26 - Oswald ‘Shiro’ White (1884–1970): 38 Years in the Japan Consular Service

Summary

INTRODUCTION

OSWALD WHITE WAS a very modest man, both professionally and privately. As a result he is less well known than many of his predecessors in the Japan service, but his achievements were significant. He spent his whole career in the Japan consular service, serving the last third as a consul-general. He left his last official post in February 1941, before Pearl Harbor, and thus shortly before Japan entered the Second World War. Towards the end of his career in the 1930s and up to 1942 he wrote his memoirs, All Ambition Spent, the main source for this portrait.

EARLY YEARS

Oswald White was born on 23 September 1884 in Gosforth, Northumberland, one of two sons of James White, a commercial clerk from Newcastle and Annie White, née Fish. After initial schooling in the North East of England, he obtained a scholarship to Mercers’ School in the City of London, living there as a boarder. He excelled at the grammar school, finishing top boy in his year every year, leaving with a glowing reference from the Dean of the College.

Immediately after school he tried for the consular service. In 1903, he was one of fifty-two candidates for four positions as student interpreter in the Japan and China service. White finished top. George Sansom who became a leading Japanese scholar and diplomat took one of the other three places.

White joined the Japan service in October 1903 and was appointed junior interpreter in Tokyo. Sansom and Phipps who also qualified at the same time arrived with White in Tokyo on 4 January 1904.

LEARNING JAPANESE

A student interpreter was expected to achieve a very high level of competence in the Japanese language. White, Sansom and Phipps were all taught under John Harington Gubbins, who wrote a wellrespected Japanese dictionary that was a standard source at the time. Gubbins was a no-nonsense taskmaster in teaching Japanese. This helped them get a flying start in learning the language. The three new Japanese students were keen and agreed to take their exams together, all successfully passing their Japanese finals early in their fourth year of service.

White later commented that scholars do not generally make the best speakers of Japanese and that Japanese often had difficulty in understanding Gubbins as he used scholarly language rather than the vernacular of the day.