Morris Motors

Morris Motors Limited was a British privately owned motor vehicle manufacturing company formed in 1919 to take over the assets of William Morris's WRM Motors Limited and continue production of the same vehicles. By 1926 its production represented 42 per cent of British car manufacture—a remarkable expansion rate attributed to William Morris's practice of buying in major as well as minor components and assembling them in his own factory. Largely self-financed through his enormous profits, Morris did borrow some money from the public in 1926, and later shared some of Morris Motors' ownership with the public in 1936. The new capital was then used by Morris Motors to buy many of his other privately held businesses.

Though it merged^{[note 1]} into larger organisations in 1952, the Morris name remained in use until 1984, when British Leyland's Austin Rover Group decided to concentrate on the more popular Austin brand as well as expanding the more upmarket Rover brand.

Until 2014, Morris Oxford vehicles (based on the 1954-59 Oxford) were manufactured with periodic enhancements in India by Hindustan Motors, and sold well there, even being imported to Britain in small numbers during the 1990s.

Part of Morris's manufacturing complex at Cowley, Oxford is now

The Morris Commercial JE, an electric van with a 1940s design, was unveiled in November 2019 ahead of a planned launch in 2021 under the re-launched Morris Commercial marque, well over 30 years after the Morris brand had disappeared.^[1]

History

Early history

WRM Motors Ltd began in 1912 when bicycle manufacturer William Morris moved on from the sale, hire, and repair of cars to car manufacturing. He planned a new light car assembled from bought-in components. In this way he was able to retain ownership by keeping within the bounds of his own capital resources.

A factory was opened in 1913 at former

In spite of the outbreak of the First World War the orders were maintained and, from mid-1915 a new larger car, the 2-seat and 4-seat Morris Cowley was introduced.

Inter-war years

After the war the Continental engine was no longer available so Morris arranged for Hotchkiss of France to make a near copy in their Coventry factory. This was used to power new versions of the basic Cowley and more up-market Morris Oxford cars.

With a reputation for producing high-quality cars and a policy of cutting prices, Morris's business continued to grow and increase its share of the British market overtaking Ford to become in 1924 the UK's biggest car manufacturer, holding a 51% share of the home market and remaining enormously profitable.

Possessed of a very large cash income Morris had a policy of personally buying up suppliers' businesses. For example, in 1923 he bought Hotchkiss's Coventry business which later became Morris Engines branch. He also brought in F G Woollard which became Morris Commercial Cars to lead the re-organization of their engine production from batch to flow, thus increasing output from less than 300 units per week to 1200. By 1924 the factory was making 2000 units a week with only a small increase in work space and labour force.^[3]

Having admired Budd's all-steel bodies Morris founded

The small car market was entered in 1928 with the

In 1932 W R Morris appointed Lord Managing Director of Morris Motors Limited and Lord swept through the Morris works, updating the production methods, introducing a proper moving assembly line and creating Europe's largest integrated car plant.[6] But Morris and Lord fell out, and after 15 years Lord left in 1936—threatening to "take Cowley apart brick by brick".^[7] Lord moved to Austin and they were to meet again in BMC—Morris, as Lord Nuffield, its first chairman. Lord succeeded him.

As of 1 July 1935 Morris Motors acquired from W R Morris, now Lord Nuffield, in exchange for a further issue of ordinary shares to him, the car manufacturing businesses of Wolseley Motors Limited and The MG Car Company Limited. A separate private company, Wolseley Aero Engines Limited, was then formed to continue the development of his aviation interests.^[8] In 1936 Lord Nuffield sold Morris Commercial Cars Limited, his commercial vehicle enterprise, to Morris Motors.^[9]

In 1938 William Morris, Baron Nuffield was raised to Viscount Nuffield. The same year he transferred his newly acquired

