Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/560

 462

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. DEC. u, 1907.

DR. JOHNSON'S ANCESTORS AND

CONNEXIONS. (See ante, pp. 281, 382.)

Andrew Johnson. Since nay second article was in type Mr. Joseph Hill's excellent work on * The Book Makers of Old Birmingham ' has appeared. The only information I find in it about Andrew Johnson, that is not given in my book, is that " the church books of Aston show that in 1705 he sold two psalm books to that church for 4s., and probably he supplied a Bible also in 1708." Mr. Hill, who has evidently not referred to my book, gives a valuable plan of the centre of Birmingham early in the eighteenth century, showing the location of Andrew Johnson's and Harry Porter's shops.

Henry Ford, of Clifford's Inn. Mr. Bickley has been able to throw a little more light on Dr. Johnson's great-uncle. He has kindly lent me a bond, dated 15 April, 1685, by which Henry Ford, of Clifford's Inn, London, gent., binds himself to pay the sum of 110Z., with interest, to one Joseph Pemberton, of Birmingham. This bond, witnessed by Richard Smalbroke and James Pemberton, has clearly been filled up by Ford himself. In my book I was unable to give his signa- ture, so reproduce here

U

the one to this bond. The seal to the bond has undoubtedly been heraldic, but, as Mr. Bickley observes, is now quite unrecogniz- able. Interest on the sum, at the rate of 5 per cent, per annum, seems to have been paid for five years, up to 16 April, 1690, as is evidenced by endorsements in Ford's own writing. It was in the following Feb- ruary, at the age of sixty-three, that he relinquished his room at Clifford's Inn.

In my book I showed (p. 128) that Henry Ford married, in 1661, Rebecca, daughter of William Ingram, of Nuthurst, Hampton- in-Arden, and that Rebecca's brother, Isaac Ingram, of Nuthurst, by will dated 1671, left his property called Lindhursts, at Nuthurst, to his eldest son William, when eighteen years of age. From Burke's 'Landed Gentry,' 1906, under ' Aylesbury of Packwood,' I learn that Francis Ayles-

bury, of Packwood, who diea in 1705, had by Dorothy his wife (died 1711), daughter of William Grove, of Wassell, Hagley, co. Wore., a daughter Elizabeth, who married William Ingram, of Nuthurst. It was at Packwood that Cornelius Ford spent his declining years ; and there his daughter Sarah, in 1706, was married to Michael Johnson.

I also showed (p. 131) that Henry Ford's grandson, Charles Abnet, died at the Man- woods, Handsworth, in 1730, and quoted Stebbing Shaw's statement, over a century ago, that

" quite at the extremity of this parish, near Sand- well Park, is the Manwoods, an old stuccoed house, in the form of a cross, built by one Ford, steward to the Whorwoods, formerly of Sandwell. It passed, with the estate of about fifty acres, in marriage to> Mr. Abnet, who sold it to the earl of Dartmouth about forty years ago."

This left scarcely room for doubt that Dr. Johnson's great-uncle, Henry Ford, built the Manwoods. I was unable to get any particulars of this house in time to include in my book. But recently I wrote to Mr. W. H. Duignan, F.S.A., of Walsall, an old and valued correspondent of ' N. & Q.," asking him if he could tell me anything of the Manwoods. Mr. Duignan kindly for- warded my letter to his friend Mr. Frederick William Hackwood, of Handsworth, to whom I am much indebted for the following careful description of the house :

" The Manwoods (sometimes called Bayes Hall) is a farm-house situated on the very confines of Handsworth, the field which adjoins the back pre- mises being in the parish of West Bromwich.

"Considering the populousness of the two parishes by which it is surrounded, the situation is rather remote, being reached by a private road running out of Sandwell Park Lane towards the Hands- worth uplands, and which is abruptly brought to a termination by a gated field into which the house fronts. The house lies in a slight dip, surrounded by a low, old-fashioned, brick-coped wall, with a gateway opening between two pillars of corre- sponding style having the usual ball-caps of stone ;: and from which a snort flight of stone steps de- scends to a path leading across the side of a little lawn to the front entrance. Outside the gateway stands a horseblock, and just inside the wall are three fine old yew-trees, which almost screen the whole of the edifice from view.

" The residence is a gabled, red-brick, three- storied building, cruciform in plan, with all the chimney stacks clustered at the centre. It is totally devoid of architectural ornament, has no noticeable- feature inside or out (except, perhaps, its heavy- studded doors with great wrougnt-iron hinges), and possesses few associations of interest beyond those connecting it with Dr. Johnson.

" The Manwoods farm comprises at present 184- aores, leased from Lord Dartmouth by Mr. Thomas: Wells of Oscott, and occupied by his son-in-law,. Mr. Joseph Timmins.