Arthur Morris (bishop)


Arthur Harold Morris was an Anglican bishop in the 20th century.

Education and family

Born the son of E. H. Morris, Arthur was educated at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, taking the degrees Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws in 1920, and proceeding Cambridge Master of Arts in 1924. He became a second lieutenant in the King's Regiment in 1917, during World War I, trained for the ministry at Ridley Hall, Cambridge and was ordained a deacon on Trinity Sunday 1922 and a priest the next Trinity Sunday, both times by William Wand, Bishop of London, at St Paul's Cathedral. He married Evelyn Ethel Woods in 1924 and they had three sons before he was widowed in 1953.

Priest

Following his title post, as assistant curate of All Soul, Harlesden, Morris' first incumbency was as Vicar of Great Clacton with Little Holland, after which he served the Church Pastoral-Aid Society as Metropolitan Secretary. He then returned to vicaring, at St Mark's Hamilton Terrace, later also becoming Rural Dean of the St Marylebone area. He was as an RAF chaplain in World War II and served, briefly, as a Proctor in Convocation for London in 1945. After the war had ended — in 1946 —, he became both Archdeacon of Halifax and a canon of Wakefield Cathedral, and was elected a Proctor for that diocese.

Bishop

In 1949, he was moved to a different archdeaconry and canonry of the same diocese and cathedral — Archdeacon of Pontefract and St Chad's canon — and additionally appointed to the episcopate as the third Bishop of Pontefract, the bishop suffragan of the diocese. His appointment to the suffragan See was approved in August 1949 and he was ordained and consecrated a bishop on All Saints' Day at York Minster. He was translated to be the diocesan Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich in 1954; he was installed at St Edmundsbury Cathedral on 22 July 1954. He was awarded the Lambeth degree of Doctor of Divinity the same year and entered the House of Lords as a Lord Spiritual in 1959. He retired in 1965, living at the time of his death at Holbrook, Suffolk; he died in his sleep at Ipswich.