William Morrison, 1st Viscount Dunrossil

William Shepherd Morrison, 1st Viscount Dunrossil, GCMG, MC, PC, QC (8 October 1893 – 3 February 1961), 14th Governor-General of Australia, was born in Scotland and educated at the University of Edinburgh. He joined the British Army in the First World War and served with an artillery regiment in France, where he won the Military Cross. In 1919 he left the Army with the rank of Captain. He was elected to the House of Commons as Conservative MP for Cirencester and Tewkesbury in 1929. In Parliament he acquired the nickname "Shakes", from his habit of quoting from the works of William Shakespeare.

Morrison had a long ministerial career under four Prime Ministers (Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill). He was:

• Parliamentary Secretary to the Attorney-General 1931-35,
• Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1935-36,
• Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries 1936-39,
• Minister of Food 1939-40,
• Postmaster-General 1940-43
• Minister for Town and Country Planning 1943-45.

Campaigning during the general election of 1945, Morrison attacked Socialism and contended that Hitler and Mussolini began as Socialists. He further claimed that although Labour objected to the Conservatives calling themselves 'National', the Conservatives had no objection in their opponents labelling themselves National-Socialists.^[1] In 1947 he attacked identity cards which had been introduced during the war because he believed they were a nuisance to law-abiding people and also because the cards were ineffective. [1]

In 1951, when the Conservatives returned to power, Morrison was elected Speaker of the House of Commons. He was opposed by Labour MP Major James Milner, who said it was his party's turn to have a Speaker of the House. It was the first contested election for the post in the twentieth century. Morrison was elected in a vote on party lines.

Morrison held the post of Speaker until 1959, when he resigned from Parliament. As was customary for former Speakers he was made a Viscount, taking the title Viscount Dunrossil, of Vallaquie on the Isle of Uist in the County of Inverness.

He was appointed Governor-General of Australia the same year. By this time support for the idea of British Governors-General was declining in Australia, but the Liberal Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, was determined to maintain the British link.

Dunrossil took office on 2 February, 1960. However he died suddenly in Canberra only a year later (almost to the very day), on 3 February, 1961. He was the only Australian Governor-General to die in office.

His son, John William Morrison, CMG, who succeeded as the 2nd Viscount Dunrossil, was a career officer in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, holding several senior diplomatic appointments, including serving as Governor of Bermuda. He was proud to wear his father's Vice-Regal hat on formal occasions on the Island colony.

Notes

Offices held

Speakers of the House of Commons (20th Century)
William Court Gully | James William Lowther | John Henry Whitley | Edward FitzRoy | Douglas Clifton Brown | William Morrison | Harry Hylton-Foster | Horace King | Selwyn Lloyd | George Thomas | Bernard Weatherill | Betty Boothroyd

Donate to Wikimedia