Yokoi Tokifuyu (横井時冬)
Tokifuyu YOKOI (January 6, 1860 - April 18, 1906) was a historian of the Meiji period. He conducted pioneering studies on Japanese economic history. He was a son of 横井時相 in Owari Domain. His older brother was poet Tokihaya YOKOI. Chiaki YOKOI, a scholar of Japanese classical literature of the middle of the Edo period, was from the same lineage.
He was born in Naka-koji Street in a samurai residence area located in the part of the third bailey of the Nagoya Castle. He lost his father and mother at the age of 5 and 11, respectively, and was brought up by his older brother Tokihaya. Although he learnt Confucianism and Japanese classical literature at a domain school, Meirindo school, after Haihan-chiken (abolition of feudal domains and establishment of prefectures), he moved to Sobue-mura, the ancestral land of the Yokoi family, where he entered the higher normal course at Aichi prefectural training school and graduated in 1876.
In 1884, he entered Tokyo Senmon Gakko (College) in Tokyo, where he concurrently enrolled in the Department of Law and Department of English, and after completion of the Department of Law in 1886 and the Department of English in the following year, he qualified as a notary public. In the meantime, he became interested in history, and visited notable scholars of Japanese classical literature, such as Kiyonori KONAKAMURA, Hiroshi KURITA, Toyokai MOTOORI, etc. to ask for their teaching. In 1888, after he published 'Dainihon Fudosan Enkakushi' ('大日本不動産沿革史') (History of estates in Japan), which he had written as his thesis for the Department of Law, he became a teacher at Tokyo koto shogyo gakko (Tokyo Higher Commercial School) at the request of Jiro YANO, who was the principal of the school and had been impressed by the book, and he was assigned to the research organization of the same school, 'Naikoku Shogyo Torishirabe Gakari' (research organization of domestic commerce), and became an assistant professor two years later.
He conducted investigation and research on histories of Japanese commerce and industry, as well as industrial policy, through literatures left in the former bakufu (Japanese feudal government headed by a shogun) or houses of feudal lords, and visits to merchant houses, etc. In 1892, he compiled "Teikoku Shogyoshi Kogiroku" (Lectures on Japanese commercial history) and used it as a textbook, which received recognition and led him to become a professor in 1895. In the meantime, he continued his studies and published his best-known works—first "Nihon Shogyoshi" (History of Japanese commerce) and then "Nihon Kogyoshi" (History of Japanese industry)—in 1898; in recognition of these works, he was awarded the title of Doctor of Literature in 1902, which helped establish his position as a historian.
In 1904, when Tokyo Senmon Gakko was renamed Waseda University with establishment of the Department of Commerce, he cooperated in its launch with Tameyuki AMANO and taught Japanese commercial history concurrently as the professor of Tokyo koto shogyo gakko (Tokyo Higher Commercial School) and as the instructor of Waseda University; however, he became sick before long and died of illness at the young age of 48 (the age of 46 by the currently used age system). Just before his death, he was conferrd the third senior official and jugoi (Junior Fifth Rank).