Photograph by H. W. Salmon and Sons, c. 1900

Walter Morrison (1836-1921) was a successful businessman, noted philanthropist, and MP. After gaining First Class Honours at Oxford he travelled in the Middle East and America. He inherited a very considerable fortune which he increased substantially through his own business activities, yet his personal tastes were extremely simple. He spent much of his time on a moorland estate at Malham Tarn in Yorkshire, where he took an active part in local affairs. It was during a visit to Malham by Charles Kingsley that the idea of The Water Babies was conceived, in which the Squire was based on Morrison.

The full extent of Morrison's philanthropy cannot be assessed because his gifts were generally anonymous. It is known that he contributed large sums to northern universities, and that he built and furnished the remarkable chapel at Giggleswick School. His immense gifts to the University of Oxford included £30,000 for a readership in Egyptology and other projects, and £50,000 to the Bodleian Library (in real terms on the largest gifts the Library has ever received). A few of his benefactions were eccentric: he disliked the Victorian chapel at Balliol College, Oxford (where he had been an undergraduate), and once offered money to rebuild it in the style of the original. The offer was declined.

One of his passions was archaeology. He financed the Society of Biblical Archaeology and was the founding benefactor of the Palestine Exploration Fund. It was he who contributed the anonymous donations which financed the British Museum’s Carchemish excavations, £5,000 in 1911 and a further £10,000 in 1914.

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