Germany shortly before the restoration of Charles II; and Burney tells us: "Smith had not been many months here before Harris arrived from France, with his son René, or Renatus, an ingenious and active young man, to whom he had confided all the secrets of his art"
It now appears, for the first time, that the Harrises were an English family, and that Renatus's grandfather was an organ builder residing among us and practising his art with success.
The relationship between the two Harrises is established by an entry in the Magdalen College books, in 1672, where Renatus Harris, being at Oxford, offers his services to repair the organ, "the rather because his grandfather made it at first, and he was sufficiently known to be as skilful an artist as any in England."
The builders of this period who remain to be named are Launcelot Pesse, of Cambridge; Gibbs, "of Powles" [St. Paul's]; Preston, of York; Thamar, of Peterborough; Robert Hayward, of
