John Morris

September 4, 1812 (age 73)

Brentford, Middlesex

He was a noted academic eccentric, but an important scholar of Syriac. Having joined the Tractarian Movement, in 1839 Morris was briefly left to deputize for John Henry Newman at Street Mary"s, Oxford, the university church: he alarmed his audience with a sermon on angels and fasting, "declaring inter alia that the brute creation should be made to fast on fast days". His next sermon, which preached the doctrine of transubstantiation, and "added in energetic terms that everyone was an unbeliever, carnal, and so forth, who did not hold it", earned him an admonition from the university vice-chancellor. He was ordained at Oscott in 1851 and in the same year was appointed professor at Prior Park, near Bath. He soon began parish work and for the next nineteen years ministered in Plymouth, Shortwood (Somerset), and other parts of England. From 1855 to 1861, he served as chaplain to Sir John Acton, but offended Acton by his preaching, too explicit on the topic of the breasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1870, he became spiritual director of a Hammersmith community of nursing nuns, the Soeurs de Miséricorde, a post he occupied until his death, on 9 April 1880.

John Morris

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theologian

Education

He studied at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1834 (Bachelor honours) and 1837 (Master of Arts), He was at once elected Petrean Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, lecturing on Hebrew and Syriac.

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He was a noted academic eccentric, but an important scholar of Syriac. Having joined the Tractarian Movement, in 1839 Morris was briefly left to deputize for John Henry Newman at Street Mary"s, Oxford, the university church: he alarmed his audience with a sermon on angels and fasting, "declaring inter alia that the brute creation should be made to fast on fast days". His next sermon, which preached the doctrine of transubstantiation, and "added in energetic terms that everyone was an unbeliever, carnal, and so forth, who did not hold it", earned him an admonition from the university vice-chancellor.

He was ordained at Oscott in 1851 and in the same year was appointed professor at Prior Park, near Bath.

He soon began parish work and for the next nineteen years ministered in Plymouth, Shortwood (Somerset), and other parts of England. From 1855 to 1861, he served as chaplain to Sir John Acton, but offended Acton by his preaching, too explicit on the topic of the breasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In 1870, he became spiritual director of a Hammersmith community of nursing nuns, the Soeurs de Miséricorde, a post he occupied until his death, on 9 April 1880.

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