James Morrison (businessman)

James Morrison (1789–1857) was a British millionaire businessman and Member of Parliament.

Morrison was the son of an innkeeper from Middle Wallop in Hampshire. He married Mary Anne, daughter of Joseph Todd, a London draper business and quickly made it one of the most profitable in the world.

His children included Alfred Morrison, a notable art collector (see The Morrison Triptych), who was High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1857; Charles of Basildon Park and Islay; Alfred of Fonthill (Wiltshire), the father of Major James Archibald Morrison of Fonthill and Basildon; Frank of Hole Park (Kent) and Strathraich (Ross); and Walter of Malham Tarn, (Yorkshire).

The politician James Morrison, son of Alfred, was a grandson.

Morrison began his career in a very humble capacity in a London warehouse. His industry, sagacity and integrity eventually secured him a partnership in the general drapery business in Fore Street of Joseph Todd, whose daughter he married. The firm latterly became known as Morrison, Dillon & Co and was afterwards converted into the Fore Street Limited Liability Company.

Morrison was one of the first English traders to depend for his success on the lowest remunerative scale of profit. He thus endeavoured to secure a very rapid circulation of capital, his motto being "small profits and quick returns". He made an immense fortune, a great part of which he expended in buying land in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Kent, Wiltshire, Yorkshire and Islay in Argyllshire (which island he purchased for nearly £½m in 1854). In his Life and Correspondence, Robert Southey records how he saw Morrison at Keswick in September 1823. He was then worth some £150,000 and was on his way to New Lanark on the Clyde and intended investing £5,000 in Robert Owen's philanthropic community "if he should find his expectations confirmed by what he sees there".

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