John Thornhill Harrison
John Thornhill Harrison (1815-1891)
1892 Obituary [1]
... son of the late Mr. William Harrison, was born at Thornhill, near Sunderland, on the 4th of February, 1815. He was educated at the Grange School, Sunderland, and at Edinburgh University, and was then articled to his elder brother, the late Mr. Thomas Elliot Harrison, Past President of the Institution. His first employment was on the London and Birmingham Railway, after which he was in his brother’s office at South Shields, and subsequently on the Stanhope and Tyne Railway, now forming part of the North Eastern Company’s system.
On the expiration of his pupilage, in 1838, Mr. Harrison was engaged under the late Mr. I. K. Brunel on the construction of the Great Western and South Devon Railways. He acted first for three and a half years as Assistant Engineer on the Bristol and Gloucester line, and on the Cheltenham and Great Western Union, and then for two years and a half as Resident Engineer on the South Devon line to Dawlish and Plymouth, where he laid down part of the atmospheric railway, since abandoned.
In 1851 he retired temporarily from the profession, and devoted his attention to agricultural pursuits, farming a holding of about 500 acres, near Stroud, in Gloucestershire. He became a member of the Council of the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, and wrote a number of articles on various subjects of interest to the agricultural world, which appeared from time to time in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society.
In 1865 the attention of the Home Office, which was then entrusted with the administration of all matters affecting sanitation, was drawn to the increasing pollution of rivers and streams by the discharge into them of the refuse of towns and manufactories. A Royal Commission on the Pollution of Rivers was constituted, and, as it was thought that Mr. Harrison’s double experience as a practical farmer and engineer would be of special value, he was appointed a member, his colleagues being Mr. (now Sir Robert) Rawlinson and the late Professor Way. The Commission existed for two years, and made exhaustive reports on the Thames, the Lea, and the rivers of the West Riding of Yorkshire. These may be found in the library of the Institution.
In 1871 Mr. Harrison was offered, by the then Home Secretary, Mr. Bruce (now Lord Aberdare), an Engineering Inspectorship in the Local Government Act Office, the work of which was transferred in the following year to the Local Government Board. From that time until his death, twenty years afterwards, he continued to discharge his duties as one of the Engineering Inspectors of that Board. In that capacity he was constantly engaged throughout the country in holding inquiries with reference to applications from local authorities for permission to borrow money for the carrying out of municipal undertakings of all kinds. Some of the most important with which Mr. Harrison had to deal were the schemes promoted from time to time by the Corporation of Birmingham, and there is scarcely a large town in the kingdom in which he did not, at some time or other during his connection with the Local Government Board, conduct one or more of these inquiries. In their conduct he was kind and considerate, rigorously exact in enforcing the provisions of the Acts of Parliament he had to administer, but ever careful to promote to the utmost the interests of the various districts concerned. Mr. Harrison’s death, which took place on the 4th of November, 1891, may be attributed to a gradual breaking up of the physical powers, rather than to any specific disease. He was well known in Ealing, where he had resided for nearly twenty years, and had taken an active interest in all movements tending to promote the welfare of the town. He was an ardent educationalist, devotedly attached to the voluntary system, and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Ealing Educational Association displayed a warm concern in all questions connected with the elementary instruction of the young. He was also an active member of the Committee of the Ealing Cottage Hospital, a Vice-President of the Ealing and District Gardeners’ Mutual Improvement Association, and a warm supporter of the local Horticultural Society. Possessed of great kindliness of heart and geniality, his presence was always welcome at the gatherings of the various institutions with which he was associated.
Mr. Harrison presented several valuable Papers to the Institution, of which he was elected a Member on the 13th of April, 1847. Among them may be mentioned the following: “The Causes tending to Alter the Outline of the English Coast ” ; “ On the Drainage of the District South of the Thames ”; a “ Statistics of Railway Income and Expenditure, and their Bearing on Future Railway Policy and Management, ” ; ‘‘ Railway Statistics ” ; and “ On the Subterranean Water in the Chalk Formation of the Upper Thames, and its Relation to the Supply of London.” He contributed Papers to the Geological Society, of which he was a Fellow, and, as has been stated above, to the Royal Agricultural Society. He was also the author of several pamphlets and reports, many of which are preserved in the library of the Institution.