Updates Added to this Post – 27th March 2010 in green

My Great Great Grandparents were William Harris and Eve Barnett. Eve Barnetts mother was Caroline Lazarus  (my Great Great Great Grandmother)  :  View  us all here in –>  The Harris Family Tree  <— click link

View the FULL STORY —> "BANKRUPTCY and the BARNET FAMILY"   <– click link .   It was published in Shemot, the Journal of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain.

My thanks  to John Gould for sending it to me. John Gould and I made contact as a result of Tribal Pages finding Lionel Harris in my family tree and Lionel Harris in another family tree. Both Lionel Harris’s had matching parents names of William Harris and Eve  Barnett.  Turns out that John Gould has been trying to find a living Harris relative for over a year.   I am Anita Harris,  John Gould’s father’s second cousin’s granddaughter..

My thanks to Morlin Ellis who has supplied me with extracts from a copy of the London Gazette (see below) in 1881 which details William Harris Senior’s "Liquidation by Arrangement" which is (explained by John Gould) technically not quite the same as bankruptcy and does not have all the drastic legal consequences (e.g. severe limitations on obtaining future credit). The extract details his various addresses and the countries with which he did business in in South America before ending up in Calle Encarnación in Madrid. Morlin has explained that it was obviously a very difficult time for people trading with this area of South America, as there were earthquakes and political upheavals, and the insolvency listings at the time were littered with people connected with Lima going under. 

The 1881 census  shows that Williams wife and family had moved back into the family home of her father. The “liquidation” is most likely the reason.

The London Gazette December 1981

The London Gazette December 1982

Tomas Harris created a lot of art, of many kinds, including ceramics, oil paintings, engravings, dry points, lithographs, watercolours, sketches and also tapestries (View my Tomas Harris ART Gallery, showing almost 200 pieces <—click here ).

Tomas wanted to try his hand at making tapestries just like Goya Francisco did, using the same weavers that Goya had used. Goyas’ exclusive tapestries were all made at the Royal Factory in Madrid, so that was why Tomas had his three made there too.

So in the early 1950’s Tomas created three cartoons (the weavers use these as blueprints) and had a tapestry woven for each one.  It was a very lengthy and expensive process.

<— This is one of the woven tapestries which is now (in all its glory, and in colour) at the Bristol Museum at the time of writing, but is not currently on public display. Notice the weavers personal signature woven into the fabric (bottom right).

The Factory had some kind of official state support under Franco, but in recent years the owners have been trying to sell it without much success.

In 1955, Tomas organised and held an exhibition for his tapestries, in Madrid, with a  famous speaker friend of his,  Valentine de Sambricio, who was an Art Historian.. The exhibition provided information about the process of creating the tapestries, and how the weavers signature came to be in the border of the final pieces.  The photos of the looms above are rare and the looms were part of the exhibits in the exhibition.

Today the thee tapestries are in museums around the world, one in Spain, one in England, and one in Australia.

This Tapestry is held at the Bristol Museum in England, but is not on public display.

This tapestry is at the museum in Seville, Museo de Sevilla.

The third tapestry is at a museum in Melbourne, at the National Gallery of Victoria (Victoria State Gallery). It was gifted to the museum by Tomas’s three sisters (Enriqueta, Conchita and Violeta Harris) after the 1975 Tomas Harris Courtauld Exhibition. (The introduction in the catalogue for the 1975 exhibition was written by the well known Anthony Blunt <— read the introduction

Tomas was well known and respected in the Art World – worldwide.

Apparently, last year, 2009, an exhibition of modern tapestries made by the Royal Factory in Madrid, was held, and a catalogue was produced.  Unfortunately, there was no mention of Tomas Harris in it, and so it has been assumed that it is very likely that Tomas had actually commissioned the tapestries to be made at the factory.

Subscribe to Email updates <— here, to stay informed.

I am currently hoping to receive new information about these tapestries from a major expert on tapestries in Spain, who will be visiting the museum in Seville in the near future, and who has very  detailed knowledge of the history of the Madrid factory and currently works as curator of the Royal Tapestry collection at the Palace in Madrid.   I will update this post if/when I receive further information.

Thanks to Carol Kino (My father’s second cousin’s daughter), John Gould (my grandfather’s second cousin’s son) and Shlomo Shalev (no relation) I have made MAJOR  progress on my Harris Family Tree and also received some of the photographs below which I have already added to my Gallery of Family Photos.

John, Shlomo and I made contact through our TribalPages Family Tree websites. Carol found me through this website. My website now has 240 relatives, it stood at about 130 this time last month. Its been a busy month!

My Great Great Grandparents were William Harris and Eve Barnett

Eve Barnetts mother was Caroline Lazarus, her father was Abraham Barnett, her sister was Julia Barnett, and Eve and William had NINE Children, two of which are pictured below – Lionel Harris (my Great Grandfather), and Ethel Harris (Carol Kino’s Great Grandmother)

To view my Eve Harris (nee Barnett) Family Tree <— Click link.

Post originally published 27th November 2009 – Updated 2/2/2010 – changes in green

LIONEL HARRIS (1862-1943) – ENRIQUETA RODRIGUEZ LEON (1873-1933) AND FAMILY

Lionel’s father was called William Harris. He was born in 1828, apparently in Germany, and died on the 3^rd April 1907. William was soon living with other Harrises in London however, and he married Eve Barnett on the 21^st November 1860 at the New Synagogue, Great St Helens, according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the German and Polish Jews.[1] Eve had been born in January 1841 and was the daughter of Abraham Barnett, Reader at the Synagogue at the time and later Minister.[2]

The Harrises in question are usually thought to have been of Russian or Polish origin: a family of the Jewish faith which settled in the East End of London and the City in the early years of the 19^th century.[3] William’s father seems to have been called Levy, and there was no lack of Harrises and Barnetts living in Great Prescott Street in the 19^th century. Lionel was born in that street, where William and Eve were living (at Nº 14) when the 1861 census was taken. William at that time was a general merchant, according to his marriage certificate.

William and Eve had a typically large 19^th-century family. Lionel was the eldest son, according to the 1871 census, born in 1862. He was followed by Ernest, Eltaet? (a daughter), Morris, Violet, Stella and Norah according to the 1871 census, when the family had moved up in the world and were living at 43, Woburn Place with four servants. William was now a Diamond Merchant. There was at least one other daughter later, called Gertrude, whom Lionel mentioned in his will and who presumably died after him.[4]

Lionel’s life and career are not too difficult to document. In 1898, at the age of 35, he married Enriqueta Rodríguez y León (born Seville 7^th June 1873 and died 3^rd November 1933 in London), whose father was Tomás Rodríguez de García, and whose mother was Concepción León y Gallardo from Seville. Lionel and Enriqueta were betrothed in 1895, and married in the Registry Office of the British Consulate in Madrid on the 21^st February 1898. The marriage was solemnized in the Synagogue at Bayonne by the Chief Rabbi of that city on the 30^th March the same year. The Rodríguez family had some bull-fighting antecedents but Lionel’s in-laws made their living selling antiques in Madrid in the 1890s. At the time of his marriage Lionel was also already established in the antiques trade. [5]

