Rev Dr Archibald Walter Harrison MC

 

I am not related to Archibald Harrison  but I understand that he was a Methodist minister, that he served in the  First World War and was awarded the MC.

Harrison wrote a significant number of books including, as ‘A W H’,  Three Brothers (Epworth, 1919). That book includes very brief allusions to his military service and provides  a general picture of the home life of the family of  Henry and Ellen Hosegood of Bristol,  a Methodist family with particular links  to Trinity Methodist Church in Whiteladies Road.  However,  the bulk of the well-written and moving book consists of  accounts of  the lives, and deaths in battle, of three Hosegood sons:  (Henry) Arnold, Ralph and Gilbert.

The older boys attended the Leys School and information about them is provided on the school’s Roll of Honour. Gilbert attended Queen’s College, Taunton, and  reference is made to some of his war-time experiences in H J Channon’s history of that school.  In 2013, pupils at Queen’s found inspiration in Gilbert’s  life for a theatrical production.

AWH ends his chapter on Gilbert thus ‘…  So the three brothers lie behind the three great bastions of the old British lines in France: Ypres Loos, and the Somme. Lovely and pleasant in their lives, in their death they were not divided.’

Sources on the three brothers include:

http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Cambridgeshire/CambridgeLeysSchoolWW1.html

See http://www.ukboardingschools.com/news/queen-s-college-year-12s-to-perform-all-the-queen-s-men/#.VCnUHLl0yUk

 

For a brief account of Harrison’s life that makes no mention of his military service, see The Encyclopedia of World Methodism (1974) – accessed on line.  It reads:  ‘Archibald Walter Harrison (1882-1946) was born in Swindon, Wiltshire, and trained for the Wesleyan ministry at Didsbury College in Manchester.

From 1921 to 1930 he was Vice Principal and from 1930 to 1940 Principal of Westminster Teacher Training College in Oxford.

He also acted as Secretary of the Methodist Education Committee.

Harrison was a well-respected historian who wrote many works of Methodist history. He died suddenly in 1946 during his term of office as President of Conference.

His portrait was painted by Katharine Constance Lloyd and hangs at Oxford Brookes University. It can been seen by following the link below

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/archibald-walter-harrison-18821946-principal-19301940-42991

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