Alan Woodworth Johnson, 29 September 1917 - 5 December 1982

Abstract

Alan Woodworth Johnson was born in South Shields in 1917. His father, James William Johnson (1883-1955), a nautical optician, was the son of Robert Johnson, a boat builder at John Hunter’s ship yard at Wallsend. In 1910 James Johnson went down to Birkenhead to receive training at the famous Cammell Laird ship yard there, and while in Cheshire he met and married his landlady’s niece, Jeannie Woodworth. He took her back to Northumbria in 1914 when he joined John Lilley and Gillie of North Shields with whom he stayed throughout his working life. It was in South Shields that their eldest son, Alan, was born, but in 1920 the family moved to Forest Hall, a village a few miles northeast of New castle upon Tyne, on the main Eastern Region line (then the London and North Eastern) to Scotland. From 1901, when he went to night classes at Wellington Terrace School, South Shields, James Johnson’s deep involvement with adult education was continuous. He became President of the Price Street School in Birkenhead and back up north he played a similar role at Wellington Terrace, Forest Hall and Westmoor Schools. A member of the Council of the National Adult School Union from 1906, he was at times a member of its Executive and finally, in 1936, its President.