Lionel had earlier, in the 1880s presumably, joined his father in South America to work in the textile business. It was William, apparently, who suggested that his son should move to Spain, and he can first be located in the Spanish capital in 1891.[6]     when he was trading as a diamond merchant (like his father), together with Alfred Lindenbaum in Madrid and London. In 1892 his letterhead gives his business addresses in both Madrid and London, but he was no longer in diamonds, and was dealing instead in antiques,    art and jewellery. L. Harris & Co. was at Fuencarral, 24, Pr[incip]al D[e]r[ech]a in Madrid and 35 Hatton Gardens in London in the year in question. By 1896 his Madrid address had changed to Caballero de Gracia, 22, principal, and he had separate addresses for Antiques and Jewellery in London, at 127 Regent Street (with the telegraphic address BARMASTER),[7] and at 23 Hatton Gardens (telegraphic address BRAWRONIA) respectively. In March 1898 his Madrid address was Carmen, 4, 1º izq[uier]da, and his London addresses remained unchanged.[8] Since a diamond merchant called William Harris is listed in Hatton Gardens in the Post Office Directories of the period, it is not impossible that this was Lionel’s father’s business address.

In Lionel’s early business activity in Madrid and London, it is evident that he needed the support of partners, and often changed them. He dissolved the partnership with Lindenbaum in 1891 and we have yet to discover when it had started. Subsequently he went into partnership with Solomon Joseph as Dealers in Works of Art and Antiquities at 127 Regent Street, trading as Harris & Co., and this arrangement was dissolved in 1898. Later, in 1905, a certain solicitor called George Solomon Joseph (very possibly Lionel’s former partner) is mentioned in The Times in a case where Lionel Harris himself was also involved, as executor of the estate of Louis Jephson of Brighton, whose will had been challenged.  It seems that Solomon Joseph was a cousin of the deceased Jephson and that Lionel was a relation too .[10] 

Despite the need for the backing of others, the ability of Lionel to build up his stock, extracting    silver articles and other valuables from ecclesiastical and monastic sources in Spain in the 1890s can be gauged from the 18 items he exhibited in a Spanish Art Exhibition held at the New Gallery in London in 1896, which also included 16^th- and 17^th-century embroideries and jewellery, rugs, and vases from his stock. But he moved his main company base to London around 1900, although he continued to travel regularly in Spain to acquire art and antiques for the next few decades.  His family also flourished.  Lionel and Enriqueta’s first child, Violeta,  was born in London in November or December 1898 and Maurice, their second child, was born in London in 1900. The family were living with four servants at 21 Lymington Road, Hampstead when the 1901 Census was taken,[9] and in that year Lionel’s business address was 44 Conduit Street, off Bond Street in London. The following year he was listed at 32 St James’ Street SW, in the Post Office directory of the period, and  by 1909 his company was also to be found at 50 Conduit Street. , in 1907 he opened The Spanish Gallery at 50 Conduit Street with an exhibition of works by the Catalan artist Josep Cusachs. The Spanish Ambassador attended the opening, since the embassy had commissioned an equestrian portrait of the young king Alfonso XIII, in military uniform, by Cusachs, which was on display. Presumably Lionel thought that the time was ripe to capitalise on his Spanish connections, since the good relations between Spain and Britain had been cemented by the marriage of King Alfonso in May 1906 to a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Princess Ena of Battenberg [9b]

By 1911 five more children had been born to Lionel and his wife: three sons –William in 1902; Lionel Junior in 1903; Tomás Joseph in 1909; and two daughters, Conchita in 1904; and Enriqueta Eva in 1910. The 1911 census shows that there were now six servants to support the growing family.[10]

Lionel’s art and antiques trading prospered. He was selling early 16^th-century alabaster effigies, a large collection of ironwork, a Gothic figure, and Hispano-Moresque vases to the recently founded Hispanic Society of America in New York in the course of 1906, having offered a Spanish Apocalypse to them unsuccessfully in August 1901, and other purchases from Lionel were made by the same Society in the years up to and including 1914. The Victoria and Albert Museum purchased late 15^th-century sepulchral sculptures from his firm in 1910 and he sold rare textiles and carpets and other works to them between that date and 1920.[11] In the years before World War I, Lionel’s dealing in early Spanish paintings and El Greco also took off.  The Mass of St Gregory from the School of Fernando Gallego, was bought from Lionel for the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in 1910 and an anonymous St Michael of the Valencian School was acquired by the National Gallery of Scotland from him the same year.[12] The premises The Spanish Art Gallery at 50 Conduit Street became The Spanish Art Gallery at this period, admired by such art luminaries as Roger Fry, who wrote a strong appraisal of the originality of El Greco’s art for the Burlington Magazine in 1913, basing his opinions largely on four paintings by the master which Lionel then had on show.

By the 1920s, Lionel’s sons were old enough to help their father with his business. Maurice Harris joined his father as a Director before 1921, probably at both the Spanish Art Gallery and 44 Conduit Street, known as the Kent Gallery Ltd. and so did Lionel Junior (the third of the four sons, born in 1903).[13] The second son William may also have worked with his father too, but seems not to have become a director, and at some stage moved to Caernafon in Wales to run an antiques business of his own.[14]

It was in the late 1920s that Lionel’s youngest son, Tomás, decided to follow his father into art dealing, and he had galleries of his own first in Sackville Street and then at 29 Bruton Street before joining Lionel at the Spanish Art Gallery which he later moved to Garden Lodge, Logan Place, Kensington, W8.[15] Tomás had won a scholarship at the Slade School of Art when he was only fifteen and was trained as an artist there from 1923 to 1926, spending a year subsequently at the British Academy in Rome. Although he had a prodigious talent and continued to paint and exhibit his work throughout his life, the family’s dealing in works of art stimulated his interest in collecting too. He began by seeking out prints and drawings by the two Tiepolos, Dürer and Rembrandt, and then turned his attention to Goya., building up an unrivalled collection of the various editions of the Spanish artist’s major series of prints and lithographs, and studying rare states of the etchings. In his will, Lionel made it plain that Tomás was uniquely suited to run the gallery,[16] and the exceptional quality of the two exhibitions he organised in the 1930s, with major works by Velázquez, Ribera, Zurbarán and Goya and little known works from private collections, showed that he had the ability to develop the business further.[17]Lionel’s own quality and reputation as a dealer was obvious in the 1930s. In an interview with him published in The Evening Standard in July 1938 he was compared to Duveen, although in reality in the field of Spanish art he seems to have outdone all his international rivals, since there is clear evidence that he had handled more important works by Spanish artists than any other dealer in the catalogue of Spanish Paintings outside Spain published by Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño in Madrid in 1958.  Yet although Tomás and Maurice were actively trying to sell work from their father’s stock to major museums in the post-war period, it has been said that Tomás was ‘evidently trying to wind up his business’ then.[18] And it may be that the stimulus to create, fostered by his house in Majorca, and his Goya collecting and the preparation of his Goya print catalogue left little time for dealing and selling.

