Thomas Elliott Harrison

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For other persons named Thomas Harrison, see Thomas Harrison (disambiguation).

Personal information
Thomas Harrison
Name	Thomas Harrison
Nationality	English
Birth date	1808
Birth place	Fulham, London
Date of death	1888
Place of death	Whitburn, South Tyneside
Education	Kepier School
Work
Engineering Discipline	Civil engineering
Institution memberships	Institution of Civil Engineers (president)
Significant projects	Victoria Viaduct, High Level Bridge

The Victoria Bridge/Viaduct over the River Wear

Thomas Elliot Harrison (1808 - 1888) was born in Fulham, but his father very soon took the family to Sunderland. Harrison had a lifelong affection for his adopted county. After a short education at the Kepier School in Houghton-le-Spring, he was apprenticed to Messrs Chapman, engineers and surveyors in Newcastle upon Tyne. He showed marked ability and made the acquaintance of George and Robert Stephenson.

Harrison surveyed part of the London-Birmingham line and the Stanhope and Tyne railway. This latter included the famous Victoria Bridge at Penshaw, which was planned and supervised by Harrison. This viaduct is built on the pattern of the Roman bridge at Alcantara in Spain. The Penshaw Monument to Lord Durham stands on the hill nearby. As Nikolaus Pevsner says: 'Is there any other place where one can stand beneath a 'Roman' viaduct and see a 'Greek' temple?'

Harrison also surveyed the Newcastle-Carlisle line and a number of other lines. With Robert Stephenson he worked on the High Level Bridge at Newcastle, and when Stephenson retired as railway engineer, Harrison took over as engineer-in-chief of the York-Newcastle-Berwick line, where he deployed considerable powers of organisation. At the 1849 dinner in Newcastle Central Station to celebrate the completion of this line, Stephenson said:

“

Upon Mr Harrison the whole responsibility [for the works] has fallen, and I believe they have been executed without a single flaw.

”

In 1858, Harrison designed and carried out the Jarrow docks project, using a number of remarkable hydraulic devices, and also designed the Hartlepool docks. He became president of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1873.^[1] He died at home in Whitburn. At the time he was very much involved in the designs for the Forth Bridge.