J. H. Morgan

Brigadier-General John Hartman Morgan (March 20, 1876 – 8 April 1955), K.C., was a British general and lawyer.

Morgan was a graduate of Balliol College and the University of Berlin (1897-1905). He then went on to become part of the literary staff at the Daily Chronicle (1901-1903) and leader-writer at the Manchester Guardian (1904-1905) and a Liberal candidate for Parliament in 1910. He was an assistant adjutant general with the military section of the British delegation to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and the British member on the Prisoners of War Commission in 1919.

Morgan was also at the Interallied Military Commission of Control as Deputy Adjutant-General in Berlin from 1919 to 1923. Here he witnessed German attempts to build up their army contrary to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and he published his findings in October 1924 in the Quarterly Review, titled 'The disarmament of Germany and after'. After World War II he elaborated on this theme in his books "Assize of Arms", originally intended to be volume one of two but Morgan only got round to publishing one volume.

Morgan was then a legal editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica (14th edition) and a contributor to The Times. Then a reader in constitutional law to the Inns of Court (1926-1936), Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of London, Rhodes Lecturer at London (1927-1932), counsel to the India Defence League (1933-1934), counsel to the Indian Chamber of Princes (1934-1937), counsel to the Indian State of Gwalior and Tagore Professor at Calcutta in 1939.

Morgan was also a legal adviser to the American War Crimes Commission at Nuremberg from 1947 to 1949 where he advised the prosecution in the trial of William Joyce which led to Joyce's hanging for treason in 1946.

It was Morgan who coined the phrase: "Irish history is a thing for Irishmen to forget and for Englishmen to remember"—later used without acknowledgement by Horace Plunkett. [J. H. Morgan, "John, Viscount Morley. An Appreciation and Some Reminiscences" (London: John Murray, 1925), p. 90.]

Notes

Books

*J. H. Morgan, "John, Viscount Morley. An Appreciation and Some Reminiscences" (1924; second edition: 1925).
*J. H. Morgan, "Assize of Arms: The Disarmament of Germany and her Rearmament (1919-1939)" (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946).