The Border Clan

Many peoples contributed to the ethnic composition of the Scottish Borderers, including Picts, ancient British tribes who spoke a Celtic language akin to Welsh, soldiers from the four corners of the Roman Empire, Gaelic Scots, Angles from Northumbria, Vikings, and Normans. Borderers were not typical Scottish “lowlanders”. Until the early seventeenth century, they maintained a very distinctive society of their own.

The Borderers were the product of a brutal frontier. Centuries of border warfare with England after the Scottish War of Independence had discouraged crop farming. Instead, the Borderers became restless and mobile, raiding the English and neighbouring Scots to replenish the cattle and horses that constituted their principal form of property. They were excellent horsemen. Dressed in a metal helmet (steel bonnet), reinforced leather jacket (jack) and high riding boots, with a long lance, cutting sword, and set of pistols, a Borderer was well adapted to his world. A monument at the Devil’s Beeftub, a vast, sinister-looking hollow near the source of the Annan River, records that the Johnstones used the place “to hide cattle stolen in predatory raids”.

For administrative and military purposes, the border was divided into three Scottish regions, and three English ones, called “Marches”. Each March was controlled by a March Warden appointed by the king of Scotland or England. Eastern Dumfriesshire, the primary Johnstone region, was in the Scottish West March.

Like the Highlands, the Borders were remote and hilly. Although feudalism existed, tribal loyalty was much more important. Border life consisted of a warrior society that had much in common with Highland life, including clanship. However, Borderers did not wear tartan or Highland dress. In language and culture, historically they were much closer to the Scots of the central Lowlands than to those of the Highlands or Isles.

Like many warrior societies, the Scottish Borderers created epic poetry. The Border Ballads vividly express a brutal, tragic, and yet heroic way of life. Several well-known examples, particularly The Lads of Wamphray and Lord Maxwell’s Last Goodnight, concern events in Johnstone history.

Border lairds lived in stark, stone peel towers, three or four stories tall, surmounted with battlements and built on inaccessible ground. An outer stone wall called a “barmkin” surrounded the tower and adjacent outbuildings. Some clansmen lived in fortified farmhouses called “bastle houses”.

In 1587, the Parliament of Scotland passed a law “for the quieting and keeping in obedience of the disorderly subject inhabitants of the borders, highlands and isles”. Attached to the law was a Roll of the Clans that contained both Borders and Highland portions. The Borders part of the Roll listed the Johnstones as a clan with a chief in the Scottish West March. Thus, it is historically correct to refer to the Johnstones as a clan. Since the Borderers were great horsemen, the clans of the Borders are sometimes called the “riding clans”. They are sometimes referred to as “Names”. Branches of clans were sometimes called “graynes”.

It is improbable that most members of any border clan actually descended in the male line from a single progenitor. More likely, people in a particular geographic area gave their allegiance to the local warlord, took his name, and came to accept his ancestry as their own. For example, not all Johnstones are from the same origin. However, intermarriage over time no doubt resulted in many clansmen being related to the Chief, and to each other, on either the paternal or maternal side.

For a long time, the Scots of Edinburgh and the central Lowlands treated Borderers as pariahs and did not even think of them as fellow countrymen. A law of 1587 actually expelled Borderers from the inland counties of Scotland unless they could find security for their quiet deportment. The Borderers felt the same way about the inland Scots. Since the borderers’ experience with their kings was more often that of royal vengeance than protection, the Borderers referred to the Scottish monarchs as “kings of Fife and Lothian”, districts in which the Borderers were not allowed to settle. In fact, Scottish and English Borderers had much more in common with each other than they had with the inland inhabitants of their respective countries.

When King James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English throne in 1603, the border frontier became the centre of a new and united kingdom. The king used his new authority to deal with the unruly border clansmen as ruthlessly as his successors confronted the Highland clans a century and a half later. A proclamation of 1605 forbade Borderers, “except nobles and gentlemen unsuspected of felony or theft”, from carrying “jacks, spears, lances, swords, daggers, steel caps, hackbuts, pistols, platesleaves, and suchlike”. It also forbade the owning of any horse above the value of 50 shillings sterling or 30 pounds Scots. The government deported or executed the worst of the troublemakers, including many Johnstones. The old border frontier ceased to exist within a few short years.

Norman conquerors

A name popularised throughout England in the wake of the Norman Conquest of 1066, ‘Johnson’ stems from the forename of ‘John’ which, in turn, has original Hebrew roots meaning ‘Yahweh (God) has favoured.’

