– TWO DEATHS, ONE WEDDING, A BOOK PUBLICATION AND A CALL TO
BAR!
The year 1921 was a difficult year for the Johnson
family with the death of both Venerable Nathaniel & Mrs Eliza Zenobia
Johnson. Their deaths came not too long after the deaths of Nathaniel’s younger
brother, Dr. Obadiah Johnson, his sister Mrs Sarah Margaret Cole and her only
daughter, Patience Genista Cole in 1920. Late in 1919, Nathaniel and Obadiah
embarked on a trip from Lagos to Sierra Leone because of Obadiah’s ill health.
They were joined on their trip at Accra by their sister and niece who were also
unwell and proceeded to Sierra Leone where unfortunately, their sister,
Margaret died in Hastings.
Obadiah’s wife, Mabel Emily Johnson later arrived
in Sierra Leone, after which Nathaniel returned to Nigeria while Obadiah, his
wife and niece travelled on to London, where tragically, Obadiah and Patience
died, 10 days apart on the 12th and 22nd respectively of
September 1920. It is probable that the deaths in the family between 1920 and
1921, may have been connected with the 1918 influenza pandemic which was
declared officially ended in April 1920.
Nathaniel was the second of seven children born in
Hastings in 1844 to Mr. Henry (Erugunjimi) and Sarah Johnson. His older
brother, Henry (Jnr) was born on November 10th 1840. Nathaniel and
his younger siblings arrived in Ibadan when their parents, at the invitation of
Revd. David Hinderer, left Hastings for missionary work in Kudeti. He was then
aged fourteen. Henry remained in Freetown where he was employed in the Grammar
School as a tutor. They arrived in Ibadan on the 11th of February
1858 and their father Henry, unfortunately died on the 10th of
February 1865, while their mother Sarah, died on the 23rd of June
1876.
Nathaniel had his basic education in Sierra Leone
and this is borne out by the fact that when their father returned from Kew
gardens in England where he had been sent to train as a horticulturist in 1853,
both Nathaniel and his older brother Henry, vied to be the one to take down the
letter dictated by their father to inform Henry Venn of his safe arrival in
Hastings.
On their arrival in Ibadan, Nathaniel proceeded at
the instance of Revd. David Hinderer to the training institution in Abeokuta, where
he trained to be a teacher. The institution was then under the management of
Rev. G. F. Buhler. He studied and trained there between August 1858 and May
1863. He was then sent to St. Paul’s Breadfruit school as an assistant school
master. The Church was then under the supervision of the Revd L. Nicholson.
Early in 1864, he took charge of the Faji day school.
The Revd J. A. Lamb was then vicar of the Church.
It was while he was here that he had the conviction to enter the ordained
ministry. In 1868 he was moved to the school of Trinity Church Ebute Ero, the
Church then being under the supervision of Revd W. Morgan. In 1870, he was
moved to assist in the Grammar School, then located on Broad Street, Lagos
under the Principal, Revd. J. B. Macaulay and while there, he assisted the Revd
J. A. Maser in conducting afternoon services in the Palm Church station (now
St. John’s Church Aroloya) in 1870.
On the 30th of January 1873, he was
made catechist at the Palm Church station, which was then under the supervision
of the Revd. A. Mann. In a 3rd quarterly journal of 1874 written by
Mr. Charles Nathaniel Young, also a catechist in the Palm Church station, he
states: ‘Mr. Nathaniel Johnson is considered to have sole charge of Aroloya
station, under the superintendence of Mr. Mann.’ Nathaniel Johnson continued with his duties
as both teacher and catechist until when on the 12th of March 1876,
he was made deacon, together with his fellow catechist in the Palm Church
station, Mr. D. Coker and Mr. Charles Phillips (later Bishop whose younger
sister Eliza, he married). He was ordained priest on the 2nd of
March 1879.
