Thomas Harrison (7 August (baptised) 1744 – 29 March 1829) was an English architect and bridge engineer who trained in Rome, where he studied classical architecture.

After moving to Lancaster he worked on local buildings, received commissions for further bridges, and designed country houses in Scotland.

On both sites he created accommodation for prisoners, law courts, and a shire hall, while working on various other public buildings, gentlemen's clubs, churches, houses, and monuments elsewhere.

Despite his work being nationally admired he spent his entire career in northwest England, visiting London only occasionally; most of his buildings were in Lancashire, Cheshire, and the nearby counties.

In 1769 he was sponsored by a local landowner, Sir Lawrence Dundas of Aske Hall, to join George Cuitt (who later became a landscape painter) to study in Rome.

[1][2] Here he studied at the Accademia di San Luca, and during his seven years in Rome, amongst other activities, made drawings of Roman structures, including temples and Trajan's Column.

[3] In 1770 Harrison submitted a design to Pope Clement XIV for converting the Vatican Cortile del Belvedere into a museum for antique statues.

[5] Following the failure of this design to be accepted, he petitioned the pope, and was awarded gold and silver medals, and made Accademico di Merito.

After some amendments to the design, the foundation stone was laid in June 1783, and Skerton Bridge was completed in September 1787, at a cost of £14,000 (equivalent to £2,250,000 in 2023).

The foundation stone was laid in 1827 by the Earl of Grosvenor (after whose family the bridge was named), and work began the following year.

[18] Both towns already had gaols, but there was a national move in the later part of the 18th century to improve them, following the campaigns by penal formers led by John Howard.

He later added two storeys to provide more accommodation for debtors, and completed the Male Felon's Prison to the north of the keep.

The new buildings form a symmetrical group to the west of the keep, and were completed in 1798, although the internal decoration and furnishings were not finished until some years later by Joseph Gandy.

[23] In contrast with Lancaster, Harrison was able to prepare an organised plan for the gaol, as it was to be built on a new site behind the Elizabethan Shire Hall on land sloping down to the River Dee.

Both of the blocks consists of a two-storey building in nine bays, the fronts of which are decorated with Ionic half-columns about 23 feet (7 m) high.

[8][30] In 1803 building commenced in Manchester of the Portico Library, which also incorporated a gentlemen's club, and introduced Greek motifs to the city.

[35] However he was successful with his plans to enlarge and remodel Gredington, a house in North Wales, for Lord Kenyon, executed between 1807 and 1811 at a cost of £6,675 (equivalent to £610,000 in 2023).

[8][36] Between 1808 and 1810 Harrison converted three rooms on the west side of the first floor of Tabley House, near Knutsford, Cheshire, into a picture gallery for Sir John Fleming Leicester.

[39] In 1822–23 Harrison built a house for himself, St Martin's Lodge in Nicholas Street, Chester, which consists of a simple villa.

His last work for a private client was again for Roland Hill, a building called the Citadel in Hawkstone Park, Shropshire.

Between 1805 and 1806 he redesigned the nave of St John the Baptist's Church in Whittington, Shropshire, which had been badly damaged in a storm.

Although his design was used for the exterior, the internal decoration and fittings were planned by his main contractor, William Cole, and the church has been much altered since.

This work involved building deep buttresses at the south end of the transept, and giving some attention to the gutters.

Harrison designed a variety of other structures, one of the most important of which was the replacement of Northgate in Chester, at the suggestion of Earl Grosvenor, mayor of the city in 1807.

The earl wanted the structure to be designed in Gothic style, but Harrison advised that it would be more fitting to the adjacent Roman walls for it to be Neoclassical, and after much debate this was accepted.

[45] Harrison then designed Denbighshire Infirmary in North Wales, built between 1810 and 1813, and in about 1820 he made some internal alterations to the Chester Exchange.

[8] His last memorial was a ceremonial gateway, the Admiralty Arch, at Holyhead, also on Anglesey, to commemorate the landing there of George IV in 1821.

[1][8] An additional arch was added to Skerton Bridge in about 1849 to allow for the passage of the "Little" North Western Railway (since closed) beneath it.

Some of the buildings he completely designed (rather than altered) have been listed at the highest levels, Grade I in England and Wales, and Category A in Scotland.

[79] Nevertheless, Charles Cockerell (later to become the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects) said of him in 1828 that he was "undoubtedly the noblest genius in architecture we have had".