Shō Fukao

Shō Fukao (深尾 韶 Fukao Shō, 12 November 1880 – 8 November 1963) was a Japanese socialist and educator. He was a pioneer in Japanese socialism and in the early Boy Scout movement in Japan.

Fukao was born on the estate of a hatamoto samurai within Sunpu Castle (in the modern city of Shizuoka) on 12 November 1880. His father Nobushirō was a retainer in Sunpu Domain who worked as a tax collector and teacher. After graduating from elementary school, his father encouraged Fukao to go to a normal school, but he declined as he disliked the duties and obligations. As a youth he often submitted articles to arts magazines. He worked at the Shizuoka prison and Numazu local court before becoming a substitute teacher at Sodeshi Jinjō Elementary School in 1897. He was issued a teacher's assistant's licence in 1898 and thereafter worked for seven schools in Shizuoka and the northern island-prefecture Hokkaido.

In 1901, Fukao took part in the inauguration of the Shizuoka branch of the social reform group Risōdan ("Band of Idealists").

Beginning in his time as a teacher, Fukao contributed to the weekly libertarian-socialist newspaper Heimin Shimbun. He aimed at establishing an elementary teachers' labour union in Hokkaido, but his parents demanded his return to Shizuoka in July 1904 after the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War.

In 1905, Fukao and fellow Shizuokans Masatarō Watanabe (1873–1918) and Harako Motoi (1880–1933) devised the Dendō Gyōshō to proseletize socialism. They had planned to set out from Tokyo that April to travel around Hokkaido, but Watanabe withdrew, and on the advice of Kanson Arahata changed their destination to the closer Kōfu area. The left the offices of Heiminsha, the publishers of Heimin Shimbun, on 10 April. On 13 April they were investigated by the local police, who took their promotional material into custody, so the pair returned to the Heiminsha offices the next day. That May they began doing land clearing work in Hokkaido as the Heimin Nōjō ("Commoners' Farm"). Administrating the farm was exceedingly difficult; in August Fukao left it to Harako to manage and went back to Tokyo, never to return. He joined the Yūbunsha, an organization made up of former members of Heiminsha after its dissolution, and took part in editing the magazine Katei Zasshi.

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