HARRIMAN, a city of Roane county, Tennessee, U.S.A., on the Emory river, about 35 m. W. by S. of Knoxville. Pop. (1900) 3442 (516 being negroes); (1910) 3061. Harriman is served by the Harriman & North Eastern, the Tennessee Central, and the Southern railways. It is the seat of the East Tennessee Normal and Industrial Institute, for negroes, and of the American University of Harriman (Christian Church, coeducational; 1893), which comprises primary, preparatory, collegiate, Bible school, civic research, commercial, music and art departments, and in 1907-1908 had 12 instructors and 317 students. Near the city are large deposits of iron and an abundance of coal and timber. Among manufactures are cotton products, farming tools, leather, tannic acid, furniture and flour. Harriman was founded in 1890 by a land company. A clause in this company’s by-laws requires that every conveyance of real estate by the company “shall contain a provision forbidding the use of the property or any building thereon, for the purpose of making, storing or selling intoxicating beverages as such.” Harriman was chartered as a city in 1891, and its charter was revised in 1899.
HARRINGTON, EARLS OF. The first earl of Harrington was the diplomatist and politician, William Stanhope (c. 1690-1756), a younger son of John Stanhope of Elvaston, Derbyshire, and a brother of Charles Stanhope (1673-1760), an active politician during the reign of George I. His ancestor, Sir John Stanhope (d. 1638), was a half-brother of Philip Stanhope, 1st earl of Chesterfield. Educated at Eton, William Stanhope entered the army and served in Spain, but soon he turned his attention to more peaceful pursuits, went on a mission to Madrid and represented his country at Turin. When peace was made between England and Spain in 1720 Stanhope became British ambassador to the latter country, and he retained this position until March 1727, having built up his reputation as a diplomatist during a difficult period. In 1729 he had some part in arranging the treaty of Seville between England, France and Spain, and for his services in this matter he was created Baron Harrington in January 1730. Later in the same year he was appointed secretary of state for the northern department under Sir Robert Walpole, but, like George II., he was anxious to assist the emperor Charles VI. in his war with France, while Walpole favoured a policy of peace. Although the latter had his way Harrington remained secretary until the great minister’s fall in 1742, when he was transferred to the office of president of the council and was created earl of Harrington and Viscount Petersham. In 1744, owing to the influence of his political allies, the Pelhams, he returned to his former post of secretary of state, but he soon lost the favour of the king, and this was the principal cause why he left office in October 1746. He was lord lieutenant of Ireland from 1747 to 1751, and he died in London on the 8th of December 1756.
The earl’s successor was his son, William (1719-1779), who entered the army, was wounded at Fontenoy and became a general in 1770. He was a member of parliament for about ten years and he died on the 1st of April 1779. This earl’s wife Caroline (1722-1784), daughter of Charles Fitzroy, 2nd duke of Grafton, was a noted beauty, but was also famous for her eccentricities. Their elder son, Charles (1753-1829), who became the 3rd earl, was a distinguished soldier. He served with the British army during the American War of Independence and attained the rank of general in 1802. From 1805 to 1812 he was commander-in-chief in Ireland; he was sent on diplomatic errands to Vienna and to Berlin, and he died at Brighton on the 15th of September 1829.
Charles Stanhope, 4th earl of Harrington (1780-1851), the eldest son of the 3rd earl, was known as Lord Petersham until he succeeded to the earldom in 1829. He was very well known in society owing partly to his eccentric habits; he dressed like the French king Henry IV., and had other personal peculiarities. He married the actress, Maria Foote, but when he died in March 1851 he left no sons, and his brother Leicester Fitzgerald Charles (1784-1862) became the 5th earl. This nobleman was a soldier and a politician of advanced views, who is best known as a worker with Lord Byron in the cause of Greek independence. He was in Greece in 1823 and 1824, where his relations with Byron were not altogether harmonious. He wrote A Sketch of the History and Influence of the Press in British India (1823); and Greece in 1821 and 1824 (English edition 1824, American edition 1825). His son Sydney Seymour Hyde, 6th earl (1845-1866), dying unmarried, was succeeded by a cousin, Charles Wyndham Stanhope (1809-1881), as 7th earl, and in 1881 the latter’s son Charles Augustus Stanhope (b. 1844) became 8th earl of Harrington.
