Dr. Tillson Lever Harrison
1881 – 1947
Most people in OxfordCounty are familiar with E.D. Tillson, the first mayor of Tillsonburg and builder of Annandale National Historic Site, but his adventurous grandson remains virtually unknown. Dr. Tillson Lever Harrison was born in 1881, into a prominent Tillsonburg family. According to some, his life could be the model for a Hollywood blockbuster series.
In his youth, he was a troublemaker, and ran off to join the 22nd Oxford Rifles militia at the age of 14. A few years later, he served with the Americans in the Phillipines, the first of 8 armies he would serve with. Harrison learned of his grandfather’s death and subsequent inheritance upon his return to Tillsonburg. He used his riches, good looks, manners and education to his advantage and set off to roam the world.
Graduating from The University of Toronto medical school, he became a doctor who would bring improved medical care to women around the world. He did his post graduate work in obstetrics and gynecology in London, England, until World War One erupted and he ended up fighting with Belgian and French forces. Over the years, he learned many languages, and lived as an adventurer and opportunist. He was also a serial bigamist, with no less than four wives. He fathered one daughter, Rosalind, who was born in 1909.
As a doctor, he helped a wide variety of people under very difficult circumstances. He journeyed around the world, helping the local Cree residents where he lived with his first wife in Alberta, serving with the Canadian Army in France as a physician to the Chinese Labour Corps, running a radiograph facility and hospital in the Middle East, masquerading as a Catholic to join the Free State Army in Ireland and tending to sick Welsh coal miners. He also practiced in a dozen Caribbean and Latin American locales and then again felt the call of China, serving as a physician to a guerrilla army fighting the Japanese in the late 1930’s.
During World War Two, he served as a Ship’s Dr, ferrying food and medical supplies to allied forces around the Indian Ocean. After the war, one of his most important missions was working for the United Nations Relief and Reconstruction Administration Services. He and his colleagues brought much-needed supplies, food and medicine, as well as comfort, to many villagers whose lives and land were in ruins, having been repeatedly ravaged mainly by Japanese troops trying to stop the spread of Communism. This saved millions of lives in China, but was cut short when Japanese troops stole his locomotive and supplies. He and his men survived for a short time eating donkey meat and boiled ditch water, before he passed away in his sleep on January 10, 1947 from exhaustion and malnutrition.
Decades after Harrison’s death, George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg contacted his daughter, Rosalind to share the story of her father’s life. She claims this information inspired the development of the Indiana Jones saga, although it was not credited.
In China, Harrison’s fame as a hero and humanitarian continues today, but here in Canada, despite a New York Times obituary, memorial articles throughout the world and even a letter from then-prime minister, Brian Mulroney, to the Chinese ambassador on the centenary of Harrison’s birth, Dr. Tillson Harrison remains relatively unknown. Perhaps someday his true measure will be realized in his home country, flaws and all.