The Nagasaki Naval School — Four Years That Made Japan's Navy

The Nagasaki Naval Training Centre is where the modern Japanese navy began — and it lasted four years.

Contents

What Was It?

A school of Western naval practice, opened by the shogunate at Nagasaki in 1855.

Note that it was not a shogunal school only. Because domains sent students, the men trained there ended up on both sides of the coming civil war.

Why It Opened

Because of the black ships.

No number of shore batteries like Odaiba can chase a squadron. Defending the coast required Japanese who could operate warships — that conclusion produced the school.

The difficulty was that nobody in Japan knew how. So the shogunate asked the Dutch, its one Western trading partner, for instructors.

The Netherlands sent officers and, as a training ship, the steam warship Soembing, renamed the Kanko Maru — the first practical steam warship in Japanese service.

Who Studied There

The roll explains the school's importance.

• Katsu Kaishu — a first-intake student and supervisor, later captain on the Pacific crossing of the Kanrin Maru and the negotiator of Edo Castle's surrender
• Enomoto Takeaki — later sent to study in the Netherlands, and commander of the old shogunate's fleet at Goryokaku
• Godai Tomoatsu — sent by Satsuma, later the builder of Osaka's business world
• Saga's students fed directly into Nabeshima Naomasa's naval and industrial programme

Enomoto, who fought for the shogunate, and Godai, who served the new government, sat in the same classroom. That technical people were spread across both sides is one reason post-war Japan modernised as fast as it did.

What They Learned

Teaching was in Dutch, through interpreters, and covered navigation, surveying, gunnery, shipbuilding and engineering — not only on paper. Students went to sea on the Kanko Maru, sailing from Nagasaki to ports around Japan.

The largest lesson was structural: running a ship requires an organisation. A captain, officers, engine-room crew — people assigned by function rather than by birth, which was not how Japanese military service then worked.

When Katsu Kaishu later argued for a navy and for reform of the shogunate itself, the skeleton of the argument came from here.

Why It Closed After Four Years

The school shut in 1859 — not because it failed.

• A naval academy had opened in Edo, and training shifted there; Nagasaki was far from the centre of government
• the Dutch instructors' terms ended
• enough men had been trained to move on to operating real ships and to studying abroad

Its graduates went on to the Pacific crossing of the Kanrin Maru in 1860 and to study in the Netherlands. A school that lasted four years supplied the human framework of the Japanese navy.

Timeline

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the Nagasaki Naval Training Centre?

Japan's first school of Western naval practice, opened by the shogunate at Nagasaki in 1855 with Dutch instructors.

Who studied there?

Katsu Kaishu, Enomoto Takeaki and Godai Tomoatsu, among shogunal retainers and men sent by the domains.

What was taught?

Navigation, surveying, gunnery, shipbuilding and engineering, with sea training aboard the Kanko Maru.

Why did it close so soon?

Training moved to a new academy in Edo and the Dutch instructors' terms ran out. It was not closed for failure.

How is it connected to the Kanrin Maru?

Its graduates crewed the Kanrin Maru on the 1860 Pacific crossing. The ship itself was built in the Netherlands and delivered in 1857.

For the batteries that came first see Odaiba; for the men, Katsu Kaishu and Enomoto Takeaki.