Sarah Susannah Johnson

Sarah Susannah Johnson’s name came up a few times while Colette and I were looking through the archives. She appears as a witness at the marriage of Charles John Johnson and Matilda Cassell in 1838. We also found a commonplace book with lovely caligraphy, which seems to be a collection of drawings, poems, etc, with an inscription on the front “Sarah Susannah Johnson – the gift of her cousin William Folkard 20th April 1829”. As a result of this I did some research and discovered that Charles John Johnson had an older sister who was baptised Sarah Susanna, born on Aug 9th 1812. She then appears in the 1841, 1851 and 1861 censuses living with her father in Croydon (her mother died in 1847). It looks as if she never got married.

I have not been able to find any trace of William Folkard. He gave her the notebook when she was 16 years old, and is described as her cousin. If he is a real cousin, as opposed to an honorary one, then he would be the son of one of her parents’ siblings. It makes me wonder whether her mother, Sarah, whose surname we don’t know, was a Folkard. I have not been able to find any record of a marriage between a Johnson and a Folkard in the late 18th or early 19th century. Curiously a Folkard does appear in the family tree, because a Joseph Christmas Folkard married Catherine Cassell who was the sister of Matilda Cassell, wife of Sarah Susannah’s brother Charles John and therefore at rather a long remove from her and not a blood relation. It is possible that the Folkard, Johnson and Cassell families knew each other and were friends.

Michael Johnson 08/05/2020