Sir Lewis Morris Biography

Sir Lewis Morris (23 January 1833 – 12 November 1907) was a popular poet of the Anglo-Welsh school. Born in Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire in south-west Wales to Lewis Edward William Morris and Sophia Hughes, he first attended Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School there (1841–47).Then in 1847 he transferred to Cowbridge Grammar School on the appointment to it of the energetically reviving and academically gifted young headmaster, Hugo Harper. There "he gave promise of his future classical scholarship by writing a prize poem on Pompeii". In 1850 he was one of about thirty Cowbridge boys who followed Harper to Sherborne whither the latter was bound on a similar mission of resuscitating a moribund school. Such "swarming" in the wake of a charismatic headmaster was typical of the period. Morris and Harper remained lifelong friends. He studied classics at Jesus College, Oxford, graduating in 1856: the first student in thirty years to obtain first-class honours in both his preliminary and his final examinations. He then became a lawyer. In 1868 he married Florence Pollard. He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1895, and narrowly missed being appointed Poet Laureate, possibly because of his association with Oscar Wilde. One of his most famous poems is "Love's Suicide".

He is buried at the parish church of Saint Ceinwr in Llangunnor.