Stanley Johnson was born in 1940 in
Penzance, Cornwall, the son of Osman Kemal (1909–1992) (later known as Wilfred Johnson) and Irene Williams (1907–1987; daughter of Stanley Fred Williams of
Bromley,
Kent – who was the grandson of
Sir George Williams – and Marie Louise
de Pfeffel). His paternal grandfather,
Ali Kemal Bey, one of the last interior ministers of the
Ottoman government, was assassinated in 1922 during the
Turkish War of Independence. Stanley's father was born in 1909 in
Bournemouth, and his birth was registered as Osman Ali Wilfred Kemal. Osman's Anglo-Swiss mother Winifred Brun died shortly after giving birth. Ali Kemal returned to the
Ottoman Empire in 1912, whereafter Osman Wilfred and his sister Selma were brought up by their English grandmother, Margaret Brun, and took her maiden name, Johnson, Stanley's father thus becoming Wilfred Johnson. Johnson's maternal grandmother's parents were Hubert
Freiherr von Pfeffel (born in
Munich in the
Kingdom of Bavaria on 8 December 1843) and his wife Hélène
Arnous-Rivière (born on 14 January 1862). Hubert von Pfeffel was the son of Karl Freiherr von Pfeffel (born in
Dresden in the
Kingdom of Saxony on 22 November 1811; died in Munich on 25 January 1890) by his marriage in
Augsburg on 16 February 1836 to Karolina von Rothenburg (born in the
Free City of Frankfurt on 28 November 1805; died in Frankfurt on 13 February 1872), herself said to be the
illegitimate daughter of
Prince Paul of Württemberg by Friederike Porth. Stanley Johnson attended Ravenswood preparatory School near Tiverton in Devon before going onto
Sherborne School, Dorset. While still an undergraduate studying English 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. Johnson started studying at
Columbia University in 1963, but dropped out after a year. While at Columbia he married the painter
Charlotte Fawcett in
Marylebone, with whom he had four children: Boris, former
Leader of the Conservative Party and
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom;
Rachel, journalist and former editor-in-chief of
The Lady;
Jo, former Conservative
member of Parliament (MP) for
Orpington, former
Minister of State for Universities, and former Head of the
Lex Column at the
Financial Times; and Leo, filmmaker and entrepreneur. In July 2020, during the
COVID-19 pandemic, Johnson posted pictures on
Instagram of himself travelling to
Athens, Greece. He was criticised by the
Liberal Democrat MP
Jamie Stone for travelling at a time when guidance under lockdown was to avoid "all but essential international travel". At the time, Greece had reopened its borders but banned direct travel from the United Kingdom; Johnson had circumvented Greece's rules by travelling via Bulgaria. In December 2020 Johnson said that he was applying for a
French passport as his mother and her parents were French. After subsequently being awarded French citizenship Johnson stated that he was delighted. ==Career==