Edward Ellis Morris

Edward Ellis Morris (25 December 1843 – 2 January 1902) was an educationist and miscellaneous writer.

Morris was born at Madras, India, fourteenth child of John C. Morris, accountant-general of the British East India Company at Madras, and his wife Rosanna Curtis. Morris was educated at Rugby School and Lincoln College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. with final honours in classics, law and modern history in 1866. He was an assistant master at St Peter's College, Radley, and at Haileybury, and in 1871 became headmaster of the Bedfordshire middle class public school. From 1875 to 1883 he was headmaster of the Melbourne Church of England grammar school which made steady progress under his care. During his period he introduced the prefect system, and established the first school library and the first school journal in Melbourne. Morris resigned from the school in March 1882 after financial difficulties hit the school; pupil numbers were in decline — due in part to Morris's disciplinary measures.

In 1883 Morris was elected to the chair of English, French and German languages and literature at the University of Melbourne. He took a prominent part in the management of the university, and for several years was president of the professorial board. He had also many outside interests and it was at his suggestion that a branch of the charity organization society, of which he was the first president, was founded in Melbourne. The Melbourne Shakespeare Society, for many years the most flourishing literary society in Victoria, was also founded on his suggestion, and he took the greatest interest in the Melbourne public library of which he was appointed a trustee in 1879. He became vice-president of the trustees in 1896. His "Memoirs of George Higinbotham" was published in 1895, and in 1898 appeared his most important work, his painstaking and valuable "Austral English A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages". This obtained for him the Litt. D. degree of the university of Melbourne. He died while on a visit to Europe on 2 January 1902.

Morris married in 1879 the eldest daughter of George Higinbotham, who died in 1896. He was survived by a son and three daughters. Morris also wrote two little volumes for the "Epochs of Modern History" series, "The Age of Anne" (1877), and "The Early Hanovarians" (1886). He edited Cassell's "Picturesque Australasia" (4 vols, 1887-9) and a few of his lectures were also published separately. He had completed before his death a work on "Cook and his Companions" which has not been published.

References

*Dictionary of Australian Biography|First=Edward Ellis|Last=Morris|Link= [http://gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/0-dict-biogMa-Mo.html#morris1 Dictionary of Australian Biography Ma-Mo ] at gutenberg.net.au
*Olive Wykes, ' [http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A050338b.htm Morris, Edward Ellis (1843 - 1902)] ', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5, MUP, 1974, pp 293-294.