Johnston attracted public notice again in 1865 as one of the executive councillors who petitioned the Queen against the McCulloch government's controversial handling of financial matters. A street in Collingwood commemorates his parliamentary career. He was commissioner of public works in the O'Shanassy government from November 1861 to June 1863 and held his assembly seat until 1864. In May Johnston became a commissioner of National education. In February 1861 he resigned from the ministry with his colleague Robert Stirling Anderson when Heales compromised with assembly demands to reduce expenditure. After the Nicholson ministry was defeated in November, he declined the post of chief secretary but accepted the portfolios of vice-president of the board of land and works and commissioner of public works in the Heales ministry. His inability to identify with the 'popular party' became apparent in debates on the 1860 land bill when he opposed Land Convention demands for selection before survey and deferred payments, though he genuinely sought enactment of the bill. He supported the Nicholson ministry while it lasted, but was only a shadow of the former 'fiery, knock-down Johnston'. Next year he was returned with (Sir) Archibald Michie for St Kilda to the Legislative Assembly. When it was defeated he resigned and left for Scotland.īack in Victoria in July 1858 Johnston stood for Southern Province in the Legislative Council but lost. Scornful of the colony's administration, he moved a want of confidence in the 'weak, vacillating and spiritless executive' in November. He argued for a National education system and initiated an abortive voluntaryist bill. He also proposed the opening of agricultural lands near the goldfields and the limitation of pastoral leases to intermediate districts. In the council he denounced transportation and in December 1851 and November 1852 advocated the substitution of an export duty for the gold licence tax. In November 1851 Johnston was elected with William Westgarth and (Sir) John O'Shanassy to represent the City of Melbourne in the Legislative Council where with other urban liberals he opposed government nominees and squatters' representatives. A familiar figure in the celebrations of the St Andrews and Burns Societies, Johnston was invariably welcome for his rousing after-dinner speeches and rallying songs. He advocated the separation of the Port Phillip District from New South Wales, addressed public meetings on anti-transportation in 1849-50 and in 1851 was elected to the Victorian executive of the Australasian League. A fluent, pungent speaker, he joined the anti- La Trobe party in the council. In 1844 Johnston was returned unopposed to the Melbourne City Council for Bourke ward and became an alderman in 1848. Late in 1848 Johnston and Wilson bought the Argus in 1852 Johnston sold out to James Gill who was soon replaced by Lauchlan Mackinnon. In 1841-46 he held the Eumemmering cattle station near Dandenong with Edward Wilson. Strachan & Co., opened the Southern Cross Hotel in West Bourke Street which he ran until about 1846, and bought land at St Kilda. In April 1840 he moved to Melbourne where he became a book-keeper to the merchants J. In May 1838 he arrived in the Jane at Hobart Town where he joined the office of the superintendent of convicts. He returned to Edinburgh in September 1836 and was briefly a book-keeper. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh but in September 1834 went to Demerara, British Guiana. Orphaned early, Johnston was brought up by his mother's family. James Stewart Johnston (1811-1896), politician, newspaper manager and vigneron, was born on 7 February 1811 in West Lothian, Scotland, the only son of James Johnston, part-proprietor of the Adambrae papermill at Mid Calder, and his wife Mary, née Stewart.
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