Harcourt Johnstone minister) and Anthony Eden amongst prominent government mourners. Harcourt Johnstone Harcourt Johnstone (19 May 1895 – 1 March 1945), nicknamed Crinks, was a British Liberal Party politician. Johnstone was born in London in 1895, the son of the Hon. Sir Alan Johnstone, a British diplomat, and his American wife Antoinette Pinchot. His nickname 'Crinks' is alleged to have derived from the wrinkled face he had as a baby. One of his ancestors was Sir William Vernon Harcourt (1827–1904) who was Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer under William Ewart Gladstone. His paternal grandfather was the first Baron Derwent. Harcourt
James Vernon on the revolution for the post of private secretary to Lord Shrewsbury. On Shrewsbury's resignation, Vernon served in the same capacity Sir John Trenchard, by whom he was employed in Flanders in the summer of 1692 to furnish reports of the movements of the army to Sir William Dutton Colt, British minister at Celle. In 1693 he was appointed to a commissionership of prizes, which he held until 1705. On 30 October 1695 he was returned to parliament for Penryn, Cornwall, and on 22 July 1698 for Westminster, which seat he continued to hold until the dissolution of 2 July