Thomas Waters

Waters was born in Birr, County Offaly, in Ireland in 1842, as the eldest son of the local surgeon.

Through his uncle, Albert Robinson, he came into contact with representatives of Thomas Blake Glover, a noted British merchant resident in Nagasaki.

Glover arranged for Waters to be employed by Satsuma Domain to construct steam-powered sugar mills on the island of Amami-Oshima, and he then moved to Kagoshima to design western-style buildings in 1867.

[citation needed] After successfully completing this commission, he was invited to Tokyo and officially accepted as foreign advisor by the government, where his title was "Surveyor-General".

[3] He then joined his brothers, Ernest and Albert in the United States where they became involved in silver and gold mining in Colorado.