only 1 minute 5412 seconds. This was surprisingly accurate, as it determined the longitude within 18 m., and Harrison claimed the full reward of £20,000; but though from time to time he received sums on account, it was not till 1773 that he was paid in full. In these watches compensation for changes of temperature was applied for the first time by means of a “compensation-curb,” designed to alter the effective length of the balance-spring in proportion to the expansion or contraction caused by variations of temperature. Harrison died in London on the 24th of March 1776. His want of early education was felt by him greatly throughout life. He was unfortunately never able to express his ideas clearly in writing, although in conversation he could give a very precise and exact account of his many intricate mechanical contrivances.
Among his writings were a Description concerning such Mechanism as will afford a Nice or True Mensuration of Time (1775), and The Principles of Mr Harrison’s Timekeeper, published by order of the Commissioners of Longitude (1767).
HARRISON, THOMAS (1606–1660), English parliamentarian,
a native of Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, the son of a
butcher and mayor of that town, was baptized in 1606. He was
placed with an attorney of Clifford’s Inn, but at the beginning of
the war in 1642 he enlisted in Essex’s lifeguards, became major
in Fleetwood’s regiment of horse under the earl of Manchester,
was present at Marston Moor, at Naseby, Langport and at the
taking of Winchester and Basing, as well as at the siege of Oxford.
At Basing Harrison was accused of having killed a prisoner in cold
blood. In 1646 he was returned to parliament for Wendover,
and served in Ireland in 1647 under Lord Lisle, returning to
England in May, when he took the side of the army in the dispute
with the parliament and obtained from Fairfax a regiment of
horse. In November he opposed the negotiations with the king,
whom he styled “a man of blood” to be called to account,
and he declaimed against the House of Lords. At the surprise of
Lambert’s quarters at Appleby on the 18th of July 1648, in the
second civil war, he distinguished himself by his extraordinary
daring and was severely wounded. He showed a special zeal in
bringing about the trial of the king. Charles was entrusted to
his care on being brought up from Hurst Castle to London, and
believed that Harrison intended his assassination, but was at
once favourably impressed by his bearing and reassured by his
disclaiming any such design. Harrison was assiduous in his
attendance at the trial, and signed the death-warrant with the
fullest conviction that it was his duty. He took part in suppressing
the royalist rising in the midlands in May 1649, and in
July was appointed to the chief command in South Wales, where
he is said to have exercised his powers with exceptional severity.
On the 20th of February 1651 he became a member of the council
of state, and during Cromwell’s absence in Scotland held the
supreme military command in England. He failed in stopping
the march of the royalists into England at Knutsford on the
16th of August 1651, but after the battle of Worcester he rendered
great service in pursuing and capturing the fugitives.
Later he pressed on Cromwell the necessity of dismissing the
Long Parliament, and it was he who at Cromwell’s bidding, on
the 20th of April 1653, laid hands on Speaker Lenthall and compelled
him to vacate the chair. He was president of the council
of thirteen which now exercised authority, and his idea of government
appears to have been an assembly nominated by the congregations,
on a strictly religious basis, such as Barebone’s Parliament
which now assembled, of which he was a member and a
ruling spirit. Harrison belonged to the faction of Fifth Monarchy
men, whose political ideals were entirely destroyed by Cromwell’s
assumption of the protectorate. He went immediately into
violent opposition, was deprived of his commission on the 22nd of
December 1653, and on the 3rd of February 1654 was ordered to
confine himself to his father’s house in Staffordshire. Suspected
of complicity in the plots of the anabaptists, he was imprisoned
for a short time in September, and on that occasion was sent
for by Cromwell, who endeavoured in a friendly manner to persuade
him to desist. He, however, incurred the suspicions of the
administration afresh, and on the 15th of February 1655 he was
imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle, being liberated in March 1656
when he took up his residence at Highgate with his family. In
April 1657 he was arrested for supposed complicity in Venner’s
conspiracy, and again once more in February 1658, when he was
imprisoned in the Tower. At the Restoration, Harrison, who
was excepted from the Act of Indemnity, refused to take any
steps to save his life, to give any undertaking not to conspire
against the government or to flee. “Being so clear in the thing,”
he declared, “I durst not turn my back nor step a foot out of
the way by reason I had been engaged in the service of so glorious
and great a God.” He was arrested in Staffordshire in May 1660
and brought to trial on the 11th of October. He made a manly
and straightforward defence, pleading the authority of parliament
and adding, “May be I might be a little mistaken, but I
did it all according to the best of my understanding, desiring to
make the revealed will of God in His holy scriptures a guide to
me.” At his execution, which took place at Charing Cross on the
13th of October 1660, he behaved with great fortitude.
Richard Baxter, who was acquainted with him, describes Harrison as “a man of excellent natural parts for affection and oratory, but not well seen in the principles of his religion of a sanguine complexion, naturally of such a vivacity, hilarity and alacrity as another man hath when he hath drunken a cup too much, but naturally also so far from humble thoughts of himself that it was his ruin.” Cromwell also complained of his excessive eagerness. “Harrison is an honest man and aims at good things, yet from the impatience of his spirit will not wait the Lord’s leisure but hurries me on to that which he and all honest men will have cause to repent.” Harrison was an eloquent and fluent expounder of the scriptures, and his “raptures” on the field of victory are recorded by Baxter. He was of the chief of those “fiery spirits” whose ardent and emotional religion inspired their political action, and who did wonders during the period of struggle and combat, but who later, in the more sober and difficult sphere of constructive statesmanship, showed themselves perfectly incapable.
Harrison married about 1648 Katherine, daughter and heiress of Ralph Harrison of Highgate in Middlesex, by whom he had several children, all of whom, however, appear to have died in infancy.
See the article on Harrison by C. H. Firth in the Dict. of Nat. Biog.; Life of Harrison by C. H. Simpkinson (1905); Notes and Queries, 9 series, xi. 211.
HARRISON, THOMAS ALEXANDER (1853– ), American
artist, was born in Philadelphia on the 17th of January 1853.
He was a pupil of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and
of the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, whither he went in 1878,
having previously been with a United States government survey
expedition on the Pacific coast. Chafing under the restraints of
the schools, he went into Brittany, and at Pont Aven and Concarneau
turned his attention to marine painting and landscape.
In 1882 he sent a figure-piece to the Salon, a fisher boy on the
beach, which he called “Châteaux en Espagne.” This attracted
attention, and in 1885 he received an honourable mention, the
first of many awards conferred upon him, including the Temple
gold medal (Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia,
1887), first medal, Paris Exhibition (1889), and medals in Munich,
Brussels, Ghent, Vienna and elsewhere. He became a member
of the Legion of Honour and officier of Public Instruction,
Paris; a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts,
Paris; of the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil Colours, London;
of the Secession societies of Munich, Vienna and Berlin; of the
National Academy of Design, the Society of American Artists,
New York, and other art bodies. In the Salon of 1885 he had
a large canvas of several nude women, called “In Arcady,” a
remarkable study of flesh tones in light and shade which had a
strong influence on the younger men of the day. But his reputation
rests rather on his marine pictures, long waves rolling in on
the beach, and great stretches of open sea under poetic conditions
of light and colour.
His brother, Birge Harrison (1854– ), also a painter, particularly successful in snow scenes, was a pupil of the École
