[1] He was the eldest son of William Harvey, a teacher and art collector, who made a substantial gift of paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters to the nation, as well as being a local politician, serving for 13 years on Leeds City Council.

[2] His brother was the writer William Fryer Harvey, best known for his short story The Beast with Five Fingers that was turned into a film of the same name, starring Peter Lorre.

[4] Harvey was among a number of reformers, including R. H. Tawney and Harvey's predecessor as Warden of Toynbee Hall, Canon Samuel Augustus Barnett, who recognised that the emphasis of settlement work needed to be moved away from the simple provision of relief and help and towards a wider agenda based upon social investigation, the raising of public awareness of social problems and broader political legislation.

He was elected to the London County Council for Finsbury East as a Progressive and served 1904–1907, during which time he sat on the Education Committee.

[4] Harvey first stood for Parliament at the January 1910 United Kingdom general election, for Leeds West, holding Herbert Gladstone's old seat for the Liberals by a majority of 3,315 votes.

[11] He acted as unpaid Parliamentary Private Secretary to Ellis Ellis-Griffith KC, Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office,[4] and performed the same role for Charles Masterman, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1913–1914,[12] although he resigned the post on the outbreak of the First World War.

[14] Harvey remained one of the small band of Liberals, at that time still including Norman Angell and E D Morel, who had grave doubts about the war.

[1] But Harvey's dilemma over support for the government, as distinct from his religious beliefs, surfaced when he and another Liberal Quaker MP, Arnold Stephenson Rowntree, helped to draft the section of the Military Service Act 1916 that provided for the possibility of conscientious objectors being required to perform work of national importance as a condition of exemption from service in the army.

[4] Harvey stood down from Parliament at the 1918 general election, but tried to re-enter the House of Commons in 1922, having in 1921 been selected as Liberal candidate for Dewsbury in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

[18] Harvey was, however, returned to Parliament for Dewsbury at the 1923 general election, when he defeated Riley in a straight fight to win by a majority of 2,256 votes.

[23] During his time in Parliament as an Independent, and consistent with his representation of a university seat, Harvey championed the plight of foreign academics and scientist forced by various regimes to flee as refugees.