Johnston at SOAS
After his time as tutor to the last emperor Puyi and then as Commissioner of the Leased Territory of Weihaiwei (overseeing its return to China) Reginald Johnston returned to the UK. He became one of the first Professors of Chinese at (as it was then known) the School of Oriental Studies (now SOAS) at the University of London, between 1931 and 1937.
To be honest, it didn’t go well. Johnston was 57 and living in Kew. He didn’t take to lecturing, rarely showed up and clashed repeatedly with the university authorities. Despite being in Bloomsbury he doesn’t seem to have mixed socially much. He may have crossed paths with the slightly younger Arthur Waley, working at the British Museum and living at various addresses on Gordon Square, but doesn’t seem to have looked up his old flame, the Medieval historian Eileen Power, a resident of nearby Mecklenberg Square.
Still, the long academic breaks did allow him to finish his memoir Twilight in the Forbidden City, which was published in 1934 to acclaim and strong sales. However, the book (which was dedicated to “HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR PUYI”) caused him some trouble. As the newly installed Emperor of Manchukuo, Puyi was considered a traitor and Johnston was criticised by Chinese students in London. He avoided events where he might be likely to encounter them - a tad difficult when a Professor of Chinese at SOAS and with a number of Chinese students resident in Bloomsbury!
Johnston died in March 1938 in Edinburgh aged 63. His partner at the time was a strange and perhaps unbalanced woman called Elizabeth Sparshott. Johnston had left instructions that his significant collection of Chinese books should be gifted to the National Trust for Scotland. Sparshott, for reasons unknown, sent them to the SOAS Library. She then destroyed the rest of his archive - letters, diaries, papers - the lot. That is why we have so few primary sources on Johnston. Indeed my book, The Last Emperor of China, was fortunate enough to be able to use letters from Isabel Mayer’s (née Ingram) archive written to her from Johnston during the time they were both ensconced in the Forbidden City as tutors to the last emperor and empress respectively as well as afterwards when Ingram remained in Peking and Johnston was in Weihai (with the royal couple in Tianjin). We sadly do not have Ingram’s replies to Johnston.
Johnston’s Fan
As well as Johnston’s books there are several items, gifts from Puyi to Johnston that reside in the SOAS library and archives. These include the emperor’s fan, now part of the Library’s Special Chinese Art Collection. The black fan features a landscape picture in gold and bears an inscription of the Imperial Seal of Xuantong (Puyi was the Xuantong Emperor). The fan was given to Johnston by Puyi as a farewell gift on 15th September 1930 when Johnston left China following the formal handover of Weihai back to Chinese sovereignty.
The fan displays two poems, “Xing Xing Chong Xing Xing (行行重行行)” & “Bu Chu Chen Dong Men (步出城東門)” from Han dynasty classical literature (207BCE – 220 BC). The year “庚午”(1930) and “志道師傅書” were inscribed on the fan sealed with the Imperial Seal of Xuantong while “志道” is one of Johnston’s pseudonyms and “ 師傅” means teacher, tutor, master.
Flower Album
The SOAS Special Chinese Art Collection also has a beautiful album of flower paintings presented by Puyi to Johnston. The album bears an inscription by the Emperor in his own hand to Johnston on the verso of the front cover and his own seal on the peony painting. The artist is Chen Shu (陈舒, 1612–1682), a literati painter from Jiangsu province who settled in Nanjing. He produced paintings depicting mainly birds, flowers and insects, but occasionally produced landscape paintings in ink.
One of the album leafs includes an inscription to Johnston from Puyi that also shows the emperor’s English handwriting and the date, indicating that this was given to his former tutor in July 1926 after his expulsion from the Forbidden City and when Puyi and Wanrong were living under Japanese “protection” in Tianjin. He rather interestingly decided to describe himself as “The Manchu Emperor”.
And books…
Also in the collection is a traditional Chinese thread-bound book featuring classical poetry with vertical columns of handwritten or printed calligraphy and red bookmark inserts containing classical Chinese poetry, specifically works matching the poetic collections of the Qing dynasty scholar and poet Zheng Zhen (鄭珍, 1806-1884).
Many of Johnston’s books now in the SOAS archive contain his personal ex-libris - the Five Sacred Mountains represented in five stylized talismanic glyphs at the top represent the mystical maps or "true forms" of China's five sacred Taoist mountains (wuyue): Mount Tai, Mount Heng, Mount Hua, Mount Heng (Anhui/Hunan), and Mount Song. Johnston’s inscription from the bottom text reads 齊山淨樂 from left to right, or read as a traditional four-character phrase related to purified, harmonious mountain realms and spiritual joy.
And his books (though there are well over a thousand) are worth a browse - Johnston left many corrections and some quite catty remarks about his diplomatic colleagues, fellow sinologists, and various writers, in the margins (in pencil of course)….
Many thanks to the archivists at SOAS for taking the time to get these items out of storage and display them for us. And to The Meridian Society for inviting me to talk about my new book and to view these remarkable objects….
And Finally, a Zoom for the Royal Asiatic Society, Beijing - 16/9
Should you want to hear more about my new book, Puyi, Wanrong, Johnston and their incredible lives within the Forbidden City I’ll be on a Zoom for the Royal Asiatic Society Beijing on September 16th you can join us….
WHAT: Paul French introduces “The Last Emperor of China: Twilight of the Forbidden City” (online). The moderator is foreign correspondent Melinda Liu
WHEN: Sept. 16, 2026 Wednesday, 7:00 to 8:00 PM Beijing Time
HOW MUCH: Free for RASBJ members. RMB 50 for members of partner branches in London, Shanghai and Hong Kong. RMB 100 for non-members. Alipay may be an easier payment method than WeChat. You can also pay by credit card. Interested in becoming an RASBJ member? Please sign up here
B&N US & Canada Pre-Order 25% Off Offer…
Preorder my new book The Last Emperor of China: The Twilight of the Forbidden City (St Martin’s Press) in any format at Barnes & Noble (US/CA) by end of day September 11 and get 25% off with code PREORDER25. B&N premium members get a bonus 10% off. https://bit.ly/TheLastEmperorOfChinaBN
And…I’ll be at the Wigtown Book Festival 28/9 - more details to follow….
FYI
UK links for my new book, The last Emperor of China, here. US pre-order links for for The Last Emperor of China - out November stateside…here and Australia here
Details of Her Lotus Year: China, The Roaring Twenties & the Making of Wallis Simpson here
Check out my old China travel reprint series - China Revisited - here - now 5 books with another coming this October…
There are 3 books now available in my Destination… series … Destination Shanghai, Destination Peking and now Destination Macao