RELATIVELY LITTLE is known about freemasonry in Japan. Freemasonry is a fraternity that encourages moral improvement by introspection organized for its members through a hierarchy of quasispiritual rituals known as degrees. The British system of freemasonry has particularly emphasized charitable giving.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY IN JAPAN

Freemasonry first came to Japan through the Dutch and the British. The first Japanese nationals to become freemasons were initiated in the Netherlands in 1864. Tsuda Shinichirō and Nishi Shusuki, who later took the names Tsuda Mamichi (1829–1903) and Nishi Amane (1829–97), were two researchers from the Imperial School of Culture who came to the University of Leiden, to study political science, constitutional law and economics. Their tutor was Professor Simon Vissering, who was also a freemason, a member of La Vertu Lodge No 7 of Leiden. He encouraged Tsuda and Nishi to become freemasons, and they were initiated in La Vertu lodge late in 1864. At roughly the same time the first meetings of Masonic lodges in Japan were taking place in Yokohama. Sphinx Lodge No 263 (IC) was a travelling military lodge, associated with the 2nd Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers and warranted by the Grand Lodge of Ireland. From 1865 onwards, permission was given for other British lodges to be formed in cities such as Yokohama, Kobe and Osaka which, under the terms of the 1858 Treaties, were ports where Britain had extra-territorial rights.

The first lodge founded under the English Constitution was Yokohama Lodge No 1092, which held its first meeting on 26 June 1866. Others, under both the English and Scottish constitutions, gradually followed, and in 1868, with the help of Sir Harry Parkes, the Japanese government granted a plot for the building of a Masonic Hall, which was completely destroyed by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. A new temple, on the Bluff in Yokohama, was dedicated on 12 February 1927. This was built with funds sent from the United Grand Lodge of England, on condition that the property should be owned and controlled by lodges working under the English Constitution. When extra-territoriality was abolished in 1899, according to the law freemasonry became technically illegal. However, a gentleman's agreement was established by which the Japanese authorities would not interfere in the affairs of the freemasons on condition that Japanese citizens would not be recruited as members.