Edward Harrison’s eldest son James Harrison moved to Skipton in 1774 [13] . James married in 1772. James founded the Congregational church in Skipton.  He was 26 when he opened his house for religious services. In 1774 part of the Court House in Skipton was hired for the growing congregation. The Court House was on the site of the Devonshire Arms in Newmarket Street.  Later the Harrison family occupied a house on the site. This house was a large building and James let a tenement.  In 1777, the land on the North of Newmarket Street was purchased for a church.

       James was a weaver and had at least one son John who was born in 1774. James was buried on 8 May 1828, aged 84, and thirty of his children and grandchildren attended his funeral. James Harrison set up his chapel at first in Devonshire Place on Newmarket Street in Skipton. His son John Harrison married Grace Holmes and had a family of eight children all christened at the Zion Church in Skipton.

       John Harrison was a deacon of the congregational church in Skipton and a superintendent of the Sunday school from 1816 to 1830. In 1841 John was a widower. His wife Grace died on 14 August 1825 aged 46 [14] . He lived on Waller Hill, aged 60, a warehouseman, with his children Robert, 20, and Jane, 15 [15] . In 1851 he lived on Newmarket Street, aged 77, a canal proprietor with his daughter Jane, 29, granddaughter Jane Waugh, 10, a scholar, and Mary Cockshott, a visitor [16] .  John died on March 22 1854 aged 80 [17] .

       John’s son John lived on Commercial Street in 1841 aged 35 with his wife Ann, and children John, Mary and Hannah [18] . John Harrison married Anne Roe on 22 February 1827 [19] .  In 1851 John had moved to Millfields with his wife Ann and their children John, 16, Mary, 14, Hannah, 11, and Catherine 7 [20] . John Harrison trained for the ministry at Highbury College and became pastor of the church at Stretton Under Fosse in Warwickshire, where he died in 1853 [21] .

       John’s son William was a deacon of the church in Skipton in 1877.  William Harrison lived on the Canal warehouse in 1861 and was agent to the Canal Company. William married Belsy Hurtley and they lived with their eighteen year old daughter and William’s mother in law Bridget Hurtle [22] y. . William may have had a son Edward who also lived in the Canal warehouse, aged 26 with his wife Hannah, 30. Edward was an agent to the canal company [23] . In.1871 William Harrison lived in Coach Street with his wife Elizabeth, and his daughter and Robert Harrison his brother [24] . William’s son Edward also lived in Coach Street with his family [25] . By 1881 William had died and his wife Elizabeth still lived in Coach Street with their daughter Mary and their twenty year old grandson John H. Harrison, clerk in canal office, born Salford [26] . Edward was still in Coach Street with his family [27] . William was buried in St Andrews graveyard. He died 18 may 1877 aged 67, his wife Elizabeth died 21 November 1887 aged 83, and they were buried in the same grave as their children James who died on 21 December 1832 aged 7 weeks and Grace who died 5 May 1837 aged 15 months [28] .

       Ben Harrison was schooled at Stretton Under Fosse in Wales.  Ben and his son Alfred were also buried in St Andrews, Skipton. Alfred died 30 July 1850 aged 2, Jane, his wife died 13 August 1850 aged 35, Ben died 20 March 1866 aged 53. They were all buried in the same grave [29] .

       John and Alice Harrison’s [30] . John Harrison is described as of Bingley. A Philip and Betty Harrison also had their child christened at Zion Chapel, New Market Street Skipton [31] .

The Harrisons of Skipton

       The real father of Sarah Ann Harrison, Thomas Harrison, was baptized on 1 June 1817 in Skipton, North Yorkshire [32] . He was the eldest son of Edward Harrison and Elizabeth Barker, and joined his four-year-old sister Ann and brother two-year old Joseph in the family home [33] . His younger sister, Mary and soon joined him, and the birth of his baby brother John in 1825 completed the family [34] . However, John died as a baby in 1827 when Thomas would have been about ten years old.

       Thomas lost his mother Elizabeth in 1832 when he was fifteen and father Edward in 1836 when he was just nineteen [35] . In that same year Thomas married Margaret Scott, on 24 November 1836 at the Parish Church in Skipton [36] . Margaret Scott, the daughter of John Scott and Sarah Smith, was about three years older than her husband and had probably just celebrated her twenty-first birthday when they got married [37] .

Thomas Harrison, Tailor of Skipton

       By 1851, Thomas Harrison’s family had doubled in size, being joined by his eldest son Edward Harrison in 1842 and James Scott Harrison in 1846 [47] . The family still lived in Newmarket Street and all four Harrison children attended the nearest school [48] . A son Joseph Harrison, born in 1837 died aged 2 in 1839 [49] . Margaret Harrison did not work and stayed at home to care for her two year old nephew John Bramley [50] . Her sister Mary Scott had married a George Bramley in 1845 [51] . Their marriage did not last long and Mary died in 1850, leaving her son John with her sister Margaret Harrison, nee Scott. It is not certain what became of Margaret’s niece Margaret who would have been about 6 years old in 1851. Ten years later, her nephew John Bramley had moved out of the Harrison household to stay with his grandfather John Scott in Newmarket Street.

       In 1861 tTheir first grandchild had joined the Harrison family; Elizabeth Ann Harrison, aged two, was the young daughter of Sarah Ann Harrison and for the rest of her childhood lived in her grandparent’s home. Thomas Harrison continued working as a Tailor, but his children do not seem to have followed him in the trade. Both his daughters Sarah Ann Harrison, and Jane, worked as Cotton Power Loom Weavers in Dewhurst’s Cotton Mill on Newmarket Street. However, his sons Edward and James were earning as Whitesmith and Bele hangers.

          Between 1864 and 1871 Thomas Harrison died, before the age of 54, leaving his widow Margaret Harrison in charge of the family home in Newmarket Street, Skipton [52] . 

          By 1871, all Margaret’s children had married and left home. However, she still cared for her granddaughter Elizabeth Ann Harrison, who at the age of twelve was already working in as a woollen weaver. Margaret was also joined in her household by her grandson James Henry Harrison, a scholar, and James’s mother, her daughter-in-law, Jane Harrison. Jane Harrison also worked as a woollen weaver. Jane and Elizabeth Ann may have worked in Storey Watkinson’s Mill on Newmarket Street. Margaret’s nephew John Bramley had rejoined the Harrison household and at the age of twenty worked as a Railway Clerk.  The New railway Station would have been built on its present site in 1875, and John may have worked there.

       Margaret Harrison continued to live in Newmarket Street in 1881 joined only by her grandson Thomas Smith and nephew John Bramley [53] . John Bramley, aged thirty, worked as a Manufacturer’s Bookkeeper, which may have been in Dewhurst’s Cotton Mills on Newmarket Street [54] . He obviously helped greatly with the family income, as Margaret Harrison did not work [55] . She stayed at home and cared for her grandson Thomas Smith who attended the local School [56] . Margaret died in Skipton in 1882 at 68 years of age [57] .