Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/675

 the playing of the last six holes until next day, and Park, who was loading by one holes refusing to abide by the decision ; and that of 1882 was won by Morris, then in his sixty-first year, by 6 up and 3 to play. In the first year of its institution, in 1800, the open championship was won by Park, in the next two years by Morris, then by Park, and again by Morris, who also won it in 1866, Park winning it as late as 1875.

From 1863 to 1903 Morris was green keeper to the Royal and Ancient Club, St. Andrews, and during the forty years his sturdy, blackbearded figure — in his later years gradually whitening — might be seen regulating the starting of the players in all the principal tournaments. From the time that the modern furore for golf began he was also largely employed in the planning of golfing greens in all parts of the kingdom, and latterly he occupied a unique position as a kind of golf patriarch. He had, amongst his contemporaries, no superior when in his prime, nor until he was out-played by his son Tom. So long did he retain his exceptional powers that in 1893, in his 72nd year, he won the first prize and medal in the annual competition of St. Andrews club makers ; and, although allowed 5, his score of 83 was the lowest by three. In his eightieth year he went round the links in 86. He was in fairly good health when his death was brought about, on 24 May 1908, by accidentally falling down a stair. He attributed his good health to the fact that he always slept with his bedroom window open, and to his morning swim in the sea, summer and winter. He was a ruling elder in the parish church, St. Andrews, and on one occasion was chosen a representative elder to the general assembly. He had two sons — both in the business with him as club makers — and a daughter.

The elder son, Tom, known as 'Young Tom,' achieved the unique feat of winning the open championship in 1868 when only in his seventeenth year, and of winning it during three successive years, and this with record scores. He died suddenly on 25 Sept. 1875. A monumental tombstone, with his figure three quarter size, was erected, by subscriptions obtained through the different golf clubs of the kingdom, over his grave in the cathedral burying ground, St. Andrews. The second son 'J. O. F.,' a fairly good golfer, died in 1906. In 1903 the portrait of Morris was painted for the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, St. Andrews, by Sir George Reid.

 MORRIS, WILLIAM O'CONNOR (1824–1904), Irish county court judge and historian, born in the city of Kilkenny on 26 Nov. 1824, was son of Benjamin Morris, sometime rector of Rincurran in the diocese of Cork and Cloyne. and Elizabeth, youngest daughter and co-heiress of Mamioe Nugent O'Connor of Gartnamona, near Tallamore, King's County. A delicate boy, he was placed when ten years of mm under the care of a physician at Bromley in Kent. From 1837 to 1841 he was at a private school at Epsom, and from 1841 at a school in South Wales, where, under the tuition of the rector of Laughame, in Carmarthenshire, he studied classics and history, and enjoyed ample opportunity for outdoor sports — shooting, fishing, and hunting. In Michaelmas term 1843 he entered Oriel College, Oxford, and in the summer of 1844 he was elected a scholar. Straitened circumstances, due to the great famine in Ireland, compelled a year and a half's absence (1846–7) from the univerrity, but returning in the autumn of 1847 he obtained a second class in literæ humaniores in 1848. His father had died in 1846, and Morris, having abandoned an early predilection for a military career, raised three years after leaving Oxford the necessary fees of 100l. wherewith to enter the King's Inns, Dublin, as a law student. In Michaelmas term 1852 he was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn and he was called to the Irish bar in 1854. Choosing the home circuit, he gradually worked his way upwards, and in 1862 he was elected a professor of common and criminal law in the King's Inns. Next year he was appointed a commissioner to investigate the rights of owners of fixed nets for salmon in Ireland, hot owing to a difference of opinion between him and Sir Robert Peel, the third baronet, then chief secretary, he was compelled to resign. The county court judgeship given him later he regarded as reparation for this injustice.

Meanwhile he married, established himself at Blackrock, and became owner, through his wife, of Gartnamona. He began to contribute articles on historical, legal, social, and political subjects to the 'Edinburgh Review,' whose editor, Henry Reeve [q. v.], he had come to know. For 'The Times' he reviewed books, chiefly on military history — a favourite subject