A Christian missionary, Englishman John Batchelor (sometimes listed as Batchelor) was posted to Hokkaido in the Meiji era.　He was deeply moved by the social inequality suffered by the Ainu people at the time, and devoted his life to improving the status of the Ainu people and supporting them.
　He established schools so that the Ainu people could receive an education, sent relief supplies to Ainu people in areas suffering from floods and bad harvests, and carried out other activities that could not have been done for the sake of mere Christian missionary work until he was forced to leave his homeland at the beginning of the Pacific War.　His personality shows that he was respected not only by the Ainu people but also by all the people living in Date, and he was loved by the community.