Although he was born in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, Johnson’s family roots lay in Lincolnshire, where his grandfather, Rev. Woolsey Johnson, inherited land at Witham-on-the-Hill, building a manor house, and enclosing the park in 1752.1Stamford Mercury, 30 Oct. 1863; M. Clapinson, ‘Johnson, Jane’, Oxford DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]. His paternal grandmother Jane was the author of the earliest known English children’s fairy story (1744).2J. Johnson, A very pretty story; with an introduction by G. Avery (2001). Unlike his father, Robert, who following family tradition entered the church, Johnson pursued a military career, serving in Ireland and the Peninsula.3HP Commons, 1820-32, ‘Johnson, William Augustus’. His diary of his service from 1811-12 survives.4http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/1500-1900/johnson-j/johnson-j000.html Johnson later claimed that during three years as commander of a battalion of young soldiers in Omagh, he had ‘maintained a high state of discipline without the infliction of a single lash’.5Report of the speech of Capt. Wood to the electors of Huddersfield (1832). In 1814, he went on the half-pay list, devoting his time to the estate inherited from his uncle at Witham, where he was lord of the manor and patron of the living.6W. White, Lincolnshire (1882), 818. His Lincolnshire property comprised around 2,500 acres.7R.J. Olney, Lincolnshire politics 1832-1885 (1973), 93n. He sold his commission and retired from the army with the rank of lieutenant-general in August 1842.8London Gazette, 5 Aug. 1842.
Johnson first attempted to enter the Commons in 1820, as an anti-corporation candidate at Boston. Although unsuccessful, he was seated on petition. In a Commons speech, 21 Apr. 1823, he ‘avowed himself a radical, however unpalatable the term might be in that House’, and was usually found voting with the Whigs against Lord Liverpool’s ministry, and in favour of retrenchment, Catholic relief and parliamentary reform.9HP Commons, 1820-32. Although he offered for Lincolnshire in 1826, he did not go to the poll.10HP Commons, 1820-32. His friend, Sir Robert Heron (MP Grimsby 1812-18, Peterborough 1819-47) claimed that ‘Johnson had become particularly unpopular, by following the opinions of Cobbet [sic]’.11R. Heron, Notes (2nd edn., 1851), 159. His position as sheriff (and returning officer) for Lincolnshire debarred him from standing in 1830, and although in 1831 he announced his intention to offer for South Lincolnshire at the first post-Reform election, he later withdrew.12HP Commons, 1820-32. He decided against standing for Boston in 1832, lest he jeopardise the chances of his fellow Radical, John Wilks.13London Dispatch, 5 Mar. 1837. Instead he offered for North Leicestershire, in an effort to resist ‘the thraldom of the House of Rutland’ over the constituency, but polled a distant third.14Leicester Chronicle, 22 Nov. 1832, 29 Dec. 1832. He spoke at Huddersfield in support of his friend, Captain Joseph Wood.15Leeds Mercury, 11 Aug. 1832. When the victor at Huddersfield, Lewis Fenton, died in 1833, Johnson was spoken of as a possible candidate, but it was Wood who stood (unsuccessfully) once more.16Caledonian Mercury, 14 Dec. 1833. In 1835, however, Johnson (with Wood’s backing) stood against the incumbent Liberal MP, John Blackburne, but offered to withdraw if Blackburne would pledge to vote for franchise extension.17Leeds Mercury, 10 Jan. 1835. Johnson supported universal suffrage, hinted at support for disestablishment, and announced that ‘I object to that poor law, beyond any other measure I ever heard of’. Johnson won the show of hands, but retired at the close of the first day’s polling, with Blackburne 132 votes ahead.18Leeds Mercury, 3 Jan. 1835, 10 Jan. 1835.
