H. C. A. Harrison

rdf:langString H. C. A. Harrison

rdf:langString H. C. A. Harrison

rdf:langString Henry Colden Antill Harrison

rdf:langString H. C. A. Harrison

rdf:langString Jarvisfield, New South Wales

rdf:langString Portrait of Harrison by John Longstaff, 1929

rdf:langString Henry Colden Antill

rdf:langString Henry Colden Antill Harrison

rdf:langString Harrison

rdf:langString Henry Colden Antill Harrison (16 October 1836 – 2 September 1929) was an athlete and Australian rules footballer who played a leading role in pioneering the sport. Harrison's cousin, champion cricketer Tom Wills, captained an early incarnation of the Melbourne Football Club in 1858, and the following year co-wrote its laws―the basis of Australian rules football. Within a year, Harrison joined him in promoting the new code, and quickly emerged as a leading player, celebrated for his speed, strength and courage. He oversaw an 1866 revision of the code that formalised the running bounce, and captained Melbourne and Geelong before retiring from playing in 1872, after which he took on several important administrative roles, including the vice presidency of the newly formed Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877, and the chairmanship of the first Australian Football Conference in 1905. He also won fame as the champion amateur runner of Victoria, remaining undefeated for nine years in both sprints and hurdles. By the 1880s and well into the mid-20th century, Harrison was widely regarded as the "Father of Australian Football"—a title that has since been disputed as a result of more in-depth scholarly analysis of football's origins, which shows that Harrison joined the game after its codification, and that football's early development was largely a collaborative process. Nonetheless, Harrison remained for many years the sport's "most formidable voice", and the honorific title of "Football's Foster Father" has been applied to him by some modern historians. The Harrison Stand at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, as well as Harrison House―the former headquarters of the Victorian Football League (VFL)―were named in his honour in 1908 and 1930, respectively. Harrison and Wills were the only pioneer figures to be inaugural inductees of the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 1996, and in 1989, both were inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.

rdf:langString *Chairman of the Australian Football Council *Australian Football Hall of Fame *Melbourne Hall of Fame