Family and Education

b. by 1530.1

Offices Held

Alderman, Grantham by 1556.2

Biography

Roger Johnson was probably of the same family as Ralph Johnson who in 1551 obtained a lease of the Wellam watermills in Grantham. In the same year he was assessed toward the relief at Grantham on goods valued at £12 and he evidently owed his return to Mary’s third Parliament to the borough’s acceptance of the royal recommendation to elect residents: he was styled gentleman on the list of Members. He may then have been a Catholic and thus conformable to the further royal requirement, but in 1564 he was to be adjudged ‘earnest in religion’. He proved a satisfactory Member to the extent that he was not among those found absent when the House was called early in January 1555. Nothing further is known of him but bearers of his name in Lincolnshire include a resident of Cowbit, administration of whose estate was granted in 1573, and another of Asterby, whose will was proved in 1592; neither of these was styled gentleman and the second was a blacksmith in relatively poor circumstances.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: T. M. Hofmann

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from first reference.
• 2. B. Street, Grantham, 123.
• 3. CPR , 1569-72, p. 162; E179/138/492; Huntington Lib. Hastings mss Parl. pprs.; Cam. Misc. ix(3), 28; Lincs. RO, Lincoln consist. ct. admons. 1573 Aii/150; wills 1592/76.