Jo Niijima(1843-1890) Born in 1843 in the Edo residence of Annaka Domain of Joshu Province. In 1864, after violating a legal prohibition, he escaped from Hakodate aboard the Berlin and arrived in Boston in 1865. In 1874, he graduated from Andover Theological School and returned to Japan with the intention of building a Christian school. With an instructor Davis, they decided to open a school in Kyoto and with the approval of the Kyoto prefectural governor Makimura Tadanao and prefectural adviser Yamamoto Kakuba, Doshisha English School was established in 1875 on Teramachi Marutamachi-agaru. The first student body consisted of only eight students, but in the following year, in 1876, a new campus was built in front of Sokokuji temple gate and a large number of Kumamoto Western Studies students entered, which greatly increased the student body. With the goal of establishing a university, a plan to build Doshisha University was drafted in 1888. In 1890, Niijima collapsed at Maebashi while on a fund-raising campaign and passed away quietly while trying to recuperate in an inn at Oiso in Kanagawa Prefecture. BACK