Motono Morimichi (本野盛亨)
Morimichi MOTONO (September 25, 1836 - December 10, 1909) was a government official and businessman in Japan. Real surname is Hatta.
Biography and Personal Profile
He was born as a son of Shin HATTA in Kubota Village (later Saga City), the Saga Domain of Hizen Province. He was adopted by Gondayu MOTONO later. Having studied under Randen TANIGUCHI in Arita of Saga, he moved to Osaka by a connection with a friend of Randen juku (private school) and mastered the Western studies at Teki juku ran by Koan OGATA. He learned English and so on from Guido VERBECK at Chien-kan school in Nagasaki.
He assumed a Daisanji (second to a governor) (courthouse) of Kanagawa Prefecture in 1868.
He founded the first letterpress printing company 'Nisshusha' in Japan with Takashi KOYASU and Masayoshi SHIBATA in Yokohama in 1870.
He left for the United Kingdom as the First Secretary of the legation in the UK in 1872. After he returned to Japan, he worked at the Ministry of Finance and the chief inspector of the Yokohama Custom House.
The Yomiuri Shimbun was founded by three of them from Nisshusha in 1874.
He became a public prosecutor at Osaka appellate court in 1882 (through 1887). He took over KOYASU to assume the second president of the Yomiuri Shimbun in 1889.
His wife was Fusako. His oldest daughter, Fujiko got married to the director of Tokyo City Iwasa hospital. His oldest son Ichiro MOTONO was Minister of Foreign Affairs (Japan), the second son Eikichiro MOTONO was the forth president of the Yomiuri Shimbun, the third son Toru MOTONO was a professor of Kyoto Imperial University and the forth son Seigo MOTONO was an architect and a professor of Kyoto Institute of Technology.