Author: Morritt, John Bacon Sawrey
Biography:
MORRITT, John Bacon Sawrey (1771-1843: ODNB)
The eldest son of a wealthy Yorkshire landowner, John Sawrey Morritt (1737-1791), and his wife, Anne Pierce (1747-1809), Morritt was baptised 31 Apr. 1771 at Cawood, Yorkshire. Educated at Manchester grammar school and St John's College, Cambridge (BA 1794, MA 1798), for two years (1794-96) he travelled around Europe, notably in Greece where in 1795 he attempted but failed to buy parts of the Parthenon frieze and one of the metopes that “were thrown down and neglected among the rubbish”; he later supported Elgin in his effort to sell the Parthenon marbles to the British nation. He gained a nickname, “Troy”, by arguing for the real existence of Troy against the counter claims of Jacob Bryant. In 1914, John Murray published letters Morritt wrote during his European travels. MP for Beverley (1799-1802), Northallerton (1814-18), and Shaftesbury (1818-20), in parliament he actively supported slave trade abolition (he was a member of the African Association) and in favour of Roman Catholic emancipation. On 19 Nov. 1803 in London, he married Katherine (alt. Catherine) Stanley (1759-1815), a daughter of the Rev. Thomas Stanley and his wife Elizabeth Shaw; from 1805 they lived in Morritt’s Italianate Palladian country house, Rokeby Park, in north Yorkshire, still in the Morritt family. The marriage was childless. Commencing in 1808, he sustained a voluminous correspondence with Sir Walter Scott (q.v.), who dedicated Rokeby to him and entrusted to him the secret of Waverley. A man of culture prominent in London society, he was a friend of many notables, including William Stewart Rose, Richard Payne Knight, and Robert Southey (qq.v). He co-founded the Travellers Club in 1819 and he was a member of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Dilettanti Society, and the Pitt Club. Morritt died 12 Jul. 1843 at Rokeby. He is buried there in the family vault. He left large legacies to the survivors of his sister, Ann (b 1774-1848), and his brothers, Henry (b 1777), William (1778-1833), Edward (1781-1820), and Robert (1783-1843). (ODNB 21 Mar. 2023; ancestry.com 21 Mar. 2023; NLS John Murray Archive; PRO BROB 11 / 1984; New Monthly Magazine 4 [1815], 464 and 33 [1831]; Parliamentary Papers: Minutes of Evidence Before Select Committee on Lord Elgin’s Collection of Marbles [1816], 51-53; The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne [1986]) JC
Other Names:
- J. B. S. Morritt