Toshimichi Takatsukasa

Toshimichi Takatsukasa (鷹司 平通, Takatsukasa Toshimichi, 26 August 1923 – 27 January 1966), son of Prince Nobusuke, was a Japanese researcher of railways and trains.^[1]

Ancestry

Son of Prince Nobusuke, a politician and ornithologist who later became head priest of the Meiji Shrine, and Yasuko Tokugawa [ja] (1897-1976), a descendant of Tokugawa Yoshinao, Takatsukasa Toshimichi was born into an aristocratic family, but like all Japanese aristocrats, lost his title with the post-war legal reforms of 1947.^[2]

Career

Takatsukasa worked at TEI Park, a railroad museum in Tokyo. He was a government railways official.^[3] His article "90 Years of Japanese Railways" was published in 1962, in the journal New Japan.^[4]

In 1966, Takatsukasa Toshimichi was found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning in the apartment of his mistress, a Ginza hostess.

Personal life

Takatsukasa married the third daughter of Emperor Hirohito, Princess Kazuko. At the time of the wedding, Life magazine described him as "a commoner cousin of [Princess Kazuko's] grandmother's who makes $22.22 a week in the Government Railway Museum".^[5] In another international media report it was noted that "The bridegroom ... is son of the chief priest of the Meiji Shrine and holds a $10-a-week job in a railway museum."^[6] They had no biological children but adopted a son from the Ogyū-Matsudaira family, Naotake [ja] (born 1946), who would become president of Japan Telecommunications System Corporation (NEC Communication Systems)^[7] and head priest of the Ise Jingu Shrine; since 2022 he has been chairman of Kasumi Kaikan, an association for former kazoku, and a director of the Wild Bird Society of Japan, amongst other positions. Naotake's heir as head of the Takatsukasa family is his son, Naomichi [ja] (born 1974).

Ancestry

References