OBITUARY

Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Huddersfield, England), May 8, 2007

wrote book James Harrison

THE death has occurred in his late eighties of James Harrison, a former Holme Valley mill worker who went on to a distinguished career at the Patent Office.

James Harrison, born in 1919, moved with his mother to the Holme Valley at the age of 20.

He worked at Roberts' woollen spinning mill while studying at evening classes at Huddersfield Technical College, often for five nights a week.

Mr Harrison, who lived in retirement in Ilkley, said the main inspiration for his studies was his tutor, George Marshall.

Mr Harrison went on to gain 16 City and Guilds awards, two silver and four bronze medals on the way to his C Tex ATI in 1944.

Then he obtained a post as assistant examiner at the Patents Office in London. His last Patent Office activity was to represent the United Kingdom at a seminar on patents in developing countries, organised by the United Nations at The Hague.

During his 36 years at the Patent Office he won regular promotions and dealt with inventions such as the hovercraft and vertical take-off aircraft.

He was regularly called on by top barristers to give evidence in patent infringement and similar disputes.

He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1954 and was one of the early members of its history study group.

He became the informal Patent Office historian and recently brought out a book, Encouraging Innovation In the Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries: The Society of Arts and Patents, 1754-1904.