Background and Family
Born at Aoyama Detached Palace in Tokyo, the second son of Crown Prince Yoshihito (later Emperor Taishō) and Crown Princess Sadako (later Empress Teimei), the prince was originally titled Atsu no miya (Prince Atsu). He and his elder brother were separated from their parents and entrusted to the care of a respected ex-naval officer, Count Sumiyoshi Kawamura and his wife. After Kawamura died in 1904, the young princes rejoined their parents at the Tōgū-gosho (Crown Prince's residence) on the grounds of the Akasaka estate. He attended the elementary and secondary departments of the Gakushuin Peers' School along with Crown Prince Hirohito, and his younger brother, Prince Nobuhito (born in 1905). (A fourth brother, Prince Takahito, was born in 1915). Prince Chichibu enrolled in the Central Military Preparatory School in 1917 and then in the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1922.
On 26 May 1922, Emperor Taishō granted his second son the title Chichibu no miya and the authorization to start a new branch of the imperial family. In 1925, the Prince went to Great Britain to study at Magdalen College, Oxford. While in Great Britain King George V decorated Prince Chichibu with the Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order. Prince Chichibu had a reputation as an outdoorsman and alpinist during his stay in Europe. He returned to Japan in January 1927 following the death of Emperor Taishō, who for some time had suffered from debilitating physical and mental ill-health. Until the birth of his nephew Crown Prince Akihito in December 1933, Prince Chichibu was heir presumptive to the Chrysanthemum throne.
Read more about this topic: Prince Chichibu
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