THE LIFE OF WALTER FREDERICK MORRIS
by
David Morris

WALTER Frederick Morris was born on the 31st May 1892 in Norwich. He attended Norwich Grammar School and later went to Saint Catharine’s College, Cambridge where he read History. On graduating in 1914, he was due to take up a post with the colonial office in British East Africa, but instead enlisted in the ranks.

That year he was posted to France with the 8th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment as an infantryman, but was quickly commissioned as a temporary officer. By the end of the war he had been mentioned in despatches, awarded the Military Cross and risen to the rank of Major, commanding the Cycle Battalion of the XIII Army Corps.

In April 1919, Morris and his battalion became part of the occupation army of the Rhineland. It is whilst serving there that he met his wife, Lewine Corney, who was working in Germany for the Catholic Women’s League. They were married later that same year.

In January 1920, Morris re-joined the Norfolk Regiment, working as an intelligence officer in Belfast during the “Troubles”. Later in 1920 he returned to civilian life and took up teaching, though remaining a Major in the Regular Army Reserve and eventually being appointed commander of the Middlesex Cadet Association. His first teaching post was in Jersey where his two children, Audrey and Peter, were born. In early 1925 he returned with his family to the mainland to take up an appointment as a History master at St Benedict’s Priory in Ealing, West London.

It was also in 1925 that Morris’s literary career began with publication of his first novel Veteran Youth. In 1929 his second novel, Bretherton—Khaki or Field Grey? was published by Geoffrey Bles to much acclaim. This was quickly followed by Behind the Lines in 1930 and Pagan in 1931. Four further novels were published between 1933 and 1937. In 1961 plans to make Bretherton into a film, updated to the Second World War, were initiated by his agents Curtis Brown. Sadly, these never came to fruition, though Peter Sellers was said to have been interested in the title role.

After the Second World War, during which he was a Captain of the Royal Artillery Army Search Lights in Norfolk, Morris joined British Industrial Films Limited for whom he worked in London until his early seventies. He remained living in Ealing until 1965 when, following the death of his wife, he returned to Norwich to live with his unmarried sisters Nellie and Vi. He died there in 1969.

Morris, seated on the left, with fellow soldiers (courtesy Morris family).

Captain Morris, seated in the centre, with his platoon officers sometime after 1916 (courtesy Morris family).

Major Morris with Winston Churchill (courtesy Morris family).

W.F. Morris with a “comrade-in-arms” (courtesy Morris family).