We’ve been taking a look into our own past and cataloguing some of the photographs and postcards which help us to understand the story of the Birthplace building. One particularly fascinating photograph in the archive shows how things have changed since the Museum opened in 1901…
In September 1900 Johnson’s birthplace was given to Lichfield by Alderman John Gilbert, former Mayor and the Managing Director of the Lichfield Brewery Company. The House had multiple uses throughout the century since Johnson’s death, from Evans’s pot and pan shop to Clarke’s drapers to Mrs Till’s coffee house, and was still in use by private tenants when it came into the council’s possession. After some negotiations, the tenant moved out in December and a dedicated committee started a campaign for donations of Johnson items and prepared the house for opening to the public on Whitsun weekend, 27th May 1901 at 12.30pm
After paying their 3 pence entry fee, visitors would experience a very different Museum to the one that we know now. Entering via the Breadmarket Street doors, only the ground floor and first floors were open to visitors, and the top floors were occupied by caretakers until 1907. Opening was a rather rushed affair, with caretakers Mr and Mrs Davoll only taking up their duties on May 20th, and the first donations to the collection only received from the end of April. The committee had resolved to re-paper the walls of the ground floor front room known as Michael Johnson’s shop, but this photograph tells us that they didn’t complete that work before they started to arrange the exhibits, so a floral wallpaper provides an unlikely backdrop for the first displays!
Most of the items that can be seen were given to the Museum between April 1901 and the opening day in May: Johnson’s armchair; a model of the statue of Johnson on the exterior of Lichfield Cathedral; a photograph enlargement of a print of Michael Johnson; a plan of Lichfield, engravings of Lichfield Bishops and a photograph of a painting of Anna Williams. All except the model are still in the Birthplace collection today.
After the public opening, an official dedication day took place on 6th July with the London Johnson Club in attendance. Michael Johnson’s Shop became the main focus of the first phase of restoration work at the Museum, and by Johnson’s Bicentenary in 1909 the room that we know now had taken shape, with the ceiling removed to expose the beams, the back wall reconfigured, and the Market Street windows changed.
