Den Kenjirō

Baron Den Kenjirō was a Japanese bureaucrat, politician and cabinet minister whose career ran through the railways, the communications ministry and the first years of the Japanese motor industry. Born in 1855 in Tanba Province, he entered the central bureaucracy around 1890 on the recruitment of Communications Minister Gotō Shōjirō, rose to vice minister while sitting on the board of governors of the Japanese Government Railways, and in 1898 left office to become president of the Kansai Railway Company. After election to the Diet and elevation to the peerage as a baron in 1907, he served as Minister of Communications from 1916 to 1918, and from 1919 to 1923 as the eighth Governor-General of Taiwan, the first civilian to hold that post. In 1914 he helped found the Kaishinsha Motorcar Works, whose DAT car name took its first letter from his surname; the firm later became Datsun and was absorbed into the Nissan group. He died in 1930.