Visiting London in 1938 during a polio epidemic Lord Nuffield saw a Both Iron Lung in use. He commissioned an improved design which could be produced using the techniques of car assembly and arranged production of approximately 1700 machines at the Cowley works, which he donated to hospitals throughout all parts of Britain and the British Empire.^[13]

Both-Nuffield respirators were able to be produced by the thousand at about one-thirteenth the cost of the American design.^[14]

Significant subsidiaries

Second World War

In the summer of 1938 Morris

Post-Second World War production

Production restarted after the Second World War, with the pre-war Eight and Ten designs. In 1948 the Eight was replaced by what is probably the most famous Morris car, the Morris Minor designed by Alec Issigonis (who later went on to design the Mini) and reusing the small car name from 1928. The Ten was replaced by a new 1948 Morris Oxford MO, styled like a larger version of the Minor. A later Morris Oxford (the 1956 Morris Oxford III) was the basis for the design of India's Hindustan Ambassador, which continued in production until 2014.

They used six engines and five (and a half) car bodies, of which the "specialist" three were obsolescent, the rest very closely related if not identical.

BMC

In 1952 the

British Leyland

nationalised British Leyland Limited (BL). The Cowley complex remained the second largest single facility in the BL empire (after Longbridge ), but BL's history was a turbulent one – BMC was close to financial ruin, and the newly installed Leyland management failed to turn its fortunes around. With the replacement for the Leyland Princess being delayed into the 1980s, the Marina was restyled in 1980 to become the Morris Ital, while the Princess was restyled for 1982 to become the Austin Ambassador. British Leyland later confirmed that the Morris brand would be discontinued on the all-new replacement for these two cars, which was finally launched in April 1984 as the Austin Montego . The Austin Metro , before the Morris brand was finally completely abandoned in 1987. After much restructuring of BL in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the former Morris plant at Cowley and its sister site the former MG Rover . None of the former Morris buildings now exist. new MINI . The rights to the Morris marque are currently owned by Nanjing Automobile (Group) Corporation . The history of William Morris's business is commemorated in the Morris Motors Museum at the Oxford Bus Museum. Post-Morris cars to have been built at Cowley include the Rover 800 and (for a short time) the Rover 75 . Badge The Morris badge shows an ox fording the River Isis, the traditional emblem of William Morris's home town of Oxford, used in the coat of arms of Oxford.[17] Car models (excludes light vans) 1913–1926 - Morris Oxford bullnose (12 or 14 hp) 1915–1931 - Morris Cowley bullnose and flatnose (12 or 14 hp) 1923–1924 - Morris Oxford Six F series (18 hp) 1926–1930 - Morris Oxford flatnose (12 or 14 hp) 1926–1929 - Morris Oxford 15.9 and 16/40 (16 hp) 1927–1929 - Morris Six (18 hp) 1929–1935 - Morris Isis (18 or 25 hp) 1928–1932 - Morris Minor (8 hp) 1929–1935 - Morris Oxford Six, Sixteen and Twenty (16 or 20 hp) 1931–1934 - Morris Cowley (12 or 14 hp) 1931–1933 - Morris Major (15 hp then 14 hp) 1932–1948 - Morris Ten (10 hp) 1933–1935 - Morris Ten Six (12 hp) 1933–1935 - Morris Cowley Six (14 hp) 1933–1939 - Morris "Big Six" Sixteen, Eighteen, Twenty-One, and Twenty-Five 1934–1939 - Morris Twelve (12 hp) 1935–1939 - Morris Fourteen (14 hp) 1935–1948 - Morris Eight (8 hp) 1948–1952 - Morris Minor MM (8 hp) 1952–1956 - Morris Minor 1956–1971 - Morris Minor 1000 1948–1954 - Morris Oxford MO (14 hp) 1948–1953 - Morris Six MS 