John Johnson (1807 – 28 December 1878) was an English architect who specialised in religious buildings and churches in the
Gothic style
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
** Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken ...
. He was regularly employed by the civil engineer Sir
John Kelk to design the homes and public buildings he funded. Johnson is best known for his collaboration with
Alfred Meeson on designs for
Alexandra Palace in north London; his designs for the
Church of St Edward the Confessor in
Romford
Romford is a large town in east London and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Havering. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Historically, Romfo ...
,
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...
; and for the
Grade I listed St Mary's Church in
Tidworth
Tidworth is a garrison town and civil parish in south-east Wiltshire, England, on the eastern edge of Salisbury Plain. Lying on both sides of the A338 about north of the A303 primary route, the town is approximately west of Andover, south ...
,
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
, which was completed the year he died.
One of Johnson's churches –
St Luke's Church, Euston Road
Wanstead United Reformed Church is a United Reformed Church place of worship in Wanstead, east London. It originated in 1867 as a Congregational church in Wanstead, housed in the former Church of England building of St Luke's Church, Euston Road, ...
– was bought by
Midland Railway
The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It ama ...
and dismantled to make way for
St Pancras railway station. It was re-erected by Johnson in
Wanstead where it became
Wanstead United Reformed Church
Wanstead United Reformed Church is a United Reformed Church place of worship in Wanstead, east London. It originated in 1867 as a Congregational church in Wanstead, housed in the former Church of England building of St Luke's Church, Euston Road, ...
. Johnson's participation in the work gave him the distinction of becoming one of a small number of architects to have undertaken such a move and subsequent reconstruction.
Personal life
John Johnson was born in 1807; little is known of his life, but he enjoyed fishing, and was for ten years on the committee of the Thames Angling Preservation Society.
[John Johnson (1807–1878).]
Jacqueline Banerjee, The Victorian Web, 8 December 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
On 11 March 1846 Johnson announced in the ''Bury and Norwich Post'' that he was establishing his private practice at 11 Whiting Street,
Bury St Edmunds,
Suffolk. He remained there throughout the 1850s, and appears to have relocated to London in the following decade where he became the district surveyor for the London Borough of East
Hackney;
[ in the capital, he practised and resided at 14 Buckingham Street, ]Strand
Strand may refer to:
Topography
*The flat area of land bordering a body of water, a:
** Beach
** Shoreline
* Strand swamp, a type of swamp habitat in Florida
Places Africa
* Strand, Western Cape, a seaside town in South Africa
* Strand Street ...
.
On 1 July 1865, Johnson's only child, John George, a second assistant engineer aboard HMS ''Weazel'', died aged 28 through drowning whilst the boat was docked in Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...
.
Career
Churches
Johnson was a prolific designer of religious buildings and churches. In 1849 he was instructed to design the Church of St Edward the Confessor in Romford
Romford is a large town in east London and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Havering. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Historically, Romfo ...
, Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...
, and returned in 1864 to complete his second church in the town, St Andrew's, in what is in now the Waterloo Estate. In 1853 he took on the rebuilding of the parish church of All Saints in Beyton
Beyton is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of the English county of Suffolk. The village is around east of Bury St Edmunds, south-east of Thurston and north-west of Stowmarket. The main Ipswich to Bury St Edmunds road ...
, Suffolk, which retained the medieval core and tower.
Johnson created the original designs for St Luke's Church, Euston Road
Wanstead United Reformed Church is a United Reformed Church place of worship in Wanstead, east London. It originated in 1867 as a Congregational church in Wanstead, housed in the former Church of England building of St Luke's Church, Euston Road, ...
, between 1856 and 1861. In 1866 it was dismantled and re-designed by Johnson, and re-erected as a Congregational church in Wanstead. The church was relocated because of the purchase of land by the Midland Railway, which obtained an Act of Parliament in 1863 to extend its line to London and build a new terminus, (which became St Pancras railway station) on the land occupied by Johnson's church. It was described by Historic England
Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked w ...
as "one of few examples of churches which have been moved and substantially reconstructed to their original form, and by the original architect".
Other religious buildings followed, including the Old Vicarage in Oakley Square, Camden, in 1861; the Unitarian Chapel, Hampstead, in 1862; and St Andrews Church in Hertford in 1875. One of his final churches was St Mary's Church in Tidworth
Tidworth is a garrison town and civil parish in south-east Wiltshire, England, on the eastern edge of Salisbury Plain. Lying on both sides of the A338 about north of the A303 primary route, the town is approximately west of Andover, south ...
, Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
, which was completed in the year in which Johnson died. It is his only Grade I listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
Public and private buildings
Johnson was closely associated with the civil engineer Sir John Kelk (1816–1886) who instructed Johnson to complete the Army and Navy Club
The Army and Navy Club in London is a private members club founded in 1837, also known informally as The Rag.[St James's Square
St James's Square is the only square in the St James's district of the City of Westminster and is a garden square. It has predominantly Georgian and Neo-Georgian architecture. For its first two hundred or so years it was one of the three or f ...]
, London; Kelk's personal residence at 3 Grosvenor Square, London;[ and St Mary's Church, which was built on Kelk's estate in Tidworth, Wiltshire.]
Kelk and Johnson worked together in 1862 as part of the Kensington Exhibition,[ and again on the construction of Alexandra Palace, which Johnson co-designed with Alfred Meeson (1808–1885). The palace burnt down in 1873 and Johnson and Meeson designed the new building which exists to this day. Kelk personally funded the project and used the contractors Charles and Thomas Lucas to construct the property.][
]
Death and legacy
Johnson died at the age of 71 on 28 December 1878 at his home, 14 Buckingham Street, near the Strand, London. Probate was granted to his executors, Lewis Edward Younghusband of 91 Highbury New Park, Middlesex, the sculptor Edward Bowring Stephens
Edward Bowring Stephens (10 December 1815, in Exeter – 10 November 1882, in London), (works signed E B Stephens) was a British sculptor from Devon. He was honorary secretary of the Institute of Sculptors circa 1861.Mapping the Practice an ...
of 110 Buckingham Palace Road, Middlesex, and Alfred Godwin of 3 King's Bench Walk, Temple.1879 Probate Calendar, p. 129.
/ref>
References
Further reading
*Obituary in ''The Builder
''Building'' is one of the United Kingdom's oldest business-to-business magazines, launched as ''The Builder'' in 1843 by Joseph Aloysius Hansom – architect of Birmingham Town Hall and designer of the Hansom Cab. The journal was renamed ''Bu ...
'', 11 January 1879, pp. 53 & 137.
*Obituary in ''The Fishing Gazette'', 3 January 1879, p. 7.
External links
The Victorian Web page on John Johnson.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, John (1807-1878)
1807 births
1878 deaths
19th-century English architects
English ecclesiastical architects
English surveyors
Gothic Revival architects
*