5th September 1965 saw the death in Milngavie of Tom Johnston who was a former Secretary of State for Scotland.
He was born in 1881 in Kirkintilloch and educated at Lairdsland Public School and Lenzie Academy. After he left school he became interested in politics and stood successfully for a local election in 1903 representing the Independent Labour Party. In 1906, thanks to inheriting a printing press from a relative, he was able to set up The Forward, a radical weekly paper that reflected his Fabianism and teetotalism. He remained editor until 1933. It was in the early days of running the paper that he matriculated at the University of Glasgow as a mature student of twenty-three. In 1907 he took a class in Moral Philosophy and gave his address as the Student Settlement, a pioneering student association interested in social improvement. The following year he enrolled for Economics, but he left without graduating.
During the First World War he advocated peace and attacked war profiteers. After the war he stood for parliament, and in 1922 won West Stirlingshire seat. The period of his greatest achievement was during the Second World War. Churchill appointed him as secretary of state for Scotland in 1941.
Tom Johnston worked with colleagues of all parties to galvanise the Scottish economy on a war footing and created the North of Scotland Hydro- Electric Board. handling rural Scotland’s resistance and hesitation towards the project intelligently. Undoubtedly this was his greatest legacy, until the 1940s, many rural areas of Scotland outwith the Central Belt had little or no electricity supply. He was the driving force behind the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board.
After leaving politics in 1945 Johnston subsequently served as chairman of various Scottish organisations, including the Scottish Tourist Board, the Scottish National Forestry Commission.
In 1948 he was awarded the Freedom of the City of Aberdeen. He was also Chancellor of Aberdeen University from 1951 until his death in 1965
