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If you visit Lichfield, you’ll quickly be made aware of how proud the Staffordshire city is of its favourite son.Ìý
A huge sculpture of the writer sits brooding over the market square, just yards from where the house where the man himself was born and lived until his mid-twenties.Ìý That house itself, in Breadmarket Street, is now a museum dedicated to him.

And just recently (in 2007), the city’s refurbished hospital was named after him.
What’s more, in 2009, the city will be the centre of dozens of events celebrating the three hundredth anniversary of the great man’s birth.
It doesn’t get much better than that.

Staffordshire bred

Samuel Johnson’s father was a bookseller whose shop was in the same Market Square where Johnson’s statue is sited now.
When the young Sam was five years old he attended Dame Oliver's School, in Dam Street, just around the corner, and then went on to be a hugely bright student at Lichfield Grammar School.
He also did a year at Oxford University before lack of money forced him back to Staffordshire.

But what’s a little forgotten now about this literary giant is that he had to overcome massive health problems (in fact he wasn’t even expected to live as a baby).Ìý

All his life he suffered from depressions and mental stress, even experiencing a form of what we would call Tourette Syndrome today.Ìý
As a result of childhood illnesses, he was blind in one eye, almost deaf in one ear, and had scars over his face.
He was six feet tall in an age when to be six-foot was considered a giant, and he had to endure long and difficult periods of poverty and debt.
According to some biographies, he also had masochistic tendencies.

What saved him eventually was his obvious conversation, learning, wit and intelligence, all of which endeared him to the literary and intellectual world of his time.

Literary life

But what saved him at first was his marriage to Elizabeth Porter.Ìý He met Elizabeth in Birmingham when he was trying his hand as a writer.
She fell for him, despite his problems and the opposition of her own family. She was twenty years older than Samuel, but had the money to keep the wolf from the door for them both - for at least a while. 'Tetty’ became his great love.

However, Tetty’s money couldn’t guarantee him success. An attempt to run a school failed, taking most of Tetty’s fortune with it, and eventually, when he was twenty-eight, he left Staffordshire, going to try to make his fortune in London.
He would never settle in Lichfield again, though he returned frequently.

In London, he tried to make what living he could by journalism, editing and biography.Ìý (The ‘Doctor’ title by which he is known is not a medical term; it refers to an honorary university doctorate he received later in life).Ìý Despite the reception and fame his articles and books received, he struggled to make ends meet.

Even his great work ‘A Dictionary of the English Language’ (1755), although it made him internationally famous and a celebrity, did not make him rich; in fact, he was paid only a flat-rate for the job which had taken him nine years!

Security

Poor Tetty did not live to see Johnson's reputation assured.Ìý But, in 1762, at the age of 53, and after Tetty had been dead for ten years, Johnson finally gained some financial stability when the King granted him a yearly allowance for his achievements.Ìý

Johnson did not remarry, and in fact, after his wife died (in 1752), he took on Francis Barber, a former black slave from Jamaica, as his main servant. Francis looked after him thereafter, and even became Johnson's heir.
(To see more on the story of Francis Barber, click on the link in the top right-hand corner of this page)

In these latter years, Johnson met up with his biographer-to-be, the young James Boswell.Ìý
Boswell’s ‘Life of Johnson’, which was published after Johnson died, stressed Johnson’s wit and views, and made him even more famous.

Johnson was so highly regarded at his death that he was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Staffordshire

The county is of course massively proud of Johnson, as one of its favourite sons.
Click below to discover some of the more weird and wonderful facts that point up the connections between Johnson and Staffordshire