'Sir Johnston'; 13 October 1874 – 6 March 1938) was a Scottish diplomat and colonial official who served as the tutor and advisor to Puyi, the last emperor of China.

In 1904, he was transferred to the British leased territory at Weihaiwei on the coast of the Shandong Peninsula as a District Officer, working with Sir James Stewart Lockhart.

[citation needed] Selected by the Colonial Office for his expertise in Chinese history and culture in 1919, he was appointed tutor of thirteen-year-old Puyi who still lived inside the Forbidden City in Peking as a non-sovereign monarch.

Johnston met the Ming dynasty imperial descendant, Zhu Yuxun, the Marquis of Extended Grace, and arranged for him to meet Puyi in the Forbidden City.

In his account of his time at the Forbidden City, Johnston notes the rampant corruption of the imperial household, with eunuchs selling off dynastic treasures.

[6] Johnston was appointed Professor of Chinese in the University of London in 1931, a post based at the School of Oriental and African Studies, to which he bequeathed his library in 1935.

[citation needed] He retained his ties with Puyi, hosting one of his sisters and her husband at his house in Mortlake Road, Kew, in London during the 1930s, and even visited him in Manchukuo in July 1935.

Sparshott justified her actions by saying "when a woman makes the supreme sacrifice for a man (her reputation) she probably feels too deeply to be able to identify herself with him for some long time".

[9][2] Johnston's book Twilight in the Forbidden City (1934) describes his experiences in Peking and was used as a source for Bernardo Bertolucci's film dramatization of Puyi's life The Last Emperor.