The New Student's Reference Work/Morley, John

VISCOUNT MORLEY

Mor′ley, John, an English statesman and writer, was born at Blackburn, Lancashire, Dec. 24, 1838, and was educated at Oxford. He chose literature as a profession, writing Edmund Burke, Walpole, Rousseau, Voltaire, Richard Cobden, an essay on Compromise and Critical Miscellanies among other works, and editing from 1867 to 1882 the Fortnightly Review. He also was editor of the English Men of Letters Series. From 1880 to 1883 he edited the Pall Mall Gazette. In 1880 he entered Parliament as a Liberal, where his speeches in favor of home rule, as well as his newspaper articles, did much to influence public opinion. In 1886 he was Irish secretary for a short time. He supported Gladstone in 1890, and from 1892 to 1895 was secretary for Ireland. He is popular as a public speaker; and opposed the Salisbury government in undertaking the Boer War. His later works embrace Oliver Cromwell and William Ewart Gladstone, besides Studies in Literature. In 1907 he became secretary of state for India in the Campbell-Bannerman cabinet. In 1908 he was made a viscount.