Edward Harford

Edward Harford (21 March 1838 – 11 January 1898) was a British trade unionist.

Born in Bristol, Harford grew up in Tiverton in Devon, where he completed five years of an apprenticeship in a confectionery factory. He moved to Hatherleigh to take a position in the Devon County Constabulary, where he married. He then became a porter with the Bristol and Exeter Railway.

This new career proved a success, and Harford found work at a higher grade with the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, based in Grimsby. He also joined the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS), which he represented at the 1871 Trades Union Congress (TUC), and in 1873 he became a full-time organiser for the union, based in Sheffield. However, the pay proved insufficient to support his family, now including five children, and he left to work in an iron foundry. He spent the next few months as the TUC representative to the American Federation of Labour, but died on the return voyage, in January 1898, on board the SS Saint Paul.