the company in their various schemes of technical education and social philanthropy. These benefactions included an endowment for technical lectures and a gold medal in connection with the Institute of Public Health. The Convalescent Home for Working Men at Rustington, Littlehampton, the erection and partial endowment of which cost him over 50,000l., was founded in 1895 and opened in 1897. It remained under his own management and that of his son during their lives, and then reverted to the Carpenters' Company, which now contributes liberally to its support.
Harben's London house for nearly half a century was at Hampstead, and he keenly interested himself in local affairs. For many years he was a leading member of the Hampstead vestry, and became its chairman. He represented Hampstead on the Metropolitan Board of Works from 1881 to 1889, and from 1889 to 1894 on the London county council. In 1900 he became the first mayor of Hampstead, and was elected for a second year, but resigned owing to failing health. A generous supporter of the local charities, he built a wing of the Hampstead General Hospital, liberally helped the Mount Vernon Hospital for Consumption and the School for the Blind, and gave 5000l. towards building the Central Public Library. He helped to secure Parliament-hill Fields and Golder's Green as open spaces for the public. For the London City Mission he built a hall at Hampstead, and was honorary colonel of the 1st cadet battalion of the royal fusiliers whose headquarters are at Hampstead.
His country seat was Warnham Lodge, near Horsham, where he built the Warnham village hall and club; he was a D.L. of Sussex, and served as high sheriff in 1898. An enthusiast for cricket, he constructed one of the best cricket grounds in Sussex, where important matches were played. A conservative in politics, he contested unsuccessfully Norwich in 1880 and Cardiff in 1885.
He died at his Sussex residence on 2 Dec. 1911, and was buried at Kensal Green cemetery. He married (1) on 1 Aug. 1846 Ann (d. 1883), daughter of James Such, by whom he had issue a son, Henry Andrade, his successor as chairman of the Prudential (1849-1910), whose death in August 1910 was a severe blow; and (2) on 8 Nov. 1890 Mary Jane, daughter of Thomas Bullman Cole. He was survived by a daughter and two grandsons, H. D. Harben and Guy P. Harben the artist.
Harben published:
- 'The Weight Calculator,' 1849; 3rd edit. 1879.
- 'Mortality Experience of the Prudential Assurance Company, 1867-70,' 1871.
- 'The Discount Guide, Tables for the use of Merchants, Manufacturers … '; new edit. 1876.
A portrait by Mr, Norman Macbeth was painted in 1872 for the board-room of the Prudential Company. Another presentation portrait, by the Hon. John Collier (1889), is in the Hampstead Town Hall. A bust from life was modelled in 1902 by Mr. James Nesfield Forsyth,
[Insurance Record, 8 Dec. 1911, xlix. 579-80; Prudential Staff Gazette (portrait), May 1911, i. 120-1, and Dec. 1911, ii. 35; Post Mag. (portrait), 9 Dec. 1911, lxxii. 971-2; Ibis Mag. (portrait), Dec. 1911, xxxiv. 373-7; Burke's Peerage, 1911; Lodge's Peerage, 1912; The Times, 4 Dec. 1911; Hampstead and Highgate Express, 9 Dec. 1911; Hampstead and St. John's Wood Advertiser, 7 Dec, 1911; Brit. Mus. Cat.; notes kindly supplied by Sir Ernest Clarke.]
HARCOURT, LEVESON FRANCIS VERNON- (1838–1907), civil engineer. [See Vernon-Harcourt.]
HARCOURT, Sir WILLIAM GEORGE GRANVILLE VENABLES VERNON (1827–1904), statesman, born on 14 Oct. 1827 in the Old Residence, York, was younger son in a family of two sons and five daughters of William Vernon Harcourt [q. v.] of Nuneham Park, Oxford, canon of York, by his wife Matilda Mary, daughter of Colonel William Gooch, whose father was Sir Thomas Gooch of Benacre, Suffolk, and whose grandfather was Sir Thomas Gooch [q. v.], bishop of Ely. Harcourt's grandfather, Edward Harcourt [q. v.], archbishop of York, son of George Vernon, Lord Vernon, took his mother's name of Harcourt on succeeding to the property of his first cousin, William Harcourt, third and last Earl Harcourt [q. v.], in 1830. Harcourt was proud of a descent which was traceable through many noble houses to the Plantagenet royal family. He had little in common with his elder brother, Edward William Harcourt (1825-1891), a staunch conservative, who succeeded to the Nuneham estates in 1871, and who, although he was M.P, for Oxfordshire from 1878 to 1886, mainly led the life of a country gentleman.
Harcourt's early days were spent in York and in the adjoining parish of Wheldrake, under a private tutor till the age of ten. For the next nine years (1837-46) he was a pupil with five other boys of Canon
