Nakayama Yoshiko

Nakayama Yoshiko (中山慶子) was born on 16 January 1836 and died on 5 October 1907. She was a Japanese lady-in-waiting affiliated with the court of the Imperial House of Japan. She was a concubine of Emperor Kōmei and the mother of Emperor Meiji.

Her parents were Lord Nakayama Tadayasu, who held the position of Minister of the Left (Sadaijin), and a member of the Fujiwara clan. Her mother was Matsura Aiko (1818–1906), the eleventh daughter of Matsura Seizan, the daimyō of the Hirado domain.

Yoshiko was born in Kyoto and entered service at the Imperial Court at the age of 16. She became a concubine of Emperor Kōmei, who was also her third cousin once removed. On 3 November 1852, she gave birth to her only child, Mutsuhito, who later became Emperor Meiji, at her father’s residence outside the Kyoto Imperial Palace. She returned to the Imperial Palace with her son five years later. Mutsuhito was the only child of Emperor Kōmei to survive to adulthood.

Following the Meiji Restoration, Yoshiko moved to Tokyo in 1870 at her son’s request. She was buried in Toshimagaoka Cemetery in Bunkyō, Tokyo.

Regarding her honors, Nakayama Yoshiko received the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Precious Crown on 17 January 1900. Her order of precedence within the court was recorded as third rank in Keio 1 (1868), second rank later that same year, senior second rank in 1889, and first rank on 15 January 1900.

Her ancestry included prominent familial ties to the Fujiwara clan through her father and to regional daimyō authority through her maternal lineage. Her background and court service position her as a notable figure within the late Edo and early Meiji periods in Japan.