Journal of William Johns, Unitarian Minister and Author

This material is held atUniversity of Manchester Library

  • Reference
    • GB 133 Eng MS 1315
  • Dates of Creation
    • 1810-c.1852
  • Name of Creator
  • Language of Material
    • English
  • Physical Description
    • 194 x 155 mm. 1 volume, 61 leaves, modern foliation. Medium: paper. Binding: full-bound in plain vellum. Condition: binding stained and worn, cracked at the inner front hinge.
  • Location
    • Collection available at John Rylands Library, Deansgate.

Scope and Content

The volume contains an early nineteenth-century journal of William Johns (1771-1845), the Welsh-born Unitarian minister and author, resident in Manchester, from 11 August 1810 to 5 June 1815. The volume was later reused, from the reverse, as a weather log from 1 January 1842 to 31 January 1846, and a collection of recipes, undated. The volume is a significant source for the social life and interests of an influential member of the Nonconformist and intellectual elites of early nineteenth-century Manchester.

There are a number of clues pointing to Johns’ authorship. John Dalton (1766-1844), scientist, lodged with the Johns family and is referred to in the diary as such: [18 January 1811] ‘I have now i.e. since Xmas, 4 boarders in my family besides Messrs Dalton & Buxton’. The writer’s Welsh background is established by an entry describing how he is called upon by ‘a Doctor Monro of Dumfries, who, professing to be fond of Celtic antiquities, wished to ascertain the pronunciation of the welch language’. The author’s death is recorded by his son in the weather log on 27 November 1845 (see below).

The journal covers 23 pages (ff. 1-14), the last nine of which are mostly in code or shorthand. The diary’s first entry, 11 August 1810, reads: ‘Wrote a letter to sister Margaret; and, another to brother Morris, at Deptford. | General observn.: My confinement in the school is from half after eight in the morning, till dinner, ie till very near one o’clock, and from two till five in the afternoon. I besides give Lessons to 9 young persons, which occupies nearly the whole of my extra time.’ The author preaches ‘at Blakeley A.M.’, at Knutsford, at Stockport, ‘at Mr. Hawkes’s Chap[el] Moseley Street’ and on several occasions at Partington. On 2 September 1810, ‘Mr. Grundy preached at the old chapel a sermon in which he openly avowed his Unitarian sentiments, in such a manner, that but few were offended, and many were gained over to his own opinions.’ On the preceding Friday, 31 August, ‘I dined with the Trustees of the Manchester N. College removed to York. 40 Gentn. dined.’ Later he receives a report that the College is ‘[i]n a flourishing state’. He receives a parcel of books from Longman & Co. of London, for which he has paid the considerable sum of £43 11s. He dines with Mr Hawkes of Dukinfield, and ‘Mr. Parker & Lamport’. He goes with his wife and with ‘Mr. Ashton & Mr. Shawcross in a hackney coach to Chowbent [near Wigan]: Preached ther [sic] twice: and dined at Mr. Sanderson’s’. He has a week’s visit from Mr Buxton of Northampton, who makes ‘a present to Betsy & Catharine of a portable writing desk each’. Johns gives him a copy of ‘The Confessional’ in return. At the beginning of 1811 he is ‘chosen Secretary to the broom street library committee’. He gets ‘eight subscribers for the unitarian book & tract Socy.’

The weather log, beginning at the other end of the volume, is written in a very close hand over 50 pages (ff. 61-35). It appears to be in Johns’ hand, despite the significant difference in size from the freer hand used for the diary. The log records daily thermometer and barometer readings, wind direction and observations. Average temperatures are occasionally noted. A clue to the area covered by the log is provided on 16 May 1845, where the weather at Warrington is given. The 50 pages are followed by two pages of notes in another hand beginning: ‘On the day of this last entry the 9th. Novr. [1845], my father’s health which had been declining ever since the beginning of July, gave way and he went to bed to rise no more. He died on the 27th, after having endured agonies inconceivable. At first, he requested me to keep an account of the temperature which I did for some days, but when his death appeared certain, the thing ceased to interest both him & me.’ Johns obviously shared Dalton’s interest in meteorology, albeit in a less rigorously scientific manner.

The recipes are written in a mid-nineteenth-century hand (one entry is dated ‘Bowdon, 1852’) over seventeen pages (ff. 34-26), with subjects including ‘Apple Jelly’, ‘To pickle Lemons’, ‘Parkin’ and ‘Economical family Pudding’. Enclosed between ff. 26-27 is a loose-leaf recipe for orange marmalade.

