Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/18

 England, and there prepared a sort of Apologia, entitled ‘A Discourse of some Troubles and Excommunications in the banished English Church at Amsterdam,’ which was published at Amsterdam in 1603, and, though unfinished, extends to 214 pages quarto of dense black letter. Two years after its publication Johnson died in Durham gaol, ‘in finishing the book which he had begunne.’

Ainsworth, in his ‘Counterpoyson,’ spoke of Johnson as having been ‘cast out of the Church for lying, slandering, false accusation, and contention;’ Robinson, in his ‘Justification of Separation from the Church of England,’ alludes to him as a ‘disgraceful libeller;’ and Richard Bernard [q. v.] uses the same terms, though elsewhere, in his ‘Separatists' Schisme,’ he says that ‘he is to be beleeved,’ and advises his reader, ‘if thou canst possiblie, get his booke.’ On the other hand, his brother Francis spoke well of him after his death, and Clyfton vigorously defends him in his ‘Advertisement concerning a Book lately published by C. Lawne and others against the excited English Church at Amsterdam.’ Mr. Dexter (Congregationalism of the last Three Hundred Years, p. 273), after a careful study of his book, the sole known copy of which he found in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, concludes that he was honest and conscientious, if somewhat weak-minded, jealous, and over-scrupulous.

[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabrigienses, vol. ii.; Strype's Annals, iv. 134; H. M. Dexter's Congregationalism; Waddington's Congregational Hist. vol. i.; Johnson's Discourse of some Troubles and Excommunications.]  JOHNSON, GEORGE HENRY SACHEVERELL (1808–1881), dean of Wells, third son of the Rev. Henry Johnson, was born at Keswick, Cumberland, in 1808. He matriculated from Queen's College, Oxford, on 13 May 1825, aged 17, and was elected Ireland scholar of the university in 1827, and became mathematical scholar in 1831, graduating B.A. in 1829, and M.A. in 1833. He was fellow of his college from 1829 to 1855, Greek lecturer, chaplain, and tutor 1842, bursar 1844, and dean 1848. While tutor he had among his pupils Tait, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury; Thomson, afterwards archbishop of York; Stanley, afterwards dean of Westminster; and the first Earl of Selborne. In 1834 he served as mathematical examiner at Oxford, and again in 1835, 1850, 1851, and 1852. He was Savilian professor of Astronomy from 1839 to 1842, Whyte professor of moral philosophy from 1842 to 1845, and one of the Whitehall preachers from 1852 to 1854. On 18 Jan. 1838 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He served on the royal commission of 1850 which inquired into the constitution and revenues of the university of Oxford, and on that appointed in 1854 to revise the statutes of the university and of the colleges and halls. On 27 March 1854 he was appointed dean of Wells, and in the following year became also vicar of St. Cuthbert's, Wells. His death took place at Weston-super-Mare on 4 Nov. 1881, and he was buried in the Palm churchyard, Wells Cathedral, on 10 Nov. He married, at Romsey, on 20 April 1854, Lucy, youngest daughter of Rear-admiral Robert O'Brien. He edited the Psalms for the ‘Speaker's Commentary,’ 1880, and published ‘Sermons preached in Wells Cathedral,’ 1857.

[Times, 7 Nov. 1881, p. 9; Guardian, 9 Nov. 1881, p. 1592.]  JOHNSON, GEORGE WILLIAM (1802–1886), writer on gardening, born at Blackheath, Kent, on 4 Nov. 1802, was younger son of William Johnson, proprietor successively of the Vauxhall distillery, of the Coalbrookdale china-works, and of salt-works at Heybridge in Essex. At Heybridge Johnson and his elder brother, Cuthbert William Johnson [q. v.], first found employment, and carried out experiments in the application of salt as manure, which they recounted in ‘An Essay on the Uses of Salt for Agriculture’ (2nd edit. 1821, 3rd edit. 1830, 13th edit. 1838). One of their discoveries was an economical method of separating sulphate of magnesia, or Epsom salts, from sea-water. As early as 1826 Johnson sent articles to Loudon's ‘Gardener's Magazine.’ His first independent work was ‘A History of English Gardening, Chronological, Biographical, Literary, and Critical’ (1829). It contains a vast amount of information, and exhibits great patience and research. At Great Totham, where he resided, he conducted experiments in gardening, and especially in the manufacture of manures. His ‘History of the Parish of Great Totham, Essex,’ was printed at the private press of Charles Clarke (d. 1840) [q. v.], in 1831. In 1835 he published ‘Memoirs of John Selden,’ which was dedicated to Lord Stanley. The two brothers in 1839 edited an edition of Paley's works, in which the ‘Evidences of Christianity’ were undertaken by the younger brother. Both had become students of Gray's Inn on 6 Jan. 1832, and were called to the bar on 8 June 1836. Johnson's professional opinion given to the churchwardens of Braintree, Essex, that the minority could make a rate to repair the church if the church were really in a dan-