William Harness

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William Harness (1790โ€“1869) was an English cleric and man of letters.

William Harness, portrait from the 1820s by George Lance

Life

Born near Wickham in Hampshire on 14 March 1790, he was son of John Harness, M.D., commissioner of transports, and elder brother Henry Drury Harness. In 1796 he went to Lisbon with his father, and in 1802 entered Harrow School. There he knew Lord Byron, with whom he had a physical disability of the leg in common. He went on to Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1812, M.A. 1816.[1][2]

Some

John Cam Hobhouse that "Hodgson was with me...& a Mr Harness of Harrow a mighty friend of mine, but I am sick of Harrow things".[3]

Harness took holy orders, and was ordained curate of

Shakespeare's monument in a poor state, he had it restored.[1]

All Saints, Knightsbridge (1849), from 1955 a Russian Orthodox cathedral

In 1841

All Saints, Knightsbridge, raising money and contributing himself. The church was opened in 1849, and he became the perpetual curate for the rest of his life.[1]

On 1 March 1851 Harness acted as one of the stewards at the farewell dinner given to

William Charles Macready In 1866 he was appointed Rugmere prebendary in St Paul's Cathedral, and preached there.[1]

While on a visit to one of his former curates, Edward Neville Crake, dean of Battle, Harness died in a fall down the stone staircase of the deanery, on 11 November 1869. He was buried at

Thomas Hope.[1] The Rev. A. G. L'Estrange wrote The Literary Life of the Rev. William Harness (1871).[4]

Works

Harness's writings, besides sermons, were:[1]

  • The Wrath of Cain. A Boyle Lecture, 1822.
  • The Connexion of Christianity with Human Happiness, from the Boyle Lectures, 1823, 2 vols.
  • The Life of W. Shakspeare, as vol. i. in The Dramatic Works of Shakspeare, edited by W. Harness, 1825, 8 vols.
  • The Plays of P. Massinger adapted for family reading, edited by W. H., 1830.
  • The Dramatic Works of J. Ford, edited by W. H., 1831.
  • Welcome and Farewell: a Drama by W. H., 1837.
  • Parochial Sermons, 1837.
  • Christian Education. Four Sermons, 1840.
  • The Image of God in Man. Four Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge, 1841.
  • The First-Born: a Drama by W. H., 1844.
  • The Errors of the Roman Creed considered in Six Sermons, 1851.
  • Christian Unity, a practicable Christian Duty, 1852.
  • The Life of Mary Russell Mitford, 1870. Completed amid much opposition.
  • The Literary Remains of C. M. Fanshawe, 1876.

Harness wrote charades for his friends; three of these were inserted by Miss Mitford in Blackwood's Magazine in 1826; there in 1827 he contributed a tale entitled Reverses, which had a success. His writings in the Quarterly Review were considered to carry weight. In 1844, as "Presbyter Catholicus", he wrote a pamphlet Visiting Societies and Lay Readers. A Letter to the Lord Bishop of London, against Bishop Charles Blomfield's proposal for a metropolitan visiting and relief association.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney, eds. (1890). "Harness, William" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 24. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. ^ "Harness, William (HNS808W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  3. ^ "Famous in My Time", Byron's Letters and journals, ed. Marchand (1973).
  4. ^ "Review of The Literary Life of the Rev. William Harness by the Rev. A. G. L'Estrange". The Athenaeum (2296): 553โ€“555. 28 October 1871.
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney, eds. (1890). "Harness, William". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 24. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

External links

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