Rest in Peace, Arthur Stockwin

In early January 2026, all of us at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation were saddened to hear of the death of Professor Arthur Stockwin. He was a towering figure in Japanese Studies in the UK (and before that, Australia), as has been recognised in the piece about him put out by the Nissan Institute at Oxford University.

He was also a long-standing friend of the Daiwa Foundation, sometimes speaking at or moderating our events, but most memorably as a member of the interview panel assessing potential Daiwa Scholars. As one of his fellow interviewers, I found the breadth of his intellectual interests extraordinary and inspiring. In the humanities, at least, there was no subject about which he did not have extensive knowledge. While his real expertise was in Japan and, more specifically, Japanese politics, he was an ‘Oxford don’ in the traditional sense of the phrase, and was equally happy discussing the relative merits of Thucydides and Herodotus, German philosophy, 20th century English poets, Russian literature, or art or ceramics (his wife was a potter). He occasionally surprised candidates by asking them questions in various languages they claimed to speak, including French and Russian as well as Japanese. It was a great privilege to work with someone with such a powerful belief in the importance of learning not as a means to an end, but as the end in itself.

I believe that Arthur greatly enjoyed these interviews, for which he prepared carefully. Over the years we had many remarkable candidates, and Arthur was keen to learn about them, and indeed from them. Probably not all the candidates enjoyed the intellectual grilling they received, but in reality Arthur was the kindliest of men, and he took great pleasure in hearing of the exploits of our Scholars well after they had completed the programme. I was particularly pleased to hear that 2019 Daiwa Scholar Symy Ong, a potter whose interview involved a robust exchange with Arthur on the subject of Bernard Leach, ended up seeing a lot of him in his final years, because she sometimes used the pottery facilities in his garden outside Oxford.

My colleague Susan Meehan and I had the pleasure of attending Arthur’s 90th birthday party at the end of November last year. He was in good form, and surrounded by many of his friends and extended family, some of whom had come over from Australia for the festivities, which I think extended throughout the Christmas season. So I have every reason to believe that his final weeks were happy ones, surrounded by his nearest and dearest. All of us here at the Daiwa Foundation will miss him greatly.

Written by Jason James, Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation