Thomas Harrison

1711 – 1786

✓ Validated against records · 2026-07-04

Thomas Harrison is the head of the Harrison line as the records hold it — a man of Foggathorpe, the township of scattered farms on the low ground between the Derwent and the moor edge, in the wide parish of Bubwith. He enters the record on the 3rd of November 1754, at St Helen's, Thorganby, across the river: "Thomas Harrison of the Parish of Holme & Ann Baylier of this Parish, Spinster, were married in this Church by Banns." Holme is Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, the next parish to Foggathorpe; Thorganby was his bride's village.

The children came at Bubwith: George, baptised the 10th of October 1756 — the register writing him "George S: of Tho: Harrison of Foggathorpe" — and Robert, the 28th of April 1759. Thirty years later the same abode closes the story: Thomas died at Foggathorpe in October 1786 — on the 17th, by the family's record — and was buried at Bubwith, the Bishop's Transcript entering him "Tho.s Harrison of Foggathorpe — Oct 25" (the parish register Mum read gave the 26th; the two copies disagree by a day, as copies do). Between the wedding and the grave the registers allow him just these facts: a wife from Thorganby, two sons, and thirty years on the same few fields.

Where he was born is the line's open question. Mum's page placed his baptism at Escrick — the 27th of February 1711, a son of Robert Harrison — and it may be right; but it was the thinnest page in her Harrison folder, and the marriage sits awkwardly beside it: a man christened in 1711 would have come to his wedding at forty-three, a first marriage by every appearance, with children following briskly after. A birth in the later 1710s or the 1720s would fit the shape of the life more easily; and his sons' names — George first, then Robert — carry, for what the old naming custom is worth, as much of a whisper of a father called George as of one called Robert. The question, and the ways of answering it, are set out in the research note below.

Composed from validated records · 2026-07-04

Baptism: February 27th 1711, Escrick
Marriage: To Ann Baylier
Death: October 17th 1786 in Foggathorpe
Burial: October 26th 1786 in Bubwith
Parents: Robert Harrison
Children: George Harrison baptised October 10th 1756, Bubwith Robert Harrison baptised April 28th 1759 Bubwith, living in Foggathorpe

In your grandmother’s words · from her notebook

Family

Marriage

ABSpouseAnn Baylier

Children

GHChild · the line continuesGeorge Harrisonmain line1756–1805

Life

Confirmed — anchored to a recordEstimated — inferred

1711

Baptised

27 February 1711 at Escrick

Mum's record: "Baptism — February 27th 1711, Escrick. Parents: Robert Harrison."— The Escrick baptism — Mum's record, unproven

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research, cited — not yet re-verified at the image:

The Escrick baptism — Mum's record, unproven — Mum's page gives his baptism at Escrick, 27 February 1711, a son of Robert Harrison, without a linking source — her thinnest Harrison page, which suggests she knew it was soft. Held as possible, not proven: see the research note for the tests that would decide it. from Mum’s research

1754

Hardwicke's Marriage Act — new rules, eight months old

The record of this wedding owes its very shape to an Act of Parliament that was eight months old when the couple stood at the altar. Before 1754, English law had held a marriage to be made by consent — a promise exchanged, sometimes no more — and around that looseness a trade had grown: clergymen in and about the Fleet prison in London married tens of thousands of couples with no banns, no licence and no questions, and a secret or disputed marriage could surface years later to unmake an inheritance. Lord Hardwicke's Act, passed in 1753 and in force from Lady Day 1754, ended all that. From that day a marriage was valid only if performed in the parish church, after banns called on three Sundays or by licence; every wedding was to be entered in a register in a prescribed form, numbered, and signed by the parties and by at least two witnesses; and a clergyman who broke the rules faced fourteen years' transportation. Quakers and Jews were left to their own usages, and Scotland lay outside the Act altogether — which is why eloping couples now rode for Gretna Green. In a small parish the new machinery was worked with village practicality: the curate kept the forms, and the churchwardens stood as the signing witnesses to every wedding of the year — which is why their names, and not the families', appear at the foot of the entry. The banns called for later generations of this family — at Eastrington in 1880, at Selby in 1908 — were the same instrument still running, a century and a half on. And the numbered entry, the set words, the witness lines that let a marriage be found and proved two hundred and seventy years later: all of it begins here, within a year of the Act's first day.

