Johnson, Samuel: From slave to Dr Johnson's secretary

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John Dallison, of Derby Local Studies Library, shares his research into the life of slave Francis Barber, who became Dr Samuel Johnson’s secretary.

DR Samuel Johnson’s connection with Derby was brief but memorable. On a July day in 1735, the ungainly 26-year-old and a middle-aged widow from Birmingham, Elizabeth Porter, were married at St Werburgh’s Church.

That same year, thousands of miles from Derby, on a Jamaican plantation, a baby was born into slavery. His name was Francis Barber.

There appears to be little information about the boy’s parentage and early life. However, it is on record that Barber’s owner brought him to England in 1750.

He was educated, briefly and basically, in a village school at Barton, Yorkshire. Practical masters in that inhumane time considered that they gave “added value” to their house servants by educating them a little.

Then, he became a servant of his owner’s son, Richard Bathurst.

Next, in 1752, a sad event took place that would, in time, lead to a great change in Barber’s fortunes – Elizabeth Johnson died.

Samuel was overwhelmed with grief at the loss of his beloved wife. During this period, Johnson was by no means the honoured celebrity.

He was poor, living in London and labouring to produce his dictionary. His friends, seeing his plight, did what they could to help him survive.

One of those friends was Richard Bathurst. He hired out Barber to Johnson as his valet. Barber remained with the troubled widower until the mid-1750s. Then Bathurst’s father died, leaving Barber his freedom and £12.

He left Johnson and became an apothecary’s assistant in London’s Cheapside, although he visited the doctor from time to time.

When he was 23, Barber was on the move again. Seeking adventure, he joined the Navy and served on HMS Stag in the North Sea. Surprisingly though, in 1760, he rejoined the household of the, by then, famous “Dictionary Johnson” – this time as his butler.

In fact, Johnson himself, at considerable cost, had obtained Barber’s discharge from the Navy.

In 1767, Johnson sent Barber, who was by this time in his early 30s, to study at Bishop’s Stortford Grammar School, in Hertfordshire. Barber remained at the school for five years (Johnson paying the fees which totalled £300).

After successfully completing his education, Barber became Johnson’s secretary. It was undoubtedly a post of status and responsibility, for he arranged events, dealt with important documents and kept his employer’s diary.

Some time later, Barber married a pretty Englishwoman, another Elizabeth. Johnson gladly invited the couple to live in his house. This is not to say that Johnson considered Barber his true equal.

The childless older man seems often to have regarded Barber as an errant juvenile.

As for Johnson himself, he was a fascinating tangle of contradictions. He could be tough, argumentative and belligerent – one did not mess with the Doctor!

Yet, he was a person who frequently went out of his way to help outcasts and underdogs.

When Dr Johnson died in December 1784, at the age of 75, Barber was at his bedside. After the great man’s death, it was found that he had provided handsomely for Barber.

He endowed his former secretary an annual pension of £70 – a generous amount of money in those days. He also left him a superb gold watch as a memento and made him his residuary legatee.

All of which caused some of Johnson’s friends and associates to grow bitterly resentful of Barber’s good fortune.

Dr Johnson was a sincere Christian who could be gullible on occasion. Yet, he was essentially a shrewd realist. Barber had been in his time both playboy and womaniser. Accordingly, Johnson’s will stipulated that Barber should live far from London’s temptations, in the country.

Barber duly moved to Lichfield, in Staffordshire, (Johnson’s birthplace).

He remained there with his wife and their son, Samuel, was born in 1785.

The Barbers’ life together was not easy. Ironically, Barber suffered from jealousy as his wife was an attractive woman. Further, both she and he were victims of racism because of their mixed marriage.

Barber struggled on, becoming a teacher in Burntwood, a few miles from Lichfield.

Sadly, he lost his inheritance and had to sell the gold watch and other precious mementoes of Dr Johnson.

He even had to sell Johnson’s diary, including those sections that described visits to Ashbourne to stay with Dr John Taylor at The Mansion.

Francis Barber lived long enough to see the dawn of the 19th century; a century in which the slave trade would be abolished in many countries.

He died in Stafford Infirmary in 1801. His son, Samuel, eventually became a Primitive Methodist Minister in that county. Nowadays, direct descendants of the Barbers still live in the Midlands and are justly proud of their remarkable ancestry.

My colleagues at Derby Local Studies Library are well aware that research can be both frustrating and addictive; you solve one puzzle only to be presented with others.

My limited research into Barber’s life was frustrating in that it did not provide answers to two questions.

Did Francis accompany Johnson when the good man visited his great friend Dr Taylor in Ashbourne?

Did Francis ever meet Erasmus Darwin?

Perhaps someone else can provide these answers.

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