{{Short description|British missionary in Japan and historian}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2020}} {{EngvarB|date=February 2020}} '''Lionel Berners Cholmondeley''' (11 December 1858 – 21 January 1945) was an ordained Anglican priest, educator, historian and Rector of St. Barnabas' Church at Ushigome in Shinjuku, Tokyo.<ref>Ruvigny et Raineval, Melville Henry Massue. (1994). [https://books.google.com/books?id=L_nx4Fc5ZZgC&dq=lionel+cholmondeley&pg=RA1-PA140 ''The Blood Royal of Britain,'' p. 140.]</ref> For thirty years he served as a minister in the Anglican Church in Japan, and variously as a lecturer at Waseda University and honorary chaplain to the British Embassy in Tokyo. As a historian he published the first English-language history of the Bonin Islands, now known as the Ogasawara Islands.
==Early life== Lionel Cholmondeley was descended from a younger brother of Robert Cholmondeley, 1st Earl of Leinster and Hugh Cholmondeley, father of Robert Cholmondeley, 1st Viscount Cholmondeley, from whom the Marquesses of Cholmondeley descend.<ref name="peerage1">{{cite web |last=Lundy |first=Darryl |url=http://www.thepeerage.com/p2942.htm#i29417 |title= 1st Baron Delamere, ID #29417 |publisher= The Peerage}}{{Unreliable source?|failed=y |date=September 2012}}<!--Lundy is not a reliable source so cite Lundy's reliable source See WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT--></ref> His grandfather was Thomas Cholmondeley, 1st Baron Delamere. The baron's third son was Revd. Henry Pitt Cholmondeley (15 June 1820 – 14 April 1905),<ref name="peerage1"/> Rector of Broadwells with Adelstrop, who in 1848 married Mary Leigh, fifth daughter of the poet Chandos Leigh, 1st Baron Leigh. This marriage produced nine children; Lionel being the couple's second son,<ref name="conqueror45"/> born in Adlestrop in Gloucestershire.<ref name="chaplain1">Ion, A. Hamish. (1997). [https://books.google.com/books?id=vzcP4L8dwFoC&dq=lionel+cholmondeley&pg=PA180 "Lionel Berners Cholmondeley: Chaplain in Tokyo, 1887–1921," pp. 180]-189 in ''Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits.''</ref>
Cholmondeley attended Uppingham School and graduated with a BA in 1882 (subsequently raised to an MA in 1885) from Oriel College, Oxford.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Nish|first1=Ian Hill|title=Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume 2|date=1997|publisher=Curzon Press|isbn=1-873410-62-X|page=185}}</ref>
==Career== After graduation from Oxford and following in the footsteps of both his father and elder brother Francis, Lionel Cholmondeley followed a path to ordination in Church of England.<ref name="conqueror45">[http://www.william1.co.uk/4.html William the Conqueror database]: [http://www.william1.co.uk/w434445.html "Conqueror 45"]</ref>
Cholmondely became a Christian missionary in Japan (1887–1921),<ref>Ion, A. Hamish. (1990). [https://books.google.com/books?id=GDfJ2NCETdAC&dq=lionel+cholmondeley&pg=PA113 ''The Cross and the Rising Sun: The British Protestant Missionary Movement in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, 1865–1945,'' p. 113.]</ref> arriving in Tokyo under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) to serve under Edward Bickersteth, the first Anglican Bishop of South Tokyo.<ref name="chaplain1"/>
In July 1902, Cholmondeley succeeded Archdeacon Alexander Croft Shaw as honorary chaplain to the British Embassy, Tokyo,<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Ecclesiastical intelligence |date=31 July 1902 |page=6 |issue=36834}}</ref> a position he held until his retirement and return to England in 1922.<ref>[http://nihongo.human.metro-u.ac.jp/~long/bonins/oga-bib.htm Bibliography, Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110123032539/http://nihongo.human.metro-u.ac.jp/~long/bonins/oga-bib.htm |date=23 January 2011 }}: [http://nihongo.human.metro-u.ac.jp/~long/bonins/oga-bib.htm ''History...,'' "Introduction."] </ref>
===Bonin Islands=== [[File:Chichi-jima in the Meiji era.JPG|thumb|right|Chichi-jima in the Meiji period during the time frame in which Cholmondeley would have made trips to the island.]] Bishop Bickersteth was asked to send a clergyman to visit the English-speaking settlers on the Ogasawara Islands; and in response, he asked Cholmondely to sail to the islands in 1894. This initial trip was followed by sixteen others during the remainder of Cholmondeley's time in Japan.<ref name="cholmondeley">Cholmondeley, Lionel Berners. (1915). [http://mysite.du.edu/~ttyler/ploughboy/boninchol.htm ''The History of the Bonin Islands from the Year 1827 to the Year 1876.''] London: Constable & Co.</ref> Among other changes he observed during these years was the completion of undersea cable connections which ensured telegraph communication between the islands and Japan after 1906.<ref name="cholmondeley"/>
In 1915, Cholmondeley published ''The History of the Bonin Islands from the Year 1827 to the Year 1876'' which included detailed observations of the changes which evolved after annexation by Meiji Japan in 1875.<ref name="cholmondeley"/>
====Chronology==== * 1894—1st visit. Cholmondeley joins Anglican catechist Ishida-san, who had come by previous steamer. This Japanese colleague returned with Cholmondeley to Tokyo.<ref name="cholmondeley"/> * 1896—2nd visit. Cholmondeley joins Cameron Johnson, who was staying there at the time. The School-house built this year by settlers.<ref name="cholmondeley"/> * 1897—3rd visit.<ref name="cholmondeley"/>
==Selected works== * 1915 – ''The History of the Bonin Islands from the Year 1827 to the Year 1876.'' London: Constable & Co. [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/4717954 OCLC 4717954] * 1929 – ''A book of devotions, compiled from many sources and the growth of many years.'' London. {{OCLC|315960899}}
==Notes== {{reflist|2}}
==References== * Bickersteth, Samuel. (1899) ''Life and letters of Edward Bickersteth, Bishop of South Tokyo.'' London: Sampson, Low Marston. * Cholmondeley, Lionel Berners. (1915). ''The History of the Bonin Islands from the Year 1827 to the Year 1876.'' London: Constable & Co. [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/4717954 OCLC 4717954] * Ion, A. Hamish. (1997). "Lionel Berners Cholmondeley: Chaplain in Tokyo, 1887–1921," pp. 180–189 in ''Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits'' (Ian Nish, editor). London: Routledge. {{ISBN|978-1-873410-62-2}} * ____________. (1990). ''The Cross and the Rising Sun: The British Protestant Missionary Movement in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, 1865–1945.'' Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-88920-218-4}}; [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/22985041 OCLC 22985041] * Ruvigny et Raineval, Melville Henry Massue. (1994). ''The Blood Royal of Britain.'' Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company. {{ISBN|978-0-8063-1431-0}}; [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/30572546 OCLC 30572546]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cholmondeley, Lionel}} Category:1858 births Category:1945 deaths Lionel Category:People educated at Uppingham School Category:Alumni of Oriel College, Oxford Category:Anglican missionaries in Japan Category:British expatriates in Japan Category:Historians of Japan