Early Life
John Harris, eldest son of a tailor and draper, was born at Ugborough, Devonshire in 1802. In 1815 his family moved to Bristol where he was employed in his father’s shop by day, and studied in the evenings for self-improvement. His penchant for learning enabled him to be offered a number of engagements through the Bristol Itinerant Society, as a ‘boy preacher’ invited to speak at small local village chapels around Bristol. This self-education was supplemented for a time by the tutorship of Rev Walter Scott of Rowell, and by 1823 he had made sufficient progress to be accepted as a student of theology at a dissenting academy near London – the Hoxton Academy or Independent College, Hoxton.
Read more about this topic: John Harris (college Head)
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