[Tomás’s Goya print collection, part of it now available for study in the British Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings thanks to the generosity of his widow and his sisters, although the gift was also in lieu of estate duties,[19] and his two volume Goya Prints and Lithographs (Oxford, Bruno Cassirer, 1964) have made a major contribution to the understanding of Goya’s etching and lithographic techniques, and have greatly increased the general appreciation of that part of the Spanish artist’s work. But historians may well be hard pressed to weigh the significance of his work as artist, collector and scholar, against the importance of his work for MI 5 during World War II, since he was the individual responsible for much of the planning and control of the Double Agent known as Garbo, and invented himself many of the spurious reports sent to this agent (and thence to the German High Command) from Garbo’s imaginary network of spies, creating an ingenious web of deceptions, that succeeded in keeping the Germans in the dark about the intended D-Day landings. Tomás wrote his own account of his role as Garbo’s full-time case officer in a series of World War II double bluffs, now in the National Archives at Kew, available in print with the title Garbo, the spy who saved D-day (London, Public Record Office, 2000).[20]

[1]Marriage Certificate from the Registration District of the City of London. Certified copy obtained on the 28^th October 2002. The fact that William was born in Germany is mentioned in the 1871 census in an entry identified by Morlin Ellis.

[2]Birth Certificate from the Registration District of East London and the sub-district of St Botolph. Certified copy obtained 29^th October 2002.

[3]See Jeffrey Maynard, The History of the Bloom and Harris families (1989). Copy in the Local History Library in Bancroft Road, London E 1.

[4]Copy of the will supplied by the Probate Registry in High Holborn, originally registered at Llandudno. Probate was granted to Lionel’s son-in-law Ephraim Wolff, married to his daughter Conchita (whose given name was presumably inspired by that of her Spanish grandmother).

[5]Information about the Spanish side of the family from Dr Enriqueta Harris Frankfort. Lionel and Enriqueta Rodríguez’s marriage certificate could be found in the Overseas Marriages 1896-1900 section in the Family Records Centre in 2002.  The entry in the Madrid registry, vol. 10 fol. 891, was photocopied for Nigel Glendinning in 2002 at the Family Record Centre and given to Enriqueta Harris.

[6]Information given in an article in the Evening Standard July 9, 1938, known from a photocopy formerly in the possession of Enriqueta Harris Frankfort. with additional material from The London Gazette discovered by Morlin Ellis.

[7]The term Barmaster is apparently used of local judges in mines who assess the quality of ore extracted.

[8]Information from letters written by Lionel to his father, formerly in the possession of Dr. Enriqueta Harris Frankfort.

[9]Transcript of the entry for the family in the census obtained by Morlin Ellis.

[9b] Information from the archives of The Times obtained by Morlin Ellis. It seems that 44 Conduit Street had been called The Spanish Art Gallery as early as 1898, when the Empress Frederick visited it one afternoon in December that year, according to The Times.

[10]Transcript obtained by Morlin Ellis.

[11]Information from research in the Victoria & Albert Museum archives by Dr Marjorie Trusted and her colleagues.

[12]See Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, Catalogue of Paintings, I, Dutch Flemish French German Spanish, Cambrudge, 1960, Nº 708, pp. 210-211; and Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño, La pintura española fuera de España, Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 1958, Nº  56.

[13]Information deduced from research on works sold to the V & A carried out by Dr Marjorie Trusted. The prosperity of the family in the 1920s was marked by the move of their private residence from Lymington Road to the far grander Fitzjohns Avenue.

[14]It should be possible to establish further information about William in Wales starting from the recollections of those who knew him there, such as members of the family of Morlin Ellis, and Professor David Davies, who may additionally be able to throw further light on his relations with Enriqueta and other members of the Harris family.

[15]See Anthony Blunt’s article on Tomás in the Dictionary of National Biography, 1961-1970, Oxford University Press, 1981, p. 493.

[16]A copy of the will obtained from the Probate registry in Holborn in 2002 shows that Lionel knew that the assets of his business had been deprived of their true value by the war and the depression that preceded it, but hoped that they would recover their worth when the war was over. When he made his will he was particularly concerned to look after the female members of his family, although he also wished to continue to support the children of his son William: Gordon, Ronald and David, and a granddaughter called Maureen, who is yet to be identified. His estate was valued for probate at £56, 222 and 16 shillings, a not inconsiderable sum if multiplied by the appropriate factor to give an equivalent in today’s money.

[17]See An Exhibition of Old Masters by Spanish Artists at the Galleries of Tomas Harris Ltd, 29, Bruton Street, London W 1 (June 1931) and From Greco to Goya, Tomas Harris Ltd, The Spanish Art Gallery. 6, Chesterfield Gardens, 1938. The family seem to have lived at Chesterfield Gardens in the Mayfair area during the war, and it was presumably there that Tomás and his wife Hilda gave famously lively parties for their arty and secret service friends.

[18]Observation of Dr Marjorie Trusted.

[19]Information from Morlin Ellis based on references in the National Archives to the gift of Goya prints.

[20]See Javier Juárez, Juan Pujol, el espía que derrotó a Hitler, Madrid, 2004; and Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm. The Authorized History of MI 5, London, Allen Lane, 2009.

Many Thanks to Nigel Glendinning (Professor of art history at London University) for sending us the above document about my Harris Family. Nigel was good friend with Tomas Harris, and has known Enriqueta Harris for many years, right up until her death in 2006.

Great news – Yesterday, I finally managed to track down and telephone David Harris – It has been a long journey trying to find him.

Its quite a story – read on..

All I knew about the Harris’s was that we were four. My parents, my sister and I. That all changed when Enriqueta Harris’s obituary was printed in the Sunday Times in 2006, and my father just happened to spot it on a rainy sunday morning, at home,  in London. He recognised the unusual name (Enriqueta) and went to check it against his old copy of a will made by Lionel Harris ( Senior), my fathers grandfather.

At last a lead to the Harris family… a family who had long ago forgotton that my father existed.  His own father William (a sister of Enriqueta) had left my father, two brothers and his mother when my father was just 16 years old during the war.

Anyway, from this copy of Lionel Senior’s will I eventually found the name of a company of solicitors, who had connections with the Harris family, and I was informed that David Harris and Anthony Harris, sons of Lionel Harris Junior (a brother of William Harris) were still alive.

I drew many blanks. Then in October 2009, through the internet, we were contacted by Morlin Ellis, who has studied Spanish Art, and was reasearching the Harris Family for Nigel Glendinning who is writing a book about the Harris Family, as he knew Enriqeuta very well, and also the famous Tomas Harris (another brother of hers – artist, scholar, MI5 officer, goya specialist) .  She found our contact information from a family tree website, and made a hit, because our family tree contained Enriquetas names and other names I had found on the copy of Lionels will that my father had.  Morlin had grown up in North Wales, and recognised the Spanish names on our family tree, as being names connected to William Harris, Lionel Harris’s son. Another twist, is that Morlins parents had been great friends with William Harris until William died in 1982.

So in October 2009, Morlin informed my small family of four, how and where my grandfather lived since the war, since he left home!  Sophia Pari-Jones a close friend of William and also a friend of Morlin had met many of Williams relatives, and made friends with one in particular, that she had lost touch with – Yes the David Harris I spoke to yesterday.  So now she has his email address and phone number… after more than 40 years.

