Brigadier-General Francis Earl Johnston, CB (1 October 1871 – 7 August 1917) was a New Zealand-born British Army officer of the First World War, who served in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) at Gallipoli and on the Western Front.

Joining the British Army, he served with the Prince of Wales's North Staffordshire Regiment in the Sudan and later in the Second Boer War in South Africa.

[2] Promoted to captain on 13 May 1900,[6] he served from 1900 to 1902 in the Transvaal during the Second Boer War,[2] for which he was mentioned in despatches for good service during the Battle of Boschbult on 31 March 1902.

[7] In 1914, prior to the outbreak of the First World War, Johnston, now a major, having been promoted to that rank in February 1911,[8] was in New Zealand on leave from his regiment, which was then serving in India.

The attack was repulsed with 3,000 Turkish soldiers killed, wounded or captured, and three weeks of sentry duty ensued before the brigade returned to Cairo, Egypt, where it had been previously based.

Johnston, still in poor health, had spells in hospital in September, before leaving Gallipoli altogether in November for Cairo to be with his wife, who later died on 15 December.

[1] Following the withdrawal of Allied forces from Gallipoli to Egypt, the NZEF, now reinforced, had sufficient men to form a stand-alone divisional size formation, the New Zealand Division.

[1] The New Zealand Official History describes the events leading up to his death: The front-line posts themselves lay in converted shell holes on high ground about an isolated windmill on the road from Warneton to Gapard, and formed a marked salient with the enemy on three sides.

Whilst visiting these outposts in the early morning of 7th August, General Earl Johnston was killed instantly by a sniper's bullet.

His grave is close to that of Brigadier-General Charles Henry Brown, Johnston's successor as commander of the 1st Infantry Brigade, who had been killed just a few weeks previously.