Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/88

Morley French fleet, he won the greatest naval victory the English had yet achieved (Eulog. Historiarum, iii. 205; Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II, ii. 293). Soon after he sailed to Normandy and burnt eighty of the French ships and two villages; on 10 April 1341 he was transferred to the command of the fleet from the Thames westward (, . ii. 1156). In the same year he received various grants in reward for his services (ib.), and in November set out with Robert d'Artois and Sir Walter de Manny [q. v.] on the expedition to Brittany. In 1343 he held a tournament in Smithfield (, p. 230); and on 25 Aug. 1346 was present at the battle of Crecy. On 31 March 1347 he was summoned to Calais, which Edward was then besieging, and dispersed the French victualling ships which attempted to enter the harbour. He was reappointed admiral of the fleet from the Thames westward in 1348 and again in 1354. In 1355 he received the constableship of the Tower, and in 1359 was again serving in the French wars. He died in March 1360.

Morley, who 'was one of the most famous warriors of the period,' married, first, Hawyse (b. 1301), daughter of William, lord Marshal, and sister and heiress of John, lord Marshal (d. 1317), of Hingham. She brought Morley estates in Norfolk, Essex, and elsewhere, besides the claim to the hereditary marshalship of Ireland. By her Morley had a son William, who succeeded him as third Baron Morley, being thirty, or according to another inquisition forty, years old at his father's death. He served in the French wars, was knighted in 1356, and died in 1379, having married Cicely, daughter of Thomas, lord Bardolf. His son and heir, Thomas (1354-1416), was in 1416 captain-general of all the English forces in France. The barony passed into the Parker family by the marriage of a descendant, Alice, baroness Morley, with Sir William Parker, grandfather of Henry Parker, lord Morley [q. v.], the poet.

Morley married, secondly, Joan, daughter of Sir Peter de Tyes; his son by her, Robert, served in the French wars, and his line became extinct with his son Thomas, whose daughter and heiress married Sir Geoffrey Ratcliffe.

 MORLEY, SAMUEL (1809–1886), politician, born in Well Street, Hackney, 15 Oct. 1809, was youngest child of John Morley, a member of a Nottingham family of tradesmen, who started a hosiery business in Wood Street, London, at the end of the last century. His mother Sarah was daughter of R. Poulton of Maidenhead. At the age of seven he was sent to the school of a congregational minister named Carver at Melbourn in Cambridgeshire, and afterwards to Mr. Buller's school at Southampton. He was industrious and energetic, and when he went into the Wood Street business at sixteen was a fairly educated lad for his age. Thenceforward he had little time for book-learning. For seven years he remained in the countinghouse, and proved himself very competent in the management of the accounts.

In 1840 his father retired from the business, and from 1842 it was carried on by himself and his brother John. In 1855, his brother John retired from the London business of J. & R. Morley and left him sole partner. He became sole partner also in the Nottingham business in 1860, and, while maintaining his connection with the old-fashioned framework-knitters, not only had two mills in that town, but he built others at Loughborough, Leicester, Heanor in Derbyshire, and Daybrook and Sutton-in-Ashfield in Nottinghamshire. To his thousands of workpeople he granted pensions on a liberal scale, and provided for old employes at a cost of over 2,000/. a year. His business was the largest in the textile industries of its class, fend his wealth was soon exceeded by that of few contemporaries.

In May 1841 he had married and settled at Five Houses, Lower Clapton. From 1854 till 1870 he lived at Craven Lodge, Stamford Hill.

Morley was deeply religious from youth, and became in manhood active in religious and philanthropic affairs. He was zealous for complete religious freedom, and exerted himself against church rates with great vigour. His house at Stamford Hill became a rendezvous for dissenting ministers and radical politicians, but, although busily concerned in the internal affairs of the independent body, he declined all his life to hold the office of deacon. In 1847 he became chairman of the dissenters' parliamentary committee, formed for the purpose of opposing Lord John Russell's education scheme and of promoting the return of dissenting members of parliament. For thirty years from 1849 he held the office of treasurer of the 'Ancient Merchants' Lecture.' In May 1855 he organised the 'Administrative Reform Association 'for the purpose of having the civil services thrown open and 