Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Thomas (1555-1631)
HARRISON, THOMAS, D.D. (1555–1631), biblical scholar, was born in London in 1555 of respectable parents, entered Merchant Taylors' School in 1570, where he is stated to have been second in learning only to Lancelot Andrewes, afterwards bishop of Winchester; he proceeded to St. John's College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1576. At Cambridge his scholarship attracted the notice of Dr. Whitaker, who for the excellence of his verses used to call him 'suum poetam.' He apparently became a fellow and tutor of Trinity College. Harrison was a puritan, and in 1589 is mentioned as attending a synod at St. John's College, along with Cartwright and others (Baker, History of St. John's College, ii. 601). He was a noted Hebraist and among the revisers of the bible assembled by James I; he belonged to the company of eight who met at Cambridge, and were allotted the 'first of Chronicles, with the rest of the story and the Hagiographs.' For the last twenty years of his life he was vice-prefect of Trinity College. He died in 1631 and was buried with some pomp in the chapel of his college. A Latin volume in his honour was written by Caleb Dalechamp; it is titled 'Harrisonus Honoratus: Id est Honorifica de Vita,' &c. (Cambridge, 1632), and contains a meagre outline of his life in the form of a funeral oration, with some Latin obituary verses to his memory.
[Robinson’s Register of Merchant Taylors' School, i. 15; Fuller's Church Hist. 1815, v. 371.]