Matthew Harrison, Mayor of Oxford

Matthew Harrison

Mayor of Oxford 1611/12

Matthew Harrison (or Harryson/Haryson/Harrisson) (c.1556–1630) was an Oxford mercer. He was the apprentice of the former mayor Thomas Rowe, and was admitted as a Hanaster in the mayoral year 1577–8.

Harrison was elected on to the Common Council at the end of September 1581 and in 1583 was made a Chamberlain.

On 30 April 1581 Harrison married Ellen or Helen Levins, daughter of Alderman William Levins, at All Saints Church.

In 1583 Richard Eedes introduced Harrison, then landlord of the Bear Inn behind the south side of the High Street, into his Iter Boreale, a satirical travelogue in Latin.

On 25 August 1586, at the request of his father-in-law Alderman Levins, Harris was promoted to the position of a compounder bailiff on the council for a fee of 40s.

On 17 March 1586/7 Harrison's son Henry was baptised at All Saints Church. Harrison's wife Ellen died eight months after the birth, and was buried at All Saints Church on 13 November 1587.

On 16 September 1588 Harrison was elected Senior Bailiff.

Harrison married his second wife, Mary Plumpton, at St Martin's Church on 21 December 1590, but during the following year (the precise date is not given in the register), she was buried at the same church.

In September 1594 Harrison was appointed a Surveyor of the Fair. On 11 April 1599 he was elected one of the eight Assistants, paying his £5.

On 11 December 1605 it was agreed that 'Mathew Harrison and his tenaunts may sett uppe a sign at his house, late in the tenure of widow Lynger". This house was the Sun in St Martin's parish, next to St Martin's Church at Carfax, and this meant that either he or his tenant could keep an inn there.

On 16 January 1607 Harrison's two apprentice mercers, William Clarke and Thomas Redfearne, were admitted free at the same time.

On 21 August 1609 Harrison was chosen as Alderman and was "sworne to the supremacy".

On 16 September 1611 Harrison was elected Mayor. He gave £20 to the city, the interest on which was to be used as the Mayor, alderman, and assistants thought fit, either in setting the poor on work or to be lent to four poor freemen for terms of three years. In the June of his year of office, he led a deputation to the Privy Council in London "about the controversies betwixt the Cyttie and Universitie".

On 6 February 1615 and 13 February 1617 his apprentices Leonard Harrison and Thomas Lewis were respectively admitted free.

Alderman Harrison made a donation of £20 to the House of Correction in the council year 1626/7.

Harrison was buried in All Saints Church on 20 March 1629/30. In 1631 the capital he had donated in 1611 was given to the Master of the Workhouse.