Sir Harry Johnston, S.G.M.G., K.C.B

Abstract

THE death of Sir Harry Johnston removes one to whom the British Empire and science owe great debts. Henry Hamilton Johnston was born at Kennington on June 12, 1858, and he died near Worksop on July 31 last at sixty-nine years of age. He was educated at the Stockwell Grammar School, King's College, London, and later at the Royal Academy Schools. Endowed with great natural ability and with a vigorous and fearless mind, he soon displayed an amazing versatility which led him to success along many different paths. Distinguished as an artist in water colours, an intrepid explorer, a naturalist, an anthropologist, a linguist, and a writer, he won for himself a permanent place in history as one of the builders of Great Britain's African Empire and as a wise colonial administrator. Political activities, alone or in conjunction with Cecil Rhodes, Sir Alfred Sharpe and others, constituted the most important part of Sir Harry Johnston's life-work. An excellent account of these activities was published in the Times for Aug. 1.