was a Japanese

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

and early pioneer in the development of hydro electric power. Tanabe’s most famous achievement was the

Lake Biwa Canal is a historic waterway in Japan connecting Lake Biwa to the nearby City of Kyoto. Constructed during the Meiji Period the canal was originally designed for the transportation of lake water for drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes, but a ...

that runs from

Lake Biwa is the largest freshwater lake in Japan. It is located entirely within Shiga Prefecture (west-central Honshu), northeast of the former capital city of Kyoto. Lake Biwa is an ancient lake, over 4 million years old. It is estimated to be the 13 ...

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

city. For his work as Chief Engineer directing the project and paper entitled “The Lake Biwa - Kyoto Canal” published in 1894, Tanabe was awarded a

Telford Medal The Telford Medal is a prize awarded by the British Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) for a paper or series of papers. It was introduced in 1835 following a bequest made by Thomas Telford, the ICE's first president. It can be awarded in gold ...

by the British Institution of Civil Engineers. The canal passes through a series of tunnels and was the site of Japan's first Hydro-electric power station. Tanabe worked for many years as a Director for the Hokkaidō Kansetsu Railway. In 1916 Tanabe was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at

Kyoto Imperial University , or , is a national research university in Kyoto, Japan. Founded in 1897, it is one of the former Imperial Universities and the second oldest university in Japan. The university has ten undergraduate faculties, eighteen graduate schools, and t ...

Early life and education

Tanabe was born

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

in 1861, the son of a noted Confucian scholar. In April 1877 he commenced studies under the direction of

Henry Dyer Henry Dyer (23 August 1848 – 25 September 1918) was a Scottish engineer who contributed much to founding Western-style technical education in Japan and Scottish-Japanese relations. Early life Henry Dyer was born on 16 August 1848, ...

at the

Imperial College of Engineering The Imperial College of Engineering (工部大学校, ''Kōbudaigakkō'') was a Empire of Japan, Japanese institution of higher education that was founded during the Meiji era. The college was established under the auspices of the Ministry of P ...

. Tanabe graduated in May 1883 with a graduation thesis written in English entitled ‘Lake Biwa Canal Construction Project’. Tanabe and Dyer kept up a correspondence for many years after Dyer returned to Scotland and Tanabe had the opportunity to visit Dyer in Glasgow in both 1900 and in 1913. During his practical training in engineering, Tanabe lost the use of his right hand in an accident. He subsequently learnt to use his left hand to write.

External links

Lake Biwa Canal Museum of Kyoto
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References

1861 births 1944 deaths Japanese civil engineers Academic staff of Kyoto University Presidents of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers {{Japan-engineer-stub