This segment pieces together the career of one of the most illustrious of
the Godschall Johnsons to make his imprint upon foreign soil.
Maybe it is best to start with two obituaries upon his death.
The first was contained in the Editorial of the Gazette in
Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on Monday the 28th of May 1894.
SIR FRANCIS JOHNSON
The Bench of Quebec has lost a distinguished member by the death of Sir
Francis Godschall Johnson, Chief Justice of the Superior Court. Before the
weight of advancing age and physical ailments had their effect, he was one of
the most energetic and hardworking members of the judiciary. He was at all times
one of the most ablest.
Combined with a strong will and a clear mind, he had a power of logical
expression that made his judicial deliverances models of forceful English. He
could clothe the dry bones of a purely legal argument with an interest that
appealed to the everyday reader not less than to the lawyer or the student who
looked to his utterances for professional instruction or guidance.
He had, too, a great dislike of humbug and a sarcastic humour that,
brought out by a display of egotism or bumptiousness on the part of some pleader
before him, showed itself in a reproof, clothed oft times in language of abject
humility, that was remembered in the corridors of the court houses for many a
year.
It fell to Sir Francis Johnson's lot to serve the state in more ways than
one. He was recorder of Rupert's Land before Canada extended its authority over
the Great West, and, in 1870-1, after the creation of the Province of Manitoba,
aided in the establishment of regular government and the judicial system there.
In appreciation of the ability then displayed, he was offered the
Lieutenant-Governorship, an honour he declined for the more congenial judicial
work, in which he won his highest reputation.
He was a great lawyer, an able and dignified judge, and a courtly,
high-minded gentleman.
In the same issue of the Montreal Gazette, Monday 28 May 1894, there was
a further eulogy.
It was entitled Chief Justice Johnson - The Head of the Superior Court
of Quebec Passes Away.
Sir Francis Godschall Johnson, Knight, Chief Justice of the Superior
Court of Quebec, died yesterday after a prolonged illness, extending over some
six months, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He was born at Oakley House,
Bedfordshire, England, on the first of January 1817. His father, Godschall
Johnson, was an officer in the 10th Royal Hussars and his mother a daughter of
Sir Cecil Bisshopp and a sister of Col. Cecil Bisshopp, who lost his life on the
Niagara frontier during the War of 1812-1814.
The deceased judge was educated at St. Omer, France, and at Bruges, Belgium. He came to Canada in 1834, and entered upon the study of law in the
office of the late Mr. Justice Day. He was called to the Bar in 1839 and began
the practice of his profession in this city. In 1846, before he was thirty years
of age, he was nominated a Queen's Counsel.
In 1854, he was appointed Recorder of Rupert's Land and Governor of
Assinibois, with a residence at Fort Garry.
In 1858, he returned to Montreal and resumed his practice of the law.
In 1865, he was elevated to the Superior Court Bench.
In 1870, he was again sent to the Red River District and assisted in the
establishment of a regular government and the organisation of a judicial system
in the Province of Manitoba.
He also served as a Commissioner in hearing and determining claims for
loses during the first Riel rising.
In 1872, he was named Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba, but declined the
honour, preferring the dignity of the Bench.
In December 1889, on the resignation of Sir Andrew Stewart, he was
appointed Chief Justice and shortly after had the honour of knighthood conferred
upon him.
While practising at the Bar, he acted as Secretary of the Commission that
revised the Statutes of Lower Canada.
In early life, he became the friend of the late Sir John MacDonald of
whose ability he had the highest opinion, and it was said, was, with him and
late Sir John Ross, on the same night initiated into the mysteries of
Freemasonry in the old Masonic Hall on Great St. James Street. Sir George
Cartier was also counted among his friends, and, if rumor can be credited, the
deceased baronet owed him a debt for services rendered at a time when to help a
rebel was a risky business. He also, it may be mentioned in the same connection,
acted as interpreter at the trial of the rebels who took part in the rising of
1837.
Sir Francis Johnson married first in September 1840, May Gates Jones,
daughter of Nathaniel Jones of this city; and second, in March 1857, Mary Mills,
daughter of John Milliken Mills of Somerset shire, England. The latter survives
him.
Another perspective upon the life of Sir Francis Godschall Johnson was
written in 1892, and published in the Gazetteer of Montreal. It went as
follows.