It is through veneration for the Biblical St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist – in addition to a host of other Christian saints of the name – that ‘John’ and the surname ‘Johnson’ acquired their popularity in medieval times.

Ranked at 11th in some lists of the 100 most common surnames in England, two of its spelling variants, ‘Johnston’ and ‘Johnstone’ are particularly prevalent in Scotland, while in Ireland it is sometimes found as an Anglicisation of the Gaelic Mac Seáin, or McShane, and Mac Eoin, or McKeown.

The surname is first found in the English county of Lincolnshire, where a Norman family were granted lands by Duke William of Normandy for their assistance in his conquest of the nation.

Going back in time from this key event in English history, it was from about the early fifth century that Germanic tribes invaded and settled in the south and east of the island of Britain.

Known as the Anglo-Saxons, they were composed of the Jutes, from the area of the Jutland Peninsula in modern Denmark, the Saxons from Lower Saxony, in modern Germany and the Angles from the Angeln area of Germany.

It was the Angles who gave the name ‘Engla land’, or ‘Aengla land’ – better known as ‘England.’

They held sway in what became England from approximately 550 to 1066, with the main kingdoms those of Sussex, Wessex, Northumbria, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia and Essex.

Whoever controlled the most powerful of these kingdoms was tacitly recognised as overall ‘king’ – one of the most noted being Alfred the Great, King of Wessex from 871 to 899.

It was during his reign that the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was compiled – an invaluable source of Anglo-Saxon history – while Alfred was designated in early documents as Rex Anglorum Saxonum, King of the English Saxons.

The death knell of Anglo-Saxon supremacy was sounded with the Norman Conquest of 1066 – a key event in English history.

By this date, England had become a nation with several powerful competitors to the throne.

In what were extremely complex family, political and military machinations, the monarch was Harold II, who had succeeded to the throne following the death of Edward the Confessor.

But his right to the throne was contested by two powerful competitors – his brother-in-law King Harold Hardrada of Norway, in alliance with Tostig, Harold II’s brother, and Duke William II of Normandy.

In what has become known as The Year of Three Battles, Hardrada invaded England and gained victory over the English king on September 20 at the battle of Fulford, in Yorkshire.

Five days later, however, Harold II decisively defeated his brother-in-law and brother at the battle of Stamford Bridge.

But he had little time to celebrate his victory, having to immediately march south from Yorkshire to encounter a mighty invasion force, led by Duke William of Normandy that had landed at Hastings, in East Sussex.

Harold’s battle-hardened but exhausted force of Anglo-Saxon soldiers confronted the Normans on October 14 in a battle subsequently depicted on the Bayeux tapestry – a 23ft. long strip of embroidered linen thought to have been commissioned eleven years after the event by the Norman Odo of Bayeux.

It was at the top of Senlac Hill that Harold drew up a strong defensive position, building a shield wall to repel Duke William’s cavalry and infantry.

The Normans suffered heavy losses, but though a combination of the deadly skill of their archers and the ferocious determination of their cavalry they eventually won the day.

Anglo-Saxon morale had collapsed on the battlefield as word spread through the ranks that Harold had been killed – the Bayeux Tapestry depicting this as having happened when the English king was struck by an arrow to the head.

Amidst the carnage of the battlefield, it was difficult to identify him – the last of the Anglo-Saxon kings.

Some sources assert William ordered his body to be thrown into the sea, while others state it was secretly buried at Waltham Abbey.

What is known with certainty, however, is that William in celebration of his great victory founded Battle Abbey, near the site of the battle, ordering that the altar be sited on the spot where Harold was believed to have fallen.

William was declared King of England on December 25, and the complete subjugation of his Anglo-Saxon subjects followed.

Those Normans who had fought on his behalf, such as those who would come to bear the name of Johnson, were rewarded with the lands of Anglo-Saxons, many of whom sought exile abroad as mercenaries.

Within an astonishingly short space of time, Norman manners, customs and law were imposed on England – laying the basis for what subsequently became established ‘English’ custom and practice.

The Johnson name figures prominently in the vibrant drama that is the historical record.

Recognised as one of the most distinguished men of letters in English literary history, Samuel Johnson, better known as Dr Johnson, was born in 1709 in Lichfield, Staffordshire.

The son of a bookseller, he was noted in his lifetime for his odd mannerisms and gestures that are now thought to have been indicative of what today is known as Tourette syndrome.

