Walsh brothers

The brothers were born into a respectable immigrant family from Ireland to the US, lived in Yonkers in the state of New York and went into business in Shanghai under the Qing Dynasty.

[c] But the company prospered by selling arms and warships to the Japanese government, while the government was in the process of building its modernised army, signing the First Geneva Convention and opening the first Japanese Red Cross hospital.

[d] Thomas lost his passion for business and sold the paper mill to the former Japanese president of the Mitsubishi group, Hisaya Iwasaki [ja], and then moved to Switzerland.

The company was taken over by the next American president, Arthur Otis, and he transferred the head office to the Yokohama Trading Post in 1899.

Like other traders, John married a Japanese woman, Rin Yamaguchi around 1862, then he had a daughter Aiko.