The subject of this sketch was born at Oakley House, Bedfordshire,
England, on New Year's day, 1817. His father was Godschall Johnson, an Officer
of the 10th Royal Hussars. This Regiment was then known as the Prince of Wales
Regiment.
His mother, Lucy Bishop, came of an historical family. She was a daughter
of Sir Cecil Bishop, and sister to Colonel Cecil Bishop, who fell in the War of
1812-14, and was buried at Niagara, where a fine monument, visited by many
tourists, is still to be seen.
Our subject was educated at St. Omer, France, hence Sir Francis' thorough
knowledge of the French language and Parisian accent.
Afterwards he went to a large educational establishment at Bruges,
Belgium.
In 1835, he came to Canada and studied Law with the late Hon. Justice
Day, was called to the Bar in 1840, practiced in Montreal, and created a Q.C. in
1846; a rapid career for one not thirty years of age. It was whilst
Crown-Prosecutor that the ability of the lawyer was shown. His eloquence was so
noted that he had few compeers at the Bar.
So thoroughly versed in legal lore was Sir Francis at this time that he
held one or two civil appointments. One was Secretary of the Commission to
revise the Statutes of Lower Canada; another, the Recorder of Rupert's Land. The
third was the most important, being the position of Governor of Assiniboine,
Manitoba, which he held for four years, and returned to Montreal in 1858.
He resumed his practice in the city for seven years after his return,
till June, 1865, when he was appointed a Judge of the Superior Court, rising
gradually on the Bench till he is now the Chief Justice of the Superior Court
for the large and most important District of Montreal.
In the year 1870, Judge Johnson was deputed by the Dominion Government to
act as Special Commissioner to Manitoba, and to report on and organise the
Courts of that new Province.
He was also appointed the sole Commissioner to settle the Rebellion
Losses claims after the first Riel uprising.
He returned to Montreal in 1872, and was offered the Governorship of the
Province he had laboured so much to bring into legal existence, but as this
would necessitate the resignation of his being Judge, he preferred his
profession, and remained in it as one of its most illustrious lights.
Sir Francis has been twice married. His first wife was Mary Gates Jones,
who died in 1853. She was the daughter of Mr. Jones of Montreal, a partner in
the once notable firm of Horatio Gates & Co., of Montreal. His second, whom
he married in 1857, was Mary Mills, daughter of John M. Mills, of Somerset shire,
England. He has had six children, and though now in his 75th year, no man walks
the street as upright and soldier-like as himself.
His long services to his country were recognised by the Queen, and on the
24th of May, 1890, the Chief Justice received the distinguished honour of
Knighthood, and, is now known by the name of Sir Francis Johnson. May he long be
spared to bear this name.
THE STORY OF A JUDGE'S LIFE
It was in a court in Montreal, rather late in the afternoon. A learned
counsel was speaking, and he was gravely questioning the right of the City to
cut off the water supply of the citizens.
"Can they cut off the water?", he asked, rhetorically; the sort
of question that invited the answer "No, most certainly they cannot".
But the judge on the bench that day glanced at the clock and noted the
lateness of the hour. "No", he remarked," but we can cut off the
gas". And the Court was adjourned.
He was a very witty Judge (for his times). But he did not use his wit
merely to enliven the scene in court. He used it, rather, to bring the pretentious
to some sense of humility. His humour expressed his dislike of
humbug. In this way it did not detract from the dignity of the court, but kept
that dignity from being unfairly exploited.
In another case Counsel was being extravagantly severe upon the dishonest
practices of the defendant.
"Don't be too strong", the Judge remarked. "You must
remember there are not very many really honest men on this earth after
all".
Later, when this ponderous lawyer returned again to his accusation of
deepest guilt and spoke of the conviction that would be so greatly deserved, he
Judge again, in the interests of clarity and good sense, remarked, "Well,
after all, the line is a small one indeed that divides the convicted from the
unconvicted".
This Judge, who used wit for the broader purposes of justice, was Sir
Francis Godschall Johnson, Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Quebec. How
little his wit had demeaned him in his office, was seen in the tributes paid at
his death in 1894. As Mr. Justice Jette commented: "...none more than he
possessed the sentiment of professional dignity. And this sentiment he
manifested, not only in his language, but in his demeanour, his manners, his
entire person".
Sir Francis was born in England in 1817, the fifth of six sons of Captain
Godschall Johnson, at one time an officer in the 10th Royal Hussars and the
British Consul-General in Belgium. After attending Harrow, he was fortunately
sent to a college at Saint Omer in France, and later to Bruges in Belgium. There
he acquired an accomplished knowledge of French, which proved most useful to him
when he settled in Montreal.
