Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/28

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

lieve, two to his one.’ Harris's workmanship was superior to Smith's, but it may be inferred from the decision at the Temple that the tone of his organs was less powerful or poorer in quality. Harris also shared court patronage with his rival, and supplied the private chapels of James II with organs (Moneys received and paid for Secret Services, Camden Soc., pp. 144, 169, 180, 196). Certain advertisements in the ‘Post Boy,’ 12 and 30 April 1698, point to the continued rivalry between the two masters. Here Harris announces the demonstration at his house, Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, of the ‘division of half a note into fifty gradual and distinguishable parts, and’ (this experiment having been successful) ‘into one hundred parts, not mathematically, but purely by the ear.’ Smith, with others who had declared these feats to be impracticable, was specially invited to attend the first display. The suggestion that Harris should build an organ for St. Paul's Cathedral (Spectator, 3 Dec. 1712) came to nothing. In later life Harris retired to Bristol and followed his business there until his death about 1715.

Rimbault (History of the Organ, p. 127) gives a list of thirty-nine organs built by Harris, in four of which—those at Salisbury, Gloucester, and Worcester cathedrals, and St. Sepulchre's—he assisted his father. Harris supplied organs to the church of St. Sepulchre, Snow Hill, 1670; St. Botolph, Aldgate; St. Dunstan, Stepney; St. Nicholas, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1676; All Hallows Barking, Great Tower Street; Chichester Cathedral, 1678; Lambeth Old Church, 1680; Winchester Cathedral and College Chapel, 1681; St. Michael, Cornhill, 1684; Bristol Cathedral, 1685; Hereford Cathedral and King's College Chapel, Cambridge, 1686; St. Lawrence, Jewry, 1687; St. James's, Piccadilly (intended for Whitehall Catholic Chapel, but given by Queen Mary to the church), 1687; St. Mary, Ipswich, and Christchurch, Newgate Street, 1690 (formerly in Whitehall, now at St. Michael Royal); All Hallows, Lombard Street, 1695; St. Andrew Undershaft, 1696; St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, 1697; St. Andrew, Holborn (this was part of the rejected Temple organ), 1699; St. John's Chapel, Bedford Row, 1703; St. Giles, Cripplegate, 1704; St. Clement, Eastcheap, 1709; Salisbury Cathedral, 1710; St. Bride, Fleet Street; Ely Cathedral; Jesus College, Cambridge (now in All Saints); Wolverhampton Collegiate Church (part of Temple organ); Norwich Cathedral (attributed to Harris); St. John's, Clerkenwell; Bideford Church, Devonshire; Cork Cathedral (probably finished by John Harris); St. Mary's, Dublin (these nine without date); and lastly St. Mary's, Whitechapel, 1715. For the organ in Bristol Cathedral Harris was paid 550l., for that at Hereford 700l., and for that at St. Andrew Undershaft 1,400l. There is a rare print of the organ built for Salisbury Cathedral in 1710. For full particulars of repairs, &c., of the Magdalen College, Oxford, organ, see Bloxam's ‘Registers of Magdalen College, Oxford,’ ii. cxxvi et seq., 289, 347 et seq.

Harris had two sons, John (fl. 1737) and Renatus (d. 1727?), both organ-builders. The younger, Renatus, who died early, made the organ for St. Dionis Backchurch, 1724. John had the care of the Magdalen College organ until 1737; in the following year he was living in Red Lion Street, Holborn, and had a partner named Byfield, who married his daughter. Harris and Byfield's organs were supplied to the churches of St. Mary, Shrewsbury, 1729; Grantham, Lincolnshire, 1736; St. Mary, Haverfordwest, 1737; St. Alban, Wood Street, 1738; St. Bartholomew Change and Doncaster parish church, 1740. At Bristol they built organs for St. Mary Redcliffe, St. Thomas, and St. James; the organ now in the church of St. Thomas Southover, Lewes, Sussex, was said to have been made by them for the Duke of Chandos, and removed from Canons in 1747 (Rimbault).

[Burney's Hist. of Music, iii. 437; Hawkins, iii. 692; Hopkins and Rimbault's Hist. of the Organ, pp. 119–36; Bloxam's Reg. Magd. Coll. Oxford, ii. c, cxxvi, clxxii, 204, 283, 286 et seq., 289, 347 et seq.]

L. M. M.

HARRIS, RICHARD, D.D. (fl. 1613), theologian, a native of Shropshire, was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B.A. 1579–80, and acted the character of the ‘Nuntius’ in Dr. Legge's tragedy of ‘Richardus Tertius,’ which was performed in his college. In 1580 he was admitted a fellow of the college. He commenced M.A. in 1583, proceeded B.D. in 1590, and was elected one of the college preachers. He was admitted a senior fellow 11 June 1593, and was created D.D. in 1595. He became rector of Gestingthorp, Essex, 11 Dec. 1597, and rector of Bradwell-juxta-Mare in the same county, 16 Feb. 1612–13. He probably died soon afterwards.

He wrote ‘Concordia Anglicana de primatu Ecclesiæ regio adversus Becanum de dissidio Anglicano,’ London, 1612, 8vo, translated under the title of ‘The English Concord, in answer to Becane's English Jarre, with a reply to Becane's Examen,’ London, 1614, 4to.

[Baker's Hist. of St. John's Coll. (Mayor), i. 290, ii. 606; Cole's Athenæ Cantabr.; Antiquarian Communications (Cambr. Antiq. Soc.), i. 351; Newcourt's Repertorium, ii. 85, 280.]

T. C.