Dr Johnson's House 17 Gough Square EC4 Telephone: 020 7353 3745
A small, independent museum dedicated to its former resident Dr Samuel Johnson who lived here from around 1748 to 1759 (during which time, he compiled the first comprehensive English Dictionary in 1755). The house was built in 1700 and is a rare example of a residential property of its period. Today, the house provides the visitor with an impression of what it might have been like during Dr. Johnson's occupancy, with its historic interiors, collection of paintings and prints, personal effects and other exhibits associated with his life.
LIFE IN JOHNSON'S LONDON
The contrasts of poverty and wealth marked Johnson's time in London - London's population was growing fast and by 1750 it numbered three quarters of a million people. The streets fascinated natives and visitors alike for all classes jostled each other on the pavement's of London. Aristocrats and high-ranking people in their highly decorated coaches — the Coronation coach is almost the last surviving example; fashionable ladies and dandies in sedan chairs; drivers of coal cattle-drovers; heavily laden porters; liveried footmen and street-sellers; ballad mongers, link-boys, and countless other kinds of people dressed in costume appropriate to their trade or station in life, helped to provide the colour and bustle of every-day life in London. Many of the streets were ill-lit, narrow and rough and great danger threatened after dark from lurking footpads - not until 1776 did the elected Mayor and Corporation of London have responsibility for paving the streets; at the same time the lighting of the streets was also improved. Westminster Bridge (opened in 1750) and London Bridge were the only two bridges in London at the time, so the all-powerful watermen with their ferry boats were in constant demand
For many of the poor, life was cheap in the filthy courts and alleys of the poverty-stricken areas which lay behind the main streets. For many children the chances of survival were small, with thousands dying every year after being abandoned by parents to whom they were a burden; starvation probably killed many older people too. The threat of the death penalty for even petty crimes was not an effective deterrent to crime for people living in such conditions.
| "Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists." |
Admission: GBP 4.50 (adult), GBP 3.00 (concessions) (GBP 1.50 children) and GBP 10.00 (family ticket).
Open: 11am-5.30pm Mon-Sat (May-September) and 11am-5pm Mon-Sat (October-April)
Nearest Tube / London Underground station: Blackfriars or Temple (Circle & District Line), Holborn or Chancery Lane (Central Line).
Bus: All routes to Aldwych, Chancery Lane, Fleet Street or St. Paul's.Bus numbers 4, 11, 15, 23, 26, 76 and 172 run along Fleet Street.
Website: www.drjohnsonshouse.org
