MORRELL, John Bowes

Morrell was a director of the Rowntree company. He is best known today for his civic and conservation work in the city of York. 

Morrell was born in 1873, the son of a bank manager. Both his parents were non-conformists, and Morrell was educated at Bootham School, where he met Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree and his cousin Arnold. He joined the Rowntree company in 1890, and in 1898 was appointed the company’s finance director, though he was only twenty-five years old. He remained with Rowntree for the rest of his career, becoming deputy chairman in 1923. He married Bertha Watson in 1902. 

As well as the company, Morrell also served as chairman of the Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust, and was one of the leading voices in favour of establishing a university in York. The Trust was a major sponsor of the university and donated the land and properties on which it was first established in 1963, the year of his death. The university library was named in Morrell’s honour. Morrell was also a founder of the Borthwick Institute in York. 

Morrell served as Lord Mayor York in 1914 and again in 1950, and was a leading figure in local politics. A Liberal, he campaigned for social reform in York and more widely through his purchase of a number of regional newspapers, the most prominent of which was the Birmingham Gazette. Morrell was also a conservationist who bought many decaying medieval buildings in York and preserved them. Many of his properties were handed over the York Conservation Trust, which he founded. His writings on the historic monuments of York were intended to encourage others to join the cause of conserving the historic city. Morrell also helped to found the Castle Museum in York. He died in York on 26 April 1963. 

It is difficult to know what to make of Morrell’s lecture on the ‘The problem of industrial finance’. It is possible that he was drafted in at the last minute to take the place of a speaker who had dropped out; we know from internal evidence that this happened during other conferences. Morrell does not appear to have had any training in financial management, nor to have read any of the numerous books then available on the subject. While Rowntree was deeply interested in American management methods, Morrell does not reference any of the major American scholars on industrial finance such as Edward Meade or William Lough. He pronounces himself frankly ignorant on some subjects such as foreign exchange and does not treat them at all. Granted that financial management as a discipline was still in its infancy, most of what Morrell talks about is simple common sense and most of it would have been well known to his audience. 

Most of the lecture consists of a gloss on a variety of subjects under headings such as the need for capital, the need for increasing quantities of capital, how capital is usually obtained for industries, how banks help to finance industry and so on. He seems to be aware that he is not saying much his audience doesn’t already know, for he frequently prefixes his material with comments such as ‘There is no necessity to dwell…’ or ‘I need hardly remind you…’ and near the end he apologises to his audience: ‘I am afraid I have wearied you with a good many commonplace remarks about matters well known to many, if not all of you here.’ This might be self-deprecation, or it might actually be true.  

Major works 

How York Governs Itself: Civic Government as Illustrated by the County of the City of York, 1928. 

York Monuments, 1944. 

The City of Our Dreams, 1955. 

‘John Bowes Morrell’, http://www.rowntreesociety.org.uk/john-bowes-morrell/  

‘John Bowes Morrell’, https://borthcat.york.ac.uk/index.php/papers-of-john-bowes-morrell  

Webb, K., ‘John Bowes Morrell, 1873-1963)’, 2011, https://www.ypsyork.org/events/john-bowes-morrell-1873-1963/