Family and Education

b. by 1486. m. Catherine, da. of Robert Alcock of Kingston-upon-Hull, wid. of John Dalton (d.1496) of Kingston-upon-Hull, d.s.p.2

Offices Held

Sheriff, Kingston-upon-Hull 1507-8, mayor 1511-12; commr. gaol delivery 1509, 1511, subsidy 1512, 1514, 1515.3

Biography

Robert Harrison recorded in his will that he was born at Skidbrooke on the Lincolnshire coast, but neither his parentage nor his relationship (if any) to others of his surname in Hull has been established. The John Harrison who was mayor of Hull in 1537-8 is said to have come from Yokefleet, on the Yorkshire bank of the Ouse above Hull, a district with which Robert Harrison is not known to have had any connexion. A merchant by profession, and as such to be distinguished from the Robert Henryson who was a justice of assize on the northern circuit, in 1517-18 Harrison is to be found importing herring into Hull and two years later salmon, kettles and alum. He was to leave £10 to the staple church at Calais but no other evidence of his being a stapler has been found and he was not among those who sued out a pardon in 1505. He may have owed his entry into the governing circle of Hull to his marriage to the daughter and widow of leading merchants there, and his fellow-Member in the Parliament of 1515, Thomas Wilkinson, was himself related to the Daltons. Wilkinson had sat in the previous Parliament and in the light of the King’s request for the re-election of its Members his reappearance with a different partner almost certainly means that his earlier one, Edward Baron, was either dead or incapacitated.4

Harrison died before the next Parliament, his will of 3 Apr. 1520 being proved on the following 24 Sept. His many religious bequests included £30 for a picture and £40 for a cope to Holy Trinity church, Hull, in whose north aisle he wished to be buried. He left £10 to each of his sister’s four children and 10s. to each of his Dalton stepchildren, and all his property to his wife and executrix, including some tenements in Saltfleet Haven near his birthplace which were to pass on her death to John Rowse.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: M. K. Dale

Notes

• 1. Kingston-upon-Hull chamberlain’s roll 6 Hen. VIII.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from first reference. VCH Yorks. (E. Riding), i. 84; PCC 32 Ayloffe, ptd. N. Country Wills, i (Surtees Soc. cxvi), 98-100.
• 3. L. M. Stanewell, Cal. Anct. Deeds, Kingston-upon-Hull, D. 499; T. Gent, Kingston-upon-Hull (1735), 106; CPR, 1494-1509, p. 628; LP Hen. VIII, i; Statutes, iii. 85, 112, 175.
• 4. Gent, 59; CPR, 1494-1509, passim; LP Hen. VIII, i; Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis van den Handel met Engeland, Schotland en Ierland, ed. Smit. i. 263, 279.
• 5. PCC 32 Ayloffe; VCH Yorks. (E. Riding), i. 159, 289.