Heroic Harrison had spirit of St George

TOMORROW – St George’s Day – is the 100th anniversary of the death in action of Arthur Leyland Harrison, the only England rugby cap ever to win the Victoria Cross and one of only four Rugby internationals worldwide to receive the ultimate award for courage.

Harrison, who was posthumously awarded the VC for his part in the Zeebrugge raid of 1918, was a promising England forward who had made a big impression in his two appearances in the 1914 Five Nations Championship. He played in the back row against Ireland and then moved into the second row against France, when England recorded a 39-13 win at Stade Colombes.

The powerful second row served at the Battle of Heligoland Blight in 1914, Dogger Bank in 1915 and was mentioned in dispatches at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. It was on St George’s Day 1918 at Zeebrugge, Belgium, that LieutenantCommander Harrison was leading naval storming parties when he was struck on the head by a fragment of shell that broke his jaw.

Regaining consciousness and in great pain he continued to press his attack, knowing that any delay might jeopardise the expedition. It was while leading his men from the front that he received his final mortal wound. Harrison was one of eight recipients of VCs from the attack, four of them posthumous, one of the most honoured actions in British Military and Naval history. Winston Churchill always referred to the action as the “finest feat of arms of the Great War”.

In more recent years England, under Stuart Lancaster introduced the Harrison Shield, presented to the England player deemed to have given the finest defensive display in a game while the Arthur Harrison Cup is now awarded to the winners of the International Defence Rugby Competition.