Harrison of Ightham: a Book about Benjamin Harrison, of Ightham, Kent, made up principally of Extracts from his Notebooks and Correspondence

Abstract

IN writing to Benjamin Harrison, grocer, in the village of Ightham, Kent, in 1906, Sir E. Ray Lankester ended his letter thus: “Good health and happiness to you—courageous and indomitable discoverer of pre-Palæolithic man.” Never were words of cheer more timely or better deserved. When this letter reached Harrison he was approaching his seventieth year; he had retired from the counter behind which he had stood for fifty-five years—or to state the matter more truthfully, the counter had retired from him, for the business in which his ancestors had prospered for many generations had become in his hands a rich museum but a poor shop. His only certain source of income then was his Civil List pension of £26 a year granted in 1899, with, in addition, the annuity of £25 given to him in the same year by the Royal Society. In 1918, being then in his eightieth year, his Civil List pension was doubled, and this he continued to enjoy until his death in 1921.

Harrison of Ightham: a Book about Benjamin Harrison, of Ightham, Kent, made up principally of Extracts from his Notebooks and Correspondence.

Prepared for publication by Sir Edward R. Harrison. Pp. xvi + 395 + 12 plates. (London: Oxford University Press, 1928.) 15s. net.