Accounting books of NYK Line

Abstract

Description

 About 100 years’ accounting books and its total amount is 1,357. It dates back to the foundation of Nippon Yusen Kaisha Line (1885/ Meiji 18th)

 1,357 accounting books from October 1885 to March 1986, includes that of affiliated companies:

  1. Accounting books of Mitsubishi Kisen(1943~1946)
  2. Accounting books of Mitsubishi Kaiun (1949~1963)
  3. Accounting books of Sankyo Kaiun (1940~1945)

 Accounting books of Nippon Yusen are divided into three categories: diary, cashbook, and ledger. The way of bookkeeping is generally based on UK style; records of deal are in diary (general Journal) and cashbook(special journal), and then these information are copied to ledger(split journal entries).

 Some of accounting books in Meiji era has many remarkable points such as its size, 1,000 pages and 20kg~40kg weight for each, in addition, the fore edge and pastedown are marbled. As the time passed, the books became smaller and lighter, marbled decoration was not used in the end.

Origin

NYK Line donated 445 books (account books between 1885 and 1944) in February 1962, and 912 books (between 1944 and 1985) in May 2002.

  • Reception in 1962
    The Library received diaries, cashbooks and ledgers (445 in total) of NYK Line. In February 1977, Institute of Business Research (Current Institute of Innovation Research) took over keeping documents and then issued “Nihon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha Kaikei Chobo Mokuroku: Meiji 18th to Showa 19th” in December 1978. The Library became responsible for the keeping again in 2002 when they received other parts of documents.
  • Reception in 2002
    In addition to account books(1944~1985) of NYK Line, the Library received ①Account books of Mitsubishi Kisen(1943~1946), ②Account books of Mitsubishi Kaiun (1949~1963), ③Account books of Sankyo Kaiun (1940~1945).

Structure of documents

They are generally categorized diary, cashbook, and ledger.

Catalogue

Images

HERMES-IR(the digital images of documents are available here)

Related Information

Research Articles

※These documents were listed on the Digital Archive of Modern Japanese Economic History and Business History.

Location

  • The Library Restricted Access Stacks 【VY:】
  • The Library Kodaira Research Library and Archives