Named after the late nineteenth century French physician and neurologist George de la Tourette, this is an inherited neuro-psychiatric disorder that manifests itself in uncontrollable physical and vocal ‘tics’.

Before achieving his fame as a poet, literary critic, biographer and lexicographer – as the complier of the landmark A Dictionary of the Modern English Language, first published in 1755 – Johnson worked for a time as a schoolteacher before beginning his literary career by contributing articles to The Gentleman’s Magazine.

His great literary output also included a number of biographies, poems and plays, while he was also the subject of his friend the Scottish writer James Boswell’s The Life of Dr Johnson.

It was with Boswell that he travelled to Scotland, later publishing his 1775 travel narrative A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland.

Producing his monumental Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets shortly before his death in 1784, he was honoured with burial in Westminster Abbey.

From the world of literature to the battlefield, no fewer than three bearers of the Johnson name were recipients during the First World War of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for valour in the face of enemy action for British and Commonwealth forces.

Born in 1879 in Leith, near Edinburgh, William Henry Johnson had been a captain in the 59th Field Company, Corps of Royal Engineers, when in September of 1914 at Missy, France, he helped to bring back wounded and then return to his comrades with much-needed supplies of ammunition.

Later promoted to the rank of major, he was killed in action in June of the following year at Ypres, Belgium; his VC is now on display at the Royal Engineers Museum, Chatham, Kent.

Born in 1889 in Widdrington, Northumberland, James Johnson had been a second lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion, The Northumberland Fusiliers when, in October of 1918 south west of Wez Macquart, France, on three occasions he brought back a number of badly wounded comrades under heavy enemy fire.

His VC is now displayed at the Northumberland Fusiliers Museum, Alnwick.

A recipient of not only the VC but also the French Medaille Militaire, William Henry Johnson was born in 1890 in Worksop, Nottinghamshire.

In October of 1918 at Ramicourt, France, as a sergeant in the 15th Battalion, The Sherwood Foresters (The Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), he charged and disabled a number of enemy machine-gun nests.

He died in 1945, while his VC is now on display at the Sherwood Foresters Museum in Nottingham Castle.

High flyers

It is not only in the world of literature and on the bloody field of battle that bearers of the proud name of Johnson have gained distinction, but also through a colourful and diverse range of other endeavours and pursuits – not least in the world of politics.

Born in 1727 in Stratford, Connecticut, the son of an Anglican clergyman, William Samuel Johnson was the lawyer and statesman famed as one of the signatories to the Constitution of the United States of America – the supreme law of the nation.

Graduating from Yale College in 1744 and deciding not to follow in his father’s footsteps as a clergyman, he pursued a career in the law and as a politician.

It was after having served in a number of political offices that included membership of Connecticut’s Supreme Court that he became a signatory on September 15, 1787, to the Constitution; he died in 1819.

Two bearers of the Johnson name have served as President of the United States.

Born into poverty in 1808 in Raleigh, North Carolina, Andrew Johnson went on to serve from 1865 to 1869 as 17th President of the United States.

Apprenticed as a tailor, it was after settling in Greeneville, Tennessee, that he entered politics and served as the Democrat senator for the state.

Despite Tennessee siding with the Confederacy during the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, Johnson remained on the side of the Union and, in March of 1865, was sworn in as Vice-President to the Republican President Abraham Lincoln.

Only six weeks later, he became president following Lincoln’s assassination – serving in the office until six years before his death in 1875.

Another bearer of the name who succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of the incumbent was the Democrat politician Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Born in Texas in 1908 and later more popularly known as “LBJ”, he served as Vice-President under John F. Kennedy and succeeded to the presidency after Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in November of 1963.

Serving in the office until four years before his death in 1973, one of his legacies is his introduction of legislation for his vision of what he termed the “Great Society.” This involved important laws that included environmental protection and the upholding of civil rights – but he is also remembered for his controversial escalation of American involvement in the Vietnam War.

He was the husband of Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson, the First Lady of the United States better and more fondly known as Lady Bird Johnson.

Born in 1912 in Karnack, Texas, she was instrumental for making herself and her husband millionaires through shrewd investments in both a radio and a television station.

As First Lady, and deeply committed to the environment, she was responsible for a major campaign to beautify the nation’s highways and cities and is also remembered for her statement “Where flowers bloom, so does hope.”

A recipient of her nation’s highest civilian honours – the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, she died in 2007.

