Thomas Johnston CH (1882 – 5 September 1965) was a prominent Scottish socialist and politician of the early 20th century, a member of the Labour Party, a Member of Parliament (MP) and government minister – usually with Cabinet responsibility for Scottish affairs.

Red Clydesider

Johnston was born in Kirkintilloch in 1882 and educated at Lenzie Academy. At the University of Glasgow, he helped launch the left-wing journal, Forward, in 1906, and in the same city later became associated with the 'Red Clydesiders', a socialist grouping that included James Maxton and Manny Shinwell.

First elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Stirling and Clackmannan West in November 1922 general election, Johnston lost his seat at the October 1924 general election. He quickly returned to Parliament, winning the Dundee by-election in December.

He was re-elected for Stirling and Clackmannan Western at the 1929 general election, when he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Scotland by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. This troubled administration was relatively short-lived; only a handful of Labour ministers supported MacDonald’s proposal of a coalition government, with Johnston and other Red Clydesiders among the strong opponents. This opposition may have backfired (albeit temporarily), as Johnston lost his seat at the 1931 general election, and failed to be returned at a by-election in Dunbartonshire in 1932, but he returned (representing Stirling and Clackmannan West) to the House of Commons at the 1935 general election and remained an MP until retiring in 1945 general election.

War-time roles

In April 1939, during the build-up to the Second World War, John Anderson, the Home Secretary, appointed Johnston as Commissioner for Civil Defence in Scotland. In this role, Johnston over-saw preparations for aerial bombardment and possible invasion, and the organisation of shelter and relief work. Prime Minister Winston Churchill appointed Johnston as Secretary of State for Scotland on 12 February 1941, and Johnston retained the post until May 1945. A long-standing supporter of the Home Rule movement, he was able to persuade Churchill of the need to counter the nationalist threat north of the border and created a Scottish Council of State and a Council of Industry as institutions to devolve some power away from Whitehall.

Post-war activity

Post-war, Johnston subsequently served as chairman of various Scottish organisations, including the Scottish National Forestry Commission (1945-48) and the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board (1946-59). He represented Scottish interests in the council appointed to devise the 1951 Festival of Britain. He was also Chancellor of Aberdeen University from 1951 until his death in 1965.

Power to the Glens

Undoubtedly his greatest legacy was the creation of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. Until the 1940s, many rural areas of Scotland outwith the Central Belt had little or no electricity supply. There were coal-fired steam-turbine and some diesel-driven power stations serving urban locations, and excess capacity from a few large industrial hydroelectricity stations (eg. those serving the aluminium smelters at Foyers and Kinlochleven) was made available locally, but there was no widespread distribution of electricity through a comprehensively-integrated electric power transmission system such as the present National Grid.

Possibly inspired by the earlier example of the American Tennessee Valley Authority initiative of the New Deal administration of President Franklin D Roosevelt, but undoubtedly determined to address the very strong popular sentiment of the immediate post-war period for a more equitable distribution of the resources and benefits of a modern economy, Johnston strove hard and successfully to win over all interested parties, including generally-reluctant landowners, to the goal of harnessing the (then) scarcely-developed but naturally well-suited geography and climate of the Scottish Highlands to the generation of electricity by water power. In the three decades following the Second World War, the Hydro Board's teams of planners, engineers, architects and labourers succeeded in creating an epic succession of electricity generation and distribution schemes that were world-renowned not only for successfully achieving their technical aims in very demanding terrain but for often doing so in an aesthetically-inspiring manner. The economic and social benefits thus brought to all the people of Scotland, and especially those in rural areas, were immense and longlasting.

References

• Miller, Jim The Dam Builders: Power from the Glens (ISBN 1841582255; Birlinn 2003)
• Torrance, David The Scottish Secretaries (Birlinn 2006)
• Thomas Johnston's entry in the Dictionary of National Biography