading company Z Hirokoshi Shokai (Z Hirokoshi and Company ‘Silk and Button Importers’ [33]). He arrived in the UK to take up his post in 1933, accompanied by his new wife Toki (Toshiko), daughter of the famous scholar Masaharu Anesaki (姉崎正治, Anesaki Masaharu) and his wife Masuko. By April 1939, the family consisted of Koichi and Toki, their two children, daughter Sumi (b. 1934) and son Yukio (b. 1936), both born in the UK, and the children’s young governess, Sumako Hashimoto. They were soon joined by Toki’s parents, who were on one of their many trips to Europe. At the outbreak of the European war in September 1939, Kachi arranged for his family and in-laws to return to Japan. They left the UK on 10 October 1939 onboard the NYK ship the Hakone Maru, part of a large contingent of Japanese residents of the UK, mostly women and children, who returned to Japan at this time. Koichi Kaji remained at his post [34].

The UK government began interning Japanese civilians within a day of the 7 December 1941 Empire of Japan attack on US and British possessions in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. However, Koichi Nishikawa was not interned until July 1942. His settled status, English wife, and two Anglo-Japanese children seem to have led to him being viewed as low-risk. This was in line with the treatment of other long-term residents—Koichi Kaji, the silk merchant and manager of Horikoshi Shokai, was interned only in February of that year, while Viscount Kano, head of the Yokohama Specie Bank in London, who had spent a total of 12 years living in the UK by 1942, was not interned until March of that year [35].

The significance of the date of Nishikawa’s internment is that it was at this time that the arrangements for an exchange of Japanese and British [Empire and Commonwealth] civilians in the neutral port of Lourenço Marques, Portuguese East Africa (now Maputo in Mozambique) were finally settled. One week after his internment, Koichi Nishikawa was placed on board the chartered liner ‘El Nil’ with around 75 other repatriates—including Koichi Kaji and Viscount Kano. After engine trouble delayed her departure by one day and then, the ship had to return to port again to pick up some men who had missed the first departure, El Nil finally set sail for East Africa on 29 July 1942.

Nishikawa’s wife and children remained behind in England. He would re-establish contact but not reconcile with them after the war. There would be family visits to Japan, but Nishikawa would not return to England [36]. As stated above, he would instead spend the post-war years putting his knowledge of English and Anglosphere business practices to use in the role of an overseas trade adviser to first the Osaka Prefecture and then the National Government [37]. His direct involvement with the silk trade was at an end.

Banner Image Credit: "J.C. Penney" by dok1 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.