John Morris
| John Morris | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| File:Morris, John.jpg | |||||||||
| Born | 1823 | ||||||||
| Died | 1905 | ||||||||
| Residence | 28 Avenue Bennett's Park Blackheath; 6 Old Jewry | ||||||||
| Occupation | legal | ||||||||
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Contents
Notes
Office Notes
House Notes
Notes From Elsewhere
John Morris, of No. 6, Old Jewry, in the said city of London, Solicitor
Ashurst Morris Crisp & Co. of 6 Old Jewry was regarded at the time William Slaughter joined it, as it is today, as one of the City's leading law firms. This was due largely to the talents of two of its members, the senior partner, John Morris, and Frank (later Sir Frank) Crisp. Besides its reputation over the previous half century, two characteristics had come to distinguish it from the run of partnerships. The first was the much publicised radicalism of its founder, William Henry Ashurst, and his son and successor of the same name; the second was the firm's association with the mercantile and financial empire of James Morrison and his sons. ....
... John Morris, a Devonshire lad of 18, entered the firm as a clerk in 1841 and proved, according to one of Ashurst's daughters, 'so industrious, punctual, intelligent and determined to get on' that Ashurst offered him articles in 1845, on the stipulation that he serve ten yers instead of the usual five. In fact he served only six and was admitted in 1851. Ashurst senior made him a partner in 1854, a year before his own death, joining Ashurst junior and William Shaen, another active liberal, who in 1857 founded the Solicitors Journal ... On [Ashurst junior's] departure John Morris became the senior partner, inheriting all of the younger Ashurst's commericial work. This was an area in which, although it was the firm's great strength, Morris had not specialised up until then .... these interests included merchant banking, large-scale retail trading and railways. It was probably due to the influence of Charles and Walter Morrision, sons of the great entrepreneur, that Morris was retained as an adviser to the shareholders of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, working on the reconstruction which led to the Grand Trunk Arrangement Act of 1863 ...
.. When the Albert Life Office crashed in 1869, Morris was called in to help and subsequently drafted the provisions of the Joint Stock Companies Arrangement Act of 1870 ... Morris was a master of tact, a man set on brining out the positive in every situation and every individual ... His private life was quiet; the assumption is that he shared the liberal outlook of his predecessor, but there is no record of his having been active in reforming circles ... by 1880 he was a wealthy man ... one of the original 12 subscribers who formed the National Telephone Company in 1877 ... Morris was a man who did things with style ... his energies sustained by a Swedish system of exercise and diet he followed all his life
[Slaughter and May: a century in the city by Laurie Dennett, which contains images not included in google version]
