Walter Augustus de Havilland

Walter Augustus de Havilland (31 August 1872 - 1968) was a British 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 British American film stars Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine.

Early life and career

De Havilland was born in Lewisham, south London on 31 August 1872 the youngest of 8 children. He was the son of Margaret Letitia de Havilland (née Molesworth) (1826-1910) and the Reverend Charles Richard de Havilland (1823-1901). He was a pupil at Harrow and Elizabeth College, Guernsey, and subsequently studied Theology and Classics at Cambridge University. 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. Whilst in Japan he became a university lecturer, first teaching English at Hokkaido University, and later becoming a professor of Law at Waseda University. He also ran a law firm in Tokyo, specialising in patent law.

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 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.

Family

He 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. After Lilian divorced him in 1925 he was remarried twice; first to Yuki Matsu-Kura (previously his housemaid) and later to Rosemary Beaton Connor. In 1931 his daughter Joan, then sixteen years old, went to Japan to live with him but returned several years later to the United States.

Later life

In later life de Havilland retired in British Columbia. He died in May 20, 1968, at the age of 95.