Egi Kazuyuki was the son of a samurai in Iwakuni, Suō Province. He attended the English School in Osaka and then began studying at the Sapporo Agricultural College and the Southern University (Daigaku Nankō). He transferred to the engineering school of Ministry of Industry, which he had to leave in 1874 due to illness. He then moved to the Ministry of Education and was initially a teacher at the Kaisei Academy in Arakawa, Tokyo.
He later became an inspector in the Ministry of Education and in 1890 a councilor before becoming Director General of the Department of General School Affairs in the Ministry of Education in 1891.[1] In 1892 he moved to the Ministry of the Interior and became the secretary of Minister Inoue Kaoru. He then served as Governor of Ibaraki Prefecture (1896–1897), Tochigi Prefecture (1897), Aichi Prefecture (1897–1898), Hiroshima Prefecture (1898–1903), and Kumamoto Prefecture (1903–1907).
In 1904, Egi was awarded a seat in the House of Peers.[2] In January 1924, he was appointed Minister of Education of the Kiyoura Cabinet,[3] serving until the cabinet dissolved in June of the same year, and then became a member of the Privy Council.
He was a recipient of the Order of the Rising Sun (4th class, 1896; 2nd class, 1902; 1st class, 1906) and the Order of the Sacred Treasure (4th class, 1895; 3rd class, 1899) as well as being a member of the French Legion of Honour (joined 1901).
