Engineer Edmund Morel helps launch Japan Railways in 1870

On April 9, 1870, 29-year-old Edmund Morel (1840-1871) arrived in Yokohama, Japan. In just over 18 months, he’d be dead, but not before laying the groundwork for the Japanese railroad industry.

Thanks in large part to the intrepid reporting of scholar Yoshihiko Morita, we can now begin to piece together Morel’s timeline and resolve some long standing myths about Morel’s year and a half as chief engineer for what would be Japan’s first railway.

According to Morita, Morel grew up in “the Notting Hill district of London, west of Hyde Park,” and was raised by his parents Emily and Thomas, an Italian wine importer. The air in London at this time was nothing short of polluted. From nearby unregulated factories churning out black smoke and the air thick with soot, Londoners often battled respiratory infections. Morel, from a young age, was one of them. As a teenager he showed a keen interest in engineering, and at 17 attempted a term at King’s College School, but his health continued to torment him, as did his myopic vision. By the time he turned 21, he chose to leave England, if only to breathe some actual fresh air.

Engineering opportunities arose in New Zealand and Australia, and for the next seven years, Morel cut his teeth on road, port and railway projects, and his breathing improved. Though he must have continued reading in his spare time, most of Morel’s experience came largely from trial and error, working through problems in real-time as part of a team. During this decade he also met his wife, Harriett, about five years younger. When the invitation came from England’s Horatio Nelson Lay via recommendation from British minister Sir Harry Parkes to become ‘chief engineer’ of a railway construction project in the Tokyo-area, Edmund turned down an offer in Australia and convinced his wife to start anew in Japan.

For Harriett, it would be her final resting place…

Unifying old and new

Postcard circa 1910 of the Yokohama Train Station. Image: Patrick Parr

Japan had agreed to go with Lay’s contract after terms on an American deal were rejected, the United States wanting too much ownership. For Japan, in particular Saga representative Shigenobu Okuma and future first Prime Minister Hirobumi Ito, the railway was perhaps the only way to unify warring factions within the country. There were still frequent public disruptions from samurai clans who believed the modern ways of the west would destroy the country’s culture.

But both Ito and Okuma believed, once Japanese citizens experienced the heightened convenience that rail travel would give them, public resistance would dim. In May 1902, Okuma spoke about these times during an Imperial Railway Association meeting: “In those days, neither Ito nor I had strong political authority, but we tried to work towards abolishing feudalism. In order to unify the general public behind abandoning feudal practice, we thought it important to make transport more convenient. Also, to destroy feudal ideology [as it held] on to its own sphere of influence, there must be some enterprise that surprises and excites public feeling. Thus we came to the idea of establishing a railway system.”

The help of Ito and Okuma proved vital to Morel’s efforts to complete the first railway. On April 25, 1870, Morel—Harriett still in Australia—began working on a railway that would connect Yokohama (now Sakuragicho) to Shimbashi (now Shiodome), a journey that took nearly an entire day to complete if walking, and seven hours by horse and cart. The new level of convenience would surely galvanize public opinion, but during those difficult months of 1870, Morel expressed how little backing he had. In May 1870, after surveying the land in Shiodome, he wrote to Lay: “Among the leaders of the Japanese government, only Okuma and Ito are our supporters.”

Morel and other engineers, as Morita astutely notes, dealt with threats and “anti-foreigner sentiment.” In some parts of Japan, such as Odawara, “four bodyguards” were ordered to accompany “foreign engineers” on construction sites. As Morel worked tirelessly, opposition, both general and political, surrounded him. On June 7, 1870, his wife Harriett joined him, arriving in Yokohama.

One can begin to imagine the stress he must have felt, protecting himself and his wife during the historic task of providing rail to a country torn between two identities.

Laying the foundation

A look inside a replica of the 1872 train car, now located at the Sakuragicho Station Cial Annex. Image: Patrick Parr

Once Morel had surveyed the land between Shimbashi and Yokohama, he had to decide upon a proper gauge, or the space between the rails. If he chose a narrow gauge, or in this case a 1.1-meter space between the inside face of one rail to the other, he’d lose speed and have less lateral stability, but he’d gain advantages when it came to curvature. Plus, it would be cheaper.

“Japan is a poor country,” Okuma said to Morel back in 1870, “so it should perhaps have a narrow gauge.”

Okuma then asked if “there were any suitable examples” that might support this. Morel recalled past experiences. “A narrow-gauge railway was built in Australia [in 1869] and has a good reputation.”

According to Morita, apart from the high-speed shinkansen, “which uses standard gauge,” Morel’s narrow-gauge choice remains what Japanese railways use “to this present day.”

Morel also advised engineers to use timber sleepers instead of steel sleepers (that help bind the rails) due to being lighter, more elastiic and easier to replace, since at that time Japan had far more timber resources. Timber sleepers remained the norm until after World War II when they were replaced with more long-lasting concrete sleepers.