In fact his knowledge of French was so fluent that soon after coming to
Montreal he was engaged as the translator at the "treason trials"- the
General Court Martial- held to try those accused of taking part in the political
rebellions of 1837-1838. he was then still a student at law in Montreal, but the
ease with which he passed from the one language to the other, and the accuracy
and subtlety of his translations, proved astonishing.
He always took a certain pride in his work done at that time. As he would
say, "my hand recorded, and my tongue translated every word of the evidence
given in those cases".
As Sir Francis was to live almost to the end of the Victorian period, he
must have looked back with some astonishment of memory to the duels he had
fought in his youth.
Society had greatly changed by the 1890's, but in his early years in
Montreal the art of dueling was still a social asset, if not one of the
sovereign means of protecting the honour of society, in matters in which not
even the laws or the courts could be expected to give redress.
One of the duels of Sir Francis was fought in a field at what is today
the corner of Sherbrooke and University Streets, Montreal. His opponent was
Aaron Philip Hart, a Montreal lawyer.
But in those early years, as in later life, his humour kept coming
through. Once he was challenged by "a young man engaged in commercial
pursuits" who in after life followed a changeful career in politics.
It was a duel of farcical origin; nobody took it seriously except the
challenger. Sir Francis arranged that the pistol of the young merchant should be
charged with powder only, while his own would be charged with powder and some
hard red currant jelly.
The meeting took place. Every preliminary formality was observed. The duelists
took up their places. The signal was given; the two pistols were
fired. The young merchant's pistol had discharged nothing but a cloud of smoke,
but Johnson had shot his adversary in the face with red currant jelly.
The young merchant, feeling himself struck, dropped to the ground,
convinced that his life's blood was oozing away. Meanwhile, his adversary and
the seconds, with utter heartlessness, were bursting with laughter, and were
heeding not at all his urgent pleas for a surgeon, and a Minister of Religion.
****
When called to the Bar in 1839, Johnson became the partner of Hon.
Charles Dewey Day, one of the prosecutors at the General Court Martial. Hon.
Charles Dewey Day, still commerated by a tablet in the Law building at McGill,
became McGill's Chancellor; and it was he who invited young William Dawson of
Pictou to become the University's Principal in 1855. From about 1840 until 1845
Johnson was the partner of another eminent Montreal lawyer, Alexander Buchanan
Q.C.
Johnson's rise in the law was rapid. He was a Queen's Counsel before he
was 30, and about the same time was appointed Secretary of the Commission that
was to revise the Statutes of Lower Canada. Then he went for a time to the
North-west, to serve as Recorder of Assinibois, with a residence in Fort Garry.
In 1858 he was back in Montreal, and before long held the position of Crown
Prosecutor.
It must have been just after coming back from the North-west that he took
part in a curious case concerning a lieutenant of the British garrison and the
Church authorities. It was the sort of case that would never occur today, but
arose out of the conditions of that time. It is described in manuscript notes
written by another lawyer of the period, L. G. McDonald Q.C., of St. Johns.
These notes read:
"May 27, 1894. Sir Francis Godschall Johnson died, Chief Justice of
the Superior Court, Montreal, another of my good old friends and confreres gone.
"He was counsel for me in several cases, and one in particular for
the Imperial Government on the occasion of an assault made (about the year 1858)
on Lieut. Jarvis of H. M.'s 47th Regt., when stationed at Isle aux Noix (in the
Richelieu River near St. Johns), under Major Villiers. There were two companies.
The case was a very serious one.
"The Roman Catholic soldiers were marched to church, after crossing
from the island, to the Parish Church of St. Valentine. Some time after the
service began, Lieut. Jarvis entered the Church, as instructed to do, and
remained standing to hear the sermon and to observe if any treasonable language
was uttered against Her Gracious Majesty, the Queen. A few minutes elapsed, when
a small bell was sounded, at which all the R.C. adherents are supposed or
obliged to drop on their knees.
"Lieut. Jarvis stood still, when the Sexton, or Bideau, pushing him,
said, `Go down on your knees,' which he refused, stating, I am here on duty.'
"This did not satisfy the Sexton. He came a second time and insisted
on his going down on his knees. The officer resisted this, and the Sexton
grabbed Lieut. Jarvis and in the scuffle pulled off one of his regimental gloves
as he was going out of the door of the church.
