Harcourt Johnstone 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 Johnstone was educated at Eton College and at
William Harcourt (politician) John Howland of Streatham. William was therefore born a Vernon, and by his connection with the old families of Vernon and Harcourt was related to many of the great English houses, a fact of which he was proud. In later life his descent from the Plantagenets was a joke among his political opponents. William's childhood was an austere one, educated at home by a Swiss governess, he was sent to a private school at Southwell, Nottinghamshire when he was eight. William's father denied him a public school education, sending him to be educated in classics at the small class of