John Williamson was born in 1740 at Esha Ness and received no formal education. He was shy and studious and frequently dabbled in mechanical inventions, thus earning the nickname “Johnnie Notions.” He spent 30 years tramping around the 45 inhabited Shetland Isles inoculating crofters against smallpox, the scourge that plagued mankind for 2 000 years, with a serum of his own invention. Its composition was a guarded secret, but it was reliably reported after his death in 1803, that to obtain it, he had inoculated a Shetland pony with pus from a smallpox patient. While Englishman. Edward Jenner, is generally credited with the first successful inoculations in 1802, and in spite of the fact that the medical profession was eagerly waiting to put him on trial as an unqualified practitioner, they acknowledged that not one of his patients died.
While he was a weaver by trade, and also became the local bone-setter, blacksmith, carpenter and clock-repairer, he must have had a talent for sculpting. A sculpture he did in wood, of the head of a man is at the Shetland County Museum, his model being his first patient, who had a look of intense relief on his face.