Japan

In 1970, the centenary year of the death of Charles Dickens, a number of people in Japan who loved the author and his work established the Tokyo Branch of the Dickens Fellowship. The first president and honorary secretary of the Branch was Professor Koichi Miyazaki, the foremost Dickens scholar in Japan at the time. After him, Professor Shigeru Koike and Professor Takao Saijo kept alive the adventurous spirit of the branch. By their strenuous efforts it has grown into one of the most significant of the overseas branches of the Fellowship. In 2000 it was renamed the Japan Branch and a new charter was granted to the then honorary secretary Takao Saijo.