Johnson’s ‘known attachment to the principles of Mr. Cobbett’, viewed by Robert Heron as a liability, was to prove a considerable asset in securing his nomination as candidate for Oldham in 1837.19E. Butterworth, Historical sketches of Oldham (1856), 208. His running mate John Fielden later described Johnson as ‘a real Cobbetite, because the first time I saw him was in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, with Hunt and Beaver [sic], doing what he could to promote the return of Cobbett for Preston’.20Manchester Times and Gazette, 13 July 1847. Johnson’s position as ‘an early, a constant, a persevering, and a determined opponent’ of the poor law also made him a fitting colleague for Fielden.21The Times, 19 Apr. 1837. A letter in which Johnson described the poor law as ‘arbitrary and unjust’ was read to the meeting which adopted him as candidate, as was an endorsement from 145 Boston Reformers, which declared that ‘no earthly power… will ever induce him to swerve’ from his radical principles.22Manchester Times and Gazette, 11 Mar. 1837; London Dispatch, 5 Mar. 1837. Accompanied by Wood, Johnson’s first public appearance in Oldham (where members of the crowd commented that ‘he looks like Henry Hunt’) was at an anti-poor law meeting in March 1837, during which he was presented with the names of 613 electors pledged to support him.23Liverpool Mercury, 31 Mar. 1837. Johnson’s ‘independent integrity’ meant that he did not ‘stoop to the degradation of a personal canvass’, and he eschewed any election spending beyond the legal expenses.24Manchester Times and Gazette, 11 Mar. 1837. As Cobbett and Fielden had previously done, he promised to resign at the request of his constituents.25London Dispatch, 30 July 1837. Johnson topped the poll in 1837, and he and Fielden were re-elected unopposed in 1841.
Johnson appeared alongside Fielden to give accounts to their constituents in 1839, September 1840 (Fielden also appeared in January, when Johnson was absent due to illness), 1841 and 1843, with Johnson noting that his votes in the House had seldom differed from his colleague.26Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser, 12 Jan. 1839; Manchester Times and Gazette, 11 Jan. 1840; Morning Chronicle, 8 Sept. 1840; Manchester Times and Gazette, 28 Jan. 1843. In 1844, it was rumoured that Johnson would retire due to ‘severe indisposition’.27Leeds Mercury, 2 Mar. 1844. It was not, however, until January 1846 that he announced that he would not seek re-election, ‘owing to his advanced age and increasing infirmities’.28Manchester Times and Gazette, 10 Jan. 1846. On his retirement, he regretted that he had been unable to meet voters annually ‘in order that he might be catechised’, but declared that he had given no vote in Parliament which he would wish to change, although ill health meant that ‘he had been absent on many occasions when he wished to have been present’.29Manchester Times and Gazette, 13 July 1847. Johnson was certainly far from an assiduous attender: between 1838 and 1840, he voted on average in 19% of divisions each session; in 1841, he was more active, voting in 36% of divisions prior to the dissolution. However, with his health failing, he voted in only 11% of divisions in 1844 and 1846 (and 14% in 1845).30Liverpool Mercury, 21 Sept. 1838, 27 Sept. 1844; Preston Chronicle, 7 Sept. 1839, 22 Aug. 1840, 26 June 1841, 17 Sept. 1842; Preston Guardian, 20 Sept. 1845, 14 Nov. 1846. His service on select committees was limited to that on the Dublin City election petition.31PP 1837-38 (703), x. 101.
