Harrison, Ralph

Composer

b Chinley, nr Whaley Bridge, Derbys, 1748, d Manchester 1810. Studied and later taught at the short-lived Warrington Academy (Unitarian); assistant minister at Shrewsbury Unitarian Chapel, 1769–71. From 1771 until his death after a long illness nearly 40 years later he ministered at Cross St Chapel in Manchester, originally Independent but turned Unitarian. He ran a boys’ school from 1774; from 1786 to 1789 he was also Prof of Classics and Belles-Lettres at the Manchester Academy. The 2 vols of his best-know work, Sacred Harmony (1784, 1791), included several of his own tunes; an organist himself, he also wrote on geography, grammar and general education. All but one of his published sermons appeared posthumously. No.447=549, 540.