In contemporary politics, Boris Johnson was elected leader of the Conservative Party in July of 2019 and subsequently appointed Prime Minister – all in the midst of a bitter and acrimonious dispute over the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union in the process known as Brexit.

Born Alexander Boris de Pfeffer Johnson in New York City in 1964, the flamboyant politician served from 2016 to 2018 as Foreign Secretary under the premiership of Theresa May – resigning from the post in disagreement over her Brexit strategy.

Becoming Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley in 2002, he served in a number of Shadow Cabinet posts that included Shadow Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries.

Elected Lord Mayor of London in 2008 and re-elected four years later, he has also worked in a number of journalistic posts that include assistant editor from 1994 to 1999 of the Daily Telegraph and, from 1999 to 2005, editor of the Spectator.

Despite an unfortunate early start in life, Alan Johnson overcame all obstacles to become a senior Labour Party politician.

Born in Paddington, London, in 1950, he was orphaned when aged 12 and was raised by his older sister after the two were assigned a council flat by a child welfare officer.

Working in a succession of jobs after leaving school, including stacking supermarket shelves and working as a postman, his interest and then involvement in politics led to him being elected as MP for Hull West and Hessle in 1997.

Top posts he held since standing down as an MP in 2017 include Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Home Secretary from May 2010 to October 2010 and, from October 2010 until January of 2011, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Taking to the skies, Amy Johnson was the pioneering British aviator who, before her death in 1941, set an astounding number of records for flight.

Born in 1903 in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, she graduated with a degree in economics from Sheffield University and worked for a time in London as a solicitor’s secretary.

Taking up flying as a hobby, she gained a pilot’s licence in 1929 at the London Aeroplane Club and, later that year, became the first British woman to obtain a ground engineer’s “C” licence.

With financial help from her father and others, she bought a second-hand de Havilland Gipsy Moth aircraft that she named Jason – and it was in this aircraft that, in 1930, she became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.

This was after having left Croydon, south of London, on May 5 and landing in Darwin on May 25 after an 11,000-mile flight; Jason, meanwhile, is now on display in the Science Museum, London.

Honoured with a CBE for this first achievement, in July of the following year she and co-pilot Jack Humphreys became the first to fly from London to Moscow – a distance of 1,760 miles – in one day.

This was in a de Havilland Puss Moth. After landing in Moscow the pair then flew across Siberia and on to Tokyo.

Further record breaking flights followed.

She married the equally pioneering Scottish aviator Jim Mollison in 1932, and in that same year she broke her husband’s record of solo flight from London to Cape Town, South Africa.

She and Mollison set a record for flying from Britain to India two years later, while in 1936, flying solo, she made another record breaking flight from Britain to South Africa.

The couple divorced in 1938 and, following the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, she joined the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), tasked with flying RAF aircraft across the United Kingdom.

On such a mission on January 5, 1941, flying an Airspeed Oxford in adverse weather conditions from Blackpool to RAF Kiddlington, near Oxford, she was forced to bail out shortly before it crashed into the Thames Estuary.

Her parachute was spotted by the crew of the naval vessel HMS Haslemere and its commander, Walter Fletcher, drowned in a vain attempt to rescue her from the water.

Amy’s body was never recovered and, while it has long been thought that she was forced to bail out because her aircraft had ran out of fuel, new information came to light in 1999 that suggests she may have been shot down by an RAF fighter after she failed to give the correct identification code during her flight – with the pilot suspecting it may have been an enemy aircraft.

In addition to the song Amy, Wonderful Amy, recorded shortly after her 1930 flight to Australia, she is also the subject of a number of films and documentaries, while the annual Amy Johnson Lecture to celebrate women in flight was established by the Royal Aeronautical Society in 2011.

In the sciences, Reynold B. Johnson was the American computer pioneer and inventor recognised as “The Father of the Disk Drive.”

Born in Minnesota in 1906 and working for most of his life as an engineer with IBM, he developed in the late 1930s the technology that allowed cards marked with pencil to be converted into ‘punched cards’, allowing computer recording of data.

In 1956, while managing IBM’s West Coast Laboratory in San Jose, California, he led the research team that developed the computer disk – or disc-storage technology that included the videocassette tape.

The recipient of a number of honours and awards that include the Franklin Institute’s Certificate of Merit and America’s National Medal of Technology, he died in 1998.

Still in the sciences, and a recipient of America’s National Medal of Science, William Summer Johnson, born in 1913 and who died in 1995, was the chemist who conducted important research into the artificial production of steroids.