Frederic Harrison

Mark Nixon (University of Reading)
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Frederic Harrison was born in 1831, the son of a wealthy London merchant. As a man of considerable means, he was able to support himself in his endeavours and, despite being called to the Bar in 1858, expended most of his working energies on his writing; he was, however, always involved in legal reform and study. He had arrived at Wadham College, Oxford a devout Catholic, but left that home of Richard Congreve and English positivism dedicated to scientistic and rational philosophy. Amongst his most important intellectual influences were Thomas Arnold, George Grote and J. S. Mill.

When the positivists split in 1878, Harrison was one of the leaders of the anti-Congreve faction that went on to dominate the English Positivist Committee (of which he was President 1880-1905) and found the

206 words

Citation: Nixon, Mark. "Frederic Harrison". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 March 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1999, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1999 Frederic Harrison 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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