This week we celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston: scholar, writer, traveller and teacher
Tutor to China's Last Emperor Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston KCMG, CBE (13 Oct 1874- 6 March 1938) was born in Edinburgh exactly one hundred and thirty-eight years ago this week. Reginald Fleming Johnston, pictured with Empress Wan Rong and his fellow tutor, Isabel Ingram, in the Forbidden City (c) Wikimedia Commons Johnston spent much of his life away from Scotland, after entering the colonial service in 1898 and being sent initially to Hong Kong. In 1919, he was appointed tutor to China’s non-sovereign Manchu emperor, Pu Yi, who was then 13 years old. Pu Yi had abdicated in 1912, becoming 'The Last Emperor'. At the time, Johnston and his colleague, Isabel Ingram, were the only foreigners in history to be allowed inside the inner court of Qing Dynasty. Johnston loved China and continued to serve there as a diplomat after Pu Yi was expelled from the Forbidden City in 1924. On his return to Britain, Johnston was appointed Professor of Chinese at the Sch...