William Venables-Vernon Harcourt (1789 – April 1871) was an English cleric, founder of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,[1] canon residentiary of the York Cathedral, and later rector of Bolton Percy.
He was born at Sudbury, Derbyshire, a younger son of Edward Vernon-Harcourt, Archbishop of York[1] and his wife Lady Anne Leveson-Gower, who was a daughter of Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford and his second wife Lady Louisa Egerton.
He was on good terms with Cyril Jackson, the dean and Dr. John Kidd, then a teacher of chemistry at his college, influenced him.
He constructed a laboratory, and occupied himself in chemical analysis, aided by his early friends Davy and Wollaston.
In 1821, remains of prehistoric life found by William Buckland in the cavern of Kirkdale went to form the basis of a museum, connected with the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, of which Harcourt was the first president.
For 40 years, he worked to acquire glasses of definite and mutually compensative dispersions, for achromatic combinations.