Jan Morris

Catharine Jan Morris<ref name="autogenerated7">Jan Morris, Paul Clements, University of Wales Press, 2008, p. 7</ref><ref>The International Who's Who of Women 2002, 2001, ed. Elizabeth Sleeman, Taylor & Francis, p. 388</ref> Template:Post-nominals (born James Humphry Morris; 2 October 1926Template:Spnd20 November 2020) was a Welsh historian, author and travel writer. She was known particularly for the Pax Britannica trilogy (1968–1978), a history of the British Empire, and for portraits of cities, including Oxford, Venice, Trieste, Hong Kong and New York City.<ref name=":1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She published under her birth name, James, until 1972, when she had gender reassignment surgery after transitioning from male to female.<ref name=":1" />

Morris was a member of the 1953 British Mount Everest expedition, which made the first ever confirmed ascent of the mountain.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref> She was the only journalist to accompany the expedition, climbing with the team to a camp at 22,000 feet, and using a prearranged code to send news of the successful ascent, which was announced in The Times on the day of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, 2 June 1953.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":1" />

Background and education

Morris was born in Clevedon, Somerset, on 2 October 1926. She was the youngest of three children of Walter Henry Morris (died 1938), an engineer from Monmouth, Wales, who never fully recovered after being gassed in the First World War. Her mother, née Enid Payne, was an English church organist who trained as a concert pianist at the Leipzig Conservatory.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="nyt-20nov2020">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":1" /> Enid was a well-known recitalist in the early days of broadcasting in south Wales and the west of England.<ref>Fenwick, Gillian. Travelling Genius: The Writing Life of Jan Morris, University of South Carolina Press, 2008, pp. xvii, xix</ref><ref name="autogenerated7"/> Morris's elder brothers Gareth (1920–2007) and Christopher (1922–2014) both achieved distinction, as a flautist and as an organist and music publisher for the Oxford University Press, respectively.<ref name="theguardian1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":1" />

Morris was a chorister in the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, while boarding at Christ Church Cathedral School,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> then went on to study at Lancing College, returning to Christ Church, Oxford, as an undergraduate, and taking a second-class honours BA in 1951, which was promoted to the customary Oxford MA in 1961. While at Lancing, aged 16, Morris made a start in journalism, reporting for Western Daily Press, and while an Oxford student wrote for Cherwell, the university's student newspaper.<ref name="theguardian1"/><ref>Fenwick, Gillian. Travelling Genius: The Writing Life of Jan Morris, University of South Carolina Press, 2008, pp. xvii–xviii</ref><ref name=":1" /> Despite being born and largely raised in England, Morris always identified as Welsh.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Career

Initially, Morris hoped to join the Royal Navy, only to be prevented due to colour blindness.<ref name="theguardian1" /> Instead, she joined a Cavalry regiment during the closing stages of the Second World War, serving in the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers, and being posted to the Free Territory of Trieste in 1945, during the joint British–American occupation. She eventually went on to serve as regimental intelligence officer.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="autogenerated10">Paul Clements, Jan Morris, University of Wales Press, 2008, p. 10</ref>

Morris wrote for The Times and in 1953 was the only journalist accompanying the 1953 British Mount Everest expedition, which included Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, who were the first to scale Mount Everest.<ref name=":1" /> Morris reported the success of Hillary and Tenzing in a coded message to the newspaper, "Snow conditions bad stop advanced base abandoned yesterday stop awaiting improvement",<ref>Morris, Jan. Coronation Everest. Faber and Faber, 2003, p.149.</ref> and by coincidence the scoop was published in The Times on the morning of the coronation of Elizabeth II.<ref name="venables">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":1" />

The message was initially interpreted to mean that Tom Bourdillon and Tenzing had reached the summit, but the first name was corrected before the story was broken. Claims that the news was held back ignore the communication problems of the time; it was quite an achievement to get the news of the 29 May ascent to London by Coronation Day on 2 June, as it had to be sent to Namche Bazaar by runner.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Reporting from Cyprus on the Suez Crisis for the Manchester Guardian in 1956, Morris produced the first "irrefutable proof" of collusion between France and Israel in the invasion of Egyptian territory, interviewing French Air Force pilots who confirmed that they had been in action in support of Israeli forces.<ref name="rusbridger">Template:Cite news</ref> She also reported on the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.<ref>A Writer's World: Travels 1950–2000. 2003.</ref> Later, Morris opposed the Falklands War.<ref>"Authors Take Sides on the Falklands (Review)", W. L. Webb, The Guardian Weekly, 29 August, (p.21).</ref>

