An authority on ceramics in the Meiji and Taisho periods, Kitamura Yaichiro was born in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture in May 1868. He entered the Tokyo Industrial School (the predecessor of the Tokyo Industrial School), where he studied chemical engineering and pottery glassmaking, and graduated from the Tokyo Industrial School in 1890 (23). In 1902, he went to France to study and visited Germany, and in 1905, he was commissioned to work at the Industrial Research Institute, and the following year, he became the third director of the department as an engineer.
During this period, he served in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars and rose to the rank of captain.
In 1907 (1907-40), he traveled to Qing China, and in the same year, he was commissioned as a professor at the Tokyo Higher Technical School (present-day Tokyo Institute of Technology). In October of the same year, he joined Shofu Toki Joint-Stock Company in Kyoto, and also served as chief engineer of Nippon Hardware Toki Co. Died at his residence in Fukakusa (Fushimi-ku), Kyoto on April 20, 1926.
In November 1921, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Engineering from Kyoto University with a main thesis entitled “On Hardware and Porcelain Glazes” and three reference papers. This work, together with research reports and inspection records, was published in 1928 by the Ceramic Society of Japan as “Kogaku Hiroshi Kitamura Yaichiro Kogyo Zenshu (Complete Works on Ceramics by Yaichiro Kitamura, Kogaku Hiroshi). The Complete Works of Yaichiro Kitamura on Ceramics” by Rikizo Shiota)
