Historicaleigh - Parlez Vous

July 6, 2017 by Carole Mulroney

George Godfrey Harrap was born on 18 January 1868 in Islington and at the age of 14 had developed a keen love of reading. In 1911 he and his family were living at a house called Seacole in Old Leigh Road. Father and 2 sons were in the publishing and printing business.

Have you picked up on the name yet - well cast your mind back to your school days and learning French - did you have a Harrap's French Dictionary?

In 1901 Harrap started his own publishing business, concentrating at first on the production of modern language and other textbooks. The publication that year of Heath's Practical French Grammar gave a new direction to the teaching of French in Britain, and a general success in this field led to Harrap's decision to produce Harrap's Standard French Dictionary. The firm that subsequently bore his name, George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd, came formally into being in 1905. So in the formative years of the Company George was based in Leigh.