Anna Williams

Anna Williams (1706 – 6 September 1783) was a Welsh poet. She was a close companion of the writer Samuel Johnson, who said he was "very desolate" when she died. Cataracts left Williams blind or visually impaired in the 1740s, when Johnson took her under his wing and helped to support her. She joined his household until her death, apart from an interval of six years. In return, Williams supervised Johnson's household management and expenses. Besides poetry, she wrote an unfinished dictionary of philosophical terms and translated and published a French biography of the emperor Julian. Life Early life She was born at Rosemarket, Pembrokeshire to Zachariah Williams (1668/73–1755), a scientist and physician, and his wife, Martha. Her father provided her with a wide artistic and scientific education, Italian and French. In 1726–27, the family moved to London, staying at the Charterhouse, where Anna helped her father while he experimented with magnetism in pursuit of the longitude prize and became his home-help, when he became bedridden and hospitalised in 1745. Despite failing sight in the 1740s, she was able to sew, and in 1746 published a translation of a French life of the emperor Julian. Life with Johnson In 1748 her father was ejected from hospital and they appealed to Dr Johnson, who had taken an interest in Williams's experiments and assisted him in publishing his theory of longitude. Later, Johnson also arranged for Samuel Sharp to operate on Anna's cataracts. After this failed, she became a member of his household, until just before her death, living with Johnson in all his various residences. The only exception is the period from 1759 to 1765, when he moved from Gough Street into the Inner Temple, during which time she lodged in Bolt Court, Fleet Street – there Johnson drank tea with her "every night... before he went home, however late it might be, and she always sat up for him." In August 1763, Boswell proudly made good his "title to be a privileged man" by being "carried by [Johnson] in the evening to drink tea with Miss Williams".