P_10433_1580 – James Johnson of Spital Square
D.O.B: 1711
D.O.D: 1789
‘Johnson’ was owner of a slaving voyage from London by the Britannia to Africa and Havana in 1763 under John Picket. The will of John Pickett (q.v.) made in 1781 and proved in 1783 shows his executor as James Johnson merchant, almost certainly the same man as the co-owner. This executor was James Johnson of Spital Square, who died in 1789 and was buried aged 78 at Bunhill Fields: the will of John Pickett identified James Johnson’s wife as Patience, shown as the widow of James Johnson of Spital Square in a lease of 1798. A James Johnson was co-investor with Samuel Touchet, Lewis Mendes or Mendez and others in the privateer the Scourge in 1758-59, while in 1790 in a notice for creditors of Lewis Mendes, James Johnson was shown as a deceased debtor of Lewis Mendes. Inikori, drawing on Wadsworth & Mann, showed a cotton pioneer named James Johnson ‘of Spitalfields’ alongside Samuel Touchet as two of the key suppliers of early English cottons to the slave-trade from c. 1733-35.
Title:
/
First name:
James
Middle name:
/
Last name:
Johnson
Aliases:
Johnson
Primary cohort:
London
Sex:
Male
Religion:
/
Social background:
/
Primary outcome:
/
Political Affiliation:
/
Political Offices Held
No Information
Bankruptcies
No Information
Geographic experiences
No Information
Internal migrant:
Don't know
Foreign born:
No
Supplier to slave trade voyages:
Yes
Tentatively inferred to have been the James Johnson of Spitalfields, supplier of cotton goods to the slave-trade.
Creditor to slave trade voyages:
Don't know
Philanthropy:
Don't know
Plantation owner:
No
Sources:
For the privateers see e.g. HCA 26/10/147.
London Gazette 24 July 1790Issue:13221Page:469 and The European Magazine, and London Review, Volume 16 Monthly Obituary for July 1789.
R18/8/2 Title: Lease and Release Description: Patience Johnson of Clapham, Surrey, widow of James Johnson, merchant of Spital Square, Middlesex, Martin Petrie, Esq, of Clapham and his wife, Patience, (daughter of James Johnson) and James Van Sommer, gent. of Aldergate Street, London and his wife Mary, (daughter of James Johnson) to William Havard, warehouseman of Mansion House Street, London. £51 17th-18th January 1798.
A James Johnson, probably a different man, was a long-serving director of the Hand-in-Hand insurance company until c. 1797: no will has yet been found for this Hand-in-Hand director either.
Inikori, Africans and the Industrial Revolution, pp. 434 and 442.
PROB 11/1181/306.
Other Individuals
No information
Organisations
No information
Crossings (1)
Birth
Date:
1711
Location:
/
Death
Date:
1789
Location:
/
Burial
Date:
24/07/1789
Location:
City of London (Middlesex)
Memorial details:
/
Christening:
/
Knighthood:
/
Baronetcy:
/
Peerage:
/
Residencies
No information
Occupation:
/
Universities
No Information
Inns of Court
No Information
Military training
No Information
Imperial positions
No Information
Apprenticeships
No Information
Livery company affiliations
No Information
Other business activities
No Information
Was slave trading profitable:
Don't know
Will
Value of Total Personalty:
/
Value of Known Legacies (where material to total estate):
/
Occupation:
/
Town/City:
/
Courts:
PCC
Will of James Johnson, Citizen and Weaver of London, made 17/12/1786 with two codicils of 1787 and 1789. He rehearsed his marriage settlement under which he had committed to follow the custom of the City of London in leaving his estate 1/3rd to his wife Patience nee Le Gross, and the remainder divided among his (two) surviving children, Mary the wife of James van Sommer, silk weaver formerly of Spital Square and Patience wife of Martin Petrie linen-draper of Cheapside. He had given each £3000 on their respective marriages and instructed those be taken into account in dividing his estate. Accordingly he placed £6000 in trust for his wife for life. [Much of the remainder root he will is illegible but appears to be only details of the trust]. In two codicils he (1) arranged to replace £1400 in securities held by Martin Petrie for Patience Newman that Petrie had transferred to James Johnson; and (2) make provision for his 'considerable' claim on the York Buildings Company.
Legacies
No information