Percival Norton Johnson (1792–1866) was the founder of

Johnson Matthey Johnson Matthey is a British multinational speciality chemicals and sustainable technologies company headquartered in London, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. History Early years ...

, the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

's largest precious metals business.

Career

Having trained in his father's business as an assayer, Percival Johnson established his own firm in 1817. He specialised in the assaying and refining of precious metals particularly

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

imported from

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

: he perfected a method of extracting the

Palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself na ...

from the

therefore improving the gold's colour. He became a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1846. He went into full partnership with George Matthey, a stockbroker, in 1851. His expertise in refining earned his business the appointment of Assayer to the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of ...

in 1852. He was also active in

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

-mining and in 1854 moved to

Stoke Fleming Stoke Fleming is a village and civil parish in the South Hams district of Devon, England. It lies on the A379 road about one and a half miles south of the town of Dartmouth, at the north end of Start Bay and within the South Devon Area of Outst ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

where he had mining interests. He retired in 1860 and died in 1866.

Family

He married Elizabeth Lydia Smith in 1817: they had no children. He married a second time, to Georgina Elizabeth Ellis, in 1858.

Career

Family

References

Further reading