S. 1709. We learn from
Boswell, that the house was built by Johnson's father, and that the
two fronts, towards Market and Broad Market-street stood upon waste
land of the Corporation of Lichfield, under a forty years lease; this
expired in 1767, when on the 15th of August, "at a common hall of the
bailiffs and citizens, it was ordered, (and that without any
solicitation,) that a lease should be granted to Samuel Johnson,
Doctor of Laws, of the incroachments at his house, for the term of
ninety-nine years, at the old rent, which was five shillings. Of
which, as town clerk, Mr. Simpson had the honour and pleasure of
informing him, and that he was desired to accept it, without paying
any fine on the occasion, which lease was afterwards granted, and the
doctor died possessed of this property."[1]
[1] Note to Boswell's Life of Johnson, 2nd edition, vol. iii.
p. 646.
In the above house, the doctor's father Michael Johnson, a native of
Derbyshire, of obscure extraction, settled as a bookseller and
stationer. He was diligent in business, and not only "kept shop" at
home, but, on market days, frequented several towns in the
neighbourhood,[2] some of which were at a considerable distance from
Lichfield. "At that time booksellers' shops in the provincial towns of
England were very rare, so that there was not one even in Birmingham,
in which town old Mr. Johnson used to open a shop every market-day.
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