Fred Harris was born in Balham, South London, and educated at Belmont College, Streatham.
After working for a period in local government, he founded his own business with money invested by Sir Sydney Marshall.
By 1965, the company had fourteen subsidiaries in Britain and East Africa, working in engineering, vehicles, canning, food manufacture and farming.
He was elected to the council of the County Borough of Croydon for Central ward in December 1946 in a by-election, however, and was re-elected in 1947 for a full four-year term.
Harris was selected by the local Conservative Association as their candidate for the Croydon North by-election, and had their wholehearted support.
They were concerned that a local businessman with little fame or track record would struggle to defeat a former MP and World War II hero.
His daughter Mary Soames was then in a Croydon maternity hospital about to give birth (to her son Nicholas), bringing the campaign positive publicity.
In Croydon, however, he was extremely popular, working hard especially on casework for individual constituents, which he said was the most rewarding part of the job.
Fred Harris had three children with his first wife – Roger who became an engineer in Kenya, Gillian, who also moved to East Africa, and Jacqueline who worked as secretary to the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.
He had held a schoolboy cricket record and played football (soccer) in the Spartan League.