Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Born on 10 August 1885 at Clinkers Hill near Castlemaine, Victoria, Harrison was the son of printer and stationer Joseph Harrison, and his English-born wife Ann. He attended Castlemaine Grammar Schoolbefore starting work as a motor mechanic. Keen to fly from the first time he saw an aeroplane, he travelled to Britain in March 1911 and trained as a pilot at the Bristol School on Salisbury Plain. Six months later, having accumulated some thirty minutes' flight time, he qualified for his Royal Aero Club Aviator's Certificate, becoming only the third Australian to do so.

Gaining employment as an instructor for Bristol, he taught flying on behalf of the company in Spain and Italy, as well as in Halberstadt, Germany, where he became aware first-hand of that country's militarism; some of the students he trained and examined later served as pilots in the Luftstreitkräfte during World War I.

In December 1911, the Australian Defence Department advertised in the United Kingdom for "two competent mechanists and aviators" to establish a flying corps and training school. Henry Petre, a former solicitor employed by Handley Page, and H.R. Busteed, then Bristol's chief test pilot, successfully applied. Petre was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Australian Military Forces on 6 August 1912, but Busteed withdrew his application in October and Harrison took his place, gaining his commission on 16 December. While his new salary of £400 was little improvement on what he was earning in Britain, Harrison was happy to have an excuse to return home.

Petre selected Point Cook, Victoria, to become the site for the Army's proposed Central Flying School (CFS) in March 1913; meanwhile Harrison remained in Britain temporarily, ordering the facility's complement of aircraft including two Deperdussin monoplanes, two Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 biplanes, and a Bristol Boxkite for initial training.

By January 1914, the pair had established the school with themselves as instructors, augmented by four mechanics and three other staff. Harrison made Australia's first military flight in the Boxkite on Sunday, 1 March 1914.

CFS commenced its first course on 17 August 1914, two weeks after the outbreak of World War I. Its students included Captain Thomas White and Lieutenant Richard Williams, with Harrison providing initial training to solo standard and Petre advanced instruction. In September, Harrison was given command of a flying unit that accompanied the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force to Rabaul in German New Guinea.

In 1915 Harrison took on the main responsibility for providing basic flying training to the pilots of the first three squadrons to be formed in Australia for overseas service. Many of his students would go on to play a prominent role in the future Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

Augmenting his instructional and administrative duties, Harrison put his mechanical abilities to use initiating the building of aero engines in Australia and maintaining the CFS's complement of airframes; according to some, only Harrison had the skill to keep the obsolescent machines in the air. He was appointed officer-in-charge of CFS in June 1917 with the temporary rank of major; this was made permanent in September 1918.

Following the end of World War I, Harrison began a long association with engineering and air safety when he was posted to Britain for secondment to the Aeronautical Inspection Directorate.