John Johnston (schoolmaster)

John Alexander Hope Johnston (10 July 1871 – 5 June 1938) was a British educator.

He taught at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, Tonbridge School, and Highgate School, where he was headmaster for 28 years and was an early promoter of the study of the science of aeronautics.

Early life

The elder son of Major Alexander Kenneth Hope Johnston, a British Army officer, and his wife Lydia Lutener,[1] Johnston was born at Aldershot and educated in Valetta, Malta, at Edinburgh University, where he graduated MA in mathematics and natural philosophy, and then finally at Pembroke College, Cambridge, graduating BA in 1897 in the mathematical tripos as 14th wrangler.[2]

Edinburgh gave Johnston the degree of Doctor of Science.[2]

Career

After leaving Cambridge, in 1898 Johnston was appointed as "professor" of physics at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, but stayed for only one year. In 1899 he joined Tonbridge School as an assistant schoolmaster. He remained there until 1908, when he was appointed as headmaster at Highgate School.

At Highgate, Johnston found a school in which the focus was on classical education. Under his headship, science fifth and sixth forms were created, in which the main subjects were chemistry, physics, biology, and astronomy. Although the school had laboratories, Johnston considered them primitive and for many years pressed the school governors for better ones. Finally, in July 1928, came the opening of a new Science Building by Sir Samuel Hoare, Secretary of State for Air.[3]

Johnston next introduced aeronautics as a school subject. He acquired a Sopwith Snipe aeroplane and five engines for it, and an Avro 504K biplane, which was housed in a hangar on top of the new Science Building, for the boys to work on.[3][2]

Johnston stayed at Highgate as head until he retired in 1936. He died in London in June 1938.[2]

An Avro 504K

Personal life

In 1904, while teaching at Tonbridge, Johnston married Kate Winsome Gammon.[1] Their children included a son, Kenneth, born in 1906, and daughters Kathleen and Dorothy.[4] Their younger son John Alexander Hope Johnston became a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force and was killed on 18 April 1941, aged 27, on active service during the Second World War.[5]

In Who's Who, Johnston's recreations were stated as golf and croquet.[1]

After Johnston's death in 1938, his widow survived him until 1965.[6]

Notes
  1. Who's Who 1920, Volume 72 (London: A. & C. Black, 1920), Vol. 1, p. 1379
  2. "Johnston, John Alexander Hope", in Alumni Cantabrigienses Part II, 1752–1900, Vol. III, Gabb–Justamond (Cambridge University Press, 1947), p. 588
  3. R. W. Burns, The Life and Times of A. D. Blumlein (2000) pp. 31, 32
  4. 1911 United Kingdom census, Highgate School, ancestry.co.uk, accessed 12 February 2023 (subscription required)
  5. PILOT OFFICER JOHN ALEXANDER HOPE JOHNSTON, Service Number: 62025, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, accessed 12 February 2023
  6. "JOHNSTONE Kate Winsome of 237 Ballards Lane Finchley Middlesex died 26 November 1965" in Wills and Administrations 1966 (England and Wales) (1967), p. 204
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