OBITUARY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17485, 1 June 1920, Page 5

OBITUARY.

MORRISON OF CHINA.

A WORLD-WIDE WANDERER.

Australian and N.Z. Cable Associationffiecd. 7.45 p.m.) LONDON, May 31. ' The death is announced of Dr. George Ernest Morrison., political adviser to the President of the Chinese Republic.

Dr. G. E. Morrison was 58 years of age, and had been political adviser to the Chinese Government since 1912., Before ho nude China his home Dr. Morrison had travelled far and wide. From 18 to 53 he crowded sufficient adventures into his life to make many volumes. An Australian by birth son of the late Dr. G. Morrison" of Geelong College—he walked across Australia from Ncrmanton to Geelong at the age of 20, covering 2043 miles in 123 days. The following year he comman an unsuccessful expedition to New Guinea, coming away with two spearheads in his body. "While recovering from his wounds he took his medical degree at Edinburgh University, and then set out on his wanderings again, signing on as an oidiaarv seaman in the Southern Pacific to study the Kanaka question. _ The next few rears saw him now wandering, now practising medicine, in the United States, tie West Indies, Spain, Morocco. Paris, and 111 1894* ho set out for the Far East, and made a 3030-mile trip across South China, from Shanghai to Rangoon, in Burma. His account, of the journey, "An Australian in China" brought .him under tho notice of the Times, and as its special correspondent-he travelled through IndoChina in 1896. and in the following year crossed Manchuria from' Stretinsk, m Siberia, to Vladivostok. For the next 15 years Dr. Morris an continued as the representative of the Times at Peking. He was in Peking during the siege of the Legations •in 1900, and was one of the most gallant of the defenders. He was present at the triumphal entry of "the Japanese into Port Arthur in 1905, and subsequently he represented the Times when the treaty which closed the Russo-Japanese war was negotiated at Portsmouth. In 1907 he crossed China from Peking to the French border of Tonquin, and in 1910, ho rode from ■Ronan City, in Central China, across Asia to Russian Turkestan, 3750 miles, in 175 days. Dr. Morrison was married in 1912, and leaves three sons.