Harris, John

(b. Shropshire [?], England, ca. 1666: d. Norton Court, Kent, England, 7 September 1719)

natural philosophy, dissemination of knowledge.

Harris, the son of Edward Harris, entered Trinity College, Oxford, on 13 July 1683 as a scholar and took his B.A. in 1686 and his M.A. (Hart Hall) in 1689. After leaving Oxford he took holy orders and served as vicar of Icklesham, then as rector of Winchilsea St. Thomas (1690), of St. Mildred (1708), and of Landwei Velfrey, Pembroke (1711). He held a prebend in the cathedral of Rochester (1707-1708), became curate of Strood, Kent (1711), and held other ecclesiastical posts. Harris’ patron was Sir William Cowper, to whom he was chaplain. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in April 1696 and served as second secretary of that organization in 1709. He is reported to have received a B.D. from Cambridge in 1699 and did receive a D.D. at Lambeth in 1706.

Harris showed an early interest in natural philosophy and left a fragment of an autobiography which gives a picture of life at Trinity under Ralph Bathurst in the 1680’s “Lectures were here read in Experimental Philosophy and Chymistry and a very tolerable course of Mathematicks taught,” especially after Harris took his first degree, for “then [Bathurst] gave him leave to teach Mathematicks” (quoted in Blakiston, Trinity College, p.172). His tutor was Stephen Hunt, a fellow of Trinity from 1681 to 1689.

The published works of Harris reflect both his scientific and his theological interests. In 1698 he was Boyle lecturer and delivered eight sermons designed to confute the Hobbists and atheists and to demonstrate the consonance of science and orthodox religion. In 1697 he became a scientific controversialist, defending John Woodward against the attacks of a certain L. P’s Two Essays Sent in a Letter From Oxford to a Nobelman in London (1695). Harris replied to L. P.’s alleged Hobbism in Remarks on Some Late Papers Relating to the Universal Deluge and to the Natural History of the Earth (1697).

During the period 1698-1704 Harris read scientific lectures at the Marine Coffee House in Birchin Lane and taught mathematics privately at his home. In conjunction with these activities he published in 1703 his Description and Uses of the Celestial and Terrestrial Globes and of Collins’ Pocket Quadrant, which was designed to supplement his public lectures. In 1719 he published Astronomical Dialogues Between a Gentleman and a Lady, dedicated to Lady Cairnes, which, by his own admission, were “in Imitation of those of the excellent Mr. Fontenelle” (Astronomical Dialogues, p. v).

Harris’ most famous work was the Lexicon technicum, the first edition of which appeared in 1704. This was the first general scientific encyclopedia, and for it Harris drew upon some of the greatest authorities of the day. In physics, astronomy, and mathematics he turned to Newton; in botany he consulted John Ray and Joseph Tournefort; in other areas he drew upon Halley, Robert Boyle, Nehemiah Grew, John Woodward, John Wilkins, William Derham, and John Collins.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Harris’ major works of scientific interest include Remarks on Some Late Papers Relating to the Universal Deluge and to the Natural History of the Earth (London, 1697); A New Short Treatise of Algebra (London, 1702; 3rd ed., 1714); Description and Uses of the Celestial and Terrestrial Globes and of Collins’ Pocket Quadrant (London, 1703; 5th ed., 1720); Lexicon technicum (London, 1704; 5th ed., 2 vols., 1736); Navigantium atque itinerantium bibliotheca, 2 vols. (London, 1705); Astronomical Dialogues Between a Gentleman and a Lady (London, 1719; 4th ed., 1766); History of Kent (London, 1719); and A Letter to the Fatal Triumvirate [J. Friend, R. Mead, and S. Cade] (London, 1719).

Harris’ Boyle lectures are in Sampson Letsome and John Nicholl, eds., A Defence of Natural and Revealed Religion, 3 vols. (London, 1739). In addition, Harris translated I. G. Pardies, Short... Elements of Geometry (London, 1701).

II. Secondary Literature. Thompson Cooper, “John Harris,” in Dictionary of National Biography, repr. ed., IX, 13-14, is a good account, correct in the main. John Venn’s capsule biography in Alumni Cantabrigienses (Cambridge, 1922) appears to contain several errors. Venn conflates “Technical Harris” with John Harris of Leicestershire, who entered St. John’s College in 1684, and died in 1701. Joseph Foster’s account in Alumni Oxonienses (London-Oxford, 1888) seems more reliable. Additional biographical material may be found in Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections, VII (Oxford, 1906), 46; and H. E. D. Blakiston, Trinity College (Oxford) (London, 1898), p. 172.

Robert H. Kargon