Namamugi Incident Monument

On August 21st of the 2nd year of Bunkyu period (September 14th 1862), an Englishman was killed at Namamugi, a fishing village on the old Tokaido road. The incident occurred when an English merchant, Charles Lennox Richardson, on horseback, happened to slip into the procession of Shimazu Hisamitsu, the father of then-feudal lord of the Satsuma Domain (current Kagoshima Prefecture). Richardson was killed by a bodyguard. The incident caused a diplomatic dispute between Japan and England, which resulted in the Anglo-Satsuma war later on mainly because the compensation settlement efforts between the two countries failed. This incident, which occurred during the turbulent times when the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate was about to be overthrown by the Meiji government, became a great turning point in the diplomatic history of Japan. In 1883, Shozo Kurokawa, who lived in the Tsurumi district of Yokohama, lamented the loss of an English gentleman and erected a poetic monument so that the incident would not be forgotten. The monument located at the crossroads of the old Tokaido road and the National Route #15 is inscribed with the poem lamenting the loss and telling its historical background. On August 21, an anniversary event is held every year. It is a Yokohama City Cultural Property, located at a five-minute walk from the Namamugi Station on the Keihin Kyuko Line.