CAREER ENDED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22983, 10 March 1938, Page 15

CAREER ENDED

SIR R. JOHNSTON'S DEATH LONG SERVICE IN CHINA LONDON. March 8 The death is announced of Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston, well-known traveller and a former British administrator in China. Sir Reginald Johnston was born in Scotland in 1874 and educated at Edinburgh University and Magdalen College, Oxford, at both of which he won distinction. Entering the Hongkong Civil Service in 1898, he was private secretary to the governor from 1900 to 1902, and acting-Colonial Secretary until 1904. Thereafter his career was concerned for many years with stirring events in Northern China. Appointed in 1904 secretary to the Government of Wei-hai-Wei, which had been leased to Britain in 1898, Sir Reginald was senior district officer and magistrate from 1906 to 1917. After administering the Government of the territory for a year, ho became tutor to the ex-Emperor of China. Meanwhile the country had been going through a period of strife and turmoil. In 19i2 it had becomo a republic, but the boy Emperor Hsuan Tung was left in peace in the Imperial Palace. By 1924 the civil war had died down, and a new Constitution came into force. At the same timo Sir Reginald was made Warden of the Summer Palace, and when soon afterwards an order for the expulsion of the ex-Emperor, then 19 years of age, was issued, it was Sir Reginald who escorted him to the foreign legation quarter. After being secretary to the British China Indemnity Delegation in 1926, he was appointed Commissioner of Wei-hni-Wci. and held that office when, in 1930, the territory was returned to China. He was knighted in the same year. Sir Reginald was professor of Chinese at the University of London and head of the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Far East, School of Oriental Studies, from 19.31 to 19.37. His books on oriental subjects include "From Peking to Mandalay," "Lion and Dragon in Northern China," "Buddhist China" and "Tho Chinese Drama."