17th November 1902

Bailiff Cecil Stanley Harrison is born

Cecil Stanley Harrison was born in Jersey on 17 November 1902 and died at the comparatively young age of 59 on 14 April 1962. He is buried at the Parish Church of St Clement where his gravestone describes him simply as “Bailiff of Jersey… husband of Eva, a father of Sally, greatly loved”. By the time of his death, he had been Bailiff for just five months.

Although his time in office would not have allowed him to leave his mark in the post the way others have, he will nonetheless be remembered for presiding over the trial of Francis Huchet, the last man to be executed in Jersey by the civilian courts. Crucially, Harrison had ruled that a piece of fabricated evidence could be used against the defendant. The exhibit was a note that Huchet had concocted himself, which purported to be a confession for the murder of which he was accused from two men called Jim and Tom. Grace Kemp, to whom it was smuggled from Newgate Street Prison, where Huchet was being held, had taken it to the police, and thus it backfired, helping to seal Huchet’s fate rather than prove his innocence.

An oil painting of Harrison, painted by Herbert Gunn, is in the possession of the Royal Court of Jersey.

 

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Other events that occured in November

  • Jersey’s Occupation peer dies
  • Bertram Godfray Falle fought Jersey’s cause in the House of Lords throughout the occupation, but barely lived long enough to see the island’s revival in the years following the Second World War.
  • Read more…