Mary Johnson (née Francis)

Mary Johnson (née Francis), widow of the financier Godschall Johnson I (who had previously married Elizabeth Hodges), awarded part of the compensation for the Holly & Savanna estates on Antigua after counterclaiming as a result of arrears on her jointure of £600 p.a. The bulk of the award was paid to trustees (John Bayley Darvall and Henry V. Tebbs, both of whom q.v.) to satisfy the further payments due to her.

1. Mary Francis was reportedly the fourth daughter of Sir Philip Francis and Elizabeth Macrabie, and married Godschall Johnson at the age of 22 in 1792. John Julius Angerstein was reportedly godfather to both the daughters of this marriage, Mary Elizabeth Godschall Johnson (b. 1796) and Catherine Godschall Johnson (b. 1798). George James Cholmondeley was the uncle by his (second) marriage to Mary Francis's sister Catherine of the two girls, and Horace George Cholmondeley, who married Mary Elizabeth Godschall Johnson in 1825, was stepson of Catherine Francis.  

2. Burial of Mary Godschall Johnson of St Pancras 72 years at St John the Baptist, Woolwich 21/01/1842.

T71/877 Antigua no. 387, which describes her as widow of Brighton Sussex and specifies the basis of her counterclaim. T71/1622 shows the Commissioners' decision on arbitration, in which 1/5th of one moiety of the compensation was awarded to the London merchant family the Purriers; £665 was paid to Mary Johnson as the arrears of her jointure under an indenture of 08/03/1792 [presumably her marriage settlement]; and the remainder of the award (£2450 13s 9d) was paid to trustees to satisfy future payments to Mary Johnson.

1. Lady May Thornton, 'The Johnson and Godschall Johnson Families' (1972), http://www.geocities.ws/lordrichardcholmondeley/godschall.htm [accessed 09/04/2012], unsourced. This site raises the possibility that George James Cholmondeley's second wife was in fact Catherine Godschall Johnson rather than Catherine Francis, in which case Cholmondeley father and son would have married sisters. Anthony Twist indicated that Angerstein was godfather to Catherine Johnson and his wife Eliza was godmother to the second daughter Mary Elizabeth, Twist 'Widening Circles' (Ph D Thesis Amsterdam).

2. Ancestry.com, London, England, Deaths and Burials, 1813-1980 [database online].