Stanley Johnson (writer)

Stanley Patrick Johnson (born 18 August 1940) of West Nethercote, Winsford, Somerset, is a British politician and author, and an expert on environmental and population issues. He was a Conservative MEP for Wight & Hampshire East from 1979 to 1984 and is a former employee of the World Bank and the European Commission. He is co-chairman of Environmentalists for Europe (E4E), a collection of pro-EU environmentalists campaigning for the UK to remain a member of the EU.
His four sons include the former Mayor of London and current Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, and Jo Johnson, MP for Orpington and Minister of State for Universities and Science.

Johnson was born in 1940 in Penzance, Cornwall, the son of Osman Kemal Wilfred Johnson and Irene Williams (daughter of Stanley F. Williams of Bromley, Kent, by his marriage to Marie Louise de Pfeffel (or Freiin von Pfeffel) in Paris on 15 August 1882). His paternal grandfather Ali Kemal, one of the last interior ministers of the Ottoman Empire government, was assassinated during the Turkish War of Independence. Stanley's father was born Osman Wilfred Kemal or Osman Ali in England in Bournemouth, Hampshire, in 1909, his Anglo-Swiss mother Winifred dying shortly after giving birth.

After Ali Kemal returned to Turkey in 1912, Stanley's father and aunt were brought up by their English grandmother Margaret Brun (née Johnson) and took her maiden name, Stanley's father becoming simply Wilfred Johnson. His maternal grandparents were Hubert Freiherr von Pfeffel (born in Munich on 8 December 1843) and his wife Helene von Rivière (born on 14 January 1862). von Pfeffel was the son of Karl Freiherr von Pfeffel (born in Dresden on 22 November 1811; died in Munich on 25 January 1890) and his wife (m. in Augsburg on 16 February 1836) Karolina von Rothenburg (born in Frankfurt on 28 November 1805; died in Frankfurt on 13 February 1872), herself the natural daughter of Prince Paul of Württemberg by Friederike Porth.

Johnson attended Sherborne School, Dorset. While still an undergraduate reading the Greats at Exeter College, Oxford, he took part in the Marco Polo Expedition with Tim Severin and Michael de Larrabeiti, travelling on a motorcycle and sidecar from Oxford to Venice and on to India and Afghanistan. The adventure led to the publication of Severin's 1964 book Tracking Marco Polo with photographs by de Larrabeiti.

He has previously worked at the World Bank, has a great interest in the environment and was the Head of Prevention of Pollution Division at the European Commission from 1973-1979. He is a trustee of the Gorilla Organisation and a board member of Plantlife International. In 1983 he received the RSPCA Richard Martin Award for Outstanding Services to animal welfare and in 1984 he received the Greenpeace Award for Outstanding Services to the Environment. He is an ambassador for the UNEP Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals based in Bonn, Germany.

He has published a number of books dealing with environmental issues and nine novels, including The Commissioner, which was made into a 1998 film starring John Hurt.

He attempted a political comeback in the 2005 general election, when he stood for the Conservative Party in the constituency of Teignbridge. He came second behind Richard Younger-Ross of the Liberal Democrats.

For a time, starting on 26 May 2005, he wrote a weekly column for the G2 section of The Guardian, and continues to write for various newspapers and magazines, often on environmental topics (see Stanley Johnson personal site below for details). He was one of the first regular hosts of the late night discussion programme The Last Word on Channel 4's More4 channel, and made an appearance on Have I Got News For You on 7 May 2004.

On 5 May 2008, it was reported that Johnson hoped to be selected to contest his son Boris's parliamentary seat of Henley for the Conservative Party. However, on 29 May, it was reported that the local Conservative party had chosen three local people as possible candidates and on 30 May, local councillor John Howell was selected to fight the by-election.

He has written an autobiographical memoir, Stanley I Presume, which was published in March 2009.

Stanley Johnson married the painter Charlotte (née Fawcett, later Wahl) in Marylebone, London, in 1963, and with her had four children: Boris Johnson, Conservative MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, since July 2016 Foreign Secretary and the immediate past Mayor of London; Rachel Johnson, a journalist and former editor in chief of The Lady; Jo Johnson, Minister of State for Universities and Science and Conservative MP for Orpington and Head of Lex at the Financial Times; and Leo Johnson, a film-maker and entrepreneur. He was divorced in the 1980s and later married Jennifer Kidd and had two further children, Julia and Maximilian.

• Gold Drain (1967, Heinemann) ISBN B0000CNKG6
• Panther Jones for President (1968, Heinemann) ISBN 0-434-37701-5
• Life without Birth: A Journey Through the Third World in Search of the Population Explosion (1970, Heinemann) ISBN 0-434-37702-3
• The Green Revolution (1972, Hamilton) ISBN 0-241-02102-2
• The Population Problem (1973, David & C) ISBN 0-7153-6282-8
• The Politics of Environment (1973, T Stacey) ISBN 0-85468-298-8
• The Urbane Guerilla (1975, Macmillan) ISBN 0-333-17679-0
• Pollution Control Policy of the EEC (1978, Graham & Trotman) ISBN 0-86010-136-3
• The Doomsday Deposit (1979, EP Dutton) ISBN 0-525-09468-7
• The Marburg Virus (1982, Heinemann) ISBN 0-434-37704-X
• Tunnel (1984, Heinemann) ISBN 0-434-37705-8
• Antarctica: The Last Great Wilderness (1985, Weidenfeld & N) ISBN 0-297-78676-8
• The Commissioner (1987, Century) ISBN 0-7126-1587-3
• World Population and the United Nations (1987, Cambridge UP) ISBN 0-521-32207-3
• Dragon River (1989, Frederick Muller) ISBN 0-09-173526-2
• The Earth Summit: The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) (1993, Kluwer Law International) ISBN 978-1-85333-784-0
• World Population - Turning the Tide (1994, Kluwer Law International) ISBN 1-85966-046-0
• The Environmental Policy of the European Communities (1995, Kluwer Law International) ISBN 90-411-0862-9
• The Politics of Population: Cairo, 1994 (1995, Earthscan) ISBN 1-85383-297-9
• Icecap (1999, Cameron May) ISBN 1-874698-67-8
• Stanley I Presume (2009, Fourth Estate Ltd) ISBN 0-00-729672-X
• Survival: Saving Endangered Migratory Species [co-authored with Robert Vagg] (2010, Stacey International) ISBN 1-906768-11-0
• Where the Wild Things Were: Travels of a Conservationist (2012, Stacey International) ISBN 1-906768-87-0
• UNEP The First 40 Years; A Narrative by Stanley Johnson (2012, United Nations Environment Programme) ISBN 978-92-807-3314-3
• Stanley I Resume" (2014, Biteback) ISBN 978-1-84954-741-3