Lost Latitude

Thomas Lockley lays the keel for a TAC Talk filled with historical intrigue on the open sea.

When the explorer Thomas Cavendish returned to England in 1588 after sailing around the globe, he was celebrated as a hero.

But there is a lesser-known figure whose arrival in England that same year had perhaps an even bigger impact: a 21-year-old Japanese man known only as Christopher.

“The knowledge that Christopher had about mapmaking was absolutely crucial to the English at the time. It essentially formed the basis for them to be able to sail into the blue safely,” explains Nihon University Associate Professor Thomas Lockley, who will take Members on that 16th-century voyage during a TAC Talk on June 19.

Despite being the impetus for a seemingly major turning point in English seafaring, Christopher’s story is not one commonly mentioned in English history books. But it stood out to Lockley, and he explores the trials and tribulations in his new book A Gentleman from Japan: The Untold Story of an Incredible Journey from Asia to Queen Elizabeth’s Court. “Nobody’s looked at it from this perspective,” he notes. “There are millions of books on Tudor England, but none of them have anything to do with Japan. That’s been Christopher’s gift to me.”

Christopher’s birth name may have been lost to the mists of time, but Lockley has waded through that gossamer veil to uncover how an enslaved marine worker came to be the first recorded Japanese person to set foot on English soil, and even to meet Queen Elizabeth I.

Originally from the UK himself, Lockley likes to draw on the experiences of historic travelers to and from Japan to challenge perspectives. “The idea was to rewrite the concept of international history among my students, and to give them a new idea of what it meant to be Japanese and international, doing things on a global scale rather than a domestic one.”

A Gentleman from Japan begins with a prologue outlining the exploits of Cavendish to start the reader off with a connection among North America, Europe and Asia and emphasize the global nature of the story to come.

Christopher’s narrative is one of tragedy and the romance of his voyages, of death and pain and the reality of what it was to be a sailor in a time where chances of survival were often around 50 percent, if not less. “What kind of mindset did it take to dance with the devil at those odds?” asks Lockley.

The answer perhaps lies somewhere within Christopher’s international predisposition. There is evidence that he spoke Spanish and Chinese, and learned English in a year. He gained this knowledge through his perilous travels, the details of which are bolstered by personal accounts from those close to Christopher and brought to life by Lockley’s narrative approach.

When Lockley started his research, he expected to find adventure. But he was met with an unexpected personal insight into an extraordinary traveler’s life. He hopes that readers will have the same reaction. “I would like them to come away with a sense of ‘Naruhodo, I didn’t know that.’”