In a similar report written earlier by Mr. Young
dated August 31st 1872, we learn of the return of Nathaniel Johnson
with his new wife, Eliza Zenobia. They had been married in Sierra Leone, which
it seemed, was still home for both families. Eliza Zenobia was born, sometime
in 1853 in Abeokuta and she and her siblings had a difficult start in life.
Her older brother, Charles jnr. (later Bishop) had
been born in Freetown Sierra Leone on April 16th 1847 and while
still a baby, aged five months and nine days was brought to the Yoruba Mission.
Their father, Charles (snr) was of Egba heritage, captured as a slave but
liberated in Freetown. He served an apprenticeship under one Mr. P. Edward
Phillips of Gloucester and was later admitted into Fourah Bay College in 1840.
In 1842 he was sent to teach in the village of
Gloucester till he joined the Yoruba Mission in 1847. When he arrived in the
Yoruba Mission field he was sent to Ake as school master till 1852 when he was
sent to Ijaye region to work with Rev A. Mann who opened a mission in the town.
He remained there till 1858, when he was recalled to Abeokuta to take charge of
Owu Station where he died on the 14th of September 1860.
At the time of his death, four children survived
him, Charles (jnr) being the eldest. Five months after their father passed,
their mother, Eliza too passed away in Lagos on the 5th of February
1861 where she had gone for medical attention. A week before she passed, while
still in Lagos, the youngest child too died in Abeokuta. Of this family
tragedy, Charles (jnr) writes:
The family was reduced by
death to 3 helpless orphans; viz myself only 13 years and 10 months; Eliza
Zenobia (8 years and 4 months), who was taken to England by the Revd. J. A.
Lamb in 1869 and who was married to Mr. Nathaniel Johnson in 1872; and Adolphus
(6 years and 3 months) who has recently been appointed a 2nd school
master to the Faji school.
Nathaniel’s trip to sierra Leone for his marriage
and the trip late in 1919 with his brother Obadiah, are the only trips we know for
certain that he took after the family’s arrival in Yoruba Country in 1858;
though it is also very likely that he did make a trip to London, as one of his
daughters, Marian Ebun Zenobia, told her children and grandchildren that her
first trip to Europe was made with her father.
Nevertheless, it seems clear that unlike his
brothers Henry (Jnr) and Obadiah, Nathaniel did not have the opportunities and
exposure they had. Henry (Jnr) his older brother, had been trained and ordained
for ministry in London between 1865 and 1869. In March 1873 he returned to
England travelling from there on the 4th of December 1873 to Palestine
for two years to learn Arabic.
He returned to England on the 28th of
April 1876 before finally arriving in Lagos on January 7th 1877 to
take up the incumbency of St. Paul’s Church Breadfruit Lagos. He travelled
again to England to receive in person on the 12th of November 1885, the
award of an honorary M. A. degree of the University of Cambridge in recognition
of his many translations and linguistic work. He was presented the award by the
Vice-Chancellor, the Rev. Dr. Ferrers, Master of Gonville and Caius College.
Nathaniel also probably did not have the
opportunity of a university education which his younger brother, Obadiah had. Obadiah,
together with Isaac Oluwole, gained entry into Fourah Bay College in 1876, the
year the College was affiliated to the University of Durham. They graduated in
1879 having obtained their B. A. degrees. Obadiah later gained admission into
King’s College London to study medicine, graduating in 1884 and becoming a
Member of the Royal College of Surgeons. His medical studies were concluded
with a year of studies in the University of Edinburgh where he was awarded the
Doctor of Medicine degree (MD). He eventually returned to Lagos in 1886 and joined
public service before later on setting up a private medical practice.
To his credit, Nathaniel yearned to develop
himself and his quest for further education, learning and exposure was
expressed in a letter dated 29th January 1867, written to a certain
H. V. G. (unknown) probably requesting for help in attaining his aspirations:
I feel extremely my
deficiency in learning. I weigh myself in the balance of education and find
myself in a great measure, wanting. The thought of what shall become of me,
overwhelms me. It speaks incessantly to my shame and regret and having not any
means of acquiring knowledge unless from my own private insufficient studies, I
arrive at the conclusion of making my wants known to you if (solely) you would
sympathise with me and may make one such provision as would qualify me for the
work.
