Reginald Johnston - Tutor To Puyi, in The Forbidden City

Tutor To Puyi, in The Forbidden City

In 1919, he was appointed tutor of thirteen-year-old Puyi who still lived inside the Forbidden City in Beijing as a non-sovereign monarch.

As the British-born tutor to the Dragon Emperor, Johnston and Isabel Ingram, daughter of an American missionary and the empress' tutoress, were the only foreigners in history to be allowed inside the inner court of the Qing Dynasty. Johnston carried high imperial titles and lived in both the Forbidden City and the New Summer Palace.

After Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City in 1924, Johnston served as Secretary to the British China Indemnity Commission (1926). In 1927, he was appointed the second civilian Commissioner at Weihaiwei. He ran the territory until it was returned to the Republic of China on 1 October 1930. The dignity of Johnston's official departure — the first such by a British administrator from a British possession in China — to a waiting Royal Navy vessel, was somewhat spoiled by his obvious irritation at a servant who had failed to pack properly all of his clothes.