T. Edmund Harvey

Thomas Edmund Harvey (4 January 1875 – 3 May 1955), generally known as Ted or Edmund Harvey, was an English museum curator, social reformer and politician. He sat in Parliament, first as a Liberal and later as an Independent Progressive. He was also a prolific writer on Christianity and the role and history of the Society of Friends.

Early life

Harvey was born in Leeds to a prominent Quaker family. He was the eldest son of William Harvey, a teacher and art collector, who made a substantial gift of paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters to the nation, as well as being a local politician, serving for 13 years on Leeds City Council. His brother was the writer William Fryer Harvey, best known for his short story The Beast with Five Fingers that was turned into a film of the same name, starring Peter Lorre.

Harvey was educated at Bootham School in York and attended Yorkshire College, Leeds and Christ Church, Oxford. He also studied at the University of Berlin and the Sorbonne in Paris, as well as at other institutions overseas. In 1900 he received his MA degree from Oxford University with First Class honours in Literae Humaniores. He later received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Leeds University.

Career

In 1900, Harvey enrolled as an assistant at the British Museum, where he worked until 1904. However, he was also deeply interested in social reform and welfare, especially the alleviation of poverty, educational and prison reform issues. He chose to pursue this work through the settlement movement, and was a resident of Toynbee Hall from 1900, Deputy Warden from July 1904 and became Warden of Toynbee Hall, 1906–1911. From 1906 to 1910 he was a member of the Central (Unemployed) Body for London, the organisation responsible for registering those unemployed men applying for unemployment relief and finding work for them.