Frederic Harrison (18 October 1831 – 14 January 1923) was a British jurist and historian. A leading figure in the English Positivist movement and a disciple of Auguste Comte, he was known for his wide-ranging contributions to political philosophy, legal theory, and public discourse. Harrison was a prolific writer and lecturer whose works spanned history, law, religion, literature, and international affairs. He played a prominent role in Victorian intellectual life, contributing regularly to influential periodicals such as The Fortnightly Review, and was noted for his radical political stance in support of trade union rights, universal education, and democratic reform.

Biography

Born at 17 Euston Square, London, he was the son of Frederick Harrison (1799–1881), a stockbroker and his wife Jane, daughter of Alexander Brice, a Belfast granite merchant. He was baptised at St. Pancras Church, Euston, and spent his early childhood at the northern London suburb of Muswell Hill, to which the family moved soon after his birth. which descended to his elder son Sidney, and about which Frederic jnr. wrote the definitive history Annals of an Old Manor House: Sutton Place, Guildford, first published in 1893. His paternal grandfather was a Leicestershire builder. In 1840, the family moved again to 22 Oxford Square, Hyde Park, London, a house designed by Harrison's father. Harrison received his initial education at home before attending a day school in St John's Wood. In 1843, he entered King's College School, graduating as second in the school in 1849. he was also editor and part author of the Positivist New Calendar of great Men (1892), and wrote much on Auguste Comte and Positivism. For more than three decades, he was a regular contributor to The Fortnightly Review, often in defence of Positivism, especially Comte's version of it.

thumb|upright|A caricature of Frederic Harrison by [[Carlo Pellegrini (caricaturist)|Carlo Pellegrini (known as "Ape"; died 1889), published in Vanity Fair, 23 January 1886, with the caption "An apostle of Positivism"]]

Among his contemporaries at Wadham were Edward Spencer Beesly, John Henry Bridges, and George Earlam Thorley who were to become the leaders of the secular Religion of Humanity or "Comtism" in England. He received a second class in Moderations in 1852 and a first class in Literae Humaniores in 1853.

Of his separate publications, the most important are his lives of Cromwell (1888), William the Silent, (1897), Ruskin (1902), and Chatham (1905); his Meaning of History (1862; enlarged 1894) and Byzantine History in the Early Middle Ages (1900); and his essays on Early Victorian Literature (1896) and The Choice of Books (1886) are remarkable alike for generous admiration and good sense. In 1904 he published a "romantic monograph" of the 10th century Byzantine resurgence, Theophano, based on the empress of that name, and in 1906 a verse tragedy, Nicephorus, based on Emperor Nikephoros II. His Annals of an Old Manor House: Sutton Place, Guildford, first published in London in 1893 as a quarto work, re-issued in a small abridged form in 1899, is a valuable and detailed study of the Weston family and the architecturally important manor house Sutton Place built by Sir Richard Weston c. 1525. Harrison's father had been the lessee since 1874 and the author had many years of access in which to perform his detailed investigations and researches.

He gave the Sir Robert Rede Lecture at the University of Cambridge in 1900.

Later works include Autobiographic Memoirs (1911); The Positive Evolution of Religion (1912); The German Peril (1915); On Society (1918); Jurisprudence and Conflict of Nations (1919); Obiter Dicta (1919); Novissima Verba (1920). The last two of these were collections of vigorous comments on politics and literature contributed by him to the Fortnightly Review towards the end of World War I and immediately afterwards.

Family

In 1870, Harrison married his first cousin Ethel Bertha Harrison, daughter of William Harrison. They had four sons, including the journalist and literary critic Austin Harrison. George Gissing, the novelist, was at one time their tutor; and in 1905, Harrison wrote a preface to Gissing's Veranilda. One of the sons, Christopher René Harrison, was killed in World War I.

Works

References

  • Works by Frederic Harrison, at HathiTrust
  • Catalogue of the Harrison papers held at LSE Archives