George William Johnson (writer)
| George William Johnson | |
|---|---|
| Born |
4 November 1802 Blackheath, Kent, England |
| Died | 29 October 1886 (aged 83) Waldronhurst, Croydon, England |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Gray's Inn |
| Period | 1828-1873 |
| Subject | Gardening |
| Relatives | William Johnson (father), Cuthbert William Johnson (brother) |
George William Johnson (4 November 1802 – 29 October 1886), was a British writer on gardening.
Johnson, born at Blackheath, Kent, 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, 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. One of their discoveries was an economical method of separating sulphate of magnesia, or Epsom salts, from seawater. 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 in 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, 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 January 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 dangerous condition, was, in January 1846, sustained by the court of exchequer, but was ultimately reversed in 1853 on an appeal to the House of Lords.
In 1839 he was appointed professor of moral and political economy in the Hindoo college at Calcutta; became one of the editors of the Englishman newspaper there, and edited the government Gazette while Lord Auckland was governor-general (1837–41). On his return to England in 1842, he wrote The Stranger in India, or Three Years in Calcutta in 1843.
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