William Vernon Harcourt (scientist)

Rev. William Venables-Vernon Harcourt (1789 – April 1871) founder of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, canon residentiary of the York Cathedral, Dean of Chichester, and later rector of Bolton Percy.

He was born at Sudbury, Derbyshire, a younger son of Edward Vernon-Harcourt, Archbishop of York and his wife Lady Anne Leveson-Gower, who was a daughter of Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford and his second wife Lady Louisa Egerton. Her maternal grandparents were Scroop Egerton, 1st Duke of Bridgewater and his second wife Rachel Russell. Rachel was a daughter of Wriothesley Russell, 2nd Duke of Bedford and the rich heiress Elizabeth Howland, daughter of John Howland of Streatham.

After he had served in the navy, on the West Indian station, for five years, his father yielded to his wish to become a clergyman, and he became a student of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1807. He graduated B.A. in 1811, and M.A. in 1814, and remained a student of Christ Church till 1815.

He had the advantage of the personal friendship of Cyril Jackson, the dean ; and Dr. John Kidd, then a teacher of chemistry at his college, imbued him with a lifelong love of that science.

On leaving the university in 1811, Harcourt began his duties as a clergyman at Bishopthorpe, Yorkshire and actively aided the movement for establishing an institution in Yorkshire for the cultivation of science. He constructed a laboratory, and occupied himself in chemical analysis, aided by his early friends Davy and Wollaston.

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