Lichfield Michael Bundock
Michael Bundock on the city where Samuel Johnson was born
If ever a city was associated with a particular writer, that city is Lichfield and that writer is Samuel Johnson. It’s true that the tourist tea-towels remind us of his best-known pronouncement, ‘If a man is tired of London he is tired of life’. But he probably never said any such thing, while he certainly did shoehorn a tribute to his native city into his Dictionary of the English Language. He defined ‘lich’ as ‘A dead carcass, whence, Lichfield, the field of the dead, a city in Staffordshire. Salve magna parens.’ (Hail great parent.)
Lichfield Tourist Office has been understandably slow to adopt the slogan ‘Field of the dead’, but among residents there is a tangible sense of civic pride in the local boy who made good in London. (‘ Salve magna parens’ is now the motto of the City Council.) Johnson was born in Lichfield on 18th September 1709 and every September one weekend is devoted to celebrating the city and Johnson’s life, with music, readings, theatre, and a number of historic buildings open to the public. This year it takes place on 14th–15th September.
The focus of events is the house where Johnson was born, an imposing four-storey building on the corner of the marketplace. It was built by Johnson’s parents, Michael and Sarah Johnson in 1708 and is now the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum. Michael Johnson ran a bookseller’s business from the ground floor, so it’s appropriate that the museum operates a secondhand bookshop in the same part of the building. A rather good one it is too – plenty of Johnson, of course, but whenever I have visited there have been excellent general stocks of literature and history as well. There’s something pleasing about being able to handle books in this setting rather than searching soulless online catalogues.
The centrepiece of the weekend is the civic dinner organised by the thriving Johnson Society of Lichfield in the nearby Guildhall. Johnson scholars and enthusiasts gather with locals and civic dignitaries to mark the occasion with a little light steak and kidney pudding. Clay pipes are smoked, much punch is consumed, and an address is delivered to the assembled throng. (This year the honours are to be performed by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.)
The Birthplace Museum lies at the heart of the city, and the market still operates there as it did in the 18th century, with crates of fruit and vegetables leaning against the two contrasting statues which dominate the open space. One is of Johnson, massive, heavy, head on chin and deep in thought. The other is a jaunty James Boswell by the notoriously inept
sculptor Percy Fitzgerald, who has conferred on Johnson’s biographer a remarkable snub nose.
The market occupies the space to the side of St Mary’s Church. The church now houses the city library and history centre, and it is possible to climb to a viewing platform in the spire to look out over the city centre and the surrounding countryside. One feature dominates the landscape for miles around: Lichfield Cathedral, with its famous three spires. (It is apparently the only three-spired medieval cathedral in the United Kingdom.)
The centre of the city is small, and it is a short stroll to the cathedral along a narrow lane lined with 18th-century houses. The contrast with the busy marketplace is marked: the cathedral precincts are peaceful and largely traffic-free. The close is little changed since Johnson’s day, with the cathedral surrounded by substantial houses, one of which was at that time the Bishop’s Palace (now Lichfield Cathedral School).
Many people come to the cathedral to see the 8th-century St Chad Gospels or the stunning Lichfield Angel, a medieval sculpted panel discovered only in 2003. Last year these ancient artefacts were joined by a striking modern one when the icon Jesus Crucified, Risen and Lord of All, by a group of painters from Bethlehem Icon School, was suspended from the roof above the altar.
Tucked away in a side chapel are memorials to Johnson and to David Garrick, another Lichfieldian and Johnson’s former pupil. Garrick’s monument quotes Johnson’s words: ‘His death eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.’ Not a bad tribute, for any actor. His local origins are also celebrated in the name of the Lichfield Garrick Theatre.
Just off the close is the former house of yet another Lichfield luminary, Erasmus Darwin, physician, poet and grandfather of Charles. Erasmus was the leading figure in the Lunar Society, a group of engineers, designers and experimenters whose members included Josiah Wedgwood, James Watt and Joseph Priestley. (Their story is celebrated in Jenny Uglow’s book The Lunar Men.) The house is now a museum commemorating Darwin’s life and the work of the group.
The Johnson commemoration weekend has taken place every year for over a century, but since 2006 there has been another annual literary celebration, the city’s book festival; this year it runs from 7th–10th March, with a range of writers talking about their work. Many of the events take place in the George Hotel, an old coaching inn which was known to Johnson.
Samuel Johnson never forgot the city of his birth. Forty years after leaving it he told John Wilkes, ‘I lately took my friend Boswell and showed him genuine civilised life in an English provincial town. I turned him loose at Lichfield.’
‘The Fortunes of Francis Barber: The True Story of the Jamaican Slave Who Became Samuel Johnson’s Heir’ by Michael Bundock is published by Yale University Press