John Lawson Johnston

[1] Regardless of what his intentions had originally been as a choice of profession, Johnston's uncle John was a butcher and his nephew decided to pursue this as a trade and apprenticed with him.

[1] While working as a butcher in Edinburgh, he decided to use the large quantity of beef trimmings produced in the butchery process to make his own glace de viande (meat glaze) – beef stock, concentrated by heating until it becomes dark brown and viscous, thus giving it a long shelf-life.

[3] He sold his Canadian business in 1880, after his factory burned down,[citation needed] and went to England where he lived at 'Bovril Castle' – Kingswood House, West Dulwich – while he developed the Bovril brand across Britain, based on the commercial promotion of dietetics.

[4] In 1896 the company received an offer of £2 million from Ernest Terah Hooley and the shareholders agreed to the sale.

His second son George Lawson Johnston also managed the Bovril company and was raised to the peerage as Baron Luke.