Gereart Janssen - Sculptor aka: Gerard, Garet, Gerard the Elder, Johnson left Amsterdam in 1567 to escape the Spanish religious war. He settled in the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, Southwark, England; near the Shakespearean theatres. The family changed its' name to Johnson. Gereart and his sons (Bernard, John, Nicholas, and Gerard the Younger) were stone masons commissioned to carve monuments, most notably Edward and John Manners (Earls of Rutland).
Gereart was buried in London on July 30, 1611.


Gerard the Younger carved the earliest monument of William Shakespeare at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1623.
Nicholas Johnson (Jonson) was commissioned to carve the tomb of the 5^th Earl of Rutland with his father.
Johnson was buried on November 16, 1624.
Bernard Johnson is the best known sculptor of this family was the head mason for Northumberland House in the Strand and Audley End, Essex.

Famous Janssen: aristocrat, artists, astronomer, economist, inventor, politcians, saints, and scientist.