Since November 2009 I have developed two websites, this one and www.tomasharris.com.  And I have to say they are keeping me very busy. Anyway, through this website I have made many new contacts, many of them relatives. One contact (and many are newfound relatives)  has lead to another and eventually I received a phone number that was over two years old.  It had been received in Spain, by a ‘second cousin’ of my father,  written on a christmas card that had been sent by David Harris. Jose Buces, in Spain, who I made contact as a direct result of my website, has a sister, Piluca, who had visited with David many years ago. I thank Piluca very much, for sharing Davids phone number with me.

So, I tried that number yesterday, wondering if perhaps David had moved house, and the number would be out of date! Well, it was fine. I called, and we had a great chat… We learned about eachother – and discovered that he lives in East Sussex, which neighbours Surrey, where my home is.   So a search that started in the Sunday Times, went to London, Wales, and Spain, ends in East Sussex.

David has a wife called Sarah and 5 great children (Ruth, Naome, Joanne, Johnathon and Rebecca). So, now I have a few more names to add to my family tree ..   We exchanged great stories, and I even learned a little more about my grandfather William Harris. My father will be so pleased to learn that I finally made contact with a new FIRST cousin! I learned from David that my father has another living  cousin in LA called Anthony Harris (who has four grown up children) and  is the same age (or thereabouts) as my father, who is now 82. I look forward to making contact with Anthony too, some time very soon I hope.

What a result!!! The wonders of the internet – hey!

Around 1880, Tomas Harris’s father, Lionel Harris, joined his father William Harris in South America (Chile or Peru),  to work with him in the textile business.

Today the Courtauld Institute has a collection of Tomas Harris’s textiles that once belonged to his father. 

In 1891, at his fathers suggestion Lionel moved to Spain. He traded as a diamond merchant for a short while. In 1892 Lionel had two business addresses for his new company,  L.Harris & Co. , one in Madrid and one in London (35 Hatton Gardens) but he was no longer a diamond dealer. He had begun dealing with antiques, art and jewellery instead.

By 1896 Lionel Harris still had his business in Madrid, but moved his London business from 35 to 23 Hatton Gardens and opened another gallery at 127 Regent Street. Lionel had built up stock by extracting silver articles and other valuables from ecclesiastical and monastic sources in Spain. He exhibited his stock in a Spanish Art Exhibition at his New Regent Street Gallery, showing 16th/17th century embroideries, jewellery, rugs, and vases.

Lionels marriage to Enriqueta was registered in Spain in February 1898, and 9 or 10 months  later their first child, Conchita was born, in London.  Around 1900 Lionel moved his Madrid business to London because his family was growing quickly. His home was at 21 Lymington Road, Hampstead.

By 1901 Lionel’s Gallery was at 44  Conduit Street, off Bond Street in London. 

In 1902 Lionel had another business address at 32 St James’ Street.

In 1907 Lionel opened the Spanish Art Gallery at 50 Conduit Street with an exhibition of works by the Catalan artist Joseph Cusachs.

By 1911,  Lionel and Enriqueta had 7 children including Tomas Harris born in 1908. There were four boys and three girls.

In 1906 Lionel was selling to the newly founded Hispanic Society of America in New York, and between 1910 and 1920 he was selling sculptures, rare textiles, carpets and other works to the Victoria and Albert Museum, and dealing in early Spanish paintings and El Greco.

Between 1923 and 1926, Tomas Harris at the age of 15,  won a scholarship trained as an artist at the Slade School of Art.

Then Tomas spent a year in Rome at the British Academy.

He returned to the Slade School of Art after World War II to study Goya, and wrote a two volume book – Goya Prints and Lithographs

By the late 1920’s Tomas Harris, Lionel’s youngest son, had galleries of his own, first in Sackville Street, then at 29 Bruton Street.

Soon after (also in the late 1920’s)  three of Lionel’s four sons (Lionel junior, Maurice and Tomas of course) had joined Lionel Senior as directors of the Spanish Art Gallery (50 Conduit Street), Kent Road Gallery (44 Conduit Street), and Tomas Harris Ltd (29 Bruton Street).

Although Tomas had an amazing talent and continued to paint and exhibit his work throughout his life, the family’s dealing in works of art stimulated his interest in collecting too. He began by seeking out prints and drawings by the two Tiepolos, Dürer and Rembrandt, and then turned his attention to Goya., building up an unrivalled collection of the various editions of the Spanish artist’s major series of prints and lithographs, and studying rare states of the etchings.

In the 1930s Tomas organised two exhibitions of exceptional quality with major works by Velázquez, Ribera, Zurbarán and Goya and  had shown great ability to expand the Spanish Art Gallery business even further.

In 1931 Tomas Harris organised the Exhibition of Old Masters by Spanish Artists (Velázquez, Ribera, Zurbarán and Goya) at the Galleries of Tomas Harris Ltd, 29, Bruton Street, London W 1. 

Tomas Harris requested the honor of the presence of the Spanish Ambasador, who opened the exhibition on the 9th of June 1931 

And in 1938 Tomas organised the exhibition From Greco to Goya, Tomas Harris Ltd, The Spanish Art Gallery. 6, Chesterfield Gardens.

During the war, Tomas Harris lived at Chesterfield Gardens in the Mayfair area. Lionel Harris died in 1943, and Tomas who was uniquely suited, inherited Chesterfield Gardens and the Spanish Art Gallery.  During the war Tomas and Hilda (his wife) would give grand parties at Chesterfield Gardens, to their friends in high places in the art world and the secret service (MI5 and MI6/SIS) .

Also during the war in 1943 (Anthony Blunt’s words) Tomas  held a one-man show at the galleries of Reid and Lefèvre in King Street. After the war he gradually freed himself from his commitments as a dealer and spent more and more time in Spain, first at Malaga and then in Majorca where he designed and built a house at Camp de Mar. Here he was able to paint as much as he wanted, and he also experimented with making ceramics and stained glass and designing tapestries, three of which were woven at the royal tapestry factory at Madrid. His great versatility enabled him to master all the technical problems involved in these activities with astonishing ease.

In 1948 Tomas moved the Spanish Art Gallery to Garden Lodge, Logan Place, Kensington, W8, and Tomas owned that property and the house at Camp de Mar in Mallorca until he died in 1964. The Garden Lodge at Logan Place became,  many years after Tomas’s death, the home of the singer Freddy Mercury (Queen).

After the war Tomas returned to the Slade School of Art to study the engravings of Goya. His teacher was John Buckland Wright, a famous illustrator (from New Zealand). Tomas and his brother Maurice had actively tried to sell work from their father’s stock to major museums. It has been said that Tomás was ‘evidently trying to wind up his business’ then.   And it may be that the stimulus to create, fostered by his house in Majorca, and his Goya collecting and the preparation of his Goya print catalogue left little time for dealing and selling.

After Tomas’s death in 1964, Anthony Blunt organised an exhibition of Tomas’s art work at the Courtauld Institute (in 1975) and Antony’s introduction in the Exhibitions cataloge was a great summary of Tomas’s life (I will post the words sometime). After the exhibition, much of Tomas’s art was gifted to many  Museums around Spain and also some to Australia where Tomas also had friends in the art world. 

