ABSTRACT
Which scottish engineer planned water supply systems for most of the major cities in Meiji Japan? Which Scottish engineer was responsible for the design of Ryōunkaku – the first skyscraper in Japan? Which Scottish engineer was, with John Milne, the founder of the first Photographic Society in Japan? The answer is William Kinninmond Burton 1 (1856–99) who, despite his hard work, has received none of the public recognition which fell to other British engineers who worked for the Japanese in the late nineteenth century.
