Brian Morris, Baron Morris of Castle Morris

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Brian Robert Morris, Baron Morris of Castle Morris, (4 December 1930 – 30 April 2001), was a British poet, critic and professor of literature.[1] He became the Labour Party's deputy chief whip and education spokesman in the House of Lords.[2]

Born and educated in

Old and Middle English while doing his doctorate on John Cleveland, the Cavalier poet. In 1955, he married Sandra James, and they had two children.[3]

His major promotion came in 1971 when he began his decade as professor of English literature at

National Portrait Gallery. These skills were fully tested when, in 1980, he was named principal of what was then St David's University College, the smallest and most endangered part of the University of Wales. Retaining a home in Derbyshire, he saw his Lampeter appointment as an opportunity to get back in touch with his roots.[4]

In addition to literary criticism such as his study of Harri Webb (1993) for the University of Wales Press in the "Writers of Wales" series,[5] his publications included several poetry collections, including Tide-Race (1976), Dear Tokens (1987) and The Waters of Comfort (1998). His collected poems were published in the year of his death by Rare Books & Berry Ltd.[6]

In 1990, Morris was made a

St David's and actually spelt Castlemorris
. He justified his appointment to the unelected body by pointing out "Manchester United football team isn't chosen by popular vote".

A brilliant and respected speech writer, his speeches in the house were sprinkled with quotations from

Shakespeare, Goldsmith, Juvenal and Alexander Pope. When Morris reminded the Tories of the saying "Whom God wishes to destroy, he first sends mad," he used the original Latin.[1]

Morris never forgot his Welsh roots, and was a nationalist sympathiser. Whilst he never was a fluent speaker of the Welsh language, he fought for its legal status in the nation.[3]

Later in his political career, Morris was marginalised within the Labour Party for being too '

Bernard Donoughue, commented in his diary that Morris was among the academics who "have never operated on the national stage and are desperately keen to get there".[7]

Morris died aged 70 from

leukaemia
in 2001.

References

  1. ^
    ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 10 May 2017.
  2. ^ "Lord Morris of Castle Morris". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 10 May 2017.
  3. ^ a b "Lord Morris of Castle Morris". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 May 2023.
  4. ^ "Morris Papers". University of Sheffield. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
  5. ISBN 978-0-7083-1225-4
    .
  6. ^ "Collected Poems of Brian Morris, The". gwales.com. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
  7. ISBN 978-0-85772-861-6
    .

External links
Academic offices
Preceded by
Brinley Rees
Principal of St David's University College

1980–1992 		Succeeded by
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