Everything about Francis Barber totally explained
Francis Barber (ca. 1735 – 1801) was the
Jamaican manservant of
Samuel Johnson in
London from 1752 until Johnson's death in 1784. Johnson made him his residual heir, with
£70 a year to be given him by Trustees, expressing the wish that he move from London to
Lichfield in
Staffordshire, Johnson's native city. After Johnson's death in 1784, Barber did this, opening a draper's shop and marrying a local girl. Barber was also left Johnson's books and papers, and a gold watch. In later years he'd acted as Johnson's assistant in revising his
famous Dictionary and other works.
Barber was
born a slave on a sugar
plantation in Jamaica belonging to the Bathurst family. At the age of about 15, he was brought to
England by his owner, Colonel Richard Bathhurst, whose son, also called Richard, was a close friend of Johnson. He was sent to school in
Yorkshire. Johnson's wife
Elizabeth Porter died in 1752, plunging Johnson into a depression that Barber later vividly described to
James Boswell. The Bathursts sent Barber to Johnson as a
valet, arriving two weeks after her death. Although the
legal validity of slavery in England was ambiguous at this time (a later legal decision clarified that it didn't exist in England; see
Somersett's Case), when the elder Bathurst died two years later he gave Barber his freedom in his will, with a small legacy of £12. Johnson himself was an outspoken opponent of slavery, not just in England but
in the American colonies as well.
Barber then went to work for an apothecary in
Cheapside but kept in touch with Johnson. He later signed up as a sailor for the
Navy, until retrieved, perhaps against his wishes, by Johnson, returning to be his servant. Barber's brief maritime career is known from
James Boswell's
Life of Johnson:
Life:
Life of Johnson and other contemporary sources, and there are at least two versions of a portrait, one now in
Dr. Johnson's House, which may be of him. Most recent art historians thought it was probably painted by
James Northcote, or perhaps by Northcote's master Sir
Joshua Reynolds, who was one of Barber's Trustees under the will. An alternative view, recently expressed on a
BBC programme, is that it's by Reynolds himself, but of his own black servant, not Barber.
When making his will, Johnson asked
Sir John Hawkins, later his first biographer, what provision he should make for Barber. Sir John said that a nobleman would give 50 pounds a year. Then I'll be "noblissimus" replied Johnson, and give him 70. Hawkins disapproved, and after Johnson's death criticised his "ostentatious bounty and favor to negroes." The bequest was indeed widely covered in the press.
Barber's life in Staffordshire was unsettled, and he was apparently given to drinking. He died in
Stafford; his descendants still farm near Lichfield.
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