Researching Samuel Johnson

Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford until lack of funds forced him to leave. After work as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for The Gentleman's Magazine. Early works include Life of Mr Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes and the play Irene. After nine years' effort, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language appeared in 1755 with far-reaching effects on Modern English, acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Until the arrival of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnson's was pre-eminent. Later work included essays, an annotated The Plays of William Shakespeare and The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. In 1763 he befriended James Boswell, with whom he travelled to Scotland, as Johnson described in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Near the end of his life came a massive, influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets of 17th and 18th centuries.

Tall and robust, he displayed gestures and tics that disconcerted some on meeting him. Boswell's Life, along with other biographies, documented Johnson's behaviour and mannerisms in such detail that they have informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome, a condition not defined or diagnosed in the 18th century. After several illnesses, he died on the evening of 13 December 1784 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Thereafter he was increasingly seen to have had a lasting effect on literary criticism and even claimed to be the one truly great critic of English literature.

Samuel William Johnson (3 July 1830 Kingsboro, New York – 1909) was a U.S. American agricultural chemist. He promoted the movement to bring the sciences to the aid of American farmers through agricultural experiment stations and education in agricultural science.

Johnson, working in the 19th century, covered various aspects of farming that today would be called both organic and nonorganic. His work included exposing frauds in artificial manures (some of which would today be called chemical fertilizers).

After a career in journalism and printing in Castleford, Yorkshire, Johnson emigrated to New Zealand in the company of William Rawson Brame's Albertland settlers. The Albertlanders intended to set up a model community in New Zealand; Johnson had been appointed the group's editor and printer. He left the group in 1862, working in Auckland and Dunedin before returning to Albertown in 1863. The settlement collapsed in 1864, and by 1866 Johnson was living in Blenheim, where he and his brother Thomas established the Marlborough Express. Originally a weekly paper, the Expresss circulation eventually increased to twice weekly. Now owned by Stuff Ltd., it prints daily.

Johnson was elected to the Marlborough Provincial Council in 1872; he resigned in 1874. He sold his newspaper in 1879 before returning briefly to England. Back in New Zealand from 1884, he lived in Waipawa and worked for the Waipawa Mail and Hawke's Bay Herald.

Until his death at age 78, Johnson was active in the Anglican church, the Freemasons, and his local community. He was survived by his wife, Thereza, and their two children.