Richard Johnson worked in wildlife conservation from 1990 – 1995 mainly in Zimbabwe, and also in South Africa.
For the endangered Black Rhino, this involved a population survey on foot in the remote Chete area of Zimbabwe, followed by help with de-horning and moving of Black Rhinos to safer areas.
In Hwange National Park, Richard, with a group of conservationists, carried out in depth studies of the presidential elephants, eventually being able to individually identify over 200 elephants. “It was fascinating to follow the lives of the close-knit family groups,” reflects Richard.
To this day, Johnson Baker continues to support this conservation work, both through the company and the owners. This takes the form of donations and support to small, focused NGOs in Zimbabwe, and supplying equipment to anti-poaching patrols.
The history of Johnson Baker:
Johnson Baker and Co was founded in 1932 by Geoffrey Johnson. It began fitting shop fronts, quickly moving to fitting shop fronts for high-end jewellery shops. In the
1950s, Johnson Baker began to start fitting shops for major high-street names, including F. Hinds and James Walker. In those days the company was based in Putney, London, and during this period it fitted over 1,000 shop fronts.
Christopher and Colin Johnson, the second generation directors, started work in this position from 1965. During the 1970s Johnson Baker began to branch out from shop-fronts into display items for jewellers, including boxes, cases, price tickets and window display pads. It was in this period that the company relocated to its large factory unit in the West Country, in the Saxon hilltop town of Shaftesbury, Dorset.
Richard Johnson, the third generation of the family, joined the business as a managing director in 1997. Christopher and Richard Johnson joint manage the company to this day. (Even the fourth generation is seen occasionally helping out!)
Johnson Baker is now primarily concerned with the retail jewellery trade, and is continuing to go from strength to strength.
With Johnson Baker now over 80 years old, we’ve dealt with a lot of strange requests over the years, leading to us packaging a variety of weird and wonderful things!
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, an enterprising firm, started by a man putting pieces of the Berlin Wall in the boot of his Volvo, began encapsulating pieces of the iconic wall in acrylic. This meant that for a time, Johnson Baker could boast that they packaged the Berlin Wall, provided boxes for pieces of this historic monument to rest in.
Sticking on this historical theme, we also boxed Spitfire engines.
Another strange object we were requested to package was a gold-plated piston. This was done on a very tight deadline, as was to commemorate a momentous landmark in the relationship between Perkins Diesel Engines and JCB.
Recently, we made 4000 medal boxes for the Western Daily Press newspaper, to celebrate its 125th year.
Over our history we’ve had many interesting clients, including Rolls Royce, Buckingham Palace, Arsenal FC and even the Olympic Games.