Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston (1858-1927), Explorer and colonial administrator

Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue

Sitter associated with 4 portraits
Johnston was closely involved in what has been called the 'scramble for Africa' by 19th-century colonial powers. He published forty books on African subjects and in the 1890s was the first British Commissioner in Nyasaland, now the Republic of Malawi. He went on to serve in a number of other senior administrative roles in eastern Nigeria, Tunisia and Uganda. On a botanical expedition to Kilimanjaro in eastern Africa, Johnston obtained a land concession that helped draw the frontiers between British and German territories in that region. Between 1888 and 1891, he was involved in obtaining the treaties on which Britain based its claims to Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia.