Madame Butterfly House is the oldest western style house surviving in Japan, being built in 1863. ...

Madame Butterfly House is the oldest western style house surviving in Japan, being built in 1863. It is located on a hillside overlooking Nagasaki harbour and was the home of Thomas Blake Glover. Born in Scotland, Glover came to Nagasaki in 1859 at the age of 21. He spent the rest of his life in Japan, contributing to the modernization of Japan in shipbuilding, coal mining and many other fields. The house and its surroundings are reminiscent of Giacomo Puccini's opera, Madame Butterfly. There is also a theory that Glover's Japanese wife Tsuru was the inspiration behind the libretto for Giacomo Puccini’s opera, Madame Butterfly. This image is part of a collection of photographs taken in Japan between 1947 and 1952, relating to the service of VX150779 Captain (Capt) John Patrick (Jack) McMullan, of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) Labour Unit in Japan. Capt McMullan’s wife Cecilia (also known as Celia and Celie), and son Brian John, lived with him in Japan as BCOF dependants. Cecilia and Brian were the photographers for most of the photographs in the collection. Brian was nine years old when he arrived in Japan in 1947. The presence of families of servicemen of all ranks was a distinctive aspect of BCOF.