Arthur Leyland Harrison


Lieutenant-Commander Arthur Leyland Harrison, VC was an English Royal Navy officer, and World War I recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Early life

Harrison was born in Torquay, Devon, and educated at Brockhurst Preparatory School, where he is remembered every Armistice Day and at Dover College. At school Harrison was a tremendous all-round games player and, whilst in the Navy, he played rugby union and was capped twice for England. He is the only England rugby union international to have been awarded the VC. Rugby league namesake Jack Harrison was also awarded the VC posthumously in 1917
On 15 September 1902 he was posted as a naval cadet to the pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Mars, serving on the Channel Squadron. The following month it was reported that he would be lent to the armoured cruiser HMS Good Hope which was in the last stages of completion before her first commission in November.

First World War

He served aboard HMS Lion for most of the war, seeing action at Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank. He also saw action at the Battle of Jutland, and was mentioned in despatches

VC action

Harrison was 32 years old, and a Lieutenant-Commander in the Royal Navy during the First World War when the following deed took place at the Zeebrugge Raid for which he was awarded the VC:
His body was never recovered. He, along with three others who were missing in action on the Zeebrugge raid, are commemorated on the Zeebrugge Memorial, at the Zeebrugge Churchyard. He is also commemorated by a brass plaque, mounted in the Warrior Chapel at st Mary's Wimbledon.

The Medal

His mother Adelaide Ellen Harrison, who lived in Wimbledon, London, received the VC and in 1967 relatives donated it to the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, Devon where it is on public display.