Yet, in spite of this handicap, Nathaniel was able
to develop himself to the best of his ability and rise to become a senior
clergyman in Lagos. He arrived in Aroloya in 1870, and he worked there as
teacher, catechist and priest becoming the first Vicar, until 1901. His
children (12) were born in the Aroloya vicarage, but most, did not survive to
adulthood. Two of his sons were engaged in full time church mission work. His
eldest son, Henry Charles Nathaniel, was a catechist at Kudeti, Ibadan. He
unfortunately died on the 10th of March 1902. His second son and
fourth child, Revd Canon Horatio Victor Emmanuel, was born 24th July
1881 and died on the 16th of November 1941. He was ordained priest
and was also vicar of St. John’s Church Aroloya and St. Paul’s Church,
Breadfruit, Lagos.
He too would have his children in the Aroloya
vicarage, including my father. Another child, Marian Ebun Zenobia, was born on
the 29th of January 1887 and died on the 2nd of July
1983. She married Mr. Ephraim Michael Ekundayo Agbebi Esq. Incidentally, this
year too, marks the centenary of his swearing in as a lawyer. They were both
able to attend the ceremony which took place in England on the 26th
of August 1921.
Marian Ebun Zenobia
Johnson (later Mrs Agbebi) in her pram in 1887
Another daughter, Virginia Oyekunbi Kehinde, was
born on the 26th of September 1892 and died in May 1977. She married
a Baptist minister, Mr. Williams. Her twin brother, Eugene Oyewole Taiwo died
in childhood. Baptismal records at Aroloya attest to the fact that they were
baptised on the 16th of November 1892. There was another son named
Albert and he died in the 1930s.
Nathaniel laboured faithfully and as well as being
the vicar of St. John’s Aroloya, he also served as secretary to the Bible
Translating Committee. The late Mr. B. B. Lewis, in his History of St. John’s
Aroloya notes that it was Nathaniel himself who had suggested the name St.
John’s and that it was during his incumbency that the brick building which survived
till the 1960s was built as a place of worship. The foundation stone laying
ceremony for that building was held on the 28th of February 1889 and
was laid by Mr. J. A. Payne, Registrar and Taxing Master of the Supreme Court
of the Colony of Lagos.
Mr Lewis also notes that Nathaniel was musically
inclined and that it was both Nathaniel and Rev. A. W. Howells (later Bishop)
who usually sang the litany during ordination services. Nathaniel’s inclination
for music as noted by Mr. Lewis is important for two reasons. First, the musical
tradition in the family continues and secondly, in an article written by Prof.
Tunji Vidal about Dr. T. K. E. Phillips, the third of Bishop Charles Phillips’
children, he writes:
At Lagos he lived with his
paternal aunt and her husband, Archdeacon and Mrs Nathaniel Johnson who was
vicar of St. John’s Church Aroloya, Lagos from 1876-1901. While at St John’s…
he served as choir boy…. He received his first organ lesson from his uncle Rev.
Johnson. At the age of 18 in 1902, Phillips was appointed Organist of St.
Paul’s Church, Breadfruit, Lagos, the same Church where Nathaniel was then
serving as vicar…’.
(Venerable Nathaniel and Mrs Eliza Zenobia Johnson
and family. From Rt.-Lt. Horatio Victor Emmanuel; Virginia Oyekunbi Kehinde,
Marian Ebun Zenobia and a close relative.)
Nathaniel’s tenure as vicar of St. John’s Aroloya
ended in 1901 with his transfer to St. Paul’s Church Breadfruit as vicar which was
one of the reasons that led to the crisis and split within St. Paul’s
Breadfruit and the formation of the African Church. The dispute had nothing to
do with him personally but had to do primarily with the agitation for natives
to have more of a say in the running of the church. He therefore had a very
difficult start as vicar in St. Paul’s Breadfruit, but to his eternal credit,
he was able to overcome this, settle down and make his contributions to the
church.
