Biography

Robert Harrison (1715-1802)

The renowned mathematician and linguist Robert ‘Philosopher’ Harrison was a close friend of the Darlington antiquary George Allan. Allan’s son recorded Harrison had probably been born at Yarm in the North Riding of Yorkshire where he practised as an attorney before abandoning the profession to become Master of Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s Trinity School. Private pupils included John Scott, the future Lord Eldon who served as Chancellor (1807-1827) and his brother William Scott, Lord Stowell, Oxford University’s Camden Reader of Ancient History and later Judge of the High Court of Admiralty (1798-1828).

Harrison knew Greek and Latin and had knowledge of Oriental languages. His friend Joseph Ritson who visited him on trips to the North respected Harrison’s linguistic ability, asking him in a letter:

“Do you take the origin and language of the Picts to have been Celtic or Gothic I can get no satisfactory information upon the subject: I wish you would consider it … Dives, in hell torments, did not long more earnestly for a drop of water to cool the tip of his tongue, than I do, in this enquiry, for a portion of your learning to enlighten my way.”

Harrison may have shared Ritson’s radicalism as he is addressed as ‘Citizen’ in letters dated using the French Republican calendar. Ritson notes in one 1792 letter:

“I know I was to send you the song or tune of Ça ira, but as it is become high treason either to sing or whistle it, and of course, I presume, misprision of treason, at least, to possess, communicate, or speak of it, you will excuse my breach of promise for the present. If I can pick you up a German book or two, and find a safe hand to trust to, I may possibly venture to stock it in between the leaves.”

After giving up the mastership of Newcastle’s Trinity School Harrison moved to Durham where he lived until his death in 1802.

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