1954–1956 - Morris Oxford Series II 1954–1959 - Morris Cowley 1955–1958 - Morris Isis 1956–1959 - Morris Oxford Series III 1957–1960 - Morris Marshal (BMC Australia) 1958–1964 - Morris Major (BMC Australia) 1959–1971 - Morris Oxford Farina 1959–1969 - Morris Mini Minor 1964–1968 - Morris Mini Moke (United Kingdom) 1966–1973 - Morris Mini Moke (Australia) 1962–1971 - Morris 1100 1967–1971 - Morris 1300 1968–???? - Morris 11/55 (South African market variant of Morris 1100) [18] 1969–1972 - Morris 1500 (Australia) 1966–1975 - Morris 1800 1972–1975 - Morris 2200 1969–1972 - Morris Nomad (Australia) 1971–1980 - Morris Marina 1980–1984 - Morris Ital Morris-badged tractors Main articles: Nuffield Universal and Leyland Tractors Morris-badged tractors Model Year(s) of production Horsepower Engine type Notes Morris-Leyland 154 28 hp (21 kW) built by BMC Sanayi in Turkey Morris-Leyland 184 built by BMC Sanayi in Turkey Nuffield Morris 10/60 60 hp (45 kW) built by BMC Sanayi in Turkey See also MG List of car manufacturers of the United Kingdom Note ^ ... although nearly twenty-five years had elapsed since the BMC merger, not even Austin and Morris, the two volume car manufacturers that formed the core of the original merger, had integrated to a significant degree. Stokes illustrated the immensity of the problem presented by the merger in 1968 by referring to the former Austin and Morris companies having been 'scarcely on speaking terms'. Sixteen years after the formation of BMC, like the other former Nuffield companies and Jaguar, each possessed different management systems, approaches and methods, and like the other companies in the group they were 'running on their own'. H. C. Reports, Accounts and Papers, XXV, Fourteenth Report of the Expenditure Committee, Minutes of Evidence (1974–75), Vol. II, q. 2171 quoted in Historical foundations of Corporate culture: British Leyland, its predecessors and Ford. Roy Church. Business history and business culture. Edited by Andrew Godley, Oliver M. Westall, Manchester University Press, 1996 References Wikimedia Commons has media related to Morris Motors. ^ Rendell, Julian (13 November 2019). "Morris Commercial revived with 1940s-style electric van". Autocar. ^ ISBN 1-57958-293-1 . ^ G. T. Bloomfield, ‘Harriman, Sir George William (1908–1973)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 ^ Offer for sale of shares - Pressed Steel Company Limited. The Times, Tuesday, 7 April 1936; p. 21; Issue 47343 ^ Pressed Steel Company.The Times, Friday, 10 January 1936; p. 19; Issue 47268 ^ R. J. Overy, ‘Morris, William Richard, Viscount Nuffield (1877–1963)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 ^ Graham Turner, The Leyland Papers, London 1971, p. 91 ^ Wolseley And M.G. Companies.The Times, Friday, 14 June 1935; p. 20; Issue 47090. ^ Morris Motors Limited, Notice issued in compliance with ... The Times, Tuesday, 13 October 1936; p. 22; Issue 47504. ISBN 0521552834 ^ Riley Motors. Purchase by Lord Nuffield, The Times, Saturday, 10 September 1938; p. 17; Issue 48096 ^ Obituary, Mr. Victor Riley. The Times, Tuesday, 11 February 1958; p. 10; Issue 54072 ISBN 978-0522853827 . ^ Healey, John (1998). "The Both Brothers and the 'Iron Lung'". South Australian Medical Heritage Society Inc. Retrieved 10 June 2016. ^ Castle Bromwich Retrieved: 9 February 2008. ^ a b "Sixty Years of Morris". Autocar. 138 (nbr 4022): 4–9. 28 June 1973. ^ Hillinger, Ellis (25 June 2000). "Morris Automotive Heraldry". Retrieved 11 January 2014. ^ Timeline 1968, www.ado16.info Archived 27 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 26 September 2013 External links Catalogue of the Morris Motors archives, held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Morris_Motors&oldid=1217989019"