Percy Morris

Percy Morris CBE JP (6 October 1893 – 7 March 1967) was a British railway clerk, trade unionist and politician who became Mayor of Swansea and represented the town in Parliament. He specialised in railway issues in Parliament, and after being defeated for re-election, he served on public boards in the field of transport and social security.

Morris was born in Swansea, one of ten children of Thomas, an Engineman at the local Copper Works and his wife Emma. He attended Manselton Elementary School followed by Dynevor Secondary School. On leaving school in 1908 he joined the administrative staff of the Great Western Railway. He joined the Railway Clerks' Association of Great Britain and Ireland and became an active trade unionist. While he was still in his teens, he became involved in the political Labour movement and was said to be "in much demand" as a public speaker. He became a member of the executive committee of the Railway Clerks' Association in 1930.

In 1927 Morris was elected to Swansea County Borough Council, on which he became chair of the Parliamentary Committee. He was selected in January 1934 to be the prospective Labour Party candidate for Swansea West after the previous candidate was made a Judge. When the general election campaign started Morris was gloomy about the economic prospects of Swansea which he saw losing out to Ebbw Vale in tinplate manufacture. Morris cut the majority of the sitting Liberal National MP from 6,016 to 2,081 in the election.

Morris was chosen as an Alderman of Swansea and became a Justice of the Peace on the local bench in 1939. As chairman of Swansea A.R.P. committee in 1941, he was presented to the King and Queen when they visited Swansea. At the end of July he was appointed Deputy Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence in the Wales Region. He was also made President of the Railway Clerk's Association in 1943 (a post he held for ten years, including after the merger in which it became the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association), and served as Deputy Mayor of Swansea from 1944 to 1945.

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