John Harriott

John Harriott (1745–1817) was an English seafarer, now known for his part in founding the Marine Police Force. He was resident magistrate at the Thames police-court from 1798 to 1816.

Harriott was born at Great Stambridge, near Rochford, Essex, where his father, who had been in the Royal Navy and merchant marine, had settled a couple of years earlier. After a little schooling he was placed in the navy, served in the West Indies and the Levant, and was shipwrecked on the Mewstone Rock.

Harriott served in the Seven Years' War, under Admiral George Pocock at the Battle of Havana (1762), and during the recapture of Newfoundland. After the peace of 1763 he entered the merchant service, went up the Baltic Sea, and, as mate, made voyages in the American and West Indian trade. He spent several months among Native Americans in 1766; and then returned home.

In 1768 Harriott received a military appointment in the East Indies. He states that he arrived at Madras in time to take part in the conclusion of General Smith's operations against Hyder Ali. Subsequently he was posted to a sepoy battalion in the Northern Circars, where he also did duty as deputy judge-advocate and acting chaplain for some time. A matchlock wound in the leg, received when in command of four companies of sepoys sent against a rajah in the Golconda district, unfitted him for further active service. After visits to Sumatra and the Cape of Good Hope, he returned home.

Harriott married, and after trying his hand at underwriting and the wine trade, settled down as a farmer at his native place in Essex. In 1781–2 he reclaimed from the sea Rushley Island of two hundred acres, between Great Wakering and Foulness, which had several feet of water on it at spring-tides, by enclosing it with an embankment three miles in length. He then erected farm-buildings and sank wells on it. For this project the Society of Arts awarded him a gold medal; also a prize for an improved road harrow for levelling ruts. Harriott at this time was a surveyor of roads and an Essex magistrate as well as a farmer.

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