Sameshima Naonobu

was a Japanese diplomat. He was Japan's first resident minister in Europe.

Early life and education Sameshima was born on April 16, 1845, in Satsuma Province, Japan. He was the son of a physician and had two siblings. He went to study in Nagasaki in 1861, where he learned Western medicine and English. In 1865 he studied abroad in London with 15 other students from Satsuma, including Mori Arinori, Nagasawa Kanaye, Yoshida Kiyonari, and Godai Tomoatsu. He went to the United States with 5 other Satsuma students to live at a vineyard in Brocton, New York, with Thomas Lake Harris, but returned to Japan with Mori in 1868.

Career Sameshima worked for the Japanese government when he returned. When the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was founded, he was appointed a junior minister. He spent most of his time in Paris, and was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1874.

During his tenure as a diplomat, Sameshima wrote the "Diplomatic Guide" with Marshall. It was a manual for staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He also called for the professionalization and improvement of Japanese diplomacy.

In April 1875, Sameshima briefly returned to Japan to help Terashima Munenori with administrative reforms, but returned to France in 1878. His job duties expanded to include Spain and Portugal in 1880, but he died later that year in Paris on December 4.