Manuel John Johnson, FRS (23 May 1805 – 28 February 1859) was a British astronomer.
He was born in Macao, China, the son of John William Roberts of the East India Company and was educated at Mr Styles' Classical Academy in Thames Ditton and at the Addiscombe Military Academy for service in the East India Company (the HEIC).[1]
In 1823 he was sent by the HEIC to St Helena, where from 1826 he supervised the building of the Ladder Hill Observatory. In 1828 he was made Superintendent of the Observatory. In 1835 he published A Catalogue of 606 Principal Fixed Stars in the Southern Hemisphere... at St. Helena, for which he won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society that same year.[2]
On his return to the UK in 1833 he went up to Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating MA in 1839. He then served as director of the Radcliffe Observatory from 1839 until his death in Oxford in 1859. He was president of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1857–1858 and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1856.
In 1850 he had married Caroline, the daughter of Dr James Ogle.