The HARRISON name is an important one for me as it was my mother's maiden name, so forming a main branch of my Family Tree.

Our Harrisons were a working class family from the districts north of Coventry, Warwickshire. It is possible they were originally from the nearby town of Bedworth but our first definite record is in the hamlet of Exhall, between Bedworth and Coventry.

There were quite a few Harrison families in Bedworth and Nuneaton around the end of the 18th Century and it is likely that my line came from there.

My records start in Exhall with the marriage in 1822 of Joseph Harrison and Sarah Bedder from an old established Bedworth family. Joseph was a Coal Miner. In those days Exhall was a pleasant well wooded rural area. The small village school had no water and pupils had to fetch it from the village pump. Most families kept their own pig and poultry.

Joseph Harrison’s baptism cannot be found, possibly due to poor Parish Records. His birth is believed to be about 1804 at Exhall or maybe Bedworth. Joseph and Sarah had 4 children but Sarah died aged 36. Four years later the children were orphaned when Joseph also died at the stated age of 37. The children were then brought up by their aunt, Ann Wakelin.

Their son, Thomas Harrison, born in Exhall in 1824, became a Blacksmith at the age of 14 and married Ellen West from Exhall in 1847. The couple had at least 7 children, including our ancestor, William Harrison, in 1856. Thomas and Ellen lived at Foxford, Longford, near Coventry all their life.

William Harrison became a Colliery Labourer at 14, but soon followed his father into the Blacksmith trade, and later ran a successful business in Cow Lane, central Coventry, although he lived 3 miles away at Bell Green. He married Ellen Barr from Foleshill on Christmas Day 1876 at Salem Baptist Church, Longford.

Their son William Harrison (jnr) grew up in Old Church Road, Bell Green and married a girl from a few doors away named Gertrude Clarke (her adopted parents' surname, but her real name was Gertrude Rawson Smith. William was a Coal Miner. He volunteered to fight with the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry in the First World War where he lost an arm at the terrible battle of the Somme. Later he liked his drink and was nicknamed “Roguey”.