Born on 17 August 1898 second child and only son of John Bathgate Johnston, merchant, and Lilian May his wife, he was educated at Adelaide High School and University, qualifying in 1924. He came to the London Hospital and, after two years postgraduate study in England, returned to South Australia, w

Educated at Caius College, Cambridge, and St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he was Brackenbury Surgical Scholar, demonstrator of anatomy and senior house surgeon. He was then appointed chief assistant to the surgical professorial unit. He took the Fellowship in 1927 and the Cambridge Mastership of Su