Johnsons Barrel Browners – a Family History
Recounted by Ronald Johnson
Liveryman, Gunmaker’s Company
Johnsons have a direct father and son line in the gunmaking business back to Edward Johnson, born in 1823. Edward was born and worked in Birmingham as a gun-barrel browner and gun-finisher. His son, Thomas Johnson, was also born and worked in Birmingham as a gun-barrel browner. However, sometime in the late 1800s, he was asked by Holland & Holland in London to come to work for them as they needed top craftsmen for their barrel-finishing. This would have been mostly Damascus browning, as steel barrels, which are blacked, were just coming in to replace the Damascus tubes. My grandfather, Samuel Johnson, also born in Birmingham, came to London with his father and, when old enough, worked with him at Holland & Holland’s factory. Then, in the early 1900s, sometime before the First World War, he returned to Birmingham, married and had three sons. Thomas Johnson died in London in 1923. In 1924, Samuel Johnson was asked to return to London as, once again, the top London gunmakers needed someone with his expertise to finish and best black their barrels. He set up a workshop in the Harrow Road, Paddington, midway between the Holland & Holland and Purdey factories. His three sons all married in London.
My father, Stanley Johnson, was the only son to have offspring, namely myself, Ronald Johnson. This made me the only male heir to the family line which really pleased Grandad Sam. My father Stanley worked with his father whilst still at school. He used to walk past the Holland & Holland factory on his way to school and would drop off finished barrels, as well as collect barrels to black, on his way home. Leading up to the Second World War, Stanley Johnson was, by then, the main man in the business. I was born in 1937, two years before the war. I remember the war, especially as we were bombed, and I can remember the “Doodle Bugs” flying over. When the flames stopped coming out of the rear and the noise stopped, they would come down, blowing up whole streets.
Grandfather Sam was a great believer in King and Country, and that everyone should do their duty. In fact, his sister’s husband was gassed on Hill 60 during the first gas attack by the Germans on our troops in WW1. So, my father, Stanley, being the youngest son, enlisted as a private in a light infantry regiment. I’m not sure when, but later on towards the end of the war, he was sent on an officer training course in North Wales. But whilst there, Grandad Sam Johnson received a huge MOD contract for war work. He was working on his own at the time so my father, Stanley Johnson, was recalled from the army to organise and manage the MOD contract, which was a massive job. The war ended and Johnson Barrel Blackers slowly got back to sporting gun work for all the top gunmakers, which we still do today.
Gunmaking after the Second World War
I, Ronald Johnson, did my National Service with the RAF in a fighter squadron, serving part of my two years in Cyprus on active service, as this was the time of the EOKA terrorists. On demobilisation, I went straight to Holland & Holland as a barrel maker and stayed there, making barrels, for a few years. They were a great bunch of guys, but unfortunately, at that time, late 1950s, early 1960s, wages in the gun trade were not very good. Top workers were leaving to be postmen and other similar jobs for much higher wages. I was offered a job in an aero-engine development company which paid top wages, so I left Holland & Holland moved to them. The Johnson family were still very busy, but I did not want to join them yet as I was still settling down after National Service. I was there a year or so when, out of the blue, my father Stanley received a message from Henry Atkin, whom I think had just amalgamated with Grant & Lang. He wanted to meet me and discuss starting up in business as there were no trade barrel makers in London and they had to send their work to Birmingham. They made me an offer I could not refuse. I found a nice workshop in Junction Mews, a walk away from the Purdey factory in Irongate Wharf and got started as a barrel maker and repairer.
I was working seven days a week making one new pair of barrels per week, as well as lots of barrel repairs, plus family Johnson barrel repairs, which I had always done, working part-time at their workshop. Then about a year later, the church which owned the property I was in, found out I was working on guns and asked me to leave. Fortunately, the family workshops were situated in a mews off Kilburn Lane, which, once again, was ideally situated between the Holland & Holland and Purdey factories. A unit had become vacant, so I moved in there, which really pleased Grandad Samuel, as I was the only grandson and all four Johnsons were now together again.
Even way back when I was at school, my father would take me into work on my school holidays and I used to help Grandad Sam with browning the Damascus barrels which is a long process, often taking a month or longer to get the correct colour. We still do exactly the same process now – the way Grandad Sam did them when they were new barrels. Life was different then and Grandad Sam got me taking snuff and smoking when I was about ten years old.
Grandad Sam
I could write a book about Grandad Sam, for as well as taking buckets of snuff, he drank a bottle of gin every day and a quart of pale ale and smoked at least twenty untipped cigarettes. He had a habit of blowing smoke rings and singing silly songs. He had a fry-up every morning and a roast meal at lunch time, probably cooked in lard. I took him back home for lunch after work. After lunch, he would not eat anything for the rest of the day as it would interfere with drinking time. He died aged 81, not an ounce overweight and never had a day’s illness until the end.
It was decided in 1960 to amalgamate my very successful repair side of the business and join together with Johnsons Barrel Browners Ltd., as they were so busy with the top London and country trade. So, I switched from barrel making and repairs to barrel blacking and Damascus browning with my father and grandfather, plus I managed to persuade my old Holland & Holland foreman barrel maker to come and work for us. We then all worked together for a number of years.
