Early Life
Johnson was born in Manchester, the third son of Charles Johnson, a wire manufacturer, and his wife Rosa, daughter of the Reverend Alfred Hewlett. He graduated from Owens College, Manchester in 1894 with the geological prize but later attended Wadham College, Oxford and was ordained in 1904. An avowed Christian Marxist, Johnson was brought under surveillance by MI5 as early as 1917, when he spoke in Manchester in support of the October Revolution. His political views were unpopular but his hard work and pastoral skills led to him being appointed Dean of Manchester by Ramsay MacDonald in 1924. He was appointed Dean of Canterbury in 1931.
Read more about this topic: Hewlett Johnson
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Gradually we come to admit that Shakespeare understands a greater extent and variety of human life than Dante; but that Dante understands deeper degrees of degradation and higher degrees of exaltation.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)