In honour of Women's History Month, today's blog post is all about Catherine Chambers, maidservant, bookseller, and friend of the Johnson family. This post also celebrates female friendship and women supporting women! Often only referred to as Sa…
In honour of Women's History Month, today's blog post is all about Catherine Chambers, maidservant, bookseller, and friend of the Johnson family. This post also celebrates female friendship and women supporting women!
Often only referred to as Sarah Johnson's maidservant, Catherine Chambers was so much more than that. Johnson held Chambers in very high regard, he would affectionately call her 'Kitty', and when writing to his stepdaughter Lucy porter, he often sent his respects and love to Kitty and asked her to write to him. As for Kitty's age, Johnson wrote a diary entry in 1767, which says Kitty was fifty-eight (at the time) and she had lived with the Johnson family since 1724. If Johnson is correct, this would mean they were of a similar age, and Kitty had been living at the family house since she was a teenager. Unfortunately, we don't know what Kitty looked like; there are no known surviving portraits or descriptions of her. Chambers could read and write; not only did she run the bookshop after Michael and Sarah Johnson's deaths, but she also signed her name as a witness on an indenture of a mortgage of the Johnson house in 1757. This signature is perhaps one of the only known samples of Kitty's handwriting.
In the Birthplace museum's collection, we have the indenture of a mortgage of the Birthplace, with Catherine Chamber's signature.
In 1731, Michael Johnson died, and the family bookshop was continued by Sarah Johnson, with the help of Lucy and Kitty, who lived with her. During Sarah's final illness, Kitty and Lucy helped to care for her. After her death, Johnson wrote to Lucy in 1759, expressing his gratitude to the two women for looking after his mother during her last days. He asked her to tell Kitty 'that I shall never forget her tenderness for her mistress.'
In letters from the same year, Johnson wrote to Lucy, 'If you and Kitty will keep the house, I think I shall like it best. Kitty may carry on the trade for her self, keeping her own stock apart . . . I fancy Kitty can do nothing better, and I shall not want to put her out of a house where she has lived so long and with so much virtue . . . let her know I have the highest value for her'. He suggested that Kitty 'close her mistress's account and begin her own.' Johnson wished her success in her trade; Kitty was now a bookseller! Lucy lived with her until around 1766, when she moved into her own house, 'Redcourt', in what is now Tamworth Street, Lichfield, after inheriting money.
We still have a bookshop on the ground floor of the museum today!
Johnson must have somewhat thought of the house as Kitty's because in 1763, he planned to pay her board of a guinea a week when he proposed a visit during a trip to Lichfield, accompanied by Frank Barber. During the same year, in a letter to Lucy, he wrote '… I intend that she [Chambers] shall have the use of the house as long as she and I live.' Although it is often written that Kitty lived in the house until she died, Johnson wrote to Lucy in 1766, during Kitty's final illness, 'I was loath that Kitty should leave the house, till I had seen it once more. . . I am unwilling to sell it . . . If it can be let, it should be repaired, and I purpose to let Kitty have part of the rent while we both live…' He thanked Lucy for her care of Kitty. Perhaps this means that Lucy had Kitty move in with her at Redcourt, so that she could take care of her?
When Kitty's illness worsened, Johnson hurried to Lichfield to see her; he later told William Drummond that he stayed for nearly six months. He wrote to his physician friend, Thomas Lawrence, in 1767, asking for 'advice for an old friend whom I am extremely desirous to keep alive…' He describes Kitty's symptoms in great detail: 'She is extremely heavy, and between the soreness and cumbrousness of her legs, and the weight of her body, is not able to cross the room. In this state of total inactivity, she has remained eight months. She has had a slight fever . . . [she is] more thirsty than others . . . She has now and then a fit of coughing. . . and is sometimes short breathed. Her urine is thick and in a very small quantity. On one leg she has several small ulcers, and a large ulcer on the other . . . She has sometimes a pain in the side'.
Although Johnson tried to get help for Kitty, it was too late. The two had grown up together, and it must have felt like he was losing a sibling. In his diary Johnson wrote with great emotion, 'Sunday, Oct. 18. 1767. Yesterday, Oct 17., at about ten in the morning, I took leave for ever of my dear old friend, Catherine Chambers . . . She buried my father, my brother, and my mother.' During his last visit Johnson asked everyone to leave the room and suggested the pair pray together. He then kissed her, and Kitty told him 'that to part was the greatest pain that she had ever felt, and that she hoped we should meet again in a better place.' Johnson writes that with 'swelled eyes, and great emotion of tenderness, the same hopes. We kissed and parted.'
Although the last time Johnson saw Kitty was 17 October, she didn't die until 3 November. She was buried in the chancel of St. Chad's Church, Lichfield, on 7 November. In her will she left her female relations five pounds each and her 'wearing apparel'. Kitty appointed Lucy sole executrix of her will, and for the 'acknowledgement of the many favours I have received from Miss Lucy Porter' she left 'all the rest residues and remainder of my worldly goods and personal estate…'
This beautiful painting of Lucy Porter as a child is currently on display on the first floor of the Birthplace Museum.
Lucy must have felt the loss of her friend greatly; in 1768, she received a letter from Johnson asking how she was 'and how you supply the loss of your friends. Be as cheerful as you can and pass some part of every day in reading, and a little part in thinking upon me.' Lucy died in 1786, two years after her stepfather. In her will she asked to be buried near Kitty and the two ladies are buried close together in St. Chads church. There is a very interesting article [1] about the two graves being rediscovered, and of two memorial plaques erected on the church wall for Lucy and Kitty. Two best friends who supported each other during life and in death were still inseparable.
Resources:
[1] Staffordshire Advertiser, September 3, 1910. 'The Tombs of Catherine Chambers and Lucy Porter'.
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