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and it makes me smile that over the years we, the Johnsons, have had many imitators purporting to be us!
I had been married about a year when we decided to move in and share a house with Grandad Sam and Grandmother Sarah who were getting fairly old by then. In the evenings, he would tell me all the old gun trade stories from many years ago, plus all the original barrel blacking and Damascus browning secrets. I recall him telling me it does not matter how old you are, if you are fit and well enough, you should carry on working. If you don’t, you are a burden on society. We stayed with them until he died in 1963.
The Next Generation
We moved out and started our own family – Matthew was born in 1967 and then twin girls twenty months later. Matt was always interested in guns and model-making and, whilst still at school, used to do the daily ritual of Damascus browning, putting chemicals on and rubbing them off again until they got to the right colour. Then I would finish them.
In the mid 1990s we set up a new workshop midway between West London Shooting Grounds and the Holland & Holland grounds and range – still very central to the London gun trade. Matt left school at sixteen and went straight to the Holland & Holland apprentice school. He went on to become a fully qualified actioner and was there quite a few years. When my father, Stanley Johnson, retired, Matt left Holland & Holland and joined me in the barrel blacking trade.
Matt has been a great asset in updating the barrel blacking system. We still base it on Grandad Sam’s original methods, but steels have got much harder and more stainless used as time has gone by, especially new double gun barrels which have a mixture of metals. That is, the tubes are much harder than the ribs. Single barrel rifle actions are different to double barrel rifles, which may have very hard tubes but often much softer ribs; sight blocks are different again. This requires a great deal of skill to create our very special shiny deep black with a tinge of blue, which not only looks good but feels nice to the touch. This is what the best gunmakers require for their new guns.
Our best barrel blacking, especially for new guns, is a very labour-intensive process, a barrel taking the better part of two weeks to complete. Each barrel is picked up and worked on at least one hundred times until the desired standard is reached. We also set a very similar finish on older barrels. Nothing is quite like our finish, which we believe is the best. Matt has developed a special finish for new, much-harder Damascus barrels which blends in with the new Purdey Damascus style actions. They look great.
My twin girls, born a year after Matt (1968) have been looking at guns all their lives. We have a decent collection of hammer guns, including a couple of Thomas Johnson (Norfolk) best-quality hammer guns. We believe he was a family member, but we have never verified this. Also, a nice selection of military and sporting flintlock, percussion and pinfire guns, as well as pistols, plus our rare demonstration pieces showing how Damascus tubes are made. These are display pieces made for the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Sarah Johnson worked at West London Shooting Grounds for quite a while but has moved to Harrow Public School to work in the administration department – (she says she runs the school!). Her twin, Samantha, the artist of the family, went straight from school to become apprentice to a top engraver in the Goldsmiths Company. She now runs her own business in the Goldsmiths Centre in the City of London, employing about eight staff. She also has two Goldsmith apprentices and spends time teaching. She is a top engraver and specialist in pictures, some of which take months to complete. She has twice won the Jacques Cartier award for outstanding craftsmanship, which attracts entrants internationally. She is also the first woman to win the award. Samantha does some of our engraving – usually complex crests and coats of arms etc. and has engraved guns for top makers with game scenes including much gold inlay. Often different colour golds are used in the same scene.
As a company, we carry out most gun work. Matt and I spend about 90% of our time barrel blacking, as our process is very specialist. I still do a few urgent barrel repairs to keep my hand in raising dents, altering chokes etc., plus a few urgent repairs such as fixing ribs, as does Matt.
We have a great team of top workers local to us and we still make new barrels, sleeve barrels, prepare guns for proof, all types of gun repairs, stock alterations and renovate woodwork, plus, of course, engraving. It is interesting that we still work for the same top gunmakers where Samuel started in 1924 after being asked to return to London. Matt has his son George still at school and we hope he will be another link in our family gunmaking family.
The Livery and the Award
Matt and I are members of the Livery of the Worshipful Company of Gunmakers.
I am honoured to have been presented with their Lifetime Achievement Award. This is a new award and I am the first proud recipient. I will accept the award on behalf of the Johnson family.
As I said earlier, times have changed. This is borne out by another story from Grandad Sam Johnson. I commented that he liked a drink! One of his best friends was Jack Wilkes, the boss of John Wilkes Gunmakers. Their shop was in Beak Street, Soho. Grandad used to get over there frequently on business, but also as often as possible to go out for a drink – needless to say, more than one. But the punchline is – they used to take barrels and guns with them and, whilst having a drink on their way to various customers, would leave them on buses, trains and in pubs all over the West End. My father and brothers would have to go out the next day, visiting all the lost property offices and pubs etc. They always found them. Grandad sometimes went to Wilkes and a few other customers with his motorbike and sidecar combination. They would go home by train or bus and on one occasion it took three days to find the motorcycle and sidecar – it was still full of barrels! He could not remember at which pub he had left it. The good old days!
Ron Johnson, February 2019
