Edward Harrison

Who was Edward Harrison?

Lt-Col Edward Frank Harrison C.M.G. was an English chemical scientist, credited with the invention of the first serviceable gas mask during World War I.

Born in Camberwell, Harrison, at the age of 14, was apprenticed to a pharmacist, at the end of which he was awarded the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Jacob Bell Scholarship. As a student, he was awarded medals in chemistry, botany and materia medica. He qualified as a pharmaceutical chemist in 1891, becoming a demonstrator in the Society's laboratory and school. He later became head of the analytical laboratory at Burroughs & Wellcome, and assisted in the compilation of the British Pharmaceutical Codex.

At the outbreak of World War I, Harrison tried to enlist in the British army, but was rejected on account of his age, but was accepted as a corporal into a "sportsman's battalion" in 1915. However, after the first use of gas weapons by the German Army in 1915, the British War Office enlisted chemists, including Harrison, to find a way of defending against such weapons.

Harrison produced the large box respirator, the first serviceable British gas mask., and continued to work tirelessly for the remainder of the war.