Author: Johnson, John
Biography:
JOHNSON, John (1759-1833: ancestry.com)
A child of John Johnson (1712-1775) of Blackheath, and his wife, Elizabeth (Musgrave) Johnson (d 1765), he was born in London on 26 Sept. 1759 (not 30 Mar. 1760 as in ODNB). Several weeks later, he was baptized in St Giles in the Fields. His mother, a daughter of Sir George Musgrave of Eden Hall, was directly descended from Edward III. His full-sister, Julia (1762-1848), married commander-in-chief of India General Sir George Hewett. He had two half-siblings by his father’s marriage to Elizabeth Warner (d 1786), Godschall Johnson, developer of St John’s Wood Estate in London, and Sarah, wife of Walpole Eyre and then of Jeremiah Hodges. Having gained his early education as a boarder under Samuel Berdmore at Charterhouse School, he was admitted in June 1776 to Oriel College, Oxford (BA 1779, MA 1782). From 1784, he was rector of St Mary the Virgin, Great Parndon, Essex, in the gift of Patience Thomas Adams. He was vicar of North Mymms, Hertfordshire, from 1790, in the gift of Catharine Fullerton. On 24 Mar. 1784 at St Swithin, Walcot, Somerset, he married Eliza, the only child of John Waters (1726-1803) of Catherine Place, Bath, and of Hungerford Park, Berkshire. She died at Great Parndon on 27 Sept. 1808. There were at least two boys and three girls by the marriage. His youngest son, Philip, followed him as curate of North Mymms. He died on 11 Sept. 1833. One of his poems in Trifles in Verse, “On the Flight of a Tame Hawk,” first appeared in the May 1794 issue of GM. The CR reviewer of Trifles was dismissive: “Trifles ought at least to be elegant trifles.” His other reviewers were friendlier: Monthly Mirror, “deserves something more than the praise due to the mode in which he solicits the public favour, viz. that of thinking with freedom, and writing with simplicity;” MR, “ease and sprightliness … degree of archness mixed with much apparent goodness of heart.” The ODNB entry for Johnson under Johnson, John 1769-1833 is light on information. (ODNB 23 Nov. 2023; ancestry.com 24 Nov. 2023; CCEd 24 Nov. 2023; Alumni Oxoniensis; PROB 11/1822; CR 17 [1796], 353-54; MR 20 [1796], 347; Monthly Mirror 2 [May 1797], 22; Morning Post, 1 Oct. 1808; GM 103:2 [1833], 282; R. L. Arrowsmith, Charterhouse Register 1614-1769 [1974], 213) JC