Edward Ellis Morris

Who was Edward Ellis Morris?

Edward Ellis Morris was an English educationist and miscellaneous writer and latterly in colonial Australia.

Morris was born at Madras, India, fourteenth child of John Carnac Morris, accountant-general of the British East India Company at Madras, and his wife Rosanna Curtis. Morris was educated at Rugby School and Lincoln College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1866, with final honours in classics, law and modern history and M.A. 1869. He was an assistant master at St Peter's College, Radley, and at Haileybury, and in 1871 became headmaster of the Bedfordshire 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. 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.