Thomas Johnson was the son of Robert Johnson, carpenter of Pear Tree Cottage in Vicarage Road, whose name appears in many documents of the time, advising the Leigh family of necessary repairs both at the abbey and at the Swan Inn. The family name and property clearly appears, also, on the 1810 map of Stoneleigh Village.
Thomas was born in May 1797 and baptised on 4 June at Stoneleigh Church, the middle child of Robert and his wife Sarah (nee Soden). Both parents died when he was less than ten years old, and he took up his father's trade of carpentry.
On 11 May 1820 he married
Elizabeth Lee, who was also from Stoneleigh, the daughter of William and Mary Lee. They were married in Foleshill, however; perhaps they had moved temporarily as work dictated. They had two children, Sarah and Robert, but Elizabeth died on 4 December 1828. She was buried at Stoneleigh on 7 December; she was just 29 years old.
Thomas was left to bring up two small children, but did not re-marry until 1850, when he married, in Warwick, a much younger woman, Mary Flowers, who was just 24, whilst he was 53. She was a Stoneleigh woman, younger than Thomas' children! With Mary he moved to Mill End Kenilworth and had two more children. He became a master carpenter employing several men.
Thomas died on 2 November 1877 and was buried at Stoneleigh on 7 November, alongside his first wife Elizabeth, who had died 49 years previously.
*Sarah Johnson, Thomas' first child, married
John Holmes and she and her family are commemorated in Section D. Robert, her brother, died young at the age of 36 and is buried in the churchyard also.
