Lionel Berners Cholmondeley

Lionel Berners Cholmondeley (11 December 1858 – 21 January 1945) was an ordained Anglican priest, educator, historian and Rector of St. Barnabas' Church at Ushigome in Shinjuku, Tokyo. For thirty years he served as a minister in the Anglican Church in Japan, and variously as a lecturer at Waseda University and honorary chaplain to the British Embassy in Tokyo. As a historian he published the first English-language history of the Bonin Islands, now known as the Ogasawara Islands. Early life Lionel Cholmondeley was descended from a younger brother of Robert Cholmondeley, 1st Earl of Leinster and Hugh Cholmondeley, father of Robert Cholmondeley, 1st Viscount Cholmondeley, from whom the Marquesses of Cholmondeley descend. His grandfather was Thomas Cholmondeley, 1st Baron Delamere. The baron's third son was Revd. Henry Pitt Cholmondeley (15 June 1820 – 14 April 1905), Rector of Broadwells with Adelstrop, who in 1848 married Mary Leigh, fifth daughter of the poet Chandos Leigh, 1st Baron Leigh. This marriage produced nine children; Lionel being the couple's second son, born in Adlestrop in Gloucestershire. Cholmondeley attended Uppingham School and graduated with a BA in 1882 (subsequently raised to an MA in 1885) from Oriel College, Oxford. Career After graduation from Oxford and following in the footsteps of both his father and elder brother Francis, Lionel Cholmondeley followed a path to ordination in Church of England.