| Cecil Harvey | |
| Office: | Member of Down District Council |
| Constituency: | Down Area A |
| Term Start: | 20 May 1981 |
| Term End: | 15 May 1985 |
| Predecessor: | William Finlay |
| Successor: | District abolished |
| Office1: | Member of the Constitutional Convention for South Down |
| Term Start1: | 1975 |
| Term End1: | 1976 |
| Office2: | Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for South Down |
| Term Start2: | 1973 |
| Term End2: | 1974 |
| Birth Place: | Crossgar, County Down, Northern Ireland |
| Death Date: | 1985 |
| Party: | DUP (from 1983) United Ulster Unionist Party (1975 - 1983) |
| Otherparty: | Vanguard (1973 - 1975) Ulster Unionist (before 1973) |
Cecil Harvey (died 1985[1]) was a Northern Irish unionist politician and Church elder.
Harvey was a founding elder of Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, in 1951. The following year, he suggested the congregation's move from Crossgar to Whiteabbey.[2] He was also active in the Orange Order[3] and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), and was elected as a councillor.[4] He became disillusioned with the UUP as it came to support the idea of power-sharing, and joined the rival Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party. Under this banner, he was elected from South Down to the Northern Ireland Assembly, 1973, where he was the party's chief whip,[5] then the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention.[6]
In 1974, Harvey argued for the Orange Order to pay compensation to loyalists interned around the Ulster Workers' Council strike.[3] By 1975, Harvey was calling for the Order to found an entirely new united unionist party; this was moved by Robert Overend but was defeated.[7] Undeterred, Harvey became a founder member of the United Ulster Unionist Party, becoming the party chairman,[8] and remaining loyal until its collapse in 1984. He then joined the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), for which he stood unsuccessfully in South Down at the 1983 general election.[9]
Cecil's son, Harry, later became a DUP politician.[10]