Jiro Muramats (6 September 1878 – 7 January 1943) was a pearler who lived in

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

's remote town of

Cossack The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borders of Ukraine and Rus ...

. Born in

Kobe, Japan Kobe ( ; , ), officially , is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. With a population of around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's List of Japanese cities by population, seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Port of Toky ...

in 1878, he moved as a boy with his family to Western Australia's north-west where his father Sakutaro set up a business in 1891. Jiro attended the state school at Cossack, and from 1895 to '97 boarded at

Xavier College Xavier College is a Roman Catholic, day and boarding school predominantly for boys, founded in 1872 by the Society of Jesus, with its main campus located in Kew, an eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Classes started in 1878. The ...

, Melbourne. The family business prospered, importing goods for the Japanese community of Cossack, and when their father died in 1898 (leaving an estate of £1,101) Jiro and his brother Tsunetaro took control of the family firm. They re-branded it ''J. & T. Muramats'' and under this title imported and traded goods to the north-west for more than 50 years. His brother moved back to Japan to operate the exporting side of the business from there, until his death in 1925. In November 1904 he applied for a ''Gallon License'' for his residence in Perseverance Street in Cossack. This license was granted, but not after opposition on the grounds that he was a foreigner (despite being naturalised at this point) and also that there were already two other pubs in town. On 17 January 1905 Jiro married Hatsu Noguchi (originally from

Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...

) who had arrived in Australia in 1896. They had one daughter. The company also owned pearling luggers which operated from Cossack despite a number of racist policies of the state that prohibited "coloured aliens" from owning pearling licences. The pearling, combined with goods trading, and the supply of credit to many other firms, meant that by 1915 a large proportion of the freehold land in Cossack belonged to the Muramats brothers. A period of revitalisation in the pearling industry became one of defiance by a number of operators who did not join the federal government's voluntary ''Northern Territory Pearling Ordinance'' in 1931. Muramats had been granted

naturalization Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-national of a country acquires the nationality of that country after birth. The definition of naturalization by the International Organization for Migration of the ...

Victoria, Australia Victoria, commonly abbreviated as Vic, is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state (after Tasmania), with a land area of ; the second-most-populated state (after New South Wales), with a population of over 7 million; ...

, but amendments to acts in Western Australia

disenfranchised Disfranchisement, also disenfranchisement (which has become more common since 1982) or voter disqualification, is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing someo ...

many people from non-English ethnic backgrounds. He was

interned Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without Criminal charge, charges or Indictment, intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects ...

during World War II and died of cancer in 1943 whilst still locked up in

Tatura Tatura is a town in the Goulburn Valley region of Victoria, Australia, and is situated within the City of Greater Shepparton local government area, north of the state capital (Melbourne) and west of the regional centre of Shepparton, Victoria ...

Internment Camp. His wife returned to Cossack in 1946, and was its last resident when the town was abandoned in the 1950s. She later returned to Japan, and died in Yokohama on 12 August 1959 (leaving an estate in Australia of £7,670).

References

* 1878 births 1943 deaths Businesspeople from Western Australia Japanese emigrants to Australia Pearlers People educated at Xavier College People from Kobe People from the Pilbara {{WesternAustralia-stub