Daniel Harrison (merchant)
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Daniel Harrison (10 March 1795 – 1873)[1][2] was an English tea and coffee merchant. He was a Quaker, and a founder of Harrisons & Crosfield.
He was the son of Reuben Harrison and his wife Sarah Thompson (or Margaret), born at Countersett in the Yorkshire Dales into an old Quaker family. He was the eldest of a family of 13 children. While he was still young, around 1802, his parents moved to Rochdale in Lancashire.[3][4][5] Daniel Harrison of Edgworth was admitted to Ackworth School in 1807.[6]
Harrison became a Liverpool coffee dealer.[7] He married in 1823, at which time he was living in Everton, Liverpool.[8] He is later recorded as being in business in Liverpool before 1825.[9] A partnership between Daniel Harrison and Joseph Ecroyd of Liverpool, as coffee dealers, was dissolved in 1834.[10] He was for a time in a partnership with Octavius Waterhouse, as wholesale tea and coffee dealers. After losses, caused by an investment by Waterhouse, it was dissolved in 1840.[7][11]
Harrisons & Crosfield
With his brother Smith Harrison (born 1818), and Joseph Crosfield, Daniel founded Harrisons & Crosfield in Liverpool, in 1844. The new partner Crosfield (1821–1879) was also from a Quaker background. He had worked for Harrison & Waterhouse, and was the son of George Crosfield (1785–1847), and nephew of Joseph Crosfield (1792–1844) of Warrington, the noted soap manufacturer.[7][12][13][14] The company's working capital was £8,000.[15]
At that time Harrison's family lived in Birkenhead. In 1849 they moved north, to Egremont;[16] a family connection to the area existed, since their maternal grandfather Charles Wood (see below) constructed an ironworks there.[17] From the early days, Smith Harrison attended the tea sales in London's Mincing Lane. In Liverpool, the company did business at 6 Temple Place.[18]
In 1855, the company migrated to London, which had become the destination of the tea clippers. The business had prospered from the start, and became one of the top dealers in tea.[12][2] The premises were at 3 Great Tower Street. One of Harrison's sons, and two of Joseph Crosfield's sons, in time became directors.[18] Marshalls in Romford was leased as the family home, after the move.[19]