"When his men saw what had taken place, they rushed to the scene and
some of the men actually drew their side arms, from which Lieut. Jarvis very
properly and fortunately ordered them to immediately desist.
"At the upshot, I was engaged to prosecute the Sexton and the Church
authorities, but before I had time to take out the necessary proceedings, the
Church had taken out a warrant for Lieut. Jarvis' arrest.
"Needless to say, when all the information on the case was exposed,
the R.C. Bishop instructed the priest to withdraw the action of the Sexton, but,
I would not accept this unless the Sexton was dismissed, pay the costs and an
ample apology from the Bishop, which was done, and my old friend sustained me in
all I did, besides which I obtained a very flattering letter from the Horse
Guards and...a fee of 10 pounds, besides Sir Francis' fees.
"This case caused a great deal of anxiety and comment at the time.
In fact it meant that the troops would not be allowed to attend Church Parade
any more, but all religious services were to be held on the island Isle aux Noix."
****
It was a cold wintry night. And in this hotel in the Eastern Townships of
Quebec, the proprietor was making little use of his fuel.
In one of the rooms, was the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of
Quebec, Sir Francis Godschall Johnson. The Chief Justice put his overcoat over
the blankets. Still the draught blew through the cracks of the windows and he
grew more and more miserable.
At midnight the Chief Justice rose. He put on his slippers and dressing
gown and went out into the corridor. With his loudest and most commanding tone,
he called out, "Fire! Fire! Fire!"
In a few moments the corridor was full of anxious people. Then the
proprietor appeared, panting and scared. "Where's the fire?" he asked.
"That's what I'm trying to find out," replied Sir Francis. A
good fire was made at once in the hall stove. Sir Francis, and all the other
guests of the hotel, passed the remainder of the night in comfort.
In a way, it might have seemed hard to think of Sir Francis Godschall
Johnson indulging in this kind of humour, which was very near to practical
joking. From 1865 he was a Justice of the Superior Court, and Chief Justice from
1889 until his death in 1894; and a most austere and formidable judge he could
be.
He has been described, presiding over his court, by Laurent Olivier
David:
"Johnson is grand, thin, upright, elegant; his head is held high,
his face is proud, his manner is military...Sometimes friendly, polished,
agreeable, he is often rude, biting, sarcastic. Like any other high-spirited
man, he can scarcely refrain from the pleasure of uttering a `bon mot' or
letting fly a well-aimed dart."
When not on the bench, practical joking played a considerable part in his
life. Examples have been recorded.
Mrs. John Clarke, the wife of the fur trader, remembered several of them.
"In the time of the horse-cars," she said, "I happened to be on
board with some other friends who all knew him. We were surprised to hear him
say in a quiet, very significant way, when the conductor went round for his
fare, "She's got my seat!"
"We looked round to see who had his seat, and to our amazement, we
saw a woman who occupied three seats. She was immense. The conductor looked at
her with a broad grin on his face, and of course we joined in.
"In getting out at Union Avenue, Mr. Johnson, as he was in his days
before his knighthood, put his fare into the box, saying again: "She's got
my seat," with a very serious face, and then looking up and taking off his
hat to us, he smiled and went off happy."
As with most practical jokers, he was ready to go to much trouble and
planning. This was seen in one of his practical jokes in the days of the winter
picnics.
In these old garrison days, winter picnics were the fashion. A farmhouse
would be secured at some distant place, such as Varennes. The sleighs would go
in procession, a gay party. The front room of the house would be made warm and
ready; indeed sometimes that front room would be used only for such picnics
during the winter. There the party would have refreshments and a dance, and
would then drive home, perhaps after dark.
Mrs. Johnson was to be a chaperone on one of these picnics. The pretty
young girls gathered at the Johnson house in Little Street, St. James. Mrs.
Clarke, another of the chaperones, had just arrived in her sleigh. Sir Francis
came out to meet her. "Aren't you coming to the picnic?" she asked.
"I'm not such a fool," he replied, quite severely, and walked off in
the direction of the Court House.
The party assembled upstairs in the drawing-room. Mrs. Clarke announced
that Mr. Johnson had just said that he wasn't coming with them. Not everyone
liked Sir Francis joking ways, for Thomas Ramsay (later Judge Ramsay), said
quietly to John Rose (later Sir John Rose), "Thank God!"
