Johnston & Johnson, I Presume…?

Watson & Johnson 1959

hen we bumped into David Johnston down by the library recently, we were full of questions about his family’s role in undoubtedly Greystones’ swankiest-ever car dealership.

For many, the reassuringly familiar Watson & Johnson garage was as good as a giant Welcome To Greystones sign as you could want as you motored into the town by the South Beach.

William ‘Lowry’ Johnston

And for years, we’ve been wondering about the men behind the Chrysler saloon for hire, plus the Austin A55 Cambridge, Morris 1000, MG Model Y, the Triumph TR2, the Austin A55 Cambridge and all the other now-classic cars that would line the street outside.

There’s surprisingly little information about this pivotal Greystones garage in the Paines’ towering 8 volumes of pictorial histories. What is revealed is that Davy Watson and Willie Johnson worked in Batey’s garage, situated where the credit union is today, and when that garage closed, the two friends were already breaking out on their own.

When Davy Watson passed suddenly though, Willie approached one William Johnston to form a partnership, starting out where Meridian Point is today before moving down to that long Mill Road stretch running alongside Burnaby Park and building a whole new enterprise.

Just how this partnership of, eh, Johnson and Johnston blossomed, the latter’s proud son, David, is happy to reveal…

Over the past twenty five years or so, there have been a number of books published about old Greystones and I’ve been disappointed that there has been little or no mention made of my father, who was a modest man but nevertheless a person of note in the town for a significant period of the 20th century.

This piece is intended to honour his existence and may stimulate the memories of those still alive who remember him.

My father William Lowry Johnston was born in Dublin in 1911. His father, William Henry Johnston, grew up on a small farm in Monaghan and became a policeman in Dublin in the late 1800s. His mother, Minnie, was the eldest child of William Lowry, a noted builder in Dublin in the early 1900s, the two marrying in 1907.

One of six siblings, dad was the eldest son, and when the six children were orphaned in 1921, he and his younger brother Harry were sent to live in a boys’ home in Northern Ireland. This home was based on a working farm and that, coupled with his father’s farming background, left Dad with a lifelong love of horticulture and farming.

Frank Buckley’s grocer shop (now Bochelli’s) Source Derek Paine

In the mid-1920s Dad went to work for a time in a shop in Bailieborough, Co Cavan. He then found his way to Greystones to work in Buckley’s Grocers. In a small town like Greystones in the 1920s most social activity centred around the church or pubs. Not being a drinker, Dad, although a Methodist by birth, became quite active in the Greystones Presbyterian Church. He taught Sunday school and was an active member of the literary club, which in 1927 started a table tennis club. He served as secretary and captain until the outbreak of World War II when the club was mothballed. He was a member of the tennis club and he also became an active member of the newly-formed (1937) Greystones Rugby Club – and because of his access to cars, was able to transport half the team to away matches.

While working for Buckley’s he was involved in a road accident at the junction of Church Road and Church Lane which left him unconscious with a smashed up bicycle (Buckley’s) and a broken wrist. His subsequent claim, in 1934, for compensation was thrown out in Wicklow court as he had no recollection of what had actually happened. Around this time my dad went to work with David Watson and Willie Johnson who had formed a loose partnership and taken over the activities of Tom Batey’s motor business.

David Watson died suddenly in 1936 and dad, with a loan from an aunt, acquired his share of the business. This resulted in a partnership, somewhat confusingly, between Willie Johnston and Willie Johnson. My father, Willie Johnston, who looked after sales and administration and had an interest in electronics, came to be known as Wireless Willie or Lowry, whilst Willie Johnson, who looked after the workshop activities, came to be known as Workshop Willie.

Recognising the future potential of the motor industry Dad instigated the formation and registration of a new company, Watson and Johnson (Greystones) Ltd., in 1941. A plot of land was acquired just south of the library, and he and his partner Willie Johnson commenced the construction of a substantial workshop and petrol pump forecourt. They did much of the building work themselves as the war years had substantially depressed the motor business primarily due to a lack of petrol. The main workshop was constructed using roof trusses which came from a demolished football stand in Dublin.

This allowed them to have a huge span uninterrupted by vertical columns and the hope was to garage double-decker buses as they expected them to be in use on the Greystones route in the future. Alas, the double-decker sleepovers in Greystones never came to pass.

Willie Johnson, Ken Johnson & Willie Johnston

Watson and Johnson moved into their new premises in 1947 and extended them in the 1950s with the addition of a car showroom.

For years, the local fire engine was stored in the garage that now houses Vick’s Cafe. The siren was mounted on the adjacent wall of the main garage building and was activated as a signal for the voluntary firemen to assemble.

Later, the fire engine was kept in one of the colourful lock-up garages on the south side of the main building.

The Escape boutique now occupies what was the garage showroom. Watson and Johnson subsequently opened an additional petrol forecourt on the corner of Church Road and Rathdown Road, which they named Greystones Motor Company Limited.

Dad was interested in electrical goods and had been selling radios and televisions even before moving in to the new premises. Many of the Burnaby houses had very high TV aerials supplied and installed by W&J. High aerials were needed for there to be any chance of picking up a signal from the BBC. In 1953, half the population of Greystones assembled in Watson & Johnson’s to watch the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on television, a very snowy affair!

The 1950s and 1960s were the heydays of Watson & Johnson. They were main dealers for Austin, Morris, MG, Riley, Wolseley, Triumph and Rover. In the 1960s, they were selling more than 350 new cars each year – not bad for a business in small town Greystones!

The 1940s were very busy for my dad: he built the garage, played rugby, did his coastpatrolling bit for the LDF, got married and built a new family home, Westbank, on the New Road.

Westbank sat on a site of approximately one acre and dad was able to indulge his love of horticulture by creating a substantial orchard of fruit trees and growing tomatoes and grapes (under glass) and all sorts of vegetables and chrysanthemums.

Open for business…

And to add to the fun, he competed annually with Westley Scott as to who would be first to have their new tomatoes in McFarland’s grocers! We were largely self-sufficient owing to his labours.

When Dad retired from the motor business in 1970, to take up farming, he had sold the house to the organisation that ran the local orphanage. Thankfully he didn’t live to see the RTE exposé about the Westbank Home – he’d have been horrified!

Family lore has it that my dad met my mother, Peggy, when he was giving driving lessons to her aunt, the redoubtable Miss Essie Stuart.

My parents married in 1943 and had four children, of which I am the youngest, before her untimely death on their wedding anniversary in 1955.

Watson & Johnson crash late 1950s

Dad remarried in 1958 and went on to have a second family of four children before moving to Tinnapark House and farming in Kilpedder.

The business of Watson and Johnson (Greystones) Ltd was acquired in 1970 by Bill Huggard and Eamon Fogarty. They renovated the garage building and constructed a first floor comprising of two residential units.

In the 1990s they moved the business to a site in Blacklion and converted the original garage premises into a commercial centre.

The motor trade businesses of Watson and Johnson (Greystones) Ltd and Greystones Motor Company Ltd were dissolved in 2005.

David Johnston March 2024