A tapestry called Cacti – Cartoon for a tapestry,  one of only three woven at the Royal Factory in Madrid was gifted to the National Gallery of Victoria ,  in Melbourne, Australia (Founded in 1861). It was gifted to the gallery, by his three very generous sisters, Conchita, Violeta, and Enriqueta Harris, most likely because Tomas had been very good friends of the Director there.

During Tomas’s life he had become very well connected with many Museum directors and curators in the art world of Europe, America and Australia.

• Tomas Harris life as an MI5 case officer for Garbo  another post <- Here
• Check out the Tomas Harris Art Gallery on this site <- Here
• Check out the Tomas Harris Exhibition Gallery of Catalogues <- Here

Tomas Harris was the son of my Great Grandfather Lionel Harris (Senior). See MANY photos of Tomas’s Art in my Tomas Harris Art Gallery.

Tomas Harris became a great artist. He painted, sculpted, engraved, created ceramics and stained glass art and windows, he was skilled in many techniques, and produced many fine works of art. He did not produce a lot of art during the War years, due to his work in MI5 with Garbo (see below), but it seems he made up for it in later years.  I have gathered many photographs of  Tomas Harris’s artwork which includes paintings, portraits (many self portraits), sculptures, glass work, engravings, drypoint engravings,  lithographs and lots more  and I have loaded them into my gallery of ‘Tomas Harris’s Art   on this website (click the link to view the gallery),  to which I am currently adding to EVERY day.

 I have received many images of Tomas’s  Artwork from new contacts that I found through this website, to all of whom I am extremley grateful.

Main contributers so far for my images that I have added to my Tomas Harris gallery  include :-

1. Jose Buces (second cousin to my father) – a newly discovered relative of mine who lives in Madrid
2. Andreu Jaume, an author, who is working on a biography of Tomas Harris, who’s family actually own El Studio in Mallorca, which used to be the home of Tomas Harris when he died (1964)  in a fatal car crash in Leuchmayor (Mallorca) which Hilda was thrown clear of the car and survived (click here for latest details about the accident).
3. David Moore – an new collector of Tomas’s Art, who led me on the right path to Jose and Andreu.

Jose, has also been a wonderful wealth of information and has supplied me with many photographs for my Harris Family Tree  and  Harris Family Photo Gallery. He knows so much about many members of my family tree      I have added them to my family tree. Jose has also provided me with additional new contacts which I must follow up with in the very near future.

[SinglePic not found] Last year Andreu Jaume organised an Exhibition in Andratx ‘Andratx segons Harris 2009′   – , Mallorca, with talks and discussions about Tomas’s Art, The exhibition  shows many of Tomas Harris’s works of art,  much of it supplied by Jose Buces and Andreu themselves.  The exhibition was for about 100 people, and was a success. Now there is talk of organising another one for the summer of 2010. I will post information of the exhibition when I know more…  Please subscribe to RSS (see RSS link in the header) to stay informed of new posts to this site.

My thanks go out to Jose and Andreu and David Moore for the all their  images, and heaps of  information that has flowed into my inbox in during the last couple of weeks, and they say ‘There is more to come’..   THANK Q….

A bit of background about Tomas Harris

It was in the late 1920s that Lionel’s youngest son, Tomás, decided to follow his father into art dealing. Tomas Harris had already owned  two art galleries of his own in London before joining his father Lionel who owned and directed the Spanish Art Gallery, in London.  Tomás won a scholarship at the Slade School of Art when he was only fifteen and was trained as an artist there from 1923 to 1926, spending a year subsequently at the British Academy in Rome. Although he had a prodigious talent and continued to paint and exhibit his work throughout his life, the family’s dealing in works of art stimulated his interest in collecting too. He began by seeking out prints and drawings by the two Tiepolos, Dürer and Rembrandt, and then turned his attention to Goya., building up an unrivalled collection of the various editions of the Spanish artist’s major series of prints and lithographs, and studying rare states of the etchings. In his will, Lionel made it plain that Tomás was uniquely suited to run the London gallery, and the exceptional quality of the two exhibitions he organised in the 1930s, with major works by Velázquez, Ribera, Zurbarán and Goya and little known works from private collections, showed that he had the ability to develop the business further.  Although Tomás and Maurice were actively trying to sell work from their father’s stock to major museums in the post-war period, it has been said that Tomás was ‘evidently trying to wind up his business’ then. And it may be that the stimulus to create, fostered by his house in Majorca, and his Goya collecting and the preparation of his Goya print catalogue left little time for dealing and selling.

NOTE : Tomás Harris’s Goya print collection, part of it now available for study in the British Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings thanks to the generosity of his widow and his sisters,and his two volume Goya Prints and Lithographs(Oxford, Bruno Cassirer, 1964) have made a major contribution to the understanding of Goya’s etching and lithographic techniques, and have greatly increased the general appreciation of that part of the Spanish artist’s work.  Art Historians are hard pressed to weigh the significance of his work as artist, collector and scholar, against the importance of his work for MI 5 during World War II (see other posts on this website) , since he was the individual responsible for much of the planning and control of the Double Agent known as Garbo, and invented himself many of the spurious reports sent to this agent (and thence to the German High Command) from Garbo’s imaginary network of spies, creating an ingenious web of deceptions, that succeeded in keeping the Germans in the dark about the intended D-Day landings. Tomás wrote his own account of his role as Garbo’s full-time case officer in a series of World War II double bluffs, now in the National Archives at Kew, available in print with the title Garbo, the spy who saved D-day(London, Public Record Office, 2000).  ** Another book written by Nigel West and Garbo – simply called Garbo, is also a great read.. It reads  like a fictional story about espionage in World War II, but its far from fictio – its a true story and of couse is about Tomas Harris in MI5 almost as much as  it is about Garbo himself.

update to this post made 17th January 2010 : I have made many new contacts through this website already, and as a result have successfully just made contact with David Harris, son of Lionel Harris Junior, grandson of my fathers grandfather, who I hav been trying to track down for quite a while now. David is my fathers cousin so I perservered!  Anyway, we made contact by phone – just today, and it turns he is living about 30 miles from my home… Its so great to be in touch!!!   Sophia Pari-Jones, and Piluca in Spain will be thrilled to learn I have made contact. The wonders of the internet never cease to amaze me… I am saying that a lot these days !!!

I am searching for David Harris (born in the late 1940′s) and to date have not had any luck other than only just receiving this photo which was taken in 1979. Do you know the young man on the right? The other people in the photograph from the left are: Paloma, little Borja and Jose Buces from Madrid, and Lionel, Enriqueta and David Harris from England.  If you know David Harris or have his contact details, PLEASE contact me or send David a link to this posted article, so that he can contact me – thank you. I know David Harris was born in Brighton, has a brother called Anthony who is about 40 years older  than David, and that Davids father is called Lionel Harris son of Lionel Harris senior (nmy great grandfather) who was the owner of the Spanish Art Gallery in London. Davids Great grandfather was called William Harris.

