page_title: Japan–United Kingdom relations
section_title: 1854–1900
hierarchical_section_title: Japan–United Kingdom relations / Chronology of Japanese–British relations / 1854–1900
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Japanese "village" exhibition in en:Knightsbridge, London, 1885-1887.
context_page_description: Japan–United Kingdom relations are the bilateral and diplomatic relations between Japan and the United Kingdom.
context_section_description: 1854. 14 October. The first limited Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty was signed by Admiral Sir James Stirling and representatives of the Tokugawa shogunate (Bakufu).
  1855. In an effort to find the Russian fleet in the Pacific Ocean during the Crimean war, a French-British naval force reached the port of Hakodate, which was open to British ships as a result of the Friendship Treaty of 1854, and sailed further north, seizing the Russian-American Company's possessions on the island of Urup in the Kuril archipelago. The Treaty of Paris (1856) restitutes the island to Russia.
  1858. 26 August. The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce was signed by the Scot Lord Elgin and representatives of the Tokugawa shogunate for Japan, after the Harris Treaty was concluded. Britain obtained extraterritorial rights on Japanese with the British Supreme Court for China and Japan, in Shanghai. A British iron paddle schooner named Enpiroru was presented to the Tokugawa administration by Bruce as a present for the Emperor from Queen Victoria.
  1861. 5 July. The British legation in Edo was attacked.
  1862. The shōgun sends the First Japanese Embassy to Europe, led by Takenouchi Yasunori.
  1862. 14 September. The Namamugi Incident occurred within a week of the arrival of Ernest Satow in Japan.
  1862–75. British Military Garrison established at Yamate, Yokohama.
  1863. The Chōshū Five began their education at University College London under the guidance of Professor Alexander William Williamson.
  1863. Bombardment of Kagoshima by the Royal Navy. (Anglo-Satsuma War).
  1864. Bombardment of Shimonoseki by Britain, France, the Netherlands and the USA.
  1865. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC) from Britain was established in Hong Kong.
  1865. Chōshū Domain bought the warship Union from Glover and Co., an agency of Jardine Matheson established in Nagasaki, in the name of Satsuma Domain which was not against the Tokugawa shogunate then.
  1866 HSBC established a Japanese branch in Yokohama.
  1867. The Icarus affair, an incident involving the murder of two British sailors in Nagasaki, leading to increased diplomatic tensions between Britain and the Tokugawa shogunate.
  1868. Coup d'état by Chōshū Domain and Satsuma Domain achieved the Meiji Restoration.
  1869. Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh becomes the first European prince to visit Japan arriving on HMS Galatea on 4 September 1869.  Audience with the Emperor Meiji in Tokyo.
  1872. The Iwakura mission visited Britain as part of a diplomatic and investigative tour of the United States and Europe.
  1873. The Imperial College of Engineering opened with Henry Dyer as principal.
  1879 British Court for Japan was established in Yokohama.
  1880. Japan government established Yokohama Specie Bank for only foreign transaction bank in Japan, with the support of HSBC.
  1886. Normanton incident British merchant vessel sinks off the coast of Wakayama Prefecture. Crew escape while 25 Japanese passengers perish. Widespread Japanese public outrage as subsequent Board of Enquiry under extraterritorial court fails to hold British crew to account.
  1885–87. Japanese exhibition at Knightsbridge, London.
  1887–89. Jurist Francis Taylor Piggott, the son of ex-MP Jasper Wilson Johns, was inaugurated as a legislational consultant for Itō Hirobumi, then and the first Prime Minister of Japan.
  1890. Government of Japan established the Constitution of Imperial Japan which House of Peers was not come with Universal suffrage.
  1891. The Japan Society of London is founded by Arthur Diosy.
  1894. The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation was signed in London on 16 July. The treaty abolished extraterritoriality in Japan for British subjects with effect from 17 July 1899
  1899.  Extraterritorial rights for British subjects in Japan came to an end.
  1900. (January). Last sitting of the British Court for Japan.
caption: Photo at Knightsbridge by W. S. Gilbert, c. 1885
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