Background
From a clerical family (Samuel Harland, general secretary of the Commonwealth and Continental Church Society, was his father), Harland was educated at The Dragon School in Oxford and Haileybury.
From a clerical family (Samuel Harland, general secretary of the Commonwealth and Continental Church Society, was his father), Harland was educated at The Dragon School in Oxford and Haileybury.
After two years as a schoolmaster at Sunningdale School he studied for the priesthood at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and began his ministry as a curate in Melton Mowbray in 1960.
He then went to university at Peterhouse College, Cambridge, taking a law degree. He was subsequently Vicar of three parishes in the diocese of Sheffield - Oughtibridge (1963-1972), Street Cuthbert at Fir Vale and Brightside (1972-1975), then Rotherham (1975-1979). From 1979 to 1982 he served as Archdeacon of Doncaster (working closely with the bishop Stewart Cross) and chairman of that diocese"s Youth Committee, arranging a youth pilgrimage to Iona.
He was elevated to the Episcopate as Bishop Suffragan of Lancaster in 1985, again under Cross (appointed Bishop of Blackburn from 1982).
Translated to Carlisle four years later and entering the House of Lords in 1996 (where he was part of the pro-fox hunting Middle Way Group), he retired in 2000 to live in Gargrave (near Skipton, North Yorkshire). In retirement he continued working as an Assistant Bishop within the Diocese of Bradford and in chaplaincy work in the Diocese of Europe, alongside being an active trustee of the Settle and Carlisle Railway Trust, until his death late in December 2008.
His memorial service, conducted by the Dean of Carlisle took place on 8 February 2009 in Carlisle Cathedral.