Harrington Family History & Genealogy

The Late Mr. T. Baker Harrington
The last high Constable of Colchester

The Essex County Standard of November 8, 1913: --The death of Mr. Thomas Baker Harrington, which took place at his residence, 49, Colfe Road, Forest Hill, S.E., on October 31 , recalls the old days of the 6th Essex Volunteers, of which he was for some sixteen years a most active member, and in which the corps from private he attained to the rank of Captain Commandant . Son of Mr. Thomas Harrington, chemist, of high Street, the late Mr. Baker Harrington was a Freeman of the Borough, and took a keen interest in all that concerned it’s welfare. In the 1884 he was candidate for the Town Council in the then Third Ward, but was defeated. In the following year he came forward again and was elected at the head of the poll, though he did not seek re-election at the end of his three years of office. An interesting feature of Mr. Harrington’s public career is that he was the last to hold the office of High Constable of this Borough. He was, up to the year 1890, a member of the United Lodge of Freemasons, and he also took a considerable interest in Friendly Societies, being Treasurer for some portion of the local funds. Whilst resident in Colchester, Mr. Baker Harrington took an active part in political work, being an ardent Conservative, and was always ready to lend a helping hand at election times. He leaves a widow, two sons and two daughters.

Mark Downe in his Colchester Jottings, in the Essex County Standard of November 8, 1913, writes:- Death has removed an old Town councillor who was extremely popular in his day---Mr. Baker Harrington. He was the last of the High Constables of the Borough. The high constableship was an ancient office which in it’s later days was a sinecure. It carried with it a salary of £10 per annum, and it appears that the sole duty involved was the singing of the rate precepts to the overseers. Mr. Thomas Harrington, perhaps realising that such an emolument was hardly proportionate to the services demanded of him, honourably resigned the office in October 1884, and at the November Council meeting in that year, when his resignation was accepted, it was simultaneously resolved to appoint no successor, and to let the office lapse. From a historical point of view it might perhaps have been better to have abolished the salary and to have kept up the old office on an honorary basis, for the sake of preserving an ancient custom, which has already passed into practical oblivion, but no such idea seems to have occurred at the time, and it would be scarcely worth while now to revive the obsolete title.