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Alfred Harrison

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For the Dean of Trinidad, see Alfred Harrison (priest).

Alfred Henry Harrison (1865 – August 1933) was an English explorer.

Earlier life

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He was born in 1865 to Daniel Alfred Harrison, of Chase Hill, Enfield Town, and Mary Jane Hardcastle Burder in Islington, Middlesex. He was educated at Stonyhurst College.[1][2] His father was the eldest son of Daniel Harrison J.P. of Enfield, and his mother daughter of Henry Hardcastle Burder, of Hatcham Park, Surrey.[3] In 1847 Daniel Harrison of Chase Hill was recorded as a director of the Enfield railway.[4]

Harrison's father died while saving his son, in the collision of SS Cheerful with HMS Hecla off Cornwall, north of the Longships, which took place in 1885.[5][6] The captain of the Hecla was the explorer Albert Hastings Markham, then commanding the training school HMS Vernon; the subsequent court-martial decided that the crew of Hecla were not guilty of the collision.[7] When Harrison came of age in 1886, he sold much of his grandfather's property to which he was heir.

Harrison's first expedition was to the Canadian Rockies, in 1889.[8] It was followed by a second expedition to the same place a few years later. He then travelled to Northern Africa. A subsequent trip was to hunt, to Slave Lake in Canada.[5] He was elected to the Royal Geographical Society on 22 February 1904.[9]

British Exploring Expedition, 1905–1907

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Harrison returned to Canada for the British Exploring Expedition. This was a private venture with the intention, if possible, of reaching the North Pole, in 1905. Hubert Darrell acted as assistant; he had been in a previous expedition led by David Hanbury. Ultimately Darrell fell out with Harrison, and left while he was absent.[10][11]

Harrison's route to the Canadian West Arctic began at Quebec, from where he made his way to Edmonton, by rail and being joined by Darrell. They went up the trail to Athabasca Landing, by wagon. They reached the Great Slave Lake by river, and their scow was towed across it by a steamer. Then in the Northwest Territories they went down the Mackenzie River toward the ocean, to the Arctic Red River, reached in October 1905.[12]

While Harrison made trips to Fort McPherson, the dissatisfied Darrell set off during one of his absences.[12] Harrison then took Herschel Island as a base for exploration in the Beaufort Sea.[13] He put much effort into mapping the Mackenzie delta, in particular the Husky Lakes area, where he wintered. He did not refer to the previous explorations, of James Richardson and the Comte de Sainville.[14]

Harrison's exploration was cut short when a family member became ill, and he left Canada in 1907.[8] In 1909, he argued for a polar sledge expedition, taking the Jeannette Expedition of an earlier generation as illustration of the limitations of ship navigation in the Arctic.[15]

Works

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  • In Search of a Polar Continent, 1905–1907 (1908)[8]

Harrison spent 18 months living with the Inuit during this trip, and his book contains information about their customs.[16] It also contains his survey of the Mackenzie delta, with inset maps of Baillie Island and Herschel Island.[17]

One review noted Harrison's thwarted plan to get to Banks Island on a whaler, travel west on sea ice, and explore new ground.[18]

Family

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Harrison married in 1890 Josephine Waterton, daughter of Edmund Waterton and his wife Josephine Rock.[1][19] After his death, she married in 1934 Charles Adrian Joseph Langdale.[20]

References

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  1. ^ a b Burnand, Francis Cowley (1908). "The Catholic Who's Who". Internet Archive. London: Burns & Oates. p. 187. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  2. ^ Obituary, "In Memoriam Alfred Henry Harrison" in The Stonyhurst Magazine number 308 December 1933
  3. ^ The Solicitors' Journal & Reporter. Law Newspaper Company. 1859. p. 557.
  4. ^ Post Office Railway Directory for 1847: Of Chairmen, Deputy-chairmen, Directors, Secretaries, Engineers, and Officials; with an Alphabetical Official Directory. 1847. p. 281.
  5. ^ a b Harrison, Alfred Henry (1908). "In Search of a Polar Continent, 1905–1907". Internet Archive. London: E. Arnold. p. vii. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
  6. ^ "www.wrecksite.eu, SS Cheerful [+1885]". Retrieved 12 February 2018.
  7. ^ Gordon, Andrew (2013-02-21). The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command. Naval Institute Press. p. 88. ISBN 9781612512327. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
  8. ^ a b c "Alfred Harrison collection - Archives Hub". Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  9. ^ "Meetings of the Royal Geographical Society, Session 1903-1904", The Geographical Journal Vol. 23, No. 3 (Mar., 1904), pp. 400-402, at p. 402. Published by: geographicalj JSTOR 1775018
  10. ^ "Hubert Darrell collection (GB-15 - GB 15 Hubert Darrell)". Archives Portal. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  11. ^ Cook, Ramsay; Hamelin, Jean (1966). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 239. ISBN 9780802039989. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  12. ^ a b Holland, Clive (1994). Arctic exploration and development, c. 500 B.C. to 1915: an encyclopedia. Garland Pub. p. 457. ISBN 9780824076481.
  13. ^ Levere, Trevor H. (2004-01-29). Science and the Canadian Arctic: A Century of Exploration, 1818-1918. Cambridge University Press. p. 379. ISBN 9780521524919. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  14. ^ Miscellaneous Report. Geological Survey of Canada. 1974. p. 13.
  15. ^ Alfred H. Harrison, "Proposed Sledge Expedition across the North Polar Region", The Geographical Journal Vol. 33, No. 6 (Jun., 1909), pp. 689-692. Published by: geographicalj DOI: 10.2307/1777556 JSTOR 1777556
  16. ^ In Search of a Polar Continent, Chapter V
  17. ^ The Map of the Arctic Regions, Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, Vol. 45, No. 8 (1913), pp. 610-612, at p. 611. Published by: American Geographical Society DOI: 10.2307/199946 JSTOR 199946
  18. ^ Reviewed Work: In Search of a Polar Continent (1905-1907) by Alfred H. Harrison, Review by: Bulletin of the American Geographical Society Vol. 41, No. 2 (1909), pp. 126-127. Published by: American Geographical Society DOI: 10.2307/200809 JSTOR 200809
  19. ^ Ranieval, The Marquis of Ruvigny and (2013). The Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal: The Mortimer-Percy Volume. Heritage Books. p. 97. ISBN 9780788418723. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  20. ^ Burnand, Francis Cowley (1952). The Catholic Who's who. Burns & Oates. p. 253.
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