The great sleighs drew up at the door. The bugle was sounded. Col.
Dalrymple of the 71st Regiment and his officers led the way down the river to
Varennes. It had proved a long cold drive, and everyone was glad when the
farm-house was reached.
As they approached, the door was opened. Standing there, waiting to
receive them, was Francis Johnson. He had had a sleigh of his own waiting, and
had gone on to Varennes ahead of all the others.
A large old table was standing by a window. Johnson and Ramsay and Col.
Dalrymple carried it to the middle of the room. After eyeing it for a moment,
Johnson thought they had better wash it first. so it was washed, and the cloth
was laid, the picnic hampers were opened and the luncheon began.
The daughter of the house waited on them. She did not know a word of
English and the Army officers did not know a word of French. When she brought
out various things, Johnson would speak to the girl in French, but would tell
her the wrong things. She would come back with them, but the officers would
complain that this wasn't what they ordered at all.
Johnson would speak to her again, telling her to bring some other
outlandish thing. Back she would come, and again the officers would say that
this wasn't what they wanted.
In the end, quite naturally, the girl became quite angry. Mrs. Johnson
had to pay her well to make her feel better.
It was clever humour of a kind, but with a strain of the satirical in it.
He was making sport of those about him. Though he could hardly play practical
jokes while on the bench, sometimes he came rather near to it.
One day he was on the bench in the courthouse at Beauharnois. Pleading
before him was a lawyer named Michael Cayley. As it happened, Cayley was a
high-spirited man, rather given to fierce and violent language. The opposing
lawyer, rather rudely, interrupted him. Cayley turned upon him so suddenly and
angrily and bitterly that the poor lawyer, startled, begged the bench for
protection.
Solemnly and severely, Sir Francis called Cayley to order, and spoke to
him at some length on the need for moderation and self-restraint while speaking
in court. As he spoke, he had written a brief note, which he discreetly sent to
Cayley.
Cayley, as he stood silently listening to these words of reproof from the
bench, glanced down at the note delivered into his hand. He read the words:
"Tape p'tit Pierre" (which might perhaps be translated as, "Let
him have it again!).
Cayley took the hint. On the first opportunity, he frightened the
opposing lawyer with another fierce outburst.
****
The wit of Sir Francis Godschall Johnson was not really of the
companionable kind; he did not invite others to laugh with him. It was, rather,
the imperious kind of wit. Though others might laugh, they did so at their own
wish, as it were. If they did not choose to be amused, Sir Francis did not
consider that his wit had missed its mark. It was often as though he were
thinking, aloud, and giving his opinions of others, for his own satisfaction.
It was the sort of humour that gave an added power to his presence in his
court, especially in the years from 1889 until 1894, when he was Chief Justice
of the Superior Court of the Province of Quebec. Pretence and arrogance
(qualities that the law occasionally encourages) became for him matters of
contempt and ridicule. Those who appeared before him as counsel knew that they
would do well to speak plainly and honestly. Otherwise they would find
themselves made sport of by Sir Francis from the Bench.
This quality of irony had marked his career as a lawyer, even before his
appointment to the Bench. When Crwon Prosecutor in Montreal, he appeared in
court in a case where the charge against the accused was theft. The counsel
defending the accused had ended his plea by claiming that his case was a most
extraordinary one.
In his ironic manner, Johnson seized upon the word
"extraordinary".
"It is true, your Honour and Gentlemen of the Jury," he
admitted, "that this case is an extraordinary case; the prisoner is
extraordinary, his advocate is extraordinary, his method of defence is
extraordinary. There will be only one ordinary thing about it; this will be the
sentencing of the prisoner to an ordinary penalty."
This ironic tone was often so firm in Sir Francis that even when someone
objected, Sir Francis was likely to make him wish that no objection had been
raised.
So it was when he was asked to give his opinion of a certain judge, he
replied that he considered him to
be a "highly educated imbecile".
This unflattering description came to the ears of the judge concerned. He
was furious, and came to Sir Francis to demand whether it was true that he had
used such words. "My dear fellow," Sir Francis assured him, "how
could I have said that, for you know that you have no education whatever."
The very fact that Sir Francis had been a student at the college of St.
Omer in France, and later at Bruges in Belgium, gave him that command of the
French language that often added to the ease of his humour.
The ironic tone of some of the French writers strongly appealed to him.
He knew by heart many passages of the comedies of Molliere, the fables of La
Fontaine, and the songs of Beranger.
