1839 February 25th – Frederik Eduard Maria Blekman born in Amsterdam to Eduard Matthijs Nicolaas Blekman and Susanna Catharina van der Hulst
1840 April – Frederik’s brother Leon born in Amsterdam
1859 April – arrives in Nagasaki from Batavia
1862 June attends funeral service of Admiral C Protet in Yokohama as part of HBM’s legation (Japan Herald 14 June 1862). active in local foreigner community – meetings, publications
1862 – possible birth of child with Omoto
1863 October – writes letter to Japan Herald regarding Shimonoseki campaign, as interpreter attached to French admiral
1863 October – sees mutilated body of French officer near Yokohama.
1864 February – departs Japan with Second Japanese Embassy/Ikeda mission to France, possibly accompanied by Omoto
1864 February – is in Shanghai with the mission, attends a concert of Marquis Chisholm. “Their European interpreter is a Mr. Blakeman; in attempting to describe him, one of the Japanese failed for want of expression. Asking for a pen, he said “I will make you him,” and in five minutes we had a most perfect sketch, so good that we at once knew the man. I said “You must have been taught drawing,” but was assured to the contrary” WH a Glasgow Gentleman, Glasgow Herald April 9 1864
1864 May – Staying at Cataldi Hotel in London with Mme Blekman (Omoto?), where he met his father
1864 June – Mr Blekman and Mr Blekman junior and European servant travel from Marseilles to Shanghai and arrive in Hong Kong as Messrs Blekman from Marseilles along with the Japanese Embassy
1865 July – Blekman arrested in Yokohama for refusing to hand over the remaining funds that the Bakufu government had given him to fund the Ikeda mission.
“he negotiated a series of questionable arms deals for the embassy. Although he was not re-employed by Roches
upon his return to Japan, he continued to pose as a French official thereafter to advance his business schemes. After defrauding the bakufu of a commission paid for brokering
the order of a French warship that was later cancelled, Blekman was arrested by the Dutch authorities in July 1865 and eventually deported to Holland. The bakufu never recovered its money or received any compensation from either France or Holland” https://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3606/1/Gilfillan_Enclave_Empires.pdf
1865 September – Creditors of Estate of F. Blekman meeting held at Dutch Consulate in Yokohama
Deported and imprisoned for a year (but was he?) in the Netherlands.
1866 February arrived in Yokohama from Amsterdam on the Batavia, Mr and Mrs Van der Polder and Mr Bleckman, (The Japan Times, Feb 9th 1866 p 1)
1867 March – Returns to Japan from San Francisco on the Hermann (F Blackman, with Baldwin, Gilbert, Fischer, Marshall, Burgess, Brower – Sacramento Daily Union, 2 March 1867 p2). Brother Leon is a shopkeeper in Yokohama
1867 May – Great Dragon Troupe departs Japan
1867 June – Great Dragon Troupe arrives in San Francisco (F Blekeman)
1867 July – interview with Blekman and Omoto (Oniota) in the New York Commercial Advertiser. Omoto described as having three children.
1867 August – Great Dragon Troupe arrive in Dublin “Mr Blackman, the interpreter, who said some really good things, including threatening to punch the head of one of the party” (Penny Despatch and Irish Weekly 24 August 1867 p 5)
1867 September – Glasgow
1867 October – Newcastle
1867 November – Baldwin & Gilbert section in Hamburg – with Wallace and possibly Blekman
1867 December – at Circus Renz, Vienna
1867 December – Great Dragon Troupe – mostly Lenton & Smith but including Omoto arrive in Australia
1869 February – Great Dragon Troupe finish tour of Australasia
1869 February Mr F Blekman, interpreter of the San Francisco Japanese troupe is staying at the Weizen Lamm guesthouse in Linz, Austria. Wallace and Bert are at the Rothen Krebs guesthouse. (Tannaker Buhicrosan and the Royal Tycoon Troupe are performing in Preston, Darlington Burnley etc)
1869 May – Great Dragon Troupe (Baldwin & Gilbert section) return to Britain
1869 August – Great Dragon Troupe depart Britain for Paris (including Omoto)
1869 September – Great Dragon Troupe return to Britain, sole proprietor is E.G. Bert of San Francisco.
1870 April – Frederik Blekman (Blackman) is interpreter and manager for Great Dragon Troupe, assists Hotaka Joji and his wife Oie with pickpocketing trial in Belfast “ex interpreter to the French Legation in Japan”
1871 April – census – Frederick Blekman aged 35, professional manager Japanese troupe, born in Amsterdam. Omoto Blekman born in Yedo, 29, married – with other members of Great Dragon Troupe in a lodging house in Luton
1871 July – Mr Blekman, the manager of the troupe, acted as interpreter for Kondo Fudekichi, who had money stolen from him by a prostitute in Merthyr Tydfil
1871 November – birth of son in Southampton – registered as Edward Frederick Blekman, with Frederik Blekman as father, manager of travelling troupe, living in Henry Street, Hampstead Road, London.
1871 December – Mr Blackburn (Blekman?) is a defendant in a trial for a claim against him as the Tycoon Dragon Troupe’s manager by an agent for a theatre, for the costs for booking a band for a performance which was cancelled because of an argument amongst the troupe, in Gloucester. Tannaker Buhicrosan appears as a witness and says he did not ask Blackburn for the band to be booked. Judgement given for the plaintiff.
1871 December – Mr Bleckman, interpreter and manager attends a Christmas dinner for the troupe in Chester.
1872 March – Tannaker places a notice in The Era that “F Blekman ceased to have any connection” with the Great Dragon Troupe as of February
1875 working as a clerk for the Glasgow Tramway and Bus Company and also as a translator
1876 December convicted and imprisoned for 40 days for defrauding the Glasgow Tramway and Bus Company
1877 working for ship brokers Wilcox, Saunders & Co in Southampton, arrested and then discharged for unlawfully obtaining by false pretences money which was meant to be used to pay a pilot
1881 Charged with stealing blankets and pawning them from the rooms he was renting in Great Yarmouth while working for the French Vice consul, Small & Co. Imprisoned for 6 weeks with hard labour
1881 April Census – living in London as a “foreign corresponding” with Annie Blekman, aged 41
1886 marries 28 year old Louise Francoise Gavend. Occupation given as merchant – bachelor, aged 46. Lived in Castle Street East and then Riding House Street in Marylebone, London.
1888 dies, aged 48, in the French Hospital in London of heart disease. Occupation on death certificate is “professor of languages ” and “late officer of the French Navy”
ロンドン日本人村を作った男 〔謎の興行師タナカー・ブヒクロサン 1839-94〕is a biography, in Japanese, claiming that Tannaker Buhicrosan and Fredrik Blekman are the same person, by Koyama Noboru
See The Bakufu Looks Abroad. The 1865 Mission to France
Mark D. Ericson for more on Blekman
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2384102?origin=crossref?origin=crossref
Ninjin 