When Johnson was present, he was often found voting against Whig ministers, for example, on a select committee to inquire into punishments in the army, 26 Mar. 1838, and on slave apprenticeships, 28 May 1838, although he supported them on Peel’s amendment to the Government of Ireland bill 1839.32The Champion and Weekly Herald, 28 Apr. 1839. He was absent from the motions of confidence in the ministry by Yarde Buller, 31 Jan. 1840, and Peel, 4 June 1841, being one of only three Liberal MPs to be absent from both.33The Times, 8 June 1841. On the former, however, he declared that if present, he would have voted alongside Fielden, against the ministry.34Northern Liberator and Champion, 12 Sept. 1840. On the latter, he explained that his absence was due to his distrust of both Whigs and Tories.35Manchester Times and Gazette, 26 June 1841. A ‘Radical of the olden day’ praised Johnson’s conduct, declaring that ‘General Johnson and others, were there anything like independence in the House, would make valuable Radical Members, for advocating the real wants of the People’.36A political pamphlet by a radical of the olden day (1842), 57-8. Johnson on occasion displayed impatience with parliamentary proceedings, urging a colleague to divide on the property tax in 1841 because ‘he deprecated the practice of hon. Gentlemen bringing forward motions, and thus abandoning them without a division’.37Hansard, 23 Mar. 1841, vol. 57, c. 568. Having once advocated annual parliaments, he declared on his retirement that his preference had shifted to triennial parliaments, for ‘he had seen, at the commencement of a session, such confusion and such squabbling for seats in the house of commons’.38Manchester Times and Gazette, 13 July 1847.
Among the popular causes espoused by Johnson was electoral reform. Supporting Hume’s motion on household suffrage, 21 Mar. 1839, he claimed that ‘he was the first who, several years ago, declared himself in that House in favour of universal suffrage’.39The Operative, 24 Mar. 1839. He voted for Grote’s motion on the ballot, 18 June 1839. He seconded Sharman Crawford’s amendment to the address, 28 Aug. 1841, calling for franchise extension, and supported his efforts to bring in a reform bill, 18 May 1843. In 1839, Johnson was among those MPs requested to support the Chartist petition, which he duly did, highlighting the need for a reconstituted House in order to deal with ‘the foundation of the evils under which the poorer classes laboured… the National Debt’, a recurrent theme in his speeches on this issue.40The Operative, 7 Apr. 1839; Hansard, 12 July 1839, vol. 49, c. 265. Although Johnson sympathised with the Chartists – seconding Duncombe’s motion for an inquiry into the conduct of magistrates in putting down Chartist disturbances, 28 Mar. 1843 – he was sometimes critical of their tactics, observing in 1840 that they had acted ‘indiscreetly’ in going beyond the key issue of universal suffrage.41Morning Chronicle, 8 Sept. 1840. When the Chartists sought advice from Johnson on the possibility of obtaining a royal audience, he suggested that the money they would have to spend on the ‘tomfoolery’ of court dress would be better used elsewhere.42Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser, 22 May 1841. This may have reflected Johnson’s broader distaste for the monarchy: a bell which he donated to the church at Witham in 1831 bore an inscription stating that it should not be rung for coronations, November 5th or May 29th (Oak Apple Day).43Newcastle Weekly Courant, 18 May 1889.
Speaking in support of Villiers’ amendment for immediate abolition of the corn laws, 24 Feb. 1842, Johnson noted that his vote here would be ‘completely against his own interest, as his sole dependence was on land’.44Hansard, 24 Feb. 1842, vol. 60, c. 1075. Nevertheless, despite his concerns that repeal ‘would be a serious injury to the agriculturalists’, he consistently voted in that direction, including on the third reading, 16 May 1846.45Manchester Times and Gazette, 28 Jan. 1843. On factory legislation, Johnson voted in the minority of 159 for Ashley’s ten hours motion in 1844, and went to London on four occasions to support Fielden’s efforts to pass the ten hours bill in 1847.46Leeds Mercury, 18 May 1844; Manchester Times and Gazette, 13 July 1847. He voted against the third reading of the Maynooth grant, 21 May 1845, objecting not to the grant itself, but to the source from which it would be provided.47Hansard, 5 May 1845, vol. 80, c. 193. Johnson took an interest in penal reform, and was steadfast in his opposition to the juvenile offenders bill, which he regarded as ‘obnoxious’ and ‘unconstitutional’ due to its powers of summary jurisdiction, dividing the House on its third reading, 16 July 1840.48Hansard, 26 Feb. 1840, vol. 52, c. 657. He also opposed Rich’s bill substituting private for public executions, for while he objected to the death penalty, he did not wish to make it ‘a private exhibition – a sort of raree-show’.49Hansard, 16 Feb. 1841, vol. 56, c. 666. The abolition of public executions was finally effected following the efforts of one of Johnson’s successors as MP for Oldham, John Tomlinson Hibbert.