The above photograph was taken in Madrid in 1979, and shows Lionel and Enriqueta Harris (my fathers Uncle and Aunt), David Harris (Lionels son) with Jose Buces’s family who live in Madrid.

I have just received two more photos, the first is Jose Buces with David Harris and a pony taken in 1966,   and the second is of Anthony (Tony) Harris with his family at his babies christening- taken in 1973.  (click photos to Enlarge)   

Sophia Pari-Jones from Caernarfon, in North Wales, met David when he was about 10 years old when she came to London to visit with William Harris (Bill), who was visiting London to visit his three sisters, Enriqueta, Violetta, and Conchita Harris. William ran an Antiques Shop in Caernarfon in the 60′s called “The Regent Antiques company” . My parents only last month went to Caernarfon to meet Sophia to learn all they could about William Harris, my fathers father, as none of us, until now,  knew what had actually  happened to him after the war. We thought he may have died in the war but just this year discovered that he had lived in North Wales until he died in 1982. Sophia has lost touch with David many years ago, and would also like to make contact with him again.

So if you know David or if you are actually David and reading this posting, it would be really wonderful if you could please Contact ME, through the contact form on this website and I will definately RSVP immediately.

Thanks to Jose, Andreu and David (mentioned in my  “Last Post” ) I have now been able to add many more photographs to my photo galleries for the HARRIS FAMILY and the TOMAS HARRIS gallery  AND Update my family tree on the Rodriguez side which up until the last couple of days I knew hardly anything about, click this next link to view the family tree of 5 generations down from Manuel Maria Rodriguez.

New Photographs added to my galleries on this website, include a photo of the Medals given to Tomas Harris by King George VI  when he was named Officer of the Civil Order of the British Empire in October 1946. I have also just added new images of  his paintings, along with some fantastic family photos of Lionel and Enriqueta Harris with all 7 of their young children , and even a photo of my great, great grandparents William (born in 1828) and Eva Harris . All this now gives me a greater knowledge of where one half of me comes from.

This website has just enabled me to make contact with a new member of the Harris family who was up until today unknown to me.

Firstly, just a few days ago, I was contacted by David Moore,  who came across my website The Harris Family  while surfing the net for information about Tomas Harris (my grandfathers brother).  David had recently developed a keen interest in Tomas and his Art andhe  informed me that he went to an exhibition of Tomas’s Art in Majorca in August just this year (2009).  He informed me that the organiser was Andreu Jaume of Lumen Publishing and that Andreu knew an incredible amount about Tomas, that Andreu’s family live in the house that Tomas owned in Mallorca at Camp de Mar, and that Andreu is writing a biograhpy about Tomas Harris.  He also told me that there was a speaker at the exhibition whose name he did not remember, but that he knew that this speaker was related to Tomas (and is therefore also related to me) and that  he gave a very moving and emotional speech about Tomas and his life of Art. 

I decided I needed to spend time trying to locate both Andreu Jaume and this relative of Tomas who gave the speech. I searched the internet for hours without luck, contact details are impossible to find.. so i added some text to Tomas’s post on my site requesting that anyone who knew Andreu Jaume, that  they try to get him to contact me – so I waited.

David Moore also sent me some lovely pictures of some of Tomas’s Paintings which I have added to my photo gallery called Tomas Harris’s Art Gallery  on this website. David also sent me an interesting link for Tomas’s Art exhibition in Mallorca - Andratx segon Harris (pdf).

My waiting paid off , incredibly quickly. Just  today, Andreu Jaume contacted me through my website.  He introduced himself as the being the one I was looking for in my posting. I was delighted. Oh the wonders of the internet!  Andreu explained that he has been researching the life of Tomas Harris (and his family) for many years and is writing his biography . He says Tomas Harris was a fascinating character: an art dealer, a scholar, a collector, a spy…Andreu lives in Barcelona, but  was born in Majorca where his family now owns ‘El Estudio Harris’ in Camp de Mar, the wonderful house of Tomas Harris and his wife Hilda Harris.  Tomas lived there from 1948 until his death in 1964, but he had a house in London too: Garden Lodge in Logan Place (London), which many years later became the home of the singer Freddy Mercuri (Queen). Andreu tells me you can feel Tomas in the House in  Majorca and can feel his shadow wandering in the garden. Andreu’s  grandparents and his mother and his sister? were  very good friends with Tomas, so when he died in a car accident they decided to buy the estate. Andreu grew up with the legend of Tommy Harris by his side. Five years ago he decided to put together all the information he had been gathering and is writing a biography about a man quite unknown to the world, and to whom we all are indebted to, for his work during the Second World War. Eissenhower himself met Tomas to thank him personally for his brilliant job in MI5 (See posts below about Tomas and Garbo the double spy in World War II).  Andreu also told  me he had the honor to meet Enriqueta (my Great Aunt, Tomas’s sister, also my grandfathers sister) at her home in South Kensington. He says she was a very clever, cultivated and charming old lady whom he worshipped. Also that Tomas had a wonderful relationship with his three sisters (Enriqueta, Conchita and Violetta) but not so good with his brothers (Lionel, William and Maurice). He was not on speaking terms with Lionel, for instance.  

            Andreu  organised the exhibition of Tomas’ paintings which was held in Camp de Mar, this August (2009)  in Majorca and it was successful.  Andreu had  invited José Buces Aguado to speak at the exhibition. Andreu has given me Jose’s email address and we are in emailing daily. Jose is supplying me with a mountain of information and photographs for which I am very grateful. This information has enabled me to determine that Jose’s mother Pilar Aguado Rodriguez was a cousin of Tomas Harris and also a niece of  my great grandmother Enriqueta (Esther)  Rodriguez Leon.   This makes Jose my fathers second cousin.  I have just today (19/12/09) added plenty of NEW people and additional details to my ever growing family tree… Please click here to view ->  “Descendents of Leon“ which includes Jose Buces and my father- Ronald Harris . Andreu also mentioned that Tomas and Jose were very close, like brothers and Jose has the archive of Tomas and Enriqueta.  Jose knows everything about the family. Andreu informed me that he knew that Jose had  gone to meet William Harris, my grandfather, at his antique shop in North Wales in the seventies. 

Andreu also sent me some photos that I also have already added to Tomas’s art gallery  on this website.

Now best of all, is, that Andreu copied Jose Buces Aguado on his email to me. Jose being the man who Andreu had speaking at the exhibition of Tomas’s art in Majorca, the man who went to Wales to visit William Harris my grandfather in the seventies (who my father had  thought had died during the war until a few months ago), the man who knew Tomas Harris like a brother, and  also the man who is a son ‘of a spanish cousin of my grandfather’.  I have so many qeustions…

And to top it all…. as a direct result of Andreu copying Jose Buces on his email to me, I received my first email from Jose with lots of photos of members of the HARRIS family I never knew existed until today. I have just also added them to  Tomas’s art gallery … I cant wait to update the FAMILY tree — all in good time..

