John William Fenton

John William Fenton (12 March 1828 – 28 April 1890) was a Scottish/Irish musician, the leader of a military band in Japan at the start of the Meiji period. He is considered "the first bandmaster in Japan" and "the father of band music in Japan." Fenton is best known for having initiated the process through which Kimi ga yo came to be accepted as the national anthem of Japan.

Fenton is considered Scottish because his father John Fenton (1790-1833) was born in Brechin, and because he lived in Montrose in around 1881; but he is also considered Irish because he was born in Kinsale, County Cork in Ireland in 1828. His mother, Judith Towers, was probably English. Journalistic writing on Fenton typically considers him a Briton.

Fenton, bandmaster of Britain's 10th Foot Regiment (later renamed Royal Lincolnshire Regiment), 1st Battalion, arrived in Japan in 1868. The regiment had been sent to protect the small foreign community in Yokohama during the transitional period at the end of the Tokugawa shogunate and the early years of the Meiji restoration.

Japanese naval cadets overheard the brass band rehearsing; and they persuaded Fenton to become their instructor. The Central band of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force traditionally considers this first group of cadet musicians as the earliest of Japan's naval bands. In due course, Fenton ordered instruments from London for his Japanese students.

When Fenton's battalion left Japan in 1871, he remained for an additional six years as a bandmaster with the newly formed Japanese navy and then the band of the imperial court.

In 1869, Fenton realised that there was no national anthem; and Japan's leaders were convinced that a modern nation state needed a national anthem. Initially, Fenton collaborated with Artillery Captain Ōyama Iwao, who was the son of a samurai family of the Satsuma han domain and an officer of the Satsuma military forces. Ōyama was well versed in Japanese and Chinese literature, and agreed to find a suitable Japanese poem that could be set to music. Ōyama chose a 10th-century poem that prayed for the longevity of the Lord, usually assumed to be the Emperor. These words became the anthem's lyrics.

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