JOHNSTON, John (fl. 1846-49) made his living as an architect and artist during his brief stay in Toronto, Ont. He may have arrived in Canada from New York City, where an architect of same name is listed in City Directories from 1841 to 1846 (D.S. Francis, Architects in Practice in New York City 1840-1900, 1979, 44). His name first appears in Toronto on 28 September 1846 when he was asked by John G. Howard to engrave a perspective and plan view of his monumental Lunatic Asylum in Toronto (Howard Journals, Baldwin Room, Metro Toronto Reference Library). Copies of these lithographs, first published in 1847, survive in the John Ross Robertson Collection (Baldwin Room, B8 60F, 60G, and 61). Johnston prepared plans for a new warehouse and extensive improvements to existing buildings at Maitland's Wharf, Esplanade Street, TORONTO, ONT. (Examiner [Toronto], 12 May 1847) and he is almost certainly the same 'J. Johnston, Architect' who designed a pair of Georgian houses with retail shops for James Liddell, Front Street East at Church Street, TORONTO, ONT. (Examiner [Toronto], 4 Oct. 1848, 2).
In 1847 he was one of six architects who submitted designs in the competition for Knox Presbyterian Church, Queen Street, West, but his proposal was set aside in favour of that prepared by William Thomas (British Colonist [Toronto], 27 July 1847). Johnston was not discouraged by this loss, and set about engraving a refined perspective view of the winning entry for publication and sale. His drawing was described as 'decidedly the best specimen that we have seen produced in Upper Canada' (Examiner [Toronto], 20 Oct. 1847; copy of engraving in Baldwin Room, T-10256). He had earned the respect of his professional colleagues in Toronto when, in 1849, both he and John G. Howard, Thomas Young and William Thomas were appointed to serve on a selection committee to advise the wardens of St. James Anglican Church on the awarding of premiums for their new church on King Street East (Howard Journals, 10 Sept. 1849). Later that same year he served on a committee of prominent architects formed to advise the City of Toronto on new fire bylaws for building construction. He apparently left Toronto after January 1850, but a number of his drawings which he exhibited in 1847 and 1848 in Toronto indicate that he may have practised his profession in Suffolk and Cheshire, England in 1824-26, and prepared the design for St George's Anglican Church at Esopus, West Park, Ulster County, N.Y., U.S.A., built in 1842 and still extant (Toronto Society of Arts Second Exhibition 1848, Items 117, 376; inf. from private manuscript prepared by Stephen A. Otto, Toronto, January 1982)