Etō Shinpei

Etō Shinpei was a Saga domain samurai and statesman of the Bakumatsu and early Meiji periods. He was born in 1834 (Tenpo 5) in Yae village, Saga District, Hizen Province (now Saga City), and died on 13 April 1874 at the age of 40. The son of a low-ranking Saga retainer, he came from a family claiming descent from the Chiba clan, and he studied at the domain school Kodokan from 1849.

The Restoration years

In 1868 he served as a military observer at the Eastern Expedition headquarters and was appointed a choshi (government recruit). After serving as senior deputy official of Saga, he became vice minister of education and vice chairman of the Council of the Left in 1871.

First Minister of Justice

In 1872 he became the first Minister of Justice and led reform of the judicial system. He separated the judiciary from administration, set up courts nationwide and introduced prosecutors and lawyers. He engaged the French jurist Gustave Boissonade as legal adviser and had the ministry compile the provisional civil code (Minpo Karihosoku) in 1873. He also promoted equality among the four social classes and reforms in education and policing. He became a councillor of state (sangi) the same year.

Resignation and the Saga Rebellion

He resigned as councillor after the Seikanron dispute and the political crisis of 1873. He then joined in founding the Aikoku Koto party and co-signed the 1874 petition for an elected assembly. In 1874 he led the Saga Rebellion, was defeated and was captured in Kochi Prefecture. Tried by a special court in Saga, he was stripped of samurai status and beheaded.

Anecdote

Under the photographic wanted-poster system he had introduced in 1872, he became its first subject when he was later arrested.

Legacy

He was posthumously awarded Junior Fourth Rank in 1916.