Before the time of the first earl of Harrington the Stanhope family had held the barony of Stanhope of Harrington, which was created in 1605 in favour of Sir John Stanhope (c. 1550-1621) of Harrington, Northamptonshire. Sir John was a younger son of Sir Michael Stanhope (d. 1552) of Shelford, Nottinghamshire, who was a brother-in-law of the protector Somerset. Sir Michael’s support of Somerset cost him his life, as he was beheaded on the 26th of February 1552. Sir John was treasurer of the chamber from 1596 to 1616 and was a member of parliament for several years. He died on the 9th of March 1621, and when his only son Charles, 2nd baron (c. 1595-1675), died without issue in 1675 the barony became extinct.
HARRINGTON, or Harington, JAMES (1611-1677), English political philosopher, was born in January 1611 of an old Rutlandshire family. He was son of Sir Sapcotes Harrington of Rand, Lincolnshire, and great-nephew of the first Lord Harington of Exton (d. 1615). In 1629 he entered Trinity College, Oxford, as a gentleman commoner. One of his tutors was the famous Chillingworth. After several years spent in travel, and as a soldier in the Dutch army, he returned to England and lived in retirement till 1646, when he was appointed to the suite of Charles I., at that time being conveyed from Newcastle as prisoner. Though republican in his ideas, Harrington won the king’s regard and esteem, and accompanied him to the Isle of Wight. He roused, however, the suspicion of the parliamentarians and was dismissed: it is said that he was for a short time put in confinement because he would not swear to refuse assistance to the king should he attempt to escape. After Charles’s death Harrington devoted his time to the composition of his Oceana, a work which pleased neither party. By order of Cromwell it was seized when passing through the press. Harrington, however managed to secure the favour of the Protector’s favourite daughter, Mrs Claypole; the work was restored to him, and appeared in 1656, dedicated to Cromwell. The views embodied in Oceana, particularly that bearing on vote by ballot and rotation of magistrates and legislators, Harrington and others (who in 1659 formed a club called the “Rota”) endeavoured to push practically, but with no success. In November 1661, by order of Charles II., Harrington was arrested, apparently without sufficient cause, on a charge of conspiracy, and was thrown into the Tower. Despite his repeated request no public trial could be obtained, and when at length his sisters obtained a writ of habeas corpus he was secretly removed to St Nicholas Island off Plymouth. There his health gave way owing to his drinking guaiacum on medical advice, and his mind appeared to be affected. Careful treatment restored him to bodily vigour, but his mind never wholly recovered. After his release he married,—at what date does not seem to be precisely known. He died on the 11th of September 1677, and was buried next to Sir Walter Raleigh in St Margaret’s, Westminster.
Harrington’s writings consist of the Oceana, and of papers, pamphlets, aphorisms, even treatises, in defence of the Oceana. The Oceana is a hard, prolix, and in many respects heavy exposition of an ideal constitution, “Oceana” being England, and the lawgiver Olphaus Megaletor, Oliver Cromwell. The details are elaborated with infinite care, even the salaries of officials being computed, but the main ideas are two in number, each with a practical corollary. The first is that the determining element of power in a state is property generally, property in land in particular; the second is that the executive power ought not to be vested for any considerable time in the same men or class of men. In accordance with the first of these, Harrington recommends an agrarian law, limiting the portion of land held to that yielding a revenue of £3000, and consequently insisting on particular modes of distributing landed property. As a practical issue of the second he lays down the rule of rotation by ballot. A third part of the executive or senate are voted out by ballot every year (not being capable of being elected again for three years). Harrington explains very carefully how the state and its governing parts are to be constituted by his scheme. Oceana contains many valuable ideas, but it is irretrievably dull.
His Works were edited with biography by John Toland in 1700; Toland’s edition, with additions by Birch, appeared in 1747, and again in 1771. Oceana was reprinted by Henry Morley in 1887. See Dwight in Political Science Quarterly (March, 1887). Harrington has often been confused with his cousin Sir James Harrington, a member of the commission which tried Charles I., and afterwards excluded from the acts of pardon.