Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Johnson, John (1777-1848)
JOHNSON, JOHN (1777–1848), printer, born in 1777, probably at Chester, was for some time in the printing-office of Thomas Bensley. ‘In 1813,’ says Sir Egerton Brydges, a compositor and a pressman ‘persuaded me to allow them to set up a private press’ at Lee Priory, near Canterbury, Kent (Autobiography, 1834, ii. 191–2). John Warwick was the pressman and Johnson the compositor. They took all pecuniary liabilities and sold the books, and Brydges supplied the copy. A large number of books, pamphlets, and leaflets were printed, all in small editions (see lists in J. Martin, Books Privately Printed, 1834, pp. 379–404; Lowndes, Bibliographer's Manual, ed. Bohn, vi. 218–25). In 1817 Johnson ceased his connection with the press, and in 1824 complained of ‘cruel and unjust treatment,’ adding that chancery proceedings were still lingering (Typographia, Pref. p. viii). He circulated, in July 1818, the prospectus of a work on printing, and with the financial support of Edward Walmsley printed in 1824 at his office, the Apollo Press, Brooke Street, Holborn, in two volumes, ‘Typographia, or the Printer's Instructor, including an Account of the Origin of Printing, with Biographical Notices of the Printers of England from Caxton to the close of the sixteenth century, a series of Ancient and Modern Alphabets and Domesday characters; together with an elucidation of every subject connected with the Art.’ The book appeared in four sizes, 32mo, 16mo, 8vo, and royal 8vo; the last was known as the Roxburghe. ‘It abounds with information of a very useful character, spiced with conceits manifesting the originality, humour, and freshness of the author’ (Bigmore and Wyman, Bibliography of Printing, i. 371). It was unfavourably reviewed in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1824, vol. xciv. pt. ii. pp. 341, 447, 537. Richard Thomson, librarian of the London Institution, helped in the historical part. An abridgment, with an appendix, was printed at Boston, 1828, 12mo. Johnson describes an improved composing case introduced by him (Typographia, ii. 108–117), and advertises (ib. Pref.) a ‘typographic specimen,’ executed with brass rules and flowers. He was opposed to stereotype and machine presses. An engraved portrait of Johnson, by W. Harvey, is prefixed to the second volume of ‘Typographia.’ He died in Brooke Street, Holborn, 17 Feb. 1848.
[Gent. Mag. June 1848, p. 667; Book Lore, 1885, ii. 30–2.]