When the Diocese of Lagos was established on 10th
December 1919, Nathaniel Johnson was appointed the Archdeacon of Lagos. He died
on August 15th 1921 and his wife Eliza died on October 26th
1921. It should be noted that Eliza trained in England as a confectioner. She
practiced this trade, of which basic skills and traits have been passed on to
her descendants, even up to the 5th generation as yet. Their labour
in St. John’s Aroloya was never forgotten, for after their death, a Memorial
Tablet was erected in the Church building which served till the 60s. It read:
To the Glory of God and in
loving memory of the Venerable Archdeacon Nathaniel Johnson, who laboured for
over 30 years in this parish church as catechist and pastor of St. Paul’s Church
Breadfruit. He became Archdeacon of Lagos in 1919 and died on August 15, 1921.
Also of Eliza Zenobia his wife who was his fellow labourer in the Lord’s
vineyard for 49 years. She fell asleep on October 26, 1921. Also of Henry
Charles Nathaniel their eldest son, who entered into rest on March 10, 1902
after having laboured in St. David’s Church Kudeti Ibadan for about 4 years.
Jesus lives Alleluia.
Nathaniel and Eliza’s work in St. John’s Aroloya
was further recognised when on the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, 27th December
2003, the vicarage building built during the period of my incumbency there was
dedicated and named after him. I am privileged and blessed to have in my
possession an almost complete set of Bible Commentaries which belonged to him,
signed and dated 1876, the year he was made deacon. They were passed on to me
by my late uncle, Mr. Henry Charles Nathaniel Johnson in July 1999, when I
became vicar of St. John’s Church Aroloya.
A Bible in four volumes presented to Nathaniel
Johnson in April 1904 to mark his retirement after 25 years of service from the
Secretariat of the Lagos Auxiliary of the British and foreign Bible Society.
Indeed, the death of both Nathaniel and Eliza
Zenobia Johnson about two months apart would undoubtedly have been devastating
for the surviving children. In particular, the death of Eliza early on the
morning of the 26th of October 1921 would carry special significance
in particular for their son, Revd. Canon Horatio Victor Emmanuel Johnson, my
grandfather.
It was the same day that he married his second
wife, Miss Ruby Olympia Ademite Williams, (2nd June 1896-14th
March 1991), first child of Revd J. S. Williams, vicar of St. Jude’s Church,
Ebute Metta (1893 – 1901) and later first Primate of the African Church
(Incorporated). Ademite’s maternal great grandfather was the Revd William
Odusina Moore, the first Egba Anglican clergyman. Victor’s first wife, a Miss Eunice Robbin
unfortunately died within two years of their marriage during childbirth and the
child did not survive. He refused to remarry while his parents-in-law were
still alive, in spite of all the pressure on him to do so.
It is not known in what circumstance they both
met, but it was sometime after Ademite’s return from finishing school in the
UK. Victor’s parents were quite happy with the match and the date in October
1921 was set and both Nathaniel and Eliza his parents requested that the date
should not be changed whatever happened.
Unfortunately, on August 15th, two
months before the wedding, Nathaniel died. After his funeral rites, Eliza
reminded everybody that the date fixed for October should not, under any
circumstances be changed. The day dawned and the service took place as planned.
Everything ran smoothly but rather briskly. At the end of the reception, Victor
whispered to his bride and explained that he would have to leave her there and
then, just outside the hall where the reception had taken place. He was going
off to bury his mother who had died that morning. He would be back to take her
off for their honeymoon later that day!
The marriage was blessed with four boys, all born
in the Aroloya vicarage just as Victor their father himself had been. They
were: Mr. Henry Charles Nathaniel Johnson; Sergeant Adolphus Sylvanus Akinpelu Johnson
(he joined the Royal Air Force during the second world war and was a Flight Engineer.