The story will continue… but for now… thats it..  Actually, thats not all it. Today is the 12december2009, and as a result of emailing with Jose, I have discovered that he has a sister who also knew my grandfather and that a best friend of his, David Davies, who lives in London, also knew my grandfather,  Enriqueta Harris, and also Tomas Harris. This world is getting smaller, and my family albums and family tree are getting bigger. My family tree today has 111 people..  Thank you Jose.. for all your information.. There is so much more out there to learn…

MR TOMAS HARRIS - SPANISH ART

In 1964, Sir Anthony Blunt wrote :-

Mr. Tomas Harris, who was killed in a road accident in Majorca on Monday(27th January 1964), was well known to evryone in the art world in London and Madrid. His father Lionel Harris, founded the Spanish Art Galleries more than half a century ago and although Tomas himself wanted to become a painter,  and won a scholarship to the Slade at the age of 16, he abandoned this career in order to join the firm and help his father.

Almost every important work of art to come from Spain to England during the half-century went through the hands of either the father or the son and one could be certain at any time of seeing in the galleries, masterpieces by El Greco or the other great Spanish painters, as well as carpets and other objects of art of the particlualr kinds in which Spain was so rich. Tomas had an uncanny instinct for discovering works of art in unexpected places, and one of his most important acquisitions a series of fifteenth-century  German panels which had once been in the National Gallery – were bought among the contents of an outhouse at a country sale. To his energy and acumen were added the most rigid integrity in all matters of business and the greatest generosity in questions of scholarship: his pictures and his great knowledge were available to the humblest student as well as to the expert or potential buyer.

During the war he ws attached to the War office (in MI5) where his special qualifications and his astonishing imagination enabled him to do work of the highest value to the Allied cause, which won him great commendation from those in high places who were in a position to judge it.

After the war instead of returning to the art trade he devoted himself to painting and held successful exhibitions in London, New York, Madrid and Barcelona. For his last 10 years he lived mainly in Majorca and devoted much time to the scholarship of art history. He lived long enough to witness the triumpant success of the exhibition of etchings by Goya which he organized at the British Museum, almost entirely from the resources of his own collection and to see the first rough copy of his complete catalogue of these etchings which is due to be published in the near future and which will revolutionize our idea of Goya’s acheivment as an engraver.

Lional Harris (Born 1862 – my Great Grandfather) – Married Enriqueta Rodriquez and they had 7 children

1.  Violetta Harris (1898-1989), Followed Tomas into MI5 as a Spanish Speaking officer serving in B1(a)
2. Maurice Harris (1900-?)
3. William Harris (31/5/1901-10/12/1982), Had 4 children (Gordon, David, Ronald (my Father) and David)
4. Lionel Harris (1903-?)
5. Conchita Harris (1904-?)
6. Tomas Harris (10/4/1908-27/1/1964), MI5 controller of double agent code named GARBO, named after the best actor in the world…
7. Enriqueta Harris (17/5/1910-22/4/2006), Worked in MOI (Ministry of Information), who sparked off an idea for the Harris-Garbo collaboration, of a non-existent senior source (J3) in the Spanish Section of the MOI..

I recently discovered my family tree. All I knew until last year was the name of my grandfather. Now I know so much more. Check out the Harris family tree  on Tribalpages website, and see my family connections  to Artists, Art Dealers, MI5, Garbo, Double Spies in World War II. OBE’s and books and Art Historians, and Antique Dealers, Diamond Dealers ..and the list goes on….

I have just been reading two books “Garb0″ and the “Spy who Saved D-day”.   The first written by MI5′s double agent spy, Garbo himself, and the second written by my fathers Uncle, Tomas Harris who was Garbo’s MI5 Case officer/Controller during World War II.  Together these books tell the true story of how they came to work together for Britain and began the beginning of the end of the War.

The first Book, the one called ‘GARBO’- was written mostly MI5’s double Agent called Juan Pujol (codenamed GARBO) along with an author called Nigel West, who found him in hiding in Venezuela, and encouraged him to come back safely back to Britain for the 40th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings, to meet old colleagues from MI5 and be introduced to the Duke of Edinburgh . The book tells the personal story of the most successful double agent EVER and his MI5 controller/case officer who directed, channelled, encouraged and sustained the agents remarkable talents.

This case officer was Tomas Harris – my Great Uncle.

The second book I am reading is called ‘ The Spy who saved D-Day – (view large chunks of this book online here) ’ and was mostly written by Tomas Harris.

Both books describe  how GARBO and Tomas came to work together at MI5, and their three years of scheming and planning together during World War II. They tell a detailed story of their efforts which were supported by various agencies of British intelligence and of how they contributed to a huge reduction of casualties among tens of thousands of allied servicemen who landed in Normandy in France on D-Day to fight to hold the Normandy Beachheads. Many, many more would have perished had their plan failed. They devised a plan to build a network (The GARBO Network) which was eventually composed of 27 imaginary characters, to mislead the Germans into expecting the landings to occur in Calais and maintain all their forces there, instead of moving them to Normandy. Their other activities in MI5 also embraced campaigns in North Africa and the V-weapon offensives.

On this site are other posts that I have written, in Note form, which are facts from the two books and contain details about some individuals mentioned in the two book, Mostly Garbo and Thomas Harris. These posts contain notes which I want to share with the rest of my immediate family and are relevant to expanding their knowledge about our Harris family which we knew absolutely nothing about until about a year ago.

—————— LINKS —————–

(D-Day 6/6/1944)  - (view Link)

Marks the start of Europe invasion in Normandy, France – during World War II

MI5 (view Link)

was responsible for counter-espionage intelligence within the UK

MI6/SIS (view Link)

Secret Intelligence service for counter-espionage intelligence in foreign countries.

Garbo (view Post)

Spanish Agent Worked as a Double Spy for MI5 in Britain, when the Germans were so convinced he was a German spy, that they awarded him the Iron Cross

Tomas Harris (view Post)

MI5 Case Officer/Controller who worked with GARBO to create the GARBO network of 27 imaginary spies who mislead the Germans into thinking the invasion would occur in Calais instead of on the Normandy beachheads.

Anthony Blunt (view Post)

 at MI5 B1(b)- An Art historian workedduring the war, who was knighted then suspected of being a Soviet spy Agent which resulted in his knighthood being annulled.

TOMAS HARRIS (1908 – 1964)

1908 – Tomas Born to my great Grand Parents Lionel and Enriqueta (Rodriquez) Harris

1923 – at 15 years old, Tomas won the Trevelyan-Goodall scholarship to the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art at the London University. Then went on to Rome to study painting and sculpture at the British Academy there. Then back in London he owned his own tiny gallery.

1930 – First Tomas owned his own tiny gallery. Lionel Harris, Tomas’s father was the director and owner of the splendid Spanish Art Gallery in Mayfair (and another in Madrid),  founded in the turn of the century to show the finest Spanish, Italian and Flemish classical art. Tomas joined his father just before his retirement and did very well.  Tomas worked with ceramics, stained glass, tapestry, and engraving. Tomas inherited his fathers home, 6 chesterfield Gardens, which became a meeting place for MI5’s and SIS’s (MI6) few Bohemian employees. Tomas Harris  had an impressive art Collection by Velazquez, Goya and Rubens. After his fathers retirement as director,  Tomas was soon recognised as one of the most clever and respected art dealers, known worldwide for his exquisite taste and his infallible eye.

