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Samuel Johnson 1709-1784

Visit Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum

Samuel Johnson was born in a large house in the centre of Lichfield on 18th September, 1709. His father, Michael, was a bookseller and his mother, Sarah, a daughter of a north Warwickshire landowner. Samuel was educated at Lichfield and Stourbridge Grammar schools and later attended Pembroke College, Oxford until a combination of depression and financial hardship forced him to leave without a degree. After unsuccessful attempts to find school-teaching posts in the Midlands he settled in Birmingham, embarking on a career as a journalist and translator. It was here he met Elizabeth Porter whom Johnson married in Derby in 1735. After attempts to run a school at Edial Hall, Burntwood met with little success, Johnson left the Midlands with his pupil David Garrick, to pursue a literary career in London.

For the next 32 years Johnson supported himself and his wife by his writing: miscellaneous journalism and parliamentary debates for The Gentleman’s Magazine, translation, biography, poetry and various scholarly projects. By 1745 his reputation as a scholar and critic led to him being offered the task of writing an English dictionary.

The task of writing a dictionary took him the best part of 10 years work. For much of the time he and his wife lived and worked in their house at Gough Square, just off Fleet Street, although at one point their marriage turned sour and Elizabeth spent time at the village of Hampstead. In this period Johnson wrote his greatest poem, The Vanity of Human Wishes and his twice-weekly Rambler essays. David Garrick, now actor-manager at Drury Lane Theatre, also produced Johnson’s only play, the Turkish tragedy, Irene.

The dictionary appeared in 1755 and made Johnson a famous but not a rich man. Elizabeth unfortunately died before its publication and Johnson went on to embark on a series of long and short-term projects including an edition of Shakespeare’s plays and a short novel called Rasselas. His fame grew along with his circle of friends who included Samuel Richardson, Oliver Goldsmith and James Boswell. After a short break he continued to write for several years and when he died in 1784 aged 75 he was buried in Westminster Abbey, a national celebrity.

After his death his achievements and personal qualities were commemorated by many writers including Boswell who wrote ‘Life of Johnson’. Johnson is now renowned as one of the greatest writers of English prose and amongst the finest poets of his century. He is also one of the founders of modern biography and his essays and political writings provide a unique insight into his world.

His childhood home and birthplace has now been transformed into a museum dedicated to his life, work and personality and is open throughout the year.