But far more important than the gauge or sleepers was the advice Morel gave Ito on May 28, 1870.

During the early years of the Meiji Era, Morita explains that “major public works had been administered by the Ministry of Civil Affairs and Finance,” but this department had grown overburdened during modernization. Morel believed that public works demanded its own ministry. Morel noted three general areas: education (for engineers in particular), accounting (managing budgets), and construction (concerning geography and landscape).

Philosophically, Morel believed Japan needed to create a pathway where, eventually, it would “become self-sufficient in these skills for the future,” and not remain “dependent [forever] on importing them from the West.”

In a way, the advice was selfless. Stop as soon as you can from relying on people like me.

Ito took Morel’s advice to heart. Less than five months after Morel’s guidance, a new Ministry of Public Works (Kōbushō) was formed on October 20, 1870. Ito, with help from former samurai and British-educated Yamao Yōzō, also put into works what would become the Imperial College of Engineering, which later merged with the University of Tokyo.

Illness and death

A train leaves the first Yokohama Train Station, circa 1910. Pictured: Edmund Morel, 1870. Image: Patrick Parr/Wikimedia Commons

The Japanese government had given Morel a monumental responsibility, and the young British engineer grew exhausted. As Morita explains, “Japan was notorious for the severe conditions which were imposed on foreigners in government service.” At the start of the railway’s construction, 19 employees were British. By its completion, four had died, and three had returned “to Britain because of ill-health.”

Still, with Harriett, there were bright moments. The couple traveled to Shanghai in August, returning to Yokohama on the 20th. In December, according to the Japan Weekly Mail, an “E. Morel and servant,” is reported to have returned from Shanghai on December 8, 1870. But for most of 1871, and especially after a boat trip to Osaka for the opening of the Mint Bureau in the winter months of that year, Morel’s health, possibly tuberculosis, grew worse.

Again, stress followed like a shadow. Whether the cause had been stress suffered from Mr. Lay’s public criticism of his character—Lay’s original deal with the Japanese government had imploded due to him misleading the terms of the deal—or a Meiji-era version of karoshi (death from overwork), by late October 1871 Morel had become bed-ridden, while Harriett battled asthma attacks. He’d requested what was to be a healing trip, or “a change of air,” to India, but by the time his request had been granted he was too weak to travel. Still, thanks to Harriett’s care and support, he had enough energy to help advise and counsel Japanese engineers, who came to his bedside to learn as much as they could.

“Among the leaders of the Japanese government, only [Shigenobu] Okuma and [Hirobumi] Ito are our supporters.” –Edmund Morel to Horatio Nelson Lay, May 1870

Deeply concerned, Emperor Meiji, 19 at the time, sent via a vice-minister a sum of cash along with a touching message: “…you have laboured diligently and without ceasing, from morning till night, at engineering under the Board of Works; in consequence of which the railways between Tokio and Yokohama, and Kobe and Osaka have nearly arrived at completion, the science of engineering has also, at the same time, been introduced, from which our people will receive great benefits to the end of time. This result has been brought about solely by your indefatigable energy and your talents, and your services have not been small.”

On Nov. 5, at 1:30 p.m., Morel took his last breath. Twelve hours later, Harriett, now distraught and already in a weakened condition, passed away at the age of 25. Edmund and Harriett Morel are now buried at the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery.

On Nov, 11, 1871, the Japan Weekly Mail ran a warm-hearted obituary, praising the work Morel had done.

“The making of a railway was not with him a mere question of laying out so much road along which trains should travel at a certain speed, or so much more merchandise should be conveyed. It was a means by which the human race was advanced in civilization, by which governments could consolidate their authority, and by which the comfort, happiness and enlightenment of mankind were advanced.”

On October 14, 1872, a steam locomotive took its first trip from Shimbashi to Yokohama, moving across a narrow gauge and timber sleepers, taking exactly 54 minutes to reach its destination, one minute later than desired. Emperor Meiji was one of the passengers, as gun salutes were performed and crowds of people rejoiced.

Rail travel had arrived in Japan.

Next up in “When They Opened in Japan” will be how Costco came to Japan in the 1990s.

Other stories in "When They Opened in Japan":

• Japan's Kirin Beer begins as William Copeland's Spring Valley Brewery in Yokohama
• Baskin-Robbins brings 31 Flavors to Japan in 1974
• David Rosen helps launch Sega in Japan
• Ford’s Model T lands on Japanese soil in 1913
• Coca-Cola storms Japanese market in the 1950s
• Loy Weston brings Kentucky Fried Chicken to 1970s Japan
• Starbucks debuts in Ginza in 1996

Patrick Parr is professor of writing at Lakeland University Japan. His third book, Malcolm Before X, published by the University of Massachusetts Press, is now available for pre-order. His previous book, One Week in America: The 1968 Notre Dame Literary Festival and a Changing Nation is available through Amazon, Kinokuniya and Kobo.