John Augustus Charles Harrison (born

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 ...

, 5th August 1872; died Wimbledon, 25th January 1955) was a noted British stamp engraver whose work included the British

Seahorse A seahorse (also written ''sea-horse'' and ''sea horse'') is any of 46 species of small marine fish in the genus ''Hippocampus''. "Hippocampus" comes from the Ancient Greek (), itself from () meaning "horse" and () meaning "sea monster" or " ...

stamps of 1913.Philatelic Collections: The Harrison Collection
British Library, 28 January 2012.

Biography

John Augustus Charles Harrison was the son of line-engraver, Samuel Harrison, and the grandson of John Harrison, a heraldic painter. Two of John’s three brothers, Thomas and Wilfred, were also

engravers Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

. John A.C. Harrison was apprenticed to his father at the age of thirteen, while he attended art classes in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

. Aged seventeen, Harrison joined the firm of Waterlow Brothers and Layton as an ornamental engraver. By the end of the century, however, Harrison had left their employment and was working as a self-employed engraver. He specialised in the design and production of line-engraved heraldic bookplates, which gained him a wide reputation for his skills, many of which were produced for the firm of J. & E. Bumpus of Oxford Street in London. Alongside his career as an engraver, Harrison was also a competent water-colourist and was interested in the stage: he was for many years a member of the Comedy Club of Streatham. Harrison was commissioned by the Royal Mint to engrave the dies of several

postage stamps A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the f ...

, upon the death of

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

in 1910. He became known for his mastery of both relief-engraving and line-engraving, which was only matched by Ferdinand Schirnbock (1859-1930). In 1963 Harrison's son donated a collection of mostly British and British Commonwealth die proofs engraved by J.A.C. Harrison between 1911 and 1937 to the British Museum and it today forms part of the

British Library Philatelic Collections The British Library Philatelic Collections is the national philatelic collection of the United Kingdom with over 8 million items from around the world. It was established in 1891 as part of the British Museum Library, later to become the ...

References

19th-century engravers 20th-century engravers British engravers

Harrison Harrison may refer to: People * Harrison (name) * Harrison family of Virginia, United States Places In Australia: * Harrison, Australian Capital Territory, suburb in the Canberra district of Gungahlin In Canada: * Inukjuak, Quebec, or " ...

1872 births 1954 deaths Artists from Manchester 20th-century British printmakers {{England-bio-stub