Explore: Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston

(1858 - 1927)

Explorer, colonial administrator and artist Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston studied painting at the Royal Academy Schools from 1876. From 1879, he travelled through Africa as a painter, natural history collector and journalist, journeying through Tunis, Angola and along the Congo River. He joining the consular service in 1885 and spent three years administering a British protectorate in eastern Nigeria. He later obtained treaties on which the UK based claims to Nyasaland (Malawi) and Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). He later became the first British Commissioner in Malawi and published some 40 books on African subjects. Knighted in 1896, he was Consul General in Tunis for two years and then Special Commissioner in Uganda from 1899 to 1901.