Brian Morris, Baron Morris of Castle Morris

Who was Brian Morris, Baron Morris of Castle Morris?

Brian Robert Morris, Baron Morris of Castle Morris, was a British poet, critic and professor of literature. He became the Labour Party's deputy chief whip and education spokesman in the House of Lords.

Born and educated in Cardiff, Morris went on, after national service with the Welsh Regiment, to read English at Worcester College, Oxford. He stayed on at Oxford as a tutor in Old and Middle English while doing his doctorate on John Cleveland, the Cavalier poet.

His major promotion came in 1971 when he began his decade as professor of English literature at Sheffield University, in succession to William Empson. From 1964 to 1986, he was general editor of the New Mermaid dramatists, and from 1974 to 1982 of the New Arden Shakespeare. He also edited the poems of Cleveland and the plays of John Ford, while using his acquired administrative skills on the board of the 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.