Harold Davenport, 1907-1969

Abstract

Harold Davenport’s father, Percy Davenport, worked in the office of Perseverance Mill, a cotton mill in Huncoat, near Accrington. At first a clerk, he became the company secretary. He married Nancy Barnes, one of the daughters of John Barnes, the owner of the mill. Their first child, Harold, was born on 30 October 1907, their only other child Grace was born a few years later. When 10 or 11 years old, Harold started at Accrington Grammar School, and later he wrote that he had had on the whole a very happy and enjoyable time there. He discovered the Public Library, and read every work of Dickens that he could obtain. He maintained and extended his interest in the English classics throughout his life. He was much inspired by his chemistry master, Mr Ackroyd, and by his mathematics mistress, Miss Heap, ‘a lady with enthusiasm for mathematics, who paid no attention— thank God—to any regular syllabus or curriculum there may have been’. He specialized in these two subjects, and in 1924 obtained scholarships from Lancashire County and from Manchester University that enabled him to spend the next three years, from the age of 16 to 19, at Manchester University.