The issue on which Johnson spoke most frequently, however, was the poor law. Just as Fielden encouraged resistance to its implementation in the North, Johnson as a Lincolnshire magistrate had ‘declined every act… towards carrying it into execution’.50Champion and Weekly Herald, 7 May 1837. He particularly disapproved of the ‘system of centralization’51Hansard, 17 June 1842, vol. 64, c.123. imposed by the poor law commissioners, an objection which also informed his hatred of the rural police: ‘he would much sooner see the Devil walk through the town than a Rural Policeman’.52Northern Liberator and Champion, 12 Sept. 1840. In 1838, Johnson’s allegations that the poor would rather die than enter the workhouse were investigated by a House of Lords select committee, which vindicated the conduct of the Bourne Board of Guardians in the cases highlighted, and reprimanded Johnson for having fanned the flames of popular discontent.53PP 1837-38 (719) xix, part.1. 6-7. He consistently joined Fielden in opposing the poor law, including voting for its repeal, 20 Feb. 1839 and 29 Mar. 1841. Fittingly, his last known intervention in debate was on the issue, supporting Duncombe’s amendment opposing the removal of the poor, 5 June 1846.
Outside Parliament, Johnson took an interest in the development of railways in Lincolnshire in 1845, and later served as a director of the Bourne and Essendine railway, founded in 1856.54The Times, 31 Mar. 1845, 2 July 1845; http://boar.org.uk/abiwxo3Bournedoc005.htm; Daily News, 17 Aug. 1857. Having told William Collins (MP Warwick, 1837-52) to ‘put down his name as committeeman for all good lines’, Johnson was appointed to the committee of the Leicester, Melton Mowbray and Spalding railway. In 1846, he was sued by the company’s engineer for £2,000 owed to him, but the case was dismissed as a nonsuit.55Daily News, 24 July 1846.
Johnson did not take an active part in politics following his retirement in 1847, instead devoting himself to his Lincolnshire estates. He served for 32 years as chairman of the Kesteven bench, and was ‘perhaps the ablest and most progressive magistrate of his day in Lincolnshire’.56Stamford Mercury, 30 Oct. 1863; R.J. Olney, Rural society and county government in nineteenth-century Lincolnshire (1979), 108-9. He was ‘deservedly held in the highest respect’ as a benevolent landlord, renting allotments to labourers, funding a local institution to ‘soften down the asperities of the new Poor Law’ in 1837, and establishing a lending library at Witham in 1856.57Stamford Mercury, 30 Oct. 1863; PP 1843 [510] xii. 288; N.R. Wright, Lincolnshire Towns and Industry, 1700-1914 (1982), 114; White. Lincolnshire (1882), 818. He was hereditary patron of Oakham and Uppingham schools, and a member of the Noblemen’s and Gentlemen’s Cricket Club in Stamford .58Gent. Mag. (1854), ii. 461; The Era, 6 May 1849. He died in October 1863 following a fall in his study, and was buried in the family vault at Witham.59Stamford Mercury, 30 Oct. 1863; HP Commons, 1820-32, ‘Johnson, William Augustus’. He left the residue of his estate to his eldest surviving son, Augustus Charles Johnson, and by the terms of his will, his second surviving son, George Woolsey Johnson, subsequently inherited property in Bedfordshire from the Inglis family.60HP Commons, 1820-32, ‘Johnson, William Augustus’. Neither son pursued a parliamentary career.