Sir George Henry Morse (27 May 1857 – 1 April 1931) was an English brewer, administrator and mountaineer. He was

Lord Mayor of Norwich This is a list of mayors and the later lord mayors of the city of Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north ...

and later President of the

Alpine Club The first alpine club, the Alpine Club, based in the United Kingdom, was founded in London in 1857 as a gentlemen's club. It was once described as: :"a club of English gentlemen devoted to mountaineering, first of all in the Alps, members of whi ...

Early life

Morse was born in 1857, second son of Charles Morse of

Aylsham Aylsham ( or ) is a historic market town and civil parish on the River Bure in north Norfolk, England, nearly north of Norwich. The river rises near Melton Constable, upstream from Aylsham and continues to Great Yarmouth and the North Sea, ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, JP, DL, a barrister and partner in the brewery of Steward, Patteson Fitch & Co., and Mary Harriet, daughter of Commander Robert Isacke, of the East India Company's Navy. The Morses were a junior branch of a landed gentry family of Lound, Suffolk, with a long history in Norwich; Charles Morse's great-grandfather, John Morse, was Mayor of Norwich for 1781.Patrick T. R. Palgrave-Moore, ''The Mayors and Lord Mayors of Norwich, 1936–1974'' (1978), p. 35 Charles Morse was also an alpinist and had joined the Alpine Club in 1863.T. L. Kesteven, 'George Henry Morse' (obituary) in the ''

Alpine Journal The ''Alpine Journal'' (''AJ'') is an annual publication by the Alpine Club of London. It is the oldest mountaineering journal in the world. History The magazine was first published on 2 March 1863 by the publishing house of Longman in London ...

'', vol. 43 (1931), pp. 334–337

Career

Morse became a successful brewer and a Justice of the Peace in the city of

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

.‘MORSE, Sir George Henry’, in ''

Who Was Who ''Who's Who'' is a reference work. It is a book, and also a CD-ROM and a website, giving information on influential people from around the world. Published annually as a book since 1849, it lists people who influence British life, according to i ...

'' (London: A. & C. Black)
online edition
by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, December 2007, accessed 30 March 2014 (subscription site) Morse had a younger brother, Arthur Francis Morse, who served in the

6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons The 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons was a cavalry regiment in the British Army, first raised in 1689 as Sir Albert Cunningham's Regiment of Dragoons. One of the regiment's most notable battles was the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690. It became the ...

and retired from the army as a colonel. Morse was Mayor of Norwich for 1899, then

for 1922–1923, after

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

had elevated the title. In the

Birthday Honours list The Birthday Honours, in some Commonwealth realms, mark the reigning British monarch's official birthday by granting various individuals appointment into national or dynastic orders or the award of decorations and medals. The honours are presen ...

of 1923, gazetted on 29 June, he became a

knight bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are th ...

. In 1927 Morse was a director of both principal

Norwich Union Norwich Union was the name of insurance company Aviva's British arm before June 2009. It was originally established in 1797. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. On 29 April 2008, Aviva ...

companies, for Fire Insurance and Life Insurance. By 1931 he had served as chairman of the first and president of the second.''The Post Magazine and Insurance Monitor'', vol. 92, issue 2 (Buckley Press, 1932), p. 1,532: "Sir George Henry Morse, of Thorpe St. Andrew, Norwich, late chairman of the Norwich Union Fire Insurance Society and lately president of the Norwich Union Life Insurance Society, left £152,816 (net £143,449)." A

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

in politics, Morse was a member of the Alpine Club, of which he was President between 1926 and 1929, and also of the Junior Carlton Club. At the time of his death in 1931 his address was given in '' Who's Who'' as "

Thorpe St Andrew Thorpe St Andrew is a town and civil parish in the Broadland district of Norfolk, England. It is situated on the River Yare, two miles east of the centre of Norwich, and is outside the boundary of the city. The civil parish has an area of and ...

, Norwich". He left a substantial estate worth £143,449 after liabilities and duties. His obituary in the ''Alpine Journal'' said of him

Personal life

In 1893, Morse married Annie, a daughter of Mark Henry Pasteur, JP, of Wynches,

Much Hadham Much Hadham, formerly known as Great Hadham, is a village and civil parish in the district of East Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, England. The parish of Much Hadham contains the hamlets of Perry Green and Green Tye, as well as the village of Muc ...

, Hertfordshire, and of

Le Grand-Saconnex Le Grand-Saconnex () is a municipality of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. Several international organizations and permanent missions to the United Nations are located in Grand Saconnex. Consequently, the population of Grand Saconnex is quite ...

Geneva , neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier , website = https://www.geneve.ch/ Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...

, Switzerland. They had three sons (the second, Francis John Morse, was father of the banker and cruciverbalist Sir

Jeremy Morse Sir Christopher Jeremy Morse KCMG (10 December 1928 – 4 February 2016) was an English banker, cruciverbalist and chess composer who was Chancellor of the University of Bristol from 1989 to 2003, and was chairman of Lloyds Bank. Early life ...

) and one daughter. They lived at Beech Hill,

, Norfolk. His widow died in 1946.Burke's Landed Gentry, 18th edition, vol. 1, ed. Peter Townend, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1965, p. 511

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morse, George Henry 1857 births 1931 deaths Councillors in Norfolk English mountain climbers Knights Bachelor Mayors of Norwich Presidents of the Alpine Club (UK) People from Aylsham People from Thorpe St Andrew