Edward Ellis Morris (25 December 1843 – 1 January 1902) was an English educationist and miscellaneous writer and latterly in colonial Australia.

Biography

Morris was born in

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

, the fourteenth child of John Carnac Morris, accountant-general of the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

at Madras, and his wife Rosanna Curtis (1803-1894). Morris was educated at

Rugby School Rugby School is a Public school (United Kingdom), private boarding school for pupils aged 13–18, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independ ...

and

Lincoln College, Oxford Lincoln College (formally, The College of the Blessed Mary and All Saints, Lincoln) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Lincoln was founded in 1427 by Richard Flemin ...

, where he graduated B.A. in 1866, with final honors in classics, law, and modern history, and M.A. in 1869. He was an assistant master at St Peter's College, Radley, and at Haileybury, and in 1871 became headmaster of the

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated ''Beds'') is a Ceremonial County, ceremonial county in the East of England. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the south and the south-east, and Buckin ...

middle-class public school. From 1875 to 1883 he was headmaster of the Melbourne Church of England grammar school which made progress under his direction. During his period he established the prefect system in 1876 and started the first school journal and the first school library in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

. Morris resigned from Melbourne Grammar in March 1882 after financial difficulties hit the school; pupil numbers were in decline, partly due to the economic environment and partly to Morris's disciplinary measures. In November 1882 Morris was appointed Hughes professor of English at the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. Its main campus in the Adelaide city centre includes many Sa ...

. In 1883 Morris accepted an offer from the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

for the position of professor of modern languages and literature. Morris introduced courses in English, French, and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

languages and literature. Morris took a prominent part in the management of the university; for several years he was president of the professorial board, and he was also 1876 elected to the council of Trinity College. He had also many outside interests and he suggested that a branch of the

Charity Organization Society The Charity Organisation Societies were founded in England in 1869 following the ' Goschen Minute' that sought to severely restrict outdoor relief distributed by the Poor Law Guardians along the lines of the Elberfeld system. In the early 1870s, ...

, of which he was the first president, was founded in Melbourne in 1887. The Melbourne Shakespeare Society, for many years the most flourishing literary society in Victoria, was also founded on his suggestion and was its inaugural president 1884–1888. Morris 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 George Higinbotham (19 April 1826 – 31 December 1892) was a politician and was a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, which is the Australian court hierarchy, highest ranking court in the Australian colony, later state, of Victoria ...

''" was published in 1895, and his most important work, his painstaking and valuable ''Austral English: A Dictionary Of Australasian Words, Phrases And Usages'' was published in 1898. For this, he was awarded a Litt. D. degree by the University of Melbourne. ''Austral English'' has been praised for its basis on "historic" (

OED The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

) principles, citing examples of use for each entry through time. It suffered, however, in ignoring street vocabulary, even highly current, inoffensive words such as "pub".John Currey, in "A note on the author", ''Dictionary of Australian Words'' (a reprint of ''Austral English'') pub. Currey O'Neill Ross Pty (1982)

Personal life

Morris married the eldest daughter (died 1896) of

in 1879. Morris died while on a visit to Europe on 1 January 1902. He was survived by a son and three daughters. Morris also wrote two small volumes for the "Epochs of Modern History" series, ''The Age of Anne'' (1877), and ''The Early Hanovarians'' (1886). Morris edited the four volumes of Cassell's ''Picturesque Australasia'' (1887–89) and some of his lectures were also published separately. He had completed a work, ''Cook and his Companions'', before his death, which has not been published. He also edited a book titled ''Australia's First Century, 1788 - 1888'' from Cassell's ''Picturesque Australasia''.

References

*Olive Wykes,
Morris, Edward Ellis (1843 - 1902)
, ''

Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...

'', Volume 5, MUP, 1974, pp 293–294. Retrieved 2009-10-17 *

External links

* * *
''Austral English – A Dictionary Of Australasian Words Phrases And Usages'' By Edward E. Morris
at Google Books * {{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Edward Ellis 1843 births 1902 deaths People educated at Rugby School Australian lexicographers Australian headmasters Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford British emigrants to Australia British people in colonial India 19th-century British lexicographers Melbourne Grammar School People from the Madras Presidency Teachers at Radley College