Enclosed inside the front cover is a receipt from Kendal, Milne & Co. of Manchester, department store, to a Mrs Buckley of Bury Old Road, Cheetham Hill, Manchester, for the supply of gingham, dated 14 May 1918.

Administrative / Biographical History

William Johns (1771-1845), Unitarian minister and author, was born at Cilmaenllwyd on the Pembrokeshire boarder of Carmarthenshire, the son of a tenant farmer. He was educated at the independent Oswestry Academy and then Northampton Academy. It was at the latter that he converted to Unitarianism. After brief periods of ministry in Gloucester and Totnes, Devon, in 1799 Johns became classical tutor at Manchester Academy, but resigned in the following year. A few months later he became minister of the Presbyterian (Unitarian) church at Nantwich in Cheshire, where he also established a school. In 1804 Johns transferred the school to Faulkner Street, Manchester, and there he continued to run it successfully for nearly thirty years. He also served as minister of the congregation at Sale (Cross Street), Cheshire, from 1805 until shortly before his death in 1845.

In 1804, the scientist John Dalton (1766-1844) took up lodgings with the Johns family at their home in George Street, Manchester, apparently at the suggestion of Mrs Johns, and he continued to reside with them until the family left central Manchester in 1830. For many years William Johns was joint secretary with Dalton of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society and he subsequently served as vice-president. The two men shared many scientific interests; the painstaking meteorological observations recorded in this journal are similar to those kept by Dalton himself.

Johns published Latin exercises and several religious essays. He also contributed many articles to the Monthly Repository and the Christian Reformer. With John Relly Beard (1800-76) he edited the Christian Teacher from 1832 to 1843.

William Johns married Honor Adams Sparke in 1798, when he was residing in Totnes. They had two daughters, Elizabeth (1798-1847) and Catherine (1800-42). They later adopted the children of his brother Stephen, who died in 1810. William Johns died at Eaglesfield House, Higher Broughton, Manchester, on 27 November 1845. His widow died on 24 September 1849.

Sources: Rajkumari Williamson Jones, ‘Dalton’s Unfortunate Choice’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 57.1 (2003), 15-33. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2003.0194; R. K. Webb, ‘Johns, William (1771-1845), Unitarian minister and author’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/14865.

Access Information

The manuscript is available for consultation by any accredited reader.

Acquisition Information

The manuscript was purchased from Richard M. Ford, manuscript dealer, for £950 in July 2010.

Conditions Governing Use

Photocopies and photographic copies of material in the manuscript can be supplied for private research and study purposes only, depending on the condition of the manuscript.

Prior written permission must be obtained from the Library for publication or reproduction of any material within the manuscript. Please contact the Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Library, 150 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 3EH.

Custodial History

The previous provenance of the manuscript is unknown. However, enclosed inside the front cover is a receipt from Kendal, Milne & Co. of Manchester to a Mrs Buckley of Broadhurst, Bury Old Road, Cheetham Hill, Manchester, dated 14 May 1918. She may have been the wife of the surgeon John Philip Buckley (1882-1949), FRCS, who was the son of Samuel Buckley (1847-1910) and his wife Florence, née Woolley, and thus a descendant of William Johns. James Woolley (1811-58) had married Ann Johns, a niece of William Johns.

Sources: Royal College of Surgeons of England, Plarr’s Register of Fellows, entry for John Philip Buckley, 2013. https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/lives/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ASSET$002f0$002fSD_ASSET:376104/one?qu=john+philip+buckley; Rajkumari Williamson Jones, ‘Dalton’s Unfortunate Choice’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 57.1 (2003), 15-33. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2003.0194.

Related Material

The Library also holds a letter-book in the Woolley Family Archive (WFA), which contains 17 letters from John Dalton to the Johns family; the letters were written when Dalton was away from Manchester, in London or Edinburgh, for example. It also includes a rare daguerreotype of Dalton.

Bibliography

Anon., ‘Obituary: The Rev. William Johns’, The Christian Reformer; or, Unitarian Magazine and Review, new series, 2 (1846), 109-19.

Rajkumari Williamson Jones, ‘Dalton’s Unfortunate Choice’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 57.1 (2003), 15-33. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2003.0194.

Royal College of Surgeons of England, ‘John Philip Buckley’, Plarr’s Register of Fellows, 2013. https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/lives/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ASSET$002f0$002fSD_ASSET:376104/one?qu=john+philip+buckley.

R. K. Webb, ‘Johns, William (1771-1845), Unitarian minister and author’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/14865.