In the midst of the most absorbing legal debates, Sir Francis would pause
to express some thought, having little in common with the subject in hand. Mr.
Justice Torrance would, at times, be a little disturbed by the freedom of some
of these quotations. But their lively cleverness lightened the ponderous
moments, and even the severe face of Mr. Justice Papineau was known to relax
into smiles.
This ironic wit, gave him a detachment from the scenes about him. Though
it might have a certain mockery, it also enhanced the impartiality and
resourcefulness of Sir Francis as a judge.
He might make sport of pretence, but he would not let minor difficulties
become mountainous. Once in his court, the light was poor and he had just
complained about it. But then a learned counsel appeared before him without his
robe; he had not expected to have to appear in court and was not prepared.
"Go on, go on," said Sir Francis, "we don't see."
And for all the ironic severity of his mind and manner, he had a heart to
feel the tragedy of human life - a tragedy that is, perhaps, seen nowhere so
dramatically as in a courthouse.
He heard a case in which a young Englishman was sentenced to prison for a
long term (almost a life imprisonment) in default of paying six thousand
dollars. It was the law. But Sir Francis would not have the law be cruel. He
himself raised the six thousand dollars through private subscriptions, and the
young man was set free.
Yet off the bench, as on it, the ironic manner would often tempt him to
remark upon the oddities of life. A great ice palace had been erected in
Dominion Square for the first time. As he passed by, Sir Francis noted that on
one side stood St. James Cathedral, and, on the other side, the Dominion Square
Methodist Church (where the Laurentien Hotel is today). "Ah, yes," he
remarked,"there is the Catholic Cathedral on one side, the Methodist Church
on the other, with a coolness between them."
Such irony had many uses. A gunsmith, named Hall, was pressing Sir
Francis for the payment of a small debt. Sir Francis patted him on the shoulder.
"Have patience," he said, "and I will pay you (H)all."
But when, on the bench, his irony never was permitted to intrude upon the
time for judgment. When the time for rendering judgment came, few men could
speak with a more majestic presence, or with greater facility or force.
One who had often heard him in court has written: "However, he made
up for all his jokes and made all forget his whims and caprices, when an
important point of law came before him, and a serious effort was needed. He then
rendered in perfect French or English, judgments that were as interesting for
their profundity, as for their form".
And in rendering such judgments, there was the added impressiveness of
"his handsome, well-bred features, his stately and imposing presence, and
tall, erect figure, straight as an arrow".
Sir Francis made several visits to England. There he was received with
much courtesy. Often he was invited to a seat on the bench of an English court,
to listen to some famous case of particular interest. Such was the Bell-Lawes
case, involving an action for criminal libel, when one of the witnesses was the
artist, Sir Frederick Leighton. This case, incidentally, was the last to be
heard in Westminster Hall.
As might be expected, Sir Francis Godschall Johnson was a gifted
after-dinner speaker, accomplished and dignified. Only a few months before his
death, he presided at the public dinner given in Montreal by the Bench and Bar
to Sir Richard Webster Q.C., the Attorney General of the United Kingdom.
When death came to Sir Francis Godschall Johnson, in 1894, he was mourned
as a man who not only served the cause of law, but had honoured and exalted the
bench. As a judge, he had given an example of a character graceful, learned,
witty, firm and compassionate. Sir Francis had been a great judge because he had
been complex and many-sided enough to be a great human being. Provenance/Ownership History of the Russell pictures:
Louise Lalonde has contributed the following to this page on Sir Francis:
Mr. and Mrs. William Man Godschall, Guildford, Surrey (1791?at least 1802); Mrs. V. Samuel Godschall (until d. 1823; bequeathed to Palmerston); Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Broadlands, Romsey, Hampshire (1823?d. 1865); his stepson, William Francis Cowper, Baron Mount Temple, Broadlands (1865?d.1888); his nephew, Hon. Evelyn Melbourne Ashley, Broadlands (1888?d. 1908); his son, Hon. Wilfrid William Ashley, later Baron Mount Temple, Broadlands (1907?d. 1939); his daughter, Edwina, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, Broadlands (1908?d. 1960; sale, Christie's, London, March 15, 1960, no. 83 [this portrait and its pendant], withdrawn and sold privately for $600 to Wiesenberger); Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Wiesenberger, New York (1960?61)
RALPH EDWARD GODSCHALL JOHNSON