Johnstone Sheldon

Born: c.1865, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, son of Joseph Sheldon and Jane SMITH; brother of Ernest George Sheldon and Joseph Sheldon

Died:

Johnstone Sheldon was a journalist; he worked for the Ballarat Star newspaper for four years. In November 1895, Johnstone and his younger brother, Herbert (born 1875), departed for South Africa from Melbourne, Australia, aboard the S.S. Damascus. On arrival in Johannesburg, they were met by their older brother, Joseph (born 1863), who had travelled out six months earlier.

Johnstone was present at the Battle of Stormberg with General William Gatacre's forces, where he received a "brand of a bullet across his brow".

(Source: "Interview with a London Pressman", 28 June 1900, pg.39, Otago Witness, Issue 2416, New Zealand. See image to the right.)In 1900, Johnstone visited both Wellington, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia to lecture on the Second Anglo-Boer War and South Africa: "Mr. Sheldon has had to relinquish his work owing to the strain having told upon his health, and he is taking a round trip as a means of recuperation." (Source: "A War Correspondent's Lecture", 14 June 1900, pg. 6, Evening Post, Volume LIX, Issue 140, New Zealand)Although the New Zealand Evening Post ran the breathless advertisement promoting Johnstone's lecture (Source: Page 6 Advertisements Column 1, 15 June 1900, pg.6, Evening Post, Volume LIX, Issue 141), the resulting review was not favorable: "The major portion of Mr. Sheldon's lecture had to do with the Stormberg disaster, but he threw no new light upon what he himself termed the most inexplicable affair of the war" and noted that "throughout the lecture there was much word-painting but very little statement of instructive matters of fact." (Source: "A Lecture on the War", 16 June 1900, pg.5, Evening Post, Volume LIX, Issue 142, New Zealand.)The Australian audience were no more sympathetic."Visting South African journalist Johnstone Sheldon, who had been on the Johannesburg Star at the start of the war and who became "Special War Correspondent of the London Daily Chronicle and Cape Argus, gave four lectures at the Palace Theatre in June 1900. He brought '100 realistic limelight' views of the 'grand and rugged scenery' to his analysis of the battle of Stormberg. The colonists, echoing Archibald Forbes' view that they were a practical people concerned for their own advantage, were more interested in the information contained in the pictures on the potential of southern Africa for settlement and trade than in Sheldon's 'patriotic appeals'. See also Bulletin, 7 July 1900, pp.8-9, Sydney Morning Hearld, 26 June 1900, p.2 and 30 June 1900, pg.8, Evening News, 30 June 1900, p.8."; all referenced in Ailsa McPherson's 2001 doctoral thesis "Diversions in a Tented Field: Theatricality and the images and perceptions of warfare in Sydney entertainments, 1879-1902". (PDF)

"In June 1900, South African journalist Johnstone Sheldon appeared in 'the full dress costume of the veldt' for his lectures.", adopting a style started by a fellow war correspondent, while lecturing in Sydney, Australia. (See Bulletin, 7 July 1900, p.8 and Sydney Morning Herald, 29 August 1901, p.7, both referenced in Ailsa McPherson's 2001 doctoral thesis "Diversions in a Tented Field: Theatricality and the images and perceptions of warfare in Sydney entertainments, 1879-1902" (PDF))

Johnstone is briefly mentioned in Frederic William Unger's 1901 book, With "Bobs" and Krüǵer: "Captain Tennant introduced me to two other correspondents, Mr. Sheldon, of the Cape Argus, and Mr. Swallow, of the Central News Company."

Johnstone, as a war correspondent for the Daily Chronicle, was awarded a QSA, issued 16 February 1903. (Source: "War Correspondents", AngloBoerWar.com)