John Tomkins Harcourt (1840 - 1903)

Born 2 Apr 1840 in Kings Norton Registration District, Worcestershire, England

Ancestors

Husband of Helen (Ratcliffe) Harcourt — married 6 Nov 1862 in East Whitby Twp, Canada West

Descendants

Died 27 Oct 1903 at age 63 in Guelph, Ontario

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Biography

John Tompkins Harcourt was the first child of George and Ann Harcourt and he emigrated to Toronto with his parents.

John Tomkins Harcourt's birth was registered in the Apr-May-Jun quarter of 1842 in the Kings Norton district.Mother's maiden surname EALES.^[1]

John T. was a clever, sensitive but determined person of whom it was said by his classmates at Upper Canada College that he could quite well have been the head of the class if he had been interested. His family had high hopes of his completing college and going on in law but this was not to be as he wanted only to be a farmer. John became quite despondent and left home to make his own way in the world had not his father intercepted his pilgrimage at Buffalo. John T. was his point and he was allowed to commence a series of farm experiences which eventually led him to the farm of John Ratcliffe and Margaret Hepburn and their daughter Helen whom he married 6 Nov 1862 with Rev. Dr. John King officiating and the bride's Uncle Daniel Ratcliffe assisting. In later years Dr. King became associated with Union Theological College in Winnipeg where he befriended Helen and John's son the Rev. James R. Harcourt while attending Union and serving on the mission fields of Manitoba.

Helen and John went to a bush farm in East Wawanosh Township in Huron County of Ontario for approximately nine years and then in successive moves to Toronto, Cambridge (Preston) as manager of Hepburn Shoe Store and in 1881 to Maplewood Farm, Spring Creek, St. Ann's, Lincoln County where he continues to represent a number of lines of shoes over a wide territory until 1903 with the farm as home base.

John T., like so many of his family before and after him always identifies with his church. He started with the Zion Congregational with his parents and later joined the Presbyterian Church in which he was ordained to eldership in East Church, Toronto, under the Rev. J.M. Cameron, an office he exercised in Preston, St. Ann's and Prince Albert. One of his attributes was his strong and fine tenor voice.

After Helen's death in January 1903, John T. applied to the Mission Board in the Northwest Territories with whom he served briefly at Prince Albert until failing health caused him to return East to his son Robert 's home in Guelph where he succumbed to typhoid fever and was buried in the St. Ann's cemetery in October of the same year.^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ Birth Registration: "England & Wales General Register Office", database
   GRO Online Indexes - Birth (accessed 10 March 2023)
   Harcourt, John Tomkins (Mother's maiden name: Eales).
   GRO Reference: 1842 Apr-May-Jun in Kings Norton Volume 18 Page 423.
2. ↑ James N. Perry, George Harcourt 1820-1889 and His Descendants (self-published, c.1976) p. 34-35.