Family and Education

1st s. of George Morrison of Waltham, Lincs. m. c.1559, Elizabeth, da. and coh. of Thomas Moigne of North Willingham, Lincs., 5s. 2da.

Offices Held

Commr. sewers for Cambs., Hunts., Isle of Ely, Lincs., Northants. and Notts. 1555; j.p. Lincs. (Lindsey) from c.1564; dep. to Christopher Smith in the Exchequer by July 1569; mayor, Great Grimsby 1576; clerk of pipe in the Exchequer by Jan. 1579.

Biography

Morrison was an Exchequer official who came into Parliament for Grimsby, near his Lincoln estates. He left no mark on the records of the House. The family’s interest in the affairs of the town is attested by his own service as mayor, and that of his son Edward as recorder. His father-in-law Thomas Moigne, before his attainder for his part in the Pilgrimage of Grace, had also held lands close to Grimsby: in 1559 Morrison was granted a crown lease of these lands for 21 years. In 1561 he purchased the manor of Bestby, which also lay close to the town. He was friendly with Thomas St. Poll the 1571 Member for Great Grimsby, who appointed him one of the trustees of his estate, and Morrison’s choice of the christian name Fynes for one of his sons suggests a connexion with the earls of Lincoln.

In 1564 Morrison was classified by his bishop as ‘earnest in religion and fit to be trusted’. His Exchequer job must often have kept him in London, where he had a house and a chamber in Gray’s Inn. He was thus in all probability the Thomas Morrison who was admitted to the Inn on 28 Feb. 1584 at Lord Burghley’s request. He died 19 Feb. 1592, having made his will a month before. It was proved on 24 Apr. The preamble stated his belief that only through the ‘merits of the most bitter death and passion’ of Jesus Christ would he have ‘clear and free forgiveness and pardon’ of his sins, which protestant sentiments suggest that he was the Thomas Morrison to whom the puritan Thomas Farnham left his books and ‘great desk’. Morrison bequeathed £5 to the poor of St. Botolph’s, £5 to those of four Lincolnshire parishes, and £1 to those of another parish in the same county where he held land. He left the manor of Daniels in Sandon, Hertfordshire, which he had purchased in 1573, to a younger son, Thomas. He appointed his ‘very good lord’, the lord chief justice (Sir) Christopher Wray, Sir Dru Drury, and his ‘very loving and assured friends’ Hugh Allington and Thomas Tailor to be overseers, while his executors were his eldest son and heir Edward, and his sons-in-law George Allington (also an official in the pipe office), and Francis Mussenden.

C142/234/70; Vis. Lincs. 1592, ed. Metcalfe, 52; Cam. Misc. ix(3), p. 27; CPR, 1558-60, p. 86; 1560-3, p. 374; 1566-9, pp. 26, 182, 362; Egerton 2345, f. 22; HMC 14th Rep. VIII, 262, 290; PRO Index 16774, 21 Eliz. f. 11; A. R. Maddison, Lincs. Wills, i. 98-100; M. H. Dodd, Pilgrimage of Grace 1536-7, passim; Lincs. Historian, ii(2), p. 18; PCC 28 Harrington; VCH Herts, iii. 272.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A. M. Mimardière

Notes