Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Johnston, William (1800-1874)
JOHNSTON, WILLIAM, D.D. (1800–1874), presbyterian minister, was born at Biggar, Lanarkshire, on 18 Feb. 1800. In his thirteenth year he was sent to Glasgow University, where he obtained prizes in mathematics and graduated M.A. in 1817. Through the influence of his minister, the Rev. John Brown (1784–1858) [q. v.], he entered in 1816 the Divinity Hall of the Secession Church, then taught by Dr. Lawson at Selkirk. While at Selkirk he received the freedom of the burgh along with Prince Leopold, afterwards king of the Belgians, who was then on a visit to Sir Walter Scott. In May 1821 Johnston was licensed to preach, and in August 1823 was ordained at Limekilns, a village on the Firth of Forth, about four miles from Dunfermline. In 1825 a new church was erected and a large manse was built. The Earl of Elgin and his family, who resided at Broomhall, attended the church, and Johnston enjoyed the friendship of three generations of that family. A very devoted admirer was Lady Augusta, wife of Dean Stanley, and daughter of Thomas Bruce, seventh earl of Elgin [q. v.] Johnston was minister of Limekilns for fifty years. Many presentations made to him, notably that on the occasion of his ministerial jubilee in 1873, testified to the esteem in which he was held by his parishioners. From 1847, when his denomination became the United Presbyterian Church, till his death he was convener of the committee on education, and in 1849 he was asked by the synod to become professor of theology in the island of Jamaica. In 1850 the university of Glasgow conferred upon him the degree of D.D., and in 1854 he was elected moderator of synod. He was an able preacher and debater. He advocated a national system of education, was a member of the committee on union with the free church of Scotland, and warmly supported temperance and other social reforms. He died in Edinburgh in May 1874, shortly after delivering in the synod a powerful appeal in favour of disestablishment. Johnston was a good scholar, and in 1843 was nominated, together with John Eadie [q. v.], for the chair of biblical literature in the United Presbyterian Hall, but Eadie was elected. Johnston published very little. ‘A Memoir of the Rev. Robert Brown, Dunfermline,’ appeared in 1830, and articles on ‘Shetland’ in the ‘United Secession Magazine,’ 1838.
[Scotsman, 25 May 1874, by Dr. John Brown (author of Rab and his Friends); articles in the United Presb. Mag. by the Rev. T. B. Johnstone, August 1874, and by the late Professor William Graham, July 1876; Gifford's Memorials of the Life and Work of Dr. Johnston, 1876; Literary World, 2 June 1876.]