VAST ESTATES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22583, 23 November 1936, Page 6

VAST ESTATES

"LUCKY MORBISONS" VISCOUNTESS ST. CYRES SUM OF £923.525 LEFT [FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT] LONDON", Oct. 31 The £923,52.) estate of Viscount« S j St. Cyres, whose will was published this week, reveals another vast fortune of the "Lucky Morrisons,'' one 0 f Britain's richest and least known families. Lady St. Cyres was Dorothv Morrison, daughter of the late Alfred Morrison of Fonthill. If her fortune had touched the million mark she would have been the eighth Morrison to die a millionaire in recent years. She inherited £'200.000 in 1922 from her uncle, Colonel Walter Morrison, a. shy old man who lived quietly in York, shire and left £2,000,000. In the last quarter-century the Mor. rison family has paid about €6.000,000 to the Government in death duties. Yefc this family of millions and modesty goes no further back than Walter Hon rison's father, James Morrison, a poor Scots boy who came to ix»ndon to soelj his fortune. He went, to work in a humble post in a drajwry warehouse. He worked hard, saved hard, and set up in business for himself as the Fare Street Warehouse Company. His business prospered, he invested his money shrewdly and died worth 1'1,000,000. To his son Charles he left £2.000,000. Charles did not rest. He was the most mysterious figure in the city in his day. He lived a frugal life. He dressed shabbily, did not smoke, drank only a little light claret, never entertained, never attended public functions of any kind. When he died he left £11.000,000. His will made four more Morrisons millionaires. They were:—His brother Walter, Lady St. Cyres' uncie; his sister Ellen, who left £2,350,000; his nephew Hugh, who represented Salisbury in the House of Commons and died in 1931 leaving £1,750,000; his nephew Archibald, Major J. A. Morrison, who died two years ago. Lady St. Cyres married the only son of the second Earl of Idd(*leigh and cousin of the present earl; She died last month. She left her estate at Walhampton, Lvmington, Hants, and the residue of her property to Charles Andrew Morrison, second sou of her nephew.