Researching Hugh Morrison

He was born in Kaleida, Manitoba and served as reeve of the Rural Municipality of Pembina from 1935 to 1936. A farmer and auctioneer in private life, Morrison was first elected to the Manitoba legislature in the 1936 provincial election, defeating incumbent Liberal-Progressive Frank W. McIntosh by 351 votes in the constituency of Manitou. He was returned by acclamation in the 1941 election, after the Progressive Conservatives joined the Liberal-Progressives and other parties in a coalition government.

Morrison was again returned by acclamation in the 1945 election, albeit under unusual circumstances: his CCF opponent narrowly missed the deadline to declare his candidacy, and was unable to participate in the vote.

Morrison left the governing coalition in the late 1940s, after Liberal-Progressive Douglas Campbell was chosen as Premier of Manitoba. In the 1949 provincial election, he ran as an anti-coalition Progressive Conservative and defeated a pro-coalition Progressive Conservative by over 1,000 votes. The Progressive Conservatives left the coalition government in 1950, and Morrison rejoined the party caucus. He was easily re-elected over a Liberal-Progressive opponent in the 1953 election.

Morrison died in Morden in 1957, one year before the Progressive Conservatives won a minority government under Dufferin Roblin's leadership. His widow, Carolyne Morrison, served as a Progressive Conservative MLA from 1960 to 1969.

The son of Alfred Morrison and Mabel née Chermside of Fonthill in Wiltshire, and grandson of millionaire businessman James Morrison, he was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1892 he married Lady Mary Leveson-Gower, daughter of Liberal statesman Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville. The couple had two children, including John Morrison, who was elevated to the peerage as Baron Margadale in 1965. Hugh and his brother, Major James Morrison, became two of the wealthiest men in the United Kingdom, having inherited their grandfather's fortune. As well as Fonthill, he owned much of the Isle of Islay. In 1904 he served as Sheriff of Wiltshire, and was also appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Argyllshire.

He was elected as Member of Parliament for Wilton at a by-election in November 1918, holding the seat for a few weeks until it was abolished for the 1918 general election. He was then elected as MP for Salisbury, holding that seat until his narrow defeat at the 1923 general election by the Liberal Party candidate Hugh Moulton. He regained the seat from Moulton in 1924, and was re-elected in 1929. In his final years in parliament he was in ill health, and he resigned from the House of Commons in 1931. He died soon afterwards at his London town house, aged 62.