Thomas Waters
{{Short description|Irish civil engineer and architect}}
{{other people}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2020}}
{{Use Hiberno-English|date=May 2020}}
{{Infobox architect
|name = Thomas James Waters
|image =
|image_size =
|caption =
|birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1842|07|17}}
|birth_place = Birr, County Offaly, Ireland
|death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1898|02|05|1842|07|17}}
|death_place = Denver, Colorado, United States
|alma_mater =
|practice =
|significant_buildings=
|significant_projects =
|significant_design =
|awards =
}}
File:Kyu-Zoheiryo-Chuzosho-Shomengenkan-20070323.JPG
Thomas James Waters (17 July 1842 – 5 February 1898) was an Irish civil engineer and architect. He was active in Bakumatsu and early Meiji period Japan.
Biography
Waters was born in Birr, County Offaly, in Ireland in 1842, as the eldest son of the local surgeon. In 1864, while in his early 20s, he appears to have become involved in the building of the Royal Mint in Hong Kong. Through his uncle, Albert Robinson, he came into contact with representatives of Thomas Blake Glover, a noted British merchant resident in Nagasaki. Glover arranged for Waters to be employed by Satsuma Domain to construct steam-powered sugar mills on the island of Amami-Oshima, and he then moved to Kagoshima to design western-style buildings in 1867. After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Waters was hired by the new Meiji government and commissioned to build the new Imperial Japanese Mint in Osaka, which was commenced in 1868 and completed in 1870.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}
After successfully completing this commission, he was invited to Tokyo and officially accepted as foreign advisor by the government, where his title was "Surveyor-General". He helped design a branch of the Japanese Mint in the Ginza area of Tokyo, designed and built the headquarters building for the Imperial Japanese Army and a bridge in the Tokyo Imperial Palace grounds, Tokyo. However, his largest commission came after a devastating by fire in 1872 destroyed the Ginza district. Tom Waters, his brother Albert Waters, and English colleague A N Shillingford, supervised the rebuilding of the Ginza area with a broad central thoroughfare, lined with a series of one- and two-story Georgian brick buildings there.[http://www.picturetokyo.com/en/city/ginza.html Ginza Travel Guide] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080106180743/http://www.picturetokyo.com/en/city/ginza.html |date=2008-01-06 }} The district was henceforth known as Bricktown (Rengagai), and came to be regarded as a symbol of modernity and westernization in Japan.[http://community.asij.ac.jp/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=538&srcid=530 The American School in Japan: Tokyo 1902]{{dead link|date=March 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
However, Waters soon faced increasing competition from foreign architects and newly trained Japanese architects and engineers. He ended ties with Japan around 1878.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}
He worked briefly in Shanghai, China before working as a mining engineer in the South Island of New Zealand.{{cite web |title=Telegrams |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT18910220.2.11 |website=Papers Past |publisher=National Library of New Zealand |access-date=7 January 2025}} He then joined his brothers, Ernest and Albert in the United States where they became involved in silver and gold mining in Colorado. He died on 5 February 1898 at the age of 55.
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
[http://megvivers.com Dr Meg Vivers] has published articles{{cite journal |last1=Vivers |first1=Meg |title=Thomas James Waters (1842–1898) and the Mint at Osaka |journal=Collection Moneta – 176: When Orient and Occident Meet |url=https://www.academia.edu/7748300 |access-date=29 July 2019 |language=en}}{{cite journal |last1=Vivers |first1=Meg |title=The Role of British Agents and Engineers in the Early Westernization of Japan with a Focus on the Robinson and Waters Brothers |journal=The International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology |volume=85 |pages=115–139 |url=https://www.academia.edu/9398666 |access-date=29 July 2019 |language=en}} and a book{{cite book |last1=Vivers |first1=Meg |title=An Irish Engineer: the extraordinary achievements of Thomas J Waters and family in early Meiji Japan and beyond. |date=2013 |publisher=CopyRight Publishing |location=Brisbane |isbn=978-1921452109 }} about Thomas Waters.
External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20110721153610/http://www.mint.go.jp/eng/qa/museumqa_01-1.html More information about "Senpukan"]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20050224162540/http://www.vanderbilt.edu/goyaboy/eas294b/Text/ps1-1.html Ginza Bricktown (woodcut)]
- {{Find a Grave|13471828}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Waters, Thomas}}
Category:Irish expatriates in Japan
Category:Foreign advisors to the government in Meiji-era Japan
Category:19th-century Anglo-Irish people
Category:Irish expatriates in the United States
Category:19th-century Irish architects