Shigeo Sawada (1890-1940) was the Managing Director of Okura and Co. Trading Ltd in Sydney from 1937 to his death. The first independent Japanese company to establish a branch abroad, Okura and Co built up extensive interests in Australian wool, barley, wheat, flour, hides and pelts in the interwar years, when Japan was one of Australia's key trade partners. Sawada came to Sydney in 1915, settling in Mosman and becoming well known amongst the city's wool traders and business fraternity. In 1920 he moved into a guest house owned by the family of Nelson Illingworth, a prominent Sydney sculptor, and in 1924 he married Illingworth's daughter Thelma. At that time, his brother, Renzo Sawada, was Japanese ambassador to France, where Renzo's wife Miki became friends with singer Josephine Baker; later, through World War 2, Renzo was Japanese Ambassador to Burma, and Miki was arrested on suspicion of spying for the Americans. Conspicuous on the Sydney social circuit, Shigeo and Thelma Sawada lived in Mosman until Shigeo's death in 1940. His ashes are divided between Japan and Mosman.
