How Edwardian founder of Clapton family business electrified the Hackney Empire

Thomas Archibald Harris

The First World War was still raging when Thomas Archibald Harris broke off from his work at the Hackney Empire to undertake reconnaissance work for the military 96 years ago this month.

It was a different world back then from the one inhabited by his grandson John Harris, who runs Harris Electrical, the business started by his grandfather in Clapton.

This store in Lower Clapton Road now contains washing machines, televisions and other mod cons that had not yet been invented when Thomas Archibald was in charge of lighting at the Empire. But continuity exists in the shape of a framed letter hanging on the shop’s wall dated August, 1917.

It reads: “Dear Mr Harris, In sending you a wristlet watch herewith, which arrived too late for us to make the presentation in public, I wish to convey to you the fact that this is a slight memento of the esteem in which you are held by every member of the staff of the Hackney Empire, and it is with real feelings of pleasure that we are able to place this fact on record.

“We trust that when this terrible war is over, and your duties in connection therewith are fulfilled that you will be able to return to the Hackney Empire to resume the duties which will be there waiting for you.

“On behalf of the staff I sign this. Yours faithfully, Macleod.”

Macleon was the acting manager at the Empire, and Thomas Archibald Harris did indeed return from the war to resume his duties there.

That the letter is displayed so proudly on his shop’s wall is no small clue that John Harris is interested in the history of his family and his business.

When people talk about recent changes in Hackney, they are often referring to the received wisdom about the borough having gone upmarket, but Mr Harris remembers his grandfather, who died in the 1960s aged in his 80s, noticing the opposite change.

“I think I remember him saying how it had changed because when he grew up there were all these big houses around Clapton Common and people had servants,” he says. “Lots of parts of Hackney were well to do.”

Born in around 1880 in less wealthy Shoreditch, the founder of Harris Electrical came from a salt-of-the-earth working class stock.

John Harris with the letter from the Hackney Empire to his grandfather. Photograph: Josh Loeb

“He was a hard worker,” says John Harris. “He was working during the day and did matinees and evening performances. He was a forceful person. He had watched them building the Empire and I can imagine him marching in there shortly after it opened and saying: ‘Give me a job.’”

Despite his humble background, his work at the Empire would have enabled him to see big stars of the day like Charlie Chaplin, and it would have helped him to gain more work converting homes from gas to electricity during what was a kind of gold rush for electricians.

Sidney Charles Harris, the father of John Harris, outside his shop in Clarence Road

Thomas Archibald, who fathered six children, founded Harris Electrical in the 1930s. “My grandfather was always an innovator,” remembers John Harris. “He was always looking for the new things. He was one of the first in his street to have central heating. He was one of the first one to have a car. He considered himself to be very modern and he was very forward thinking.”

The business has been through the hands of four generations of Harrises.

John says the experience of working in the venue, which hosted variety and cinema in its early years, left its mark on his grandfather.

“He was a bit flamboyant and was always very smartly dressed,” he says. “I think he got these qualities from having worked at the Empire.”

The front of the Hackney Empire as it looks today