Harrison products are still greatly sought-after by the angling fraternity and I have been fortunate enough to acquire a dust-covered original box of his Sproat hooks from the 1880's, recently discovered in the back-room of a little-known Florida retailer of fishing equipment.

About 1835 Richard married Elizabeth Podmore who was ten years his junior and their first child - also Elizabeth - was born several years later. By the time Florence arrived in 1858, there were three other older sisters : Lavinia, Fanny and Rosaline and one brother, Albert Richard. Two years later another daughter Blanche Amy was born to complete the family.

 

The eldest daughter Elizabeth, married a biscuit and confection manufacturer from Gibraltar by the name of Elsey - and it was with her as a widow in Weymouth - that our Florence later resided, together with Blanche, whose married name was Burtt.

Brother Albert was a gifted scholar and obtained a degree at Worcester College, Oxford. He subsequently became a chaplain of Trinity College and later, a tutor to a small group of boys in Stratford upon Avon. Eventually his ministry took him to Tettenhall in Staffordshire and finally to Sevenoaks in Kent.

Albert duly married Alice - and their only son Richard Scorer Molyneaux Harrison (born in 1883), served in Peshawar, India as a Captain with the 51st Sikh Regiment.

In 1911 son Richard became the158th person in Britain to obtain a pilots licence, having taken his qualifying test on 14 Nov. 1911 at Brooklands in Surrey in a Bristol Biplane. At the outbreak of WW1, he was seconded to the 7th Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers as a Major, but tragically died at Gallipoli on 16 Aug. 1915 aged 32. He did not marry and thus with his passing, the male line of Florence's family came to an end - there being no other sons to carry the name forward.

Richard's name appears on the Helles war memorial and I shall continue to expand this section in due course.