Born on 5th December 1885 to North Shields born stone mason Robert Johnson and his wife Hannah Elizabeth (nee Prudhoe), John was brought up with his older siblings, Hannah, Robert, Catherine, William, Phyllis and Mary Ann and his younger sister Sarah Isabella living in Elm Street, Benwell. By 1901 his oldest brother Robert had left home and the family had moved to Gill Street where John was working as a butcher’s apprentice. Hannah died in 1909 and the family split up.
In 1912 John’s sister Phillis, her husband and three young children emigrated to Canada heading to Hamilton, Ontario to start a new life. Two years later John too left for Canada, and went to live with Phillis and her family in Hamilton where he found work as a farm hand.
November 1915 found John enlisting with the 120th (City of Hamilton) Battalion and becoming Private 757100 with “B” Company, giving Phillis in Hamilton as his next of kin. Twice early in 1916 John went AWL for which he forfeited his pay, and then in mid August he sailed with the 120th on SS Empress of Britain arriving in Liverpool on 24th and a posting to Bramshott Camp, Hampshire. Admitted to Aldershot Military Hospital with VD in September on return he was posted to the 2nd Reserve Battalion and on 10th February 1917 was posted to the 239th Battalion Railway Construction Company based at Purfleet in Surrey, where his changed to that of Sapper.
230th was redesignated as the 3rd Battalion Canadian Railway Troops the following month and then proceeded from Folkestone to Boulogne where they constructed and maintained railway lines for the First Army Group based at Barlin about 100km south east. Sapper Johnson remained with 3CRT until the end of the war when he was transferred to the Canadian Railways Training Depot and returned to England in early January 1919. John Johnson ended his career in the military as he started it, by being reported AWL and again forfeiting his pay.
The troops returned to Canada at the end of March, sailing from Glasgow to Nova Scotia and then on to Hamilton where Sapper Johnson was demobilised on 11th April 1919. Two months later on 14th June John married Irish girl Annie Mary MacNamara and they settled in Wilson Street, Hamilton and John found work as a salesman.
John Johnson died in Hamilton, Ontario on 7th October 1953. His burial place is unknown.
John Johnson is remembered in Elswick on E35.02