John Johnson (22 April 1732 – 17 August 1814) was an English architect and Surveyor to the County of Essex. He is best known for designing the Shire Hall, Chelmsford.[1]
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Johnson was born in Leicester. He moved to London before his thirtieth birthday and in the late 1760s was engaged in speculative building on the Berners estate in Marylebone. For most of the rest of his life, he lived in one of the houses that he had built in Berners Street.[1]
In 1782, he succeeded William Hillyer as Surveyor to the County of Essex, a position that he held for thirty years, retiring at the age of 80. In 1785, he became a partner with Sir Herbert Mackworth and others in Dorsett and Co., a bank in Bond Street, but Mackworth left before 1792, the bank failed in 1797 and was wound up in 1803.[2][1] After this, Johnson moved from Berners Street to Camden Town, and on his retirement in 1812 he went back to Leicester, where he died. There, in St Martin’s Church (now Leicester Cathedral) where he was buried, he is commemorated on the base of a monument by John Bacon which was originally erected in 1786 as a memorial to his parents.[1]
Among Johnson's surviving works are: