An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 struck the Kanto Plain, a region in the east of
Japan, on 1 September 1923. The earthquake triggered countless fires across Tokyo,
Yokohama, and the surrounding areas. Scholars disagree over the number of people who
died during the disaster, with estimates ranging between 91,000 and 140,000 fatalities.
The earthquake struck roughly two weeks after the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, a series of
diplomatic and military arrangements that had defined relations between Britain and
Japan for over twenty years, had ended. Historians, though, are yet to examine how the
British government reacted to what remains the deadliest earthquake in Japanese
history.
This thesis addresses this lacuna by investigating the role that the British government
played in response to the Great Kanto Earthquake. This study analyses reports that the
Admiralty compiled, minutes of Cabinet meetings, and letters that the Foreign Office
exchanged with the Treasury. This thesis argues that most of the humanitarian aid that
the British government provided in response to the earthquake was solely for the benefit
of British expatriates and the Imperial University of Tokyo, the oldest university in Japan.
The government responded in this way due to pressure from British merchants, the
actions of the Treasury, and due to the advice that diplomats and scholars offered.
This thesis contributes to the study of humanitarian aid in inter-war Britain in several
ways. This study demonstrates that the British state played a role in the overseas
provision of aid by offering relief to universities and British expatriates. This thesis
challenges the eurocentrism that surrounds the literature by highlighting how the British
government provided aid outside of Europe. This study also shows that humanitarian aid
played a contested role in British foreign policy because the Foreign Office and the
Treasury disagreed over spending.
