Biography of Walter C. Johnson

JOHNSON, W. C. (of the firm of Johnson and Phillips). Educated at Victoria College, in the island of Jersey.

When about seventeen years of age Mr. Johnson became an articled pupil to Mr. W. F. Gooch, at the Vulcan Foundry in Lancashire, where he remained for five years. Failing, however, to find work that was congenial to his tastes, and after declining with considerable hesitation the offer of an appointment in a drawing office at the rate of £50 per annum, he resolved to join the applied sciences department, King's College, London, for a year, and on the completion of this term he was engaged as a draughtsman by Mr. H. Clifford, the engineer of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company's works. It was here, in working out designs for improved cable machinery, under the immediate supervision of Mr. Clifford, that he obtained a clear insight into the most advanced form and construction of this important branch of engineering, and his keen observation had ample scope, not only in the direction to which his abilities so conspicuously tend, viz., in the design and construction of machinery, but also in the laying of all the original cables of the Eastern and Eastern Extension Telegraph systems. He was appointed chief engineer in the laying of the British Australasian cable, the expedition being commanded by Captain Halpin. He left the works of the Telegraph Construction Company to join Mr. S. E. Phillips in establishing a business of their own.