He died in a crash aged 20 on the 24th
of July 1944 and is buried in Cambridge England; Master Obadiah Cornelinus Akinlolu
Johnson who died in his early teens as a result of medical negligence; The Very
Revd Samuel Hugh Akinsope Stowell Johnson my father, who is still with us.
There was a set of twins, but they died in infancy.
The
Revd Canon Victor & Mrs ‘Demi Johnson and family. (CMS Photo)
Incidentally, the Bible Concordance given to the
couple as a wedding present by the members of staff of St. John’s Aroloya and
Massey Schools, is in my possession and still in very good condition!
This year also, marks the 100th
anniversary of the publication of the magisterial work: The History of the
Yorubas, written by Reverend Samuel Johnson, the third of five boys in the
Johnson family. He was born on the 24th of June 1846 in Hastings and
arrived in Ibadan with his parents and siblings in February 1858.
He had his early education in Hastings, but in 1862,
he too, just like his older brother Nathaniel, attended the Training
Institution in Abeokuta during the tenure of Mr. Buhler as Principal. In
January 1866, he was appointed school master in Kudeti Ibadan under Revd David
Hinderer and Revd J. Smith. In 1875 he was promoted to the position of
catechist in Aremo, a position he left on the 23rd of June 1876. He was
made deacon on the 6th of January 1886 and ordained priest on May 6th
1888 and was stationed in Oyo.
Together with his in-law, Bishop Charles Phillips,
he served as emissary of the colonial authorities to the warring factions in
the Kiriji war. This role and probably the fact that he was stationed in Oyo
exposed him to Yoruba politics in the way his brothers never were.
The writing of the book was a huge undertaking and
for a man without a university education, it was a wonderful accomplishment. The
quest to get the work published is described by Dr Kehinde Olabimtan in his
thesis on Samuel Johnson:
He finished his writing in
1897 and his brother, The Venerable Henry Johnson, sought the assistance of the
Church Mission Society (CMS) in London to fund the publishing of the work.
According to him, the material “contains much useful information of a kind,
that will not be available after a few years owing to the rapid changes now
going on in the country”. Unfortunately, R. N. Cust, the immediate recipient of
the manuscript on behalf of the society, was ambivalent about it. In his words:
It speaks volume in favour
of the degree of culture to which Negro missionaries have obtained, when they
can compose in so complete and orderly manner such a gigantic work. I look at
it with admiration—no native convert of India [sic] could produce such
work: unluckily it is so very prolix, and the subject matter so very
unimportant both from a secular and religiou’s [sic] point of view, that I know
not what to recommend….The SPCK would not look at such work: the book would not
sell: the whole subject is painful to me, as I feel for the author.
Cust, who had “expected a
small manuscript for a pamphlet” acknowledged that he had not attempted to read
the voluminous work due to his busy schedule, but what followed shows that the
English missionary society, by treating the document as inconsequential to its
half a century exertion among the Yoruba, failed to recognize their own moment
of success.
By 1900, the manuscript
was missing. If the CMS reported loss of the original manuscript in the custody
of Cust and the emerging climate of European hostility towards the Yoruba in
church and state in the closing decade of the nineteenth century are factors to
go by, it is only providential that the History eventually saw the light
of the day. Samuel’s brother, Obadiah, who had been privy to the project all
along as his editor observed that “this seemed to [him] and all his friends who
heard of it so strange that one could not help thinking that there was more in
it than appeared on the surface, especially because of other circumstances
connected with the so-called loss of the manuscripts.” The responsibility to
reassemble the material devolved on him, following the untimely death of the
original author, Rev. Samuel Johnson, in 1901. In Obadiah’s words:
[I]t has now fallen to the
lot of the editor to rewrite the whole history anew, from the copious notes and
rough copies left behind by the author. But for many years after his death,
partly from discouragements by the events, and partly from being appalled by
the magnitude of the task, the editor shrank from the undertaking, but
circumstances now and again cropped up showing the need of the work, and the
necessity for undertaking it besides the almost criminal disgrace of all owing
the outcome of his brother’ s many years of labour to be altogether lost.
