Samuel Johnson was born in 1709 in the cathedral city of Lichfield, Staffordshire. His father was a bookseller whose house is now the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum. From his earliest days, Johnson’s life was blighted by ill health and poverty forced him to leave Pembroke College, Oxford without a degree. In 1735 he married Elizabeth Porter, a widow more than twenty years his senior.

In 1737 Johnson moved to London with his friend David Garrick, the actor, and tried to earn a living as a journalist, writing for The Gentleman’s Magazine. Johnson was commissioned by a syndicate of booksellers to write the first comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language in 1746. He rented 17 Gough Square and with the help of his six amanuenses compiled the Dictionary in the garret. It was published in 1755.

After the death of Johnson's beloved wife, the Jamaican servant Francis Barber came to live with him in Gough Square. Many friends were entertained at the house, including Joshua Reynolds, Charles Burney and the Blue Stocking Elizabeth Carter. Johnson often gave shelter to friends in need. The famous "Club" was formed, with friends such as Oliver Goldsmith and Edmund Burke. In 1763, Johnson met a young Scottish lawyer named James Boswell, who later became the best known of Johnson’s biographers.

Johnson’s edition of Shakespeare was published in 1765 and his Lives of the Poets in 1779-81. He died in 1784 and is buried at Westminster Abbey.

History of the House

When the House was purchased by the Liberal Member of Parliament Cecil Harmsworth in 1911 it was derelict and dilapidated. Harmsworth restored the House to its original condition and opened it to the public in 1912. At the same time, a cottage was built as the Curator's residence. The City of London suffered extensive damage during the Second World War and Dr Johnson’s House was nearly destroyed on three occasions during the bombing of 1940-41. The House was saved by the courage of the Auxiliary Fire Service, who were using the House as a rest centre and arts club.

The House is run by the Dr Johnson’s House Trust and the present Lord Harmsworth is the Chairman of the Board of Governors.

Personality of the Month
Flora MacDonald (1722 - 1790)
Jacobite heroine

Despite a quiet and genteel upbringing in the Outer Hebrides, Flora MacDonald became a central figure in the Jacobite rising of 1745. The Stuarts had been deposed from the throne in 1688, but the followers of James Stuart (known as Jacobites after the Latin word for James, 'Jacobus') were still fighting for the Stuarts' right to the throne. On July 21st 1745, James' grandson Prince Charles, commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, landed in Scotland and began his march southwards to London. After some early successes however, his troops were decimated at Culloden in 1746. Charles was successfully hidden, but he was unable to leave his bolthole, hemmed in on all sides by the British army.

The plan concocted for his escape so incredible that it can only have been born from sheer desperation. It was here that Flora played her part: the Prince was to be disguised as Flora's Irish maidservant, and together they would sail inland. A maid's outfit was duly made by local women and Charles was temporarily christened ‘Betty Burke'. On 28 June, they set off on the dangerous nocturnal journey to Skye, immortalized in the famous folk song ‘Over the Sea to Skye', and miraculously Charles managed to make good his escape to the continent.

The adventure had more mixed results for Flora. Thanks to the confession of one of the men who sailed the boat to Skye, she was arrested on 12 July 1746 and taken to HMS Furnace, a vessel used to imprison Jacobites found in the Hebrides in the course of Charles' rebellion. She was later removed to London where she was held prisoner for about a year.

After her release, Flora almost immediately headed back to Scotland. Three years later she was married to Allen MacDonald, an ambitious, intelligent man of local family. On the birth of their first son, they flouted traditional names, and called the baby ‘Charles'. The MacDonalds were not to have an easy life, falling in debt and eventually moving to America. Life in the New World did not prove smooth either, and Flora and Allen moved back to their home country late in their lives.

In 1773, whilst on a tour of Scotland , Scottish lowlander James Boswell and his friend Samuel Johnson paid a visit to the Jacobite heroine. Johnson had sympathies with the house of Stuart, despite having been given a handsome pension by King George III. He greatly enjoyed meeting Flora, telling his friend Mrs Thrale that he had ‘had the honour of saluting the far-famed Miss MacDonald'. The two seem to have got on very well; Johnson and Boswell stayed overnight with the MacDonalds, and Flora put them in the very room that the Prince had once used, twenty-seven years earlier. Johnson's words on Flora were used as her epitaph. Her memorial stone now reads:

FLORA MACDONALD

PRESERVER OF
PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART
HER NAME
WILL BE MENTIONED IN HISTORY
AND IF COURAGE AND FIDELITY
BE VIRTUES
MENTIONED WITH HONOUR