Walter Burton Harris

Walter Burton Harris (29 August 1866 – 4 April 1933) was a journalist, writer, traveller and socialite who achieved fame for his writings on Morocco, where he worked for many years as special correspondent for The Times. He settled in the country at the age of 19, eventually building himself a fine villa in Tangier where he lived for much of his life. His linguistic skills and physical appearance enabled him to pose successfully as a native Moroccan, travelling to parts of the country regarded as off-limits to foreigners. He wrote a number of well-regarded books and articles on his travels in Morocco and other countries in the Near and Far East. Harris also played a significant, though not always constructive, role in the European diplomatic intrigues that affected Morocco around the turn of the 20th century. Early career and travels Harris was born in London as the second son of a prosperous shipping and insurance broker, Frederick W. Harris. His siblings included Sir Austin Edward Harris, who became a noted banker, Frederick Leverton Harris, a British Member of Parliament, and pianist and composer Clement Harris, who was killed in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. He was educated at Harrow School and (briefly) at Cambridge University and had already managed to travel around the world by the age of 18. In 1887 he accompanied a British diplomatic mission to Morocco and settled in Tangier at the age of 19. He was briefly married to Lady Mary Savile, the daughter of the 4th Earl of Mexborough from 1898 to 1906, but the marriage was annulled on the grounds of non-consummation. He lived an openly homosexual, tending towards paedophilic, lifestyle thereafter, though this was little hindrance in the social milieu of Tangier at the time. He was independently wealthy, living off a personal allowance and a stipend from The Times, and was an ambitious social climber who associated with royalty and high-ranking politicians.