Iso Mutsu

Who was Iso Mutsu?

Countess Iso Mutsu was a British woman who married a Japanese nobleman and diplomat, came with him to Japan in 1910 and lived in Kamakura until her death in 1930. In 1918 she wrote the classic guide Kamakura: Fact and Legend.

Count Hirokichi Mutsu, son of the then Japanese foreign minister Munemitsu Mutsu, while studying at Cambridge fell in love with his landlord's daughter, Gertrude Ethel Passingham. His father strongly opposed his wedding a foreigner and a commoner. Her family was contrary to the union too. The two didn't give up and, after his father died, when Hirokichi was appointed Consul in San Francisco, he managed to convince her to join him there. This in spite of the fact they hadn't met in over five years.

Because he was a diplomat, marriage still had to wait, and to stay with him she finally had to pretend to be a child's governess. It was with that role that she first arrived in Japan in 1901. Four years later, the imperial authorization to wed arrived and, after 17 years of courtship and subterfuges, the couple finally married in London in 1905. For reasons of protocol, she took the Japanese citizenship and a Japanese name. Her husband suggested Iso, meaning seaside, because she loved the beach so much and because it sounded a little like Ethel. After the wedding she followed him around the world, finally returning to Japan with him, never to leave again. She liked the country and successfully adapted to it, even giving English lessons to members of the Imperial Family, among them Prince Chichibu, brother of Emperor Hirohito.