Austen Harrison
Austen St. Barbe Harrison (1891–1976) was a British-born architect. While British, Harrison spent most of his career overseas, and mainly in the Middle East. His works include the British Representative's Residence, Amman, the High Commissioner's Residence, Jerusalem, the Rockefeller Museum, Jerusalem, 1935, and Nuffield College, Oxford. Biography Early life and WWI Harrison was born in Kent in 1891. One of his ancestors was the renowned novelist Jane Austen after whom he was named. His upper-middle-class family pushed him to pursue a career in the military. After attending Sandhurst, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the British Army and found himself in the trenches at the 1917 Battle of Passchendaele, near Ypres in Flanders, Belgium, during the Great War. The horror of what he saw convinced him that he wanted no part of either the military nor the war. When he informed his commanding officer that he intended to resign from the service and return to England, the officer told him that he could be court-martialled for refusing orders and desertion. Undeterred, Harrison replied, "So be it." Harrison's decision created a problem for the officer who apparently knew the young lieutenant's family and did not wish to suffer the indignity