Vale Emeritus Professor Anthony (Tony) H. Johns

The ANU Indonesia Institute mourns the passing of Emeritus Professor Anthony (Tony) H. Johns AM on 26 October 2025 in Canberra.

Tony was a pioneer of Indonesian and Malaysian Studies in Australia. Together with his wife Yohanni, he arrived in Canberra in 1958 to begin a decades-long service to the study and teaching of Indonesian, Malay, and Arabic at ANU. Generations of scholars of Indonesia thrived under Tony’s kind mentorship and countless students were inspired by his passionate teaching. His engagement with traditional manuscripts of the archipelago reshaped our understanding of Indonesia’s place in the Islamic world, while his exploration of modern Indonesian literature helped Australians to relate to the emerging culture of our great neighbouring nation. 

Tony’s approach to research and teaching underscored the inseparability of cultural understanding, historical inquiry, and language proficiency. As the senior academic in the field, Tony’s leadership laid the groundwork for the ANU’s expertise in Southeast Asian studies from the 1960s through to the present day. His intellectual legacy is recognised in the Institute’s annual Tony and Yohanni Johns Lecture, which showcases groundbreaking work in Indonesian humanities.

In 2025, Tony was awarded the Medal in the Order of Australia (AM) for ‘significant service to tertiary education, particularly to language and culture’. He will be profoundly missed by his friends and colleagues, and the Institute expresses our deepest condolences for his wife Yohanni, his children David, Michael, Gregory, Monica and Francis, and all other members of his family.