Narahara Shigeru

Baron Narahara Shigeru (奈良原 繁^?, 1834 – 1918), also known as Narahara Kogorō, was a Japanese politician of the Meiji period who served as the eighth governor of Okinawa Prefecture from 1892 to 1908, and in a number of other posts over the course of his career.

A samurai of Satsuma Domain prior to the Meiji Restoration, he played a role in opposing radical elements among his fellows, though he may also have been responsible for the killing of the Englishman Richardson in the 1862 Namamugi Incident, which led to the bombardment of Kagoshima and proved damaging to the Tokugawa shogunate.

Narahara was born into a samurai family of Satsuma Domain (modern-day Kagoshima Prefecture).

When, in 1862, Lord of Satsuma Shimazu Hisamitsu learned that radical elements among the Satsuma samurai were meeting at the Teradaya Inn in Kyoto and plotting against the shogunate, Narahara was among a number of samurai dispatched to put an end to the plots, suppress the radical movement, and bring the rebel samurai home. The ensuing skirmish, in which a number were killed, has come to be known as the Teradaya Incident.

Another major incident involving samurai of Satsuma occurred several months later, at Namamugi, near Yokohama. In the so-called Namamugi Incident, an Englishman named Richardson was killed, and two men accompanying him seriously wounded, when they failed to dismount and step aside for a group of Satsuma samurai coming the other way down the road. Historian George Kerr claims it was Narahara who killed Richardson. However, other sources indicate that the Narahara Kizaemon often named as having been involved in this incident was in fact Shigeru's brother and not Shigeru himself.

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