Joseph Harris

Joseph Harris (February 1704 – 1764) was a British blacksmith, astronomer, navigator, economist, natural philosopher, government adviser and King's Assay Master at the Royal Mint.

Theophilus Jones, in A History of the County of Brecknock (1805), says that Joseph Harris, married one of the daughters, and heiress, of Thomas Jones, of Tredustan, and that "little has been recorded beyond the information derived from his monument in the church".

Early life

As far as biographies of Joseph Harris are concerned, things remain much the same now as they were in 1805, when Theophilus Jones was writing. The Harris family history of three brothers, all highly successful in entirely unrelated vocations, has tended to concentrate on the youngest of the three, Howell Harris, known as the "Apostle of Wales".

Joseph was baptised on 16 February 1703 in the church of Saint Gwendolen, Talgarth, on the slopes of the Black Mountains in the Welsh county of Brecknock, now part of Powys. His baptismal record falls between the beginning of January and the end of March, a period that until 1752 was in flux between the Julian and the Gregorian calendars, and with those three months considered in the Old Style as being part of the year that had just passed and in the New Style part of the year ahead; before 1752 this was expressed in the form of a fraction, the OS year uppermost and the NS year below. But it seems likely that the person who made the entry was confused, reversing the year dates; record keeping in Saint Gwendolen's had after all started only eight years earlier. It was at a later date that the incorrect OS year in that and similar entries was scored through, as well as recording a name change from Powell to Harries. Joseph was the first-born of Howell Powell, a joiner, and Susanna Powell, both of the same surname before, as well as after, their union, but how closely they were related, if at all, is not known. Their marriage is recorded in the parish register of Saint Gwendolen on 5 September 1702 and they lived in a small cluster of houses, the hamlet of Trefeca, (but then written Trevecka which sounds the same) about a mile south of, and in the parish of, Talgarth in the valley of the Breconshire Afon Llynfi, a tributary of the Welsh River Wye. Certainly by the time of the September 1704 baptism of the next child, daughter Anne, the family name of all its members had changed to Harries, an English name; nonetheless, all family members were bilingual in Welsh and English. Three further children were born in the next eleven years, of whom Thomas (bapt. June 1707) and Howell (bapt. February 1715 NS) survived beyond infancy to old age, while both Anne and an earlier Thomas (bapt. January 1706 NS) died soon after birth.