William Johnston (22 February 1829 – 17 July 1902) was an Irish Orangeman, unionist and Member of Parliament for Belfast, distinguished by his independent working-class following and commitment to reform.

He first entered the United Kingdom Parliament as an Irish Conservative in 1868, celebrated for having broken a standing ban on Orange Order processions and as the nominee of an association of "Protestant Workers".

He was succeeded in 1902 as the MP for South Belfast, by Thomas Sloan, similarly supported by loyalist workers in opposition to the official unionist candidates favoured by their employers.

[14] Conservative leaders refused to endorse his nomination and instead proposed the eminent architect Charles Lanyon and John Mulholland, the owner of the York Street Spinning Mill.

[5] Brokered by the MacKnight,[16] Johnston's understanding with McClure included, addition to repeal of the Party Procession Act (achieved through a private members bill in 1872), comprehensive land reform.

[19] In 1901, he did follow his party in voting against the principle of "compulsory purchase" (of compelling landlords to sell to their tenants) advanced with the support of both Catholic and Protestant farmers by the Independent Unionist, T. W. Russell.

In his last appearance on election hustings, in February 1902 Johnston, on orders from Lord Arthur Hill and the Marquess of Londonderry,[3]: 104  campaigned for the Conservative against the Russellite candidate in an East Down by-election.

[9]: 215 In the 1874 general election, Johnston retained his Belfast seat as an official Conservative,[22] but this was with the endorsement of a local party association reconstituted with a stipulation that two-thirds of voting members be working men.

The Conservative government that Johnston supported on Disraeli's return to office, engaged in an unprecedented "burst of social legislation": legalising and indemnifying trades unions, permitting peaceful picketing, limiting working hours, promoting slum clearance and establishing public health authorities.

[31][29] In 1895, Johnston introduced a suffrage bill that specifically stated that any person in Ireland, regardless of sex or marital status, who was a ratepayer or who was entitled to vote for Guardians of the Poor, should receive both local and national franchise rights.

[32] His republican and Land-League nemesis in the Commons, Michael Davitt, expressed his "cordial sympathy" for the motion, but appealed to Johnston "not to persevere with it to the extent of endangering this Bill".

[35] In March 1878, Johnston resigned from Parliament to take the position of Inspector of Fisheries in Ireland, an instance, according to the historian Paul Bew, of his being "bought off" by government patronage.

[13] Johnston held his government post until dismissed in 1885 because of the "inflammatory" and party-political nature of a number of speeches he had delivered denouncing the nationalist-led Land League and the Home Rule party.

[37][38][39] At the 1885 general election, Johnston was returned to parliament for the new South Belfast constituency as an Independent Conservative member, in time to vote against Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill.

Back in the Commons, Johnston proposed that if the bill passed that the "Protestants of Ulster;" would resist "at the point of the bayonet", and that they would be led by Lord Wolseley, the Adjutant-General to the Forces, "and 1,000 other officers" who were ready to "throw up their commissions".

[40][41] That Johnston, himself, had been involved in some form of military preparation against the prospect of a Dublin parliament is suggested by his decision to "stop drilling for the present", recorded in his dairy three days after the measure's defeat in June 1886.

In a cult that "prefigured that which was [later] generated around Sir Edward Carson", the leader of Ulster Unionism, his stature as an Orangeman, the hero of 1867, was celebrated in loyalist ballads and his "bearded and patriarchal features" appeared on Orange drums, collarettes and banners.

[45] Biggar, with whom Johnston attended meetings of Tod's Suffrage Society in Belfast,[46][47] was the obstructionist leader of the Irish Nationalists in the House of Commons, and a Presbyterian convert to Roman Catholicism.

[52] Johnston's eldest son, Lewis, who was to become Postmaster General of Hong Kong, did follow him into the Orange Order, but was also to express an interest in the esoteric and occult.

[3]: 104 Following his return to Parliament in 1885, some historians suggest that Johnston's "fiery Orangeism" was "thoroughly harnessed" to conservative interests, so that in his later years he was "increasingly out of touch with popular protestantism".