Alfred Harker, 1859 - 1939

Abstract Alfred Harker’s original contributions to the science of Petrology have given him a prominent place on the roll of a distinguished company of Yorkshiremen who achieved fame as geologists. His parents were Portas Hewart Harker, a corn merchant, and Ellen Mary Harker (née Tarbotton), of Kingstonupon-Hull, where he was born on 19 February 1859. He was educated as a boy at the Hull and East Riding College and afterwards at Clewer House School, Windsor, a private school endowed by Sir Roderick Impey Murchison. Whether or not the choice of the Windsor school had anything to do with its association with the famous geologist we do not know, but evidence of an early interest in science is furnished by a series of articles on a variety of subjects, including mathematics and geology, published in the English Mechanic and Design and Work before he went to Cambridge. One of these youthful articles “Arithmetical Devices”—a description of methods by which operations may be shortened and simplified—is significant as being the first of several later contributions to scientific journals showing ingenuity and the use of mathematical knowledge as an aid to conciseness, exactitude and tidiness, qualities characteristic of Harker throughout life.