Harry Johnston

Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston (12 June 1858 – 31 July 1927) was a British explorer, botanist, artist, colonial administrator, and linguist who travelled widely across Africa to speak some of the languages spoken by people on that continent. He published 40 books on subjects related to the continent of Africa and was one of the key players in the Scramble for Africa that occurred at the end of the 19th century.

Early years

Johnston was born at Kennington Park, south London, the son of John Brookes Johnstone and Esther Laetitia Hamilton. He attended Stockwell grammar school and then King's College London, followed by four years studying painting at the Royal Academy. In connection with his studies, he travelled to Europe and North Africa, visiting the little-known (by Europeans) interior of Tunisia.

Exploration in Africa

In 1882, he visited southern Angola with the Earl of Mayo, and in the following year met Henry Morton Stanley in the Congo, becoming one of the first Europeans after Stanley to see the river above the Stanley Pool.

His developing reputation led the Royal Geographical Society and the British Association to appoint him leader of a scientific expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro in 1884. On the expedition, Johnston concluded treaties with local chiefs (which were then transferred to the British East Africa Company), in competition with German efforts to do likewise.

British colonial service and the Cape to Cairo vision

In October 1886, the British government appointed him vice-consul in Cameroon and the Niger River delta area, where a protectorate had been declared in 1885, and he became acting consul in 1887, deposing and banishing the local chief Jaja.