Edwin Morris (British Army officer)


Sir Edwin Logie Morris KCB OBE MC was a senior British Army officer who served during the First World War and later the Second World War, where he became Chief of the General Staff, India between February 1942 and April 1944.

Military career

Educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, Morris entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Engineers in 1909 and served in the First World War, where he was awarded the Military Cross and was mentioned in dispatches.
During the interwar period he was a student at the Staff College, Camberley from 1921 to 1922, becoming an instructor there between 1926 and 1930: he later went on to become a General Staff Officer at the War Office in 1931. He attended the Imperial Defence College in 1933and, from 1934, he was Deputy Director of Military Operations & Intelligence for India and from 1936 he was Deputy Director of Military Operations at the War Office. In 1939 he was appointed a Brigadier on the staff of Northern Command.
At the start of the Second World War, Morris was Director of Staff Duties at the War Office. He was appointed General Officer Commanding West Sussex County Division in 1940 and GOC 1st Infantry Division in 1941. Later in 1941 he became GOC IX Corps and in 1942 he was appointed Chief of the General Staff in India. In 1944 he was appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief for Northern Command.
After the war, in 1946, he went on to be Head of the Army Representative Military Staff Committee in the United Nations, a post he held until he retired in 1948. He was also aide-de-camp general to King George VI from 1947 to 1948. From 1951 to 1958 he was the Chief Royal Engineer.