Henry Kingsford Harris
Henry Kingsford Harris (1867-1941)
1941 Obituary [1]
HENRY KINGSFORD HARRIS, M.A., who died on the 18th September, 1941, at Barnes after a long illness, was born in 1867 and was educated at Haileybury and Trinity College, Cambridge.
He practised in Westminster for many years as a consulting electrical engineer, but for the past 20 years or so had devoted himself to the perfecting of his many inventions.
He joined The Institution as a Graduate in 1918, and was elected an Associate Member in the same year and a Member in 1940. Before being overtaken by deafness, he frequently attended Institution meetings, where his cheery and optimistic talk and fund of general information was a delight to the friends who met him in the tea room. He had travelled much, was an ardent photographer, read a great deal of science and practised archaeology.
For 18 years he was Rector of Runwell in Essex, and for a long time acted as District Councillor and was active in local affairs. He was appointed Commissioner of Levels of Canvey Island. He was an expert on telegraph signalling systems and had a full-scale demonstration at Barnes of his method of signalling messages with unlimited change, in letters of any size with or without electric lamps, to any distance and to one or more stations by means of ordinary telegraph code. He spent many years on the development of this system, which was taken up by a well-known electrical concern shortly before the outbreak of war. Its manufacture and marketing have had to be postponed until the cessation of hostilities. He leaves a widow and one daughter, and lost his only son in the present war.