Major James Archibald Morrison

Major James Archibald Morrison DSO (18 September 1873 – 27 October 1934) British Conservative Party politician.

Son of Alfred Morrison, of Fonthill House.

• Rower and expert shot
• Second lieutenant in the 4th (Eton Volunteer) Battalion, Oxfordshire Light Infantry on 12 December 1891
• Transferred to the 4th Middlesex Volunteer Rifle Corps on 15 May 1895.
• Transferred to the Grenadier Guards on 5 February 1895
• Fought in the Second Boer War.[4]
• Elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Wilton division of Wiltshire at an unopposed by-election in July 1900. * Re-elected at 1900 general election
• 1906 election he lost his seat to the Liberal Party candidate.
• 1910 inherited Basildon Park from his uncle Charles (son of James Morrison), and was elected MP for Nottingham East.
• Resigned the seat in 1912 by the procedural device of accepting the post of Steward of the Manor of Northstead.

Morrison made major improvements to the Basildon estate, building new cottages and pumping stations to supply it with water. When the First World War broke out, he returned to the Grenadier Guards. Harold Macmillan served as a lieutenant under his command. Badly wounded at the Battle of the Somme, he was invalided out of the Army and turned over Basildon Park for use as a Guards' convalescent home. He was awarded the DSO in 1916.

Morrison sold the Basildon estate to Sir Edward Iliffe in 1929 and died in 1934.

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