Historical context Evidence

Background composed for this site from published history. It frames the family’s world; it is not one of Mum’s records.

1754

By banns at St Helen's, Thorganby

3 November 1754 at St Helen's, Thorganby

Thomas Harrison of the Parish of Holme, & Ann Baylier of this Parish, Spinster, were married in this Church by Banns this third Day of
November in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and Fifty four, by me Francis Cooper Curate. This Marriage was solemnized between us: Tho.s Harrison, Ann Baylier. In the Presence of: Thomas Billton, Herbert Stott.
— Marriage — St Helen's, Thorganby (Bishop's Transcript, 1754)

The record image is with the family — family sign-in

Read at the image record Evidence

Confirmed against the original record, read at the image:

Marriage — St Helen's, Thorganby (Bishop's Transcript, 1754) — Thorganby Bishop's Transcript (Borthwick Institute), read 4 July 2026 in the findmypast Yorkshire Marriages images (GBPRS/YORKSHIRE/007588362/00123). Found by a county-wide sweep for the bride's rare surname — the only Ann Baylier marriage in Yorkshire in the period. The identification rests on three locks: the surname; the date, twenty-three months before George's baptism at Bubwith; and the geography — Holme-on-Spalding-Moor adjoins Foggathorpe, and Thorganby faces Bubwith across the Derwent. The two witnesses signed the neighbouring entry as well: the church's regular pair, not kin. Whether Thomas signed or made his mark, a transcript cannot say — the original register at the Borthwick would. Fresh whole-leaf transcription from the downloaded scan, 5 July 2026 (ledger: thomas-harrison-1711/1754-marriage-BT-transcription.md): the attestation of 16 April 1755 firms the curate's name in clear — “Francis Cooper, Minister” — and shows the witnesses Billton and Stott to be the parish's churchwardens, who stood witness at both of the year's weddings; the whole leaf is in Cooper's hand (a Bishop's Transcript), so the “signatures” are his copies, not autographs. read at the image

1786

Died

17 October 1786

October 17th 1786 in Foggathorpe— From Janet Brock’s research

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research notebook.

1786

Buried at Bubwith — "of Foggathorpe"

26 October 1786

Tho.s Harrison of Foggathorpe — Oct. 25 — [17]86.— Burial — Bubwith (Bishop's Transcript, 1786)

The record image is with the family — family sign-in

Read at the image record Evidence

Confirmed against the original record, read at the image:

Burial — Bubwith (Bishop's Transcript, 1786) — Bubwith Bishop's Transcript for the Lady-Day year 1786–87 (Borthwick Institute; findmypast image GBPRS/YORKSHIRE/007588605/00266), read 4 July 2026 — found by paging the film, as findmypast's burial index does not cover this year; FamilySearch's index of the same transcript concurs (25 October). Mum's "26 October" is the parish register's day — the register and the transcript differ by one, as the copies often do — and her death date, 17 October, is her own record, kept as hers. This copy gives no age. The abode does the linking work: "of Foggathorpe" here, and "George S: of Tho: Harrison of Foggathorpe" on his son's 1756 baptism line — one man, one township, thirty years apart. read at the image

Our research

Where Thomas was born

Open research · Bubwith, Holme & Escrick

The 1754 marriage and the 1786 burial are solid ground; the 1711 Escrick baptism is not yet. Three tests would settle it.

The age at burial. The Bishop's Transcript of his 1786 burial carries no age — but the Bubwith parish register of these years sometimes does (the 1805 book has an age column). To do: Bubwith registers at the Treasure House, Beverley — one look at the burial entry for 25/26 October 1786. "Aged 75" keeps Escrick alive; anything near 60 ends it.
A Holme candidate. He married "of the Parish of Holme" — and no Thomas Harrison baptism at Holme-on-Spalding-Moor has yet been found online (coverage there is thin, so absence proves nothing). One district candidate is logged: Thomas son of George Harrison, christened Adlingfleet, 21 May 1732 — a birth that would make him twenty-two at the wedding, and a father whose name matches his first son's. To do: Holme and district baptisms 1705–1735 in the Borthwick transcripts; kill-test the Adlingfleet candidate.
Escrick's own Thomas. If the 1711 boy lived, married and died at Escrick, he is not ours. To do: Escrick registers for a marriage or burial that claims him.
His wife's side of the question — the Bayleys of Thorganby — is set out on Ann Baylier's page.