A newly identified apothecary in Boswell’s Life of Johnson: Edward Ferrand (1691–1769)

Abstract

Ever since the publication of James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), it has been known that Johnson's young servant, the former slave Francis Barber 'ran away' at one point and worked for a London apothecary. But the apothecary was not named by Boswell and has not been identified by any of Johnson's numerous biographers nor in recent studies of Francis Barber. Research in surviving Boswell manuscripts, 18th-century London guides and the archives of the Society of Apothecaries prove the apothecary to have been Edward Ferrand. This article sets out the circumstances in which the reference to the anonymous apothecary came to appear in the Life of Johnson and reconstructs Ferrand's life and career. Examining Ferrand's origins, his social circumstances and his career, a case study is presented of a successful practitioner of the profession of apothecary in early Georgian Britain and a suggestion made as to why the distinguished apothecary came to provide a place of refuge for a teenaged runaway servant who had been a slave until he was about nine years old.