Walter de Havilland

Walter Augustus de Havilland (31 August 1872 – 20 May 1968) was an English patent attorney who became professor of Law at Waseda University and was one of the first Westerners to play the game of Go at a high level. He was the father of film stars Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine.

Walter de Havilland
De Havilland c.1917
Born
Walter Augustus de Havilland

(1872-08-31)31 August 1872
Lewisham, London, England
Died20 May 1968(1968-05-20) (aged 95)
NationalityBritish
OccupationPatent attorney
Known forGo
Spouses
(m. 1914; div. 1925)
    Yuki Matsukura
    (m. 1927; died 1958)
      Rosemary Connor
      (m. 1960)
      ChildrenOlivia de Havilland
      Joan Fontaine
      RelativesGeoffrey de Havilland (half-nephew)
      Hereward de Havilland (half-nephew)

      Early life and career

      De Havilland was born in Lewisham, south London on 31 August 1872, the youngest of eight children. He was the fourth son of the Reverend Charles Richard de Havilland (1823-1901), of a landed gentry family of Guernsey origin, and second wife Margaret Letitia (1831-1910),[1] daughter of Captain John Molesworth, R.N. and sister of the 8th Viscount Molesworth.[2][3]

      He was a pupil at Harrow and Elizabeth College, Guernsey and subsequently studied Theology and Classics at Cambridge University from 1890 to 1893, residing at Ayerst Hostel, graduating B.A. in 1893 (M.A. 1902).[4] After graduation, he worked as a patent attorney, becoming a member of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, and moved to Japan to study patent law there.[5] Whilst in Japan he became a university lecturer, first teaching English and football at the former Fourth High School (the fourth old-education-system high school, which was the predecessor of Kanazawa University), Tokyo Higher Normal School (which was the predecessor of Tsukuba University), and later becoming a professor of Law at Waseda University.[6] He also ran a law firm in Tokyo, specialising in patent law.[7]

      Go

      Whilst in Japan, de Havilland discovered the game of Go and became quite obsessed with it. Although not the first Westerner to take up the game, he was, according to writer John Fairbairn, the first with a reasonably high level of skill in the game. His teacher was Yoshida Toshio; a game between the two of them from 1908 was considered good enough for publication in the magazine Gokai Shinpo, with commentary from Iwata Kei (later President of the Hoensha). In 1910, de Havilland published a short work entitled The ABC of Go; the National War-Game of Japan, which brought him minor celebrity in the Go-playing world.[6]

      Family

      De Havilland was the father of actresses Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine, both of whom were born in Tokyo while he resided there, to his first wife, Lilian Augusta. In 1919 she took them both to live in California. His daughters reportedly took second place to his love of Go, and his obsession with the game affected his ability to engage fully with his family.[6] After Lilian divorced him in 1925, he remarried twice; first to Yuki Matsukura (previously his housemaid)[8] and later to Rosemary Beaton Connor. In 1931, his daughter Joan, then thirteen years old, went to Japan to live with him but returned several years later to the United States.

      The brothers Geoffrey and Hereward de Havilland, of aviation fame, were his nephews.

      de Havilland family tree
      Alice Jeannette (née Saunders)
      1854–1911
      Rev. Charles de Havilland
      1854–1920
      Walter de Havilland
      1872–1968
      Lilian Fontaine (Ruse)
      1886–1975
      Ivon Molesworth Charles Jordan de Havilland
      1879–1905
      Louise Thomas
      –1949
      Captain Sir Geoffrey de Havilland
      1882–1965
      Joan Mary Frith
      1900–1974
      Hereward de Havilland
      1894–1976
      Marcus Goodrich
      1897–1991
      Olivia Mary de Havilland
      1916–2020
      Pierre Galante
      –1998
      Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland
      1917–2013
      William McElroy Dozier
      1908–1991
      Peter Jason de Havilland
      1913–1977
      Geoffrey de Havilland Jr.
      1910–1946
      John de Havilland
      1918–1943
      Benjamin Goodrich
      1949–1991
      Gisèle Galante
      1956–
      Deborah Leslie
      1949–

      Later life

      In later life de Havilland retired in British Columbia. He died on 20 May 1968, aged 95.

      References

      1. Ancestry.com
      2. Armorial Families, seventh edition, vol. 1, A. C. Fox-Davies, Hurst & Blackett, 1929, pp. 521-2
      3. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 2, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 2718
      4. "De Havilland, Walter Augustus (D890WA)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
      5. Shunjiro Kurita; Yasujiro Ishikawa; Tsunesaburo Kamesaka (1916). Who's who in Japan. Who's Who in Japan Office. p. 37.
      6. Fairbairn, John; Hall, T. Mark (2009). The Go Companion: Go in History and Culture. Slate & Shell. pp. 69–70. ISBN 978-1-932001-43-3.
      7. Current Biography Yearbook. H. W. Wilson Co. 1967. p. 74.
      8. Daniel Bubbeo (15 October 2001). The Women of Warner Brothers: The Lives and Careers of 15 Leading Ladies, with Filmographies for Each. McFarland. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-7864-1137-5.
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