Harrison Ford, PI

For this private detective, life was more turf wars than Star Wars

My eye was drawn to his name: the Star Wars actor's namesake was an early 20th century private detective, plying his trade in the press between 1908 and 1913. But researching the life of the Edwardian Harrison Ford revealed a man with a taste for fake names, and a bit of a poor reputation.

Betting men, from Harper’s Weekly

The first clue that Harrison Ford might not have been a completely honest man was the fact that his office address in his detective ads was 213 Piccadilly. This sounded good: a prime, central London location. However, at this time, it was the address of the original Lyons' café. Although there may well have been offices above the café, as I research further, I suspected that Ford may well have used the café as a base for this part of his business interests.

A recreation of a Lyon’s Corner House café at the old Museum of London building (image by Kim Traynor, used under creative commons)

Another clue that he was a man not always open about his identity was that he was not really called Harrison Ford. In fact, he gave his name as Alfred Harrison Ford, and was known as this professionally into the 1920s - but his real name was William Ernest Irving.

Born in Abingdon in 1881, William was the son of Charles Frederick Irving, a customs and excise officer and civil servant. William was also half-Argentinian; although his father was from Surrey, his mother, Olivia Dolores Olguin, was from Rosario in Argentina. The family moved around the UK, including a spell living in Scotland, but then settled in London. William and his brothers were educated, and their initial jobs were as clerks. William, at 20, was working as a clerk at the Royal Insurance Company, but he was never going to be happy working for other people, at the bottom of the job ladder.

In 1906, he married Constance Helena Gilbert at Kensington, and the couple moved into a mansion flat in central London. Here, William decided to take on a second middle name - the aristocratic sounding Trelawney - and described himself in the 1911 census as independent - in other words, having enough money not to work. But he WAS working - he had to, to maintain his wife and their four children. He formed a company - the National Turf Protection Society - and claimed to be its secretary.

The role of society secretary and that of private detective - he advertised separately in each role, at the same time - had similarities. The National Turf Protection Society seemed to basically be Irving (as Alfred Harrison Ford) making a list of who owed money, and chasing them for it. Similarly, as a private detective, he chased debts, as well as engaging in shadowing activities.

'Alfred Harrison Ford' filed for bankruptcy in February 1922, at which point one newspaper asked, “Who IS Harrison Ford?” However, although he had stopped advertising his private detective services some time earlier, he continued to promote himself as secretary of the National Turf Protection Society, operating from his home at 23 Pembridge Square in Bayswater. It was there that he died on 4 December 1978, just two years short of his centenary.