Miura Ken'ya (三浦乾也)

Miura Ken'ya (三浦乾也; April 5, 1821 - October 7, 1889) was a potter, carpenter, shipbuilder, and samurai in the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods. Born in Edo as an illegitimate child, he was adopted by a farming family and then passed on to a relative who taught him pottery. When 17 years old, Miura became an apprentice to Ogata Kenzan (尾形乾山), based in Edo's Yoshiwara district. When he was 25 years old, Miura was adopted into the family of painter Ishii Butsushin and married his older sister, Oei. After the arrival of American Commodore Perry's 'Black Ships' Miura stopped his pottery work and proposed coastal defense and shipbuilding designs to the Shogunate. He undertook an intensive study of metallurgy, shipbuilding, canon technology, and related industries, moving to Nagasaki with a group of aspiring Japanese shipbuilders to study with the Dutch naval officer Gerhardus Fabius (1806-1888) and the physician-scientist Jan Karel van den Broek (1814 - 1865). In 1856, Miura was invited to Sendai Domain to work as the chief carpenter on the construction of the sailing ship Kaisei Maru, one of Japan's earliest modern warships, for which the domain awarded him the title of samurai. During the transition between the Tokugawa and Meiji periods, Miura was imprisoned and had his samurai status stripped on suspicion of being aligned with the old regime. After his release from prison, Miura returned to pottery but also produced the earliest domestically made telegraph insulators for the new government's Ministry of Public Works. His business ventures in making such insulators, bricks, and ceramics all failed and Miura ended his days as a potter, using a kiln on the grounds of the Chomei-ji Temple in Tokyo.