David Morphet is a poet and writer who has worked in the Diplomatic Service, the Department of Energy and

private industry The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...

. Born on 24 January 1940, he grew up in a Pennine valley near Huddersfield. From King James's Grammar School, Almondbury, he went on a history scholarship to

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...

, where he gained a Double First in English and became co-editor of the literary magazine '' Delta''. In 1961 he entered the Diplomatic Service, serving in the Middle East and Spain. In 1966–68, he was a private secretary to two foreign secretaries, Michael Stewart and George Brown and accompanied the latter to the Special Session of the United Nations in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, following the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War. Joining the newly established Department of Energy in 1974, he became the UK governor at the

International Energy Agency The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organisation, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the entire global energy sector, with a recent focus on curbing carb ...

in Paris from 1983 to 1985 and from 1985 to 1989 UK governor at the

International Atomic Energy Agency The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 1957 ...

(IAEA) in Vienna. As governor at the IAEA, he attended the agency's Post-Accident Review Meeting following the

Chernobyl disaster The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...

, and initiated safety discussions between the UK Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and its equivalents in Eastern Europe. During 1978 and 1979 he was seconded as deputy chairman (chief executive) of the Midlands Electricity Board, one of the twelve Area Electricity Boards in England and Wales, where he backed new computer-based systems and a streamlined management structure. Returning to the Department of Energy, he successively headed the Electricity,

Energy Policy Energy policy is the manner in which a given entity (often governmental) has decided to address issues of energy development including energy conversion, distribution and use as well as reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in order to contri ...

and Atomic Energy divisions, advising Ministers on relations with the Electricity Council, the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL). Moving to the private sector in 1989, he held senior positions in the power and construction companies BICC and Balfour Beatty and served on the council of the CBI. From 1993 to 2001 he was a director of Barking Power Ltd, owner and operator of the 1000 MW combined-cycle gas-fired Barking Power Station in London. Following the privatisation of British Rail in 1997, he was invited to lead a new industry-wide body, the Railway Forum, established to promote growth and common purpose through dialogue between the multiple successors to

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

. He retired from this position in December 2000. With a strong interest in the treatment of

mental illness A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

and in mental aftercare, in 1972 he became a founder member of the

National Schizophrenia Fellowship Rethink Mental Illness is a mental health charity in England. The organisation was founded in 1972 by John Pringle whose son was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The operating name of 'Rethink' was adopted in 2002, and expanded to 'Rethink' Mental Il ...

( now Rethink) and was its chairman from 1977 to 1982. He has published thirteen volumes of verse, the biography of a Victorian journalist, articles on Victorian journalism, and has edited a book on St John's College, Cambridge. From 2005 to 2009 he was on the Board of Magma Poetry, for which he has written reviews and articles. He edited Magma 39 (Winter 2007/08 issue). His verse has appeared in a number of magazines. He has written a series of poems on Dentdale in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, with which both he and his wife have family associations.Dentdale
/ref> He married Sarah Gillian Sedgwick in 1968. They have three children and five grandchildren.

Bibliography

Biography

Louis Jennings MP, Editor of the New York Times and Tory Democrat (Notion Books:2001)

Poetry

''Seventy-Seven Poems'' (Notion Books:2002) ''The Angel and the Fox'' (Notion Books:2003) ''Approaching Animals from A to Z'' (Notion Books:2004) ''52 Ways of Looking'' (Notion Books:2005) ''The Silence of Green'' (Notion Books:2007) ''The Maze: a daydream in five cantos'' (Notion Books:2009) ''The Intruders and other poems'' (Notion Books:2010) ''Lyrics from the Periodic Table'' (Notion Books:2011) ''A sequence from the Cyclades'' (Notion Books:2012) ''Night Train to Utopia'' (Notion Books:2013) ''Satires and Legacies'' (Notion Books:2014) ''Homecoming by Microlight'' (Notion Books:2015) ''Brief Encounters'' (Notion Books:2016) 'Political Comment in the Quarterly Review after Croker: Gladstone, Salisbury and Jennings': Victorian Periodicals Review (: Vol 36, No 2, Summer 2003: pp 109–134) Entries on Croker, Gifford, Jennings, Lockhart, and The Quarterly Review in Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalism (2009: ) 'John Wilson Croker's Image of France in the Quarterly Review': electronic British Library Journal article no 1, 2012

Edited

St John's College, Cambridge – Excellence and Diversity (2007): Third Millennium Publishing Ltd.

Sources

Who's Who A & C Black 2017

References

External links

Louis John Jennings Louis John Jennings (12 May 1836 – 9 February 1893) was an English journalist and Conservative politician. Jennings was born in Walworth, London, the son of John Jennings, a tailor, and his wife Sarah Michel. Following a period with the '' Sa ...

Notion Books
* ww.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/issue.asp?id=593* ww.victorianweb.org/misc/morphet.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Morphet, David British writers 1940 births Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Living people