from their own party afterwards compelled both of them to abandon. After the severe defeat of the Gladstonian party at the general election of 1886, Mr Morley led a life divided between politics and letters until Mr Gladstone’s return to power in 1892, when he resumed his former office. He had been re-elected for Newcastle in circumstances entirely honourable to himself, a determined attempt having been made to exclude him in consequence of his resistance to an Eight Hours’ Labour Bill, of which he disapproved as an undue interference in principle with the rights of adult labour. His constituents showed their appreciation of his integrity by returning him with a majority of 1739; but the resistance to his views on the labour question went on in his constituency, and was assisted by Joseph Cowen’s persistent campaign in the principal Newcastle newspaper against the general lines of Mr Morley’s somewhat doctrinaire and anti-Imperialistic views on politics. The result was that at the election of 1895 he lost his seat, but soon found another in Scotland, for the Montrose Burghs. He had during the interval taken a leading part in parliament, but his tenure of the chief secretaryship of Ireland was hardly a success. The Irish gentry, of course, made things as difficult for him as possible, and the path of an avowed Home Ruler installed in office at Dublin Castle was beset with pitfalls. In the intestine disputes which agitated the Liberal party during Lord Rosebery’s administration, and afterwards, Mr Morley sided with Sir William Harcourt, and was the recipient and practically co-signatory of his letter resigning the Liberal leadership in December 1898.
Mr Morley’s activities were now again turned to literature, the political views most characteristic of him, on the Boer war in particular, being practically swamped by the overwhelming predominance of Unionism and Imperialism. His occasional speeches, however, denouncing the Government policy towards the Boers and towards the war, though not representing the popular side, always elicited a respectful hearing, if only for the eloquence of their language and the undoubted sincerity of the speaker. As a man of letters his work was practically concluded at this period, and may briefly be characterized. His position as a leading English writer had early been determined by his monographs on Voltaire (1872), Rousseau (1873), Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (1878), Burke (1879), and Walpole (1889). Burke as the champion of sound policy in America and (as Mr Morley deems) of justice in India, Walpole as the pacific minister understanding the true interests of his country, fired his imagination. His Life of Oliver Cromwell (1900) revises Gardiner as Gardiner revised Carlyle. The Life of Cobden (1881) is an able defence of that statesman’s views rather than a critical biography or a real picture of the period. Mr Morley’s contributions to political journalism and to literary, ethical and philosophical criticism were numerous and valuable. They show great individuality of character, and recall the personality of John Stuart Mill, with whose mode of thought he had many affinities. As in letters, so in politics. A philosophical Radical of a somewhat mid-19th-century type, and highly suspicious of the later opportunistic reaction (in all its forms) against Cobdenite principles, he yet retained the respect of the majority whom it was his usual fate to find against him in English politics by the indomitable consistency of his principles and by sheer force of character and honesty of conviction and utterance.
After the death of Mr Gladstone Mr Morley was principally engaged upon his biography, until it was published in 1903. Representing as it does so competent a writer’s sifting of a mass of material, the Life of Gladstone was a masterly account of the career of the great Liberal statesman; traces of Liberal bias were inevitable but are rarely manifest; and in spite of the a priori unlikelihood of a full appreciation of Mr Gladstone’s powerful religious interests from such a quarter, the whole treatment is characterized by sympathy and judgment. Among the coronation honours of 1902, Mr Morley was nominated an original member of the new Order of Merit; and in July 1902 he was presented by Mr Carnegie with the late Lord Acton’s valuable library, which, on the 20th of October, he in turn gave to the university of Cambridge.
When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman formed his cabinet at the end of 1905 he was made secretary of state for India. In this position he was conspicuous in May 1907 and afterwards for his firmness in sanctioning extreme measures for dealing with the outbreak in India of alarming symptoms of sedition. Though he was bitterly attacked by some of the more extreme members of the Radical party, on the ground of belying his democratic principles in dealing with India, his action was generally recognized as combining statesmanship with patience; and, though uncompromising in his attitude towards revolutionary propaganda, he showed his popular sympathies by appointing two distinguished native Indians to the council, and taking steps for a decentralization of the administrative government. When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman resigned in 1908 and Mr Asquith became prime minister, Mr Morley retained his post in the new cabinet; but it was thought advisable to relieve him of the burden imposed by a seat in the House of Commons, and he was transferred to the upper house, being created a peer with the title of Viscount Morley of Blackburn. His subsequent career at the India office will always be associated with his extensive remodelling (1908–1909) of the system of government in India so as to introduce more fully the representative element (see India). Whatever might be the outcome of this crucial reform, the preparation and execution of Lord Morley’s scheme were carried through by him with a statesmanlike and philosophic detachment, and in a spirit of balanced reason, which earned for him the increased respect of all parties in the state. (H. Ch)
MORLEY, SAMUEL (1809–1886), English manufacturer and politician, was born at Homerton, not then a part of London, on
the 15th of October 1809, the youngest son of a Nottingham
hosier. His father, John, and his uncle, Richard, were the
founders of the already prosperous Nottingham firm of I. & R.
Morley, dealers in hosiery made in the cottages of the local
knitters, and as early as 1797 they had opened a London warehouse,
in the counting-room of which Samuel Morley began his
career at sixteen. On his father’s retirement in 1840 he became
practical head of the London concern, and when his brothers
retired in 1855 sole owner. In 1860 he was sole owner also of the
Nottingham business. Under excellent management the business
grew rapidly into the largest of the kind in the world, with huge
mills at Nottingham and in Leicestershire and Derbyshire
employing thousands of hands. In 1865 Morley was elected
M.P. for Nottingham, and from 1868–1885 he sat for one
of the Bristol divisions. He was a strong Liberal and a
whole-hearted supporter of Gladstone, who in 1885 offered him a
peerage. He was one of the principal proprietors of the London
Daily News, the chief Liberal organ of the period, and it was
owing to him that its price was reduced from 3d. to 1d. and its
losses turned to great gains. Morley was a deeply religious
man. Like his father before him, he was a Dissenter, and for
many years he strongly opposed every scheme of state interference
with education. He was keenly interested in the temperance
movement, and during the closing years of his life his
public' energies were chiefly confined to its promotion. His
philanthropy was active, his charity widespread and munificent,
and he was a model employer. He died on the 5th of September
1886. His son, Arnold Morley (b. 1849), was Liberal M.P. for
Nottingham from 1880–1885, and for East Nottingham from
1885–1895. From 1886–1892 he was chief Liberal whip, and from
1892–1895 postmaster-general.
See Edwin Hodder, Life of Samuel Morley (1887); Frederic M. Thomas, I. & R. Morley: a Record of a Hundred Years (1900).
MORLEY, THOMAS (1557–1603), English musical composer, was born in 1557, as may be gathered from the date of his motet, “Domine non est,” composed “aetatis suae 19 anno domini 1576,” and preserved in Sadler’s Part-Books (Bodleian Library). He was a pupil of William Byrd, but nothing is known as to his origin and very little as to the incidents of his career. In the account of the entertainments given at Elvetham by the earl of Hertford in 1591 in honour of Queen Elizabeth, it is stated that there was “a notable consort of six Musitions,” whose music so pleased the queen “that in grace and favour thereof, she gave
