An English and Japanese and Japanese and English Vocabulary, compiled by Walter Henry Medhurst in 1830 is considered to be most valuable in two points for the study of Japanese and that of English : first, it was written by an English native speaker; second, it was compiled using a number of Japanese native works which were mostly dictionaries and small sized encyclopedia. The writer discusses in this paper how this Vocabulary was widely and popularly used not only by Western scholars and missionaries but also by enthusiastic English learners in Japan.
All such pioneer Missionaries as S.R.Brown, G.H.F.Verbeck and J.C.Hepburn started their Japanese language study using Medhurst's Vocabulary. This Vocabulary was imported to Japan and reprinted by Murakami Eishun as a Japanese version, eigosen that contributed greatly to the promotion of English studies in Japan.