1931 – Tomas Harris and Hilda Webb were married, between July and September, a document shows they were married in 1931, in Marylebone, London, and their marriage certificate reference number is Vol 1 a/ 1648..

1940 – Tomas was posted to the SOE’s (Sabotage Organization created in July following the fall of France to the Germans) first Special Training School, which had been established at Brickendonbury Hall, in a large country house in Hertford. Tomas and his wife Hilde, stayed there for 6 months and he was then ‘snapped up by MI5’ where he was to conceive and guide one of the most creative intelligence operations of all time – it became known as ‘The Garbo Case’.

1941-Late in 1941 – Head of B1(g) Brooman-White was transferred to SIS (MI6) to run Section V’s unit known as V(d). Tomas Harris was appointed to succeed him. Expansion had taken place and workload was escalating daily. Three secretaries were not enough. Sarah Bishop (fluent in Spanish) who worked in MI5’s French section, was recruited by Tomas and after a brief spell of learning about the role of the security service, Sarah joined Tomas in B1(g).

It was at this time that the pieces of the jigsaw were put together. It now seemed likely to MI5 that the man who had visited the British embassy in Madrid and later in Lisbon to offer his services to the Allied cause, was the same man the Germans had code named ARABEL (later to be known as GARBO) . It was obvious to MI5 that ARABEL’s information provided to the Germans was fictitious, as his letters written in invisible ink to the Germans contained many errors – such as litres of wine and beer, moving south because of the hot summers in London!, errors in accounts (pre-decimal) always submitted in shillings instead of £ S . – but not so obvious to the Germans. ARABEL also came uncomfortably close to the truth in many ways too. So the question for MI5 was – ‘Is he genuine or a plant by the Germans, should we leave him well alone?’ After many debates and deliberations between MI5 and SIS, it was eventually agreed that the benefits of taking him on outweighed the risks.

1942/Jan – Britain agree to represent the Juan Pujol.

THE WAR YEARS -  Tomas and Garbo worked together during the war. Books have been written by both about their war efforts.. I have written more/other notes on Garbo and Tomas in the Garbo Post.  Please click this link to jump directly to 1942 in the Garbo Post

1944/September – Tommy and Garbo invented an excuse to avoid having Garbo give co-ordinates of the ‘landings’ of the V2’s, The first V2 bomb, which landed in Chiswick on the 8th September 1944 killing 3 people. As Garbo was expected by the Germans to give co-ordinates of the bomb sites, Garbo ‘got himself arrested by the police’ while supposedly going to the bomb site to determine the co-ordinates. Because of this, the Germans directed Garbo to suspend all operations until instructed otherwise. This was exactly what Garbo and Tomas had hoped for. They both took vacations, the first that either had taken since they started working together over two years before. Tommy and Hilde went to stay at Sarah Bishops parents at Chisbury in Wiltshire, where Tomas picked up his paintbrush and painted farm animals, and Garbo went on a motor tour of the British Isles.

During the 2nd World War Years – Tommy and his wife were lavish entertainers and during the war and moved from Chesterfield Gardens to a larger property, Garden House in Logan Place. He hardly did any painting during the war years.. Garbo described Tommy in his book as “sensible, capable, always impeccably dressed , smoked like a chimney, adored his wife, always cheerful, had an attractive smile, enjoyed good food and wine, had an impressive art collection by Velazquez, Goya and Rubens. He said in Tommy’s early days he was influenced by El Greco school, but later by Goya.

1944/June – When the V2’s fell, Tommy left Chesterfield Gardens and took temporary refuge at the Bull, at Gerrards Cross, NW London.

>1945 : Tomas received an O.B.E for his war efforts as offcer in MI5, for his imagination and work with Garbo.  After years of frenzied activity in MI5,  Harris sold his gallery and designed and built a house and art studio in Camp de Mar, in Andratx, in Mallorca, and settled there, where he devoted himself to his own art, mastering almost all techniques: oil, engraving, lithography, sculpture, stained glass and tapestries. His main inspiration was the island landscape, particularly that of Andratx, which he loved.

1964 – Tomas died (and there was an inquest) in Mallorca, crashed his new car .  His wife Hilde was also in the car and was thrown clear and survived. ( Tomas and Hilde were on their way from Camp de Mar to purchase plane tickents to fly to Madrid the following week, they had had lunch in Palma with Robert Graves (a famous English Author)  and then drove on towards Felanitx (a little town in Mallorca) to see a man who was going to bake more of  Tomas’s ceramics in his kiln. On their way there, in Leuchmayor,  their new  Citroen DS (5,000 miles on the clock) crashed, it was a fatal car accident. Hilda was thrown clear of the car and survived, but Tomas Harris died (1964).  An inquest was held – see Anthony Blunts newspaper article about this ) Hilda died about four years later. My Grandfather (William Harris, Tomas’s Brother) was specifically named in Tomas’s will, which also mentions Enriqueta (Tomas’s sister) along with his wife’s three sisters. And when Enriqueta’s Obituary was published in the Sunday Times one day in 2006, my father recognised the name and immediately checked it against the copy of Tomas’s Will that he had a copy of. My father then realised that he had made an amazing connection with his own fathers rather large family of MI5 employees, art dealers, artists and antique dealers with whom he had no contact at all since he was a young boy.

2009 Aug –  Andratx segon Harris - Art Exhibition held in August 2009,  in Andratx, Mallorca, the organizer of the exhibition was *Andreu Jaume of Lumen Publishing in Barcelona, He knows an incredible amount about Tomas Harris, and perhaps a book is on the cards. Andreu Jaume owns the house of Tomas Harris. in Andratx, Camp de Mar,  and a famous singer Ana Torrojo (lead singer of the trio Mecano, which has probably been the most popular band from Spain) now owns the painters art studio.

*  If anyone has contact details for Andreu Jaume please let me know – I would love to get in touch with him.. — LATEST NEWS : Andreu has made contact with me through this website – the wonders of the internet!!

* I have been contacted by David Moore through this website who has several paintings by Tomas Harris, and went to the ‘Adnratx segon Harris’ exhibition in Mallorca this year,  gave me the names of two organisers and informed me that Andreu Jaume now ownes the house Tomas owned. Also that during the exhibition a nephew of Tomas (from his wife’s side) gave a very moving tribute to Tomas Harris. I would very much appreciate being notified if anyone knows how I can possibly contact any members of the Hild’s family (sisters – Ella Powell, Madge Tribe, Ivy Web)

—————— LINKS —————–

(D-Day 6/6/1944) - (view Link)

This date marks the start of Europe invasion in Normandy, France – during World War II

MI5 (view Link)

was responsible for counter-espionage intelligence within the UK

MI6/SIS (view Link)

Secret Intelligence service for counter-espionage intelligence in foreign countries.

Garbo (view Post)

Spanish Agent, a double Agent for Britain MI5, was awarded the Iron Cross by the Germans

Anthony Blunt (view Post)

MI5 Agent,  was An Art historian before and after the war, he was knighted then when suspected of being a Soviet spy Agent his knighthood was annulled.