Thomas Elliot Harrison was born in Fulham, London. His father was employed at Somerset House at the time. Soon after his birth, however, the family left London and settled at Fulwell Grange, Monkwearmouth, Sunderland. (A large mansion, now demolished, in the grounds of what is now Thompson Park. ) Here his father started a shipbuilding yard on the River Wear, but lost his fortune in 1844.

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  • Thomas Elliot Harrison was born in Fulham, London. His father was employed at Somerset House at the time. Soon after his birth, however, the family left London and settled at Fulwell Grange, Monkwearmouth, Sunderland. (A large mansion, now demolished, in the grounds of what is now Thompson Park. ) Here his father started a shipbuilding yard on the River Wear, but lost his fortune in 1844. After completing his education at the Kepier School in Houghton-le-Spring, Harrison 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 Viaduct 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. He died at home in Whitburn. At the time he was very much involved in the designs for the Forth Bridge.
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  • Thomas Harrison
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  • December 1873 – December 1875
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  • Thomas Elliot Harrison was born in Fulham, London. His father was employed at Somerset House at the time. Soon after his birth, however, the family left London and settled at Fulwell Grange, Monkwearmouth, Sunderland. (A large mansion, now demolished, in the grounds of what is now Thompson Park. ) Here his father started a shipbuilding yard on the River Wear, but lost his fortune in 1844.
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  • Thomas Elliot Harrison
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