About this web site
The original JSA Website, based on Joomla as the CMS, was put together by Sam Reid in 2004 and updated by him in 2011. In February 2019 it was again…
About the JSA
How the Johnson Society of Australia was born
The gestation period for the Johnson Society of Australia was long, but far from painful.
Conception occurred in November, 1984, at a seminar held by the Council of Adult Education in Melbourne, marking the bicentenary of Johnson’s birth. After the event, three of the participants, Dr John Wiltshire, Dr Rusi Khan and Bryan Reid, began to discuss a long-held idea of Bryan’s to form a Johnson Society of Australia.
Become a Member
Membership of the JSA is AU $50.00 per financial year (July to June )or AU $40.00 concession (pensioners, students, etc). Family membership is AU $60 for two persons. To join,…
Dr Johnson imitating a kangaroo. © John Spooner
The JSA Logo
Our logo, reproduced by kind permission of leading Australian cartoonist and print-maker John Spooner, was inspired by the following anecdote, attributed to Carruthers, and printed as a footnote in the 1936 edition of Boswell’s Tour to the Hebrides, the first to be based on the then recently-discovered Boswell Papers at Malahide castle:
JSA Office Bearers
Patron: Dr Gordon Turnbull, General Editor, Private Papers of James Boswell, Yale University President: Barrie Sheppard Vice President: Dennis Dorwick Secretary: Ian Keese Southern Johnsonian Editor: Ian Keese Treasurer: Donna…