Born in Sudbury, Ontario , David Johnston received his B. A. from Harvard in 1963 . He holds law degrees from Cambridge University and from Queen's, and served on the Law Faculties of Queen's and the University of Toronto before being appointed Dean of Law at the University of Western Ontario in 1974. The author of numerous publications, he has specialized in securities regulation and in corporation and labour law. He took up his duties as Principal and Vice-Chancellor in September 1979, serving in that capacity until August 1994 . Thereafter, he continued his academic career at McGill, teaching in the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law.

H. Wyatt Johnston was born in Montréal in 1887, the son of Wyatt Galt Johnston (M.D.,C.M., McGill, 1884) and his wife Elizabeth Turnor. After serving in the World War I, he earned a B.Sc. from McGill in 1921. Until the outbreak of World War II he directed the pulp and paper division of Forest Products Laboratories. He served with the Armoured Corps in the War, and in 1945 joined Southerland Refiners Co.

William James Johnson was born on August 18, 1833, in Inverness, Quebec. A prominent merchant, He was Consulting Mining Engineer for the Canada Life Building, as well as Director in Johnson's Asbestos Company.

In 1869, he married Emily Ward. He died on April 30, 1910, in Lachine, Quebec.

William Arthur Johnson was born in Bombay. The Duke of Wellington was his godfather. Although intended for the army, Johnson, after migrating to Upper Canada in 1831, entered the Anglican Church. He was a curate to Archdeacon A.N. Bethune at Cobourg. However, his tractarian tendencies made him unpopular and he was made rector of St.Philip's at Etobicoke, a remote village across the river from Weston. There he established a school that was to become Trinity College School. Among Johnson's pupils was William Osler, who regarded Johnson as one of his mentors.

Prof. Walter Rogers Johnson was born on June 12, 1794, in Leominster, Worcester, Massachusetts.

He was an educator, educational reformer, scientist, and author. He graduated from Harvard College in 1819 and started to teach first at Framingham Academy and later at Salem Academy, Mass. He served as principal of the Germantown Academy, Penn. In 1826, he moved to Philadelphia and taught at Franklin Institute. In 1839, he became Professor of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy at Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg. He was deeply interested in the cause of public education. He became the first Secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1848. He also did research on coal for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C., and published numerous books related to his research.

In 1824, he married Nancy Maria Donaldson (1794–1890), a missionary and inventor of a hand-cranked ice cream freezer. He died on April 26, 1852, in Washington, D.C.