Ernest John Harrison

Ernest John ("E.J.") Harrison (22 August 1873 - 23 April 1961) was an English journalist, author and judoka. Harrison was born in Manchester, England, on 22 August 1873. He wrote many books about the practice of judo. He died in London, on 23 April 1961.

Ernest John Harrison (sitting first on the right) and other reporters interviewing Mark Twain from his hotel bed in Vancouver on 18 August 1895

He was the younger of two boys born to Mary Ann (Polly) Harrison formerly Phillips. Following the death of their father, Ernest and his brother Paul, lived with their uncle Richard Cobden Phillips and his children, Mahomet and Nene, who recently returned from the Congo, where R. C. Phillips had been an agent for a trading company. Phillips in Africa had met Henry Morton Stanley in 1876. An uncle, John Searle Ragland Phillips, later became editor of The Yorkshire Post.[1] Ernest’s cousin Mahomet Thomas Phillips became an accomplished ecclesiastical sculptor and carver, with work residing in numerous churches and cathedrals in the UK and abroad and worked on a number of war memorials following the First World War.[2]

As a young man, Harrison was a journalist who worked for newspapers in England, British Columbia, and Japan. He enjoyed wrestling. In 1897, while working for Yokohama newspaper called Japan Herald, he began training in Tenjin shinyo-ryu jujutsu. After moving to Tokyo, he began training in Kodokan judo.[3] In 1911, he was the first foreign-born person to achieve shodan (black belt ranking) in Kodokan judo.[4] In 1912, his Fighting Spirit of Japan was among the first English-language books to describe the Japanese martial arts from the perspective of a foreign-born practitioner of those arts.

In 1917, Harrison was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Labour Corps of the British Army[5] but later transferred to Military Intelligence. He served until 1919. Countries he served in included China, France, Latvia, and Estonia.[3][6] In 1921, Harrison left Lithuania to London and started to work as official press attaché and ELTA correspondent in the Lithuanian legation to the United Kingdom. Most of his professional writings from 1921 to 1940 focused on Lithuanian topics.[3] After work, he often participated in the activities of a London judo club called the Budokwai.[7] During the Second World War, Harrison was a censor in Russian, Lithuanian, and Polish languages for the British Post Office.[3] After the war, he wrote and translated judo books.[8]

Harrison was married twice. His first wife was Cicely Ross, an Australian woman he had met in Japan and sister of reputable judoka Arthur John (Jack) Ross. He and his second wife, Rene, had one daughter, Aldona.[3]