Personal life

In 1949, Morris married Elizabeth, daughter of Ceylon tea planter Austen Cecil Tuckniss;<ref name="autogenerated10"/> they had five children together, including the poet and musician Twm Morys.<ref name=":1" /> One of their children died in infancy. They lived together in the village of Llanystumdwy, in North Wales, for over 50 years until Morris's death in November 2020, first in a large Georgian house, Plas Trefan, and latterly in a converted stable block, Trefan Morys, in the grounds.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":1" />

Morris began transitioning to life as a woman in 1964, one of the first high-profile people to do so.<ref name=conundrum>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 1972, Morris travelled to Morocco to undergo gender-affirming surgery, performed by surgeon Georges Burou,<ref name=conundrum/>Template:Rp because doctors in Britain refused to allow the procedure unless Morris and Tuckniss divorced, something Morris was not prepared to do.<ref name=conundrum/>Template:Rp They did divorce later, but remained together, and on 14 May 2008 were legally reunited when they formally entered into a civil partnership.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=mcsmith>Template:Cite news</ref> She detailed her transition in Conundrum (1974), her first book under her new name, and one of the first autobiographies to discuss a personal gender reassignment.<ref name=":1" /><ref>Shopland, Norena. "A tangle in my life", in Forbidden Lives: LGBT stories from Wales, Seren Books, 2017</ref>Template:Notetag

Morris died on 20 November 2020 at Ysbyty Bryn Beryl (Bryn Beryl Hospital) in Pwllheli in North Wales, at the age of 94, survived by Elizabeth and their four children. Her death was announced by her son Twm.<ref name="BBC obit" /><ref name="theguardian1" /><ref name=":1" />

Her wife Elizabeth died at age 99 on 17 June 2024.<ref name="Elizabeth obit">Template:Cite news</ref>

Awards

Morris received honorary doctorates from the University of Wales and the University of Glamorgan,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> was an honorary fellow of Christ Church, Oxford, and was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She was elected to the Gorsedd Cymru in 1992,<ref name=":1" /><ref name="theguardian1"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and received the Glyndŵr Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts in Wales in 1996.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

"Out of polite respect" she accepted her appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1999 Birthday Honours for services to literature,<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> but Morris was a Welsh nationalist republican at heart.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":1" /> In 2005, she was awarded the Golden PEN Award by English PEN for "a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In January 2008, The Times named her the 15th-greatest British writer since the War.<ref name="mcsmith" /> She has featured in the Pinc List of leading Welsh LGBT figures in 2017.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She won the 2018 Edward Stanford Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing Award.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Works

Template:See also Morris's 1974 best-selling memoir Conundrum documented her transition and was compared to that of transgender pioneer Christine Jorgensen (A Personal Autobiography). Later memoirs included Pleasures of a Tangled Life (1989) and Herstory (1999). She also wrote many essays on travel and her life, and published a collection of her diary entries as In My Mind's Eye in 2019.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Morris wrote many books on travel, particularly about Venice and Trieste. Her Pax Britannica trilogy, on the history of the British Empire, received praise.<ref name=":1" /><ref name="nyt-20nov2020"/> In an interview with the BBC in 2016, she told Michael Palin that she did not like to be described as a travel writer, for her books were not about movement and journeys; they were about places and people.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Morris's 1985 novel Last Letters from Hav, an "imagined travelogue and political thriller" was shortlisted for that year's Booker Prize.<ref name="booker-hav">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1995, Morris completed a biography of First Sea Lord John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher, entitled Fisher's Face.<ref name="Fisher">Template:Cite book</ref> She began researching the life of the Admiral in the 1950s, describing the several-decades-long project as a "jeu d’amour" (love game).<ref name="FisherLA">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Further reading

• Derek Johns: Ariel: A Literary Life of Jan Morris, London: Faber & Faber, 2016, Template:ISBN
• Template:Cite news

External links

• Jan Morris Blog
• Template:Cite journal
• Works by Morris at Open Library
• Template:UK National Archives ID
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• Last Surviving Member of 1953 Everest Expedition Passes Away Template:Webarchive