Sir Cyril Ernest Harrison (14 December 1901, Sileby,

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

– 15 March 1980, Wilmslow,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

) was a cotton industrialist.Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 17 June 2011
/ref> He was President of the Federation of British Industry and Confederation of British Industry during the 1950s and 1960s following his work as Managing Director at English Calico.

Career

At the age of 16 in 1917 he was an office boy at Perseverance Mill in Padiham, then trained as a

weaver Weaver or Weavers may refer to: Activities * A person who engages in weaving fabric Animals * Various birds of the family Ploceidae * Crevice weaver spider family * Orb-weaver spider family * Weever (or weever-fish) Arts and entertainment ...

, and then became a fabric dealer on the

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

Cotton Exchange. With a friend he then set up a fabric merchanting business, C E Harrison & Co, in 1928. He later qualified as a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries. In 1939 he was appointed manager of the yarn sales division of the

English Sewing Cotton Company Bagley & Wright was a spinning, doubling and weaving company based in Oldham, Lancashire, England. The business, which was active from 1867 until 1924, 'caught the wave' of the cotton-boom that existed following the end of the American Civil War ...

(ESC), Britain's second largest producer of cotton thread. He became

managing director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

in 1948, the business having prospered when wartime conditions restricted competition from overseas. Competition returned in the 1950s from countries with lower labour costs and affected ESC's profits in spite of modernisation. In 1968, ESC merged with the Calico Printers' Association, a dominant textile firm, and adopted the name English Calico. Harrison was President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce from 1958 to 1959. From 1961 he was President of the Federation of British Industry (FBI) and in the same year was conferred an honorary master's degree by Manchester University. From 1961 to 1963 was on the grand council of the

Confederation of British Industry The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is a UK business organisation, which in total claims to speak for 190,000 businesses, this is made up of around 1,500 direct members and 188,500 non-members. The non members are represented through the 1 ...

(CBI). He was

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

ed for services to industry in 1963. Cyril Buckingham Palace

He was active in the Cotton Board, which represented Lancashire's interests. He was a

deacon A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Churc ...

and secretary of Wilmslow

Congregational Church Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...

Personal life

After his birth in Sileby his parents moved to

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

and he was educated at

Padiham Padiham ( ) is a town and civil parish on the River Calder, about west of Burnley, Lancashire, England. It forms part of the Borough of Burnley. Originally by the River Calder, it is edged by the foothills of Pendle Hill to the north-west ...

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charles W ...

school and

Burnley Grammar School Burnley Grammar School was latterly, a state-funded selective boys grammar School, situated in Byron Street in Burnley, England. However, during its long history, it moved between a number of sites in the town. History In 1552, on the order of ...

. In 1927 he married Ethel (c. 1901 – 1971), daughter of Edward Wood, a

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Bru ...

accountant, and they had two sons, David Michael Harrison and Ian Wood Harrison.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Sir Cyril Ernest 1901 births 1980 deaths Knights Bachelor British textile industry businesspeople People from Sileby 20th-century English businesspeople

Career

Personal life

See also

References