| H. C. A. Harrison | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 Portrait of Harrison by John Longstaff, 1929 | |||
| Personal information | |||
| Full name | Henry Colden Antill Harrison | ||
| Date of birth | 16 October 1836 | ||
| Place of birth | Jarvisfield, New South Wales | ||
| Date of death | 2 September 1929 (aged 92) | ||
| Place of death | Kew, Victoria | ||
| Career highlights | |||
| Source: AustralianFootball.com | |||
Henry Colden Antill Harrison (16 October 1836 – 2 September 1929) was an athlete and Australian rules footballer who played a leading role in pioneering the sport.
Harrison's cousin, champion cricketer Tom Wills, captained an early incarnation of the Melbourne Football Club in 1858, and the following year co-wrote its laws―the basis of Australian rules football. Within a year, Harrison joined him in promoting the new code, and quickly emerged as a leading player, celebrated for his speed, strength and courage. He oversaw an 1866 revision of the code that formalised the running bounce, and captained Melbourne and Geelong before retiring from playing in 1872. He then took on several important administrative roles, including the vice presidency of the newly formed Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877, and the chairmanship of the first Australian Football Conference in 1905. He also won fame as the champion amateur runner of Victoria, remaining undefeated for nine years in both sprints and hurdles.
By the 1880s and well into the mid-20th century, Harrison was widely regarded as the "Father of Australian Football"—a title that has since been disputed as a result of more in-depth scholarly analysis of football's origins, which shows that Harrison joined the game after its codification, and that football's early development was largely a collaborative process. Nonetheless, Harrison remained for many years the sport's "most formidable voice", and the honorific title of "Football's Foster Father" has been applied to him by some modern historians.
The Harrison Stand at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, as well as Harrison House―the former headquarters of the Victorian Football League (VFL)―were named in his honour in 1908 and 1930, respectively. Harrison and Wills were inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1989, and in 1996, they were the only pioneer figures to be inaugural inductees of the Australian Football Hall of Fame.