Ernest Mason Satow

Sir Ernest Mason Satow (1843–1929) was a British diplomat and scholar of Japan. He arrived in Yokohama in 1862 as a student interpreter, quickly mastered Japanese, and played an important role during the crisis that brought down the shogunate and restored imperial rule, recording it later in A Diplomat in Japan. He went on to serve in Siam, Uruguay and Morocco, returned to Japan as British minister from 1895 to 1900, and was then minister in China. In retirement he wrote A Guide to Diplomatic Practice, long a standard manual, and his diaries are a major historical source.