Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Johnson, Thomas Burgeland
JOHNSON, THOMAS BURGELAND (d. 1840), writer on field-sports, was a printer in Liverpool, who after taking to literary pursuits removed to London in 1834, in the hope of improving his prospects, and died there on 5 May 1840. A wife and daughter survived him. He was an accomplished sportsman. His earliest published work, which appeared in 1814, was ‘An Impartial History of Europe from the Death of Louis XVI to the Present Time,’ 8vo; but he chiefly devoted himself to sporting subjects. In his ‘Shooter's Preceptor’ (no date) he mentions percussion caps, and praises the wire cartridge. ‘The Shooter's Companion’ appeared in 1819. ‘The Hunting Directory’ (1826) quotes largely from Somerville and Beckford, and treats of fox-hunting, with a chapter on wolf and boar hunting in France. His most valuable work, ‘The Sportsman's Cyclopædia’ (1831), is sensibly written, forms an epitome of sporting knowledge at the date of its publication, and contains excellent engravings by the Landseers, Herring, Cooper, and Reinagle. Johnson's portrait forms the frontispiece. ‘Physiological Observations on Mental Susceptibilities in Man and Brutes,’ a dull work by ‘T. B. Johnson,’ 1837, is also assigned to him, together with a novel entitled ‘The Mystery of the Abbey.’
[Johnson's works as above; Ann. Reg. 1840, p. 163; Gent. Mag. 1841, pt. i. pp. 102–3.]