Rewriting was not the end
of the challenges that faced the publication. The uncertainties of the World
War I years added their own troubles, but the publication was eventually
undertaken by the local CMS publishing company in Lagos in 1921. By then, the
editor too, Obadiah Johnson, had died the previous year. Neither the original
author nor the later compiler/editor saw the published work.
The question remains as to
why he wrote the book. In his preface to the work, having denied vain ambition
as his motivation, he adduced his exploit to “a purely patriotic motive, that
the history of our fatherland might not be lost in oblivion, especially as our
old sires are fast dying out”. In other words, deaths and changing times added
ontological dimension to Samuel Johnson’s decision to write the history of his
people and in doing so, he set out to rescue their fading memory.
The second stated reason,
complementary to the first, which motivated him to write the history shows that
Samuel Johnson had observed an inimical trend of false elitism among his fellow
returnees from Sierra Leone. In his own words:
Educated natives of Yoruba
are well acquainted with the history of England and with that of Rome and
Greece, but of the history of their own country they know nothing whatever!
This reproach it is one of the author’s object to remove.
(Dr. Kehinde
Olabimtan. Samuel Johnson of Yorubaland, 1846-1901).
Samuel Johnson was first married to Miss Lydia
Okuseinde on the 19th of January 1875 and their first child, Clara,
was born in Kudeti on the 6th of December 1875. They did have a son,
Geoffrey Emmanuel born in September 1878, but he died in October 1879.
Unfortunately, Lydia died in February 1888 and he would later, on the 20th
of June 1895, marry one Miss Martha E. Garber in Christ Church, Lagos. The
ceremony was performed by his older brothers, Henry and Nathaniel.
From both his marriages, Samuel was blessed with
five daughters who survived him and at least four of them married clergy men.
Clara, his first child, married The Reverend T. A. J. Ogunbiyi on the 23rd
of December 1898. Clara’s daughter, Charlotte Adebisi married a son of Bishop
Isaac Oluwole, Dr. I. Ladipo Oluwole and she had three children, among whom was
the Very Revd T. A. J. Oluwole, a former Provost of the Cathedral Church of
Christ, Marina Lagos. One daughter, Victoria Agbeke married Revd. Samuel
Gansallo, a vicar of St. Peter’s Church, Faji, Lagos in May 1902. Another
daughter, Adelaide Zenobia married Reverend (later Canon) M. S. Cole, a former
vicar of Christ Church Marina, All Saints’ Church, Yaba, and Founder of Oduduwa
College, Ile Ife. During his tenure as Vicar of Christ Church, the original
building, which was completed and dedicated by Bishop Crowther on June 10th
1869, was pulled down in 1920. He initiated fund raising efforts for the current
edifice. He was vicar when the foundation stone for the current building was
laid in 1925 by HRH Edward Prince of Wales. He also translated the Koran into
Yoruba. Another daughter, Lucretia married Revd James Adeneye Cole, a vicar of
Christ Church Porogun in Ijebu Ode.
It is poignant to note that as the family marks
and reflects on the 100th anniversary of the publication of this
book and the other events of 1921, it is important too, to point out that April
29th this year marks the 120th year of Samuel’s death in
Lagos. Indeed, we their descendants have a goodly heritage, an abundance of
treasured memories and inspirational legacies – A Hundred Years Later!
To God be the glory and thanksgiving!
LAUDATE
DOMINO
Signed:
Rt.
Revd Akinpelu Johnson M.Phil.; AKC; FKC
Chairman: Venerable Henry Johnson Foundation for
Theology and Social Transformation on behalf of the ‘Erugunjimi’ Henry Johnson
Family.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Venerable
B. C. Akinpelu Johnson “As for Me and My House … The Story of a Levitical
Dynasty”.
Dr. Kehinde Olabimtan. Samuel Johnson of
Yorubaland, 1846-1901. Identity, Change and the making of the Mission
Agent. Peter Lang 2013.
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