Henry Vollam Morton
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Henry Canova Vollam ("H. V.") Morton (26 July, 1892–18 June, 1979) was a journalist and pioneering travel writer from Birmingham, England, best known for his very popular books on England and the Holy Land.
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Private life
Morton was born at Ashton Under Lyne, Lancashire, the son of Joseph Morton, editor of the Birmingham Mail, and of and Margaret Maclain Ewart, a philanthropist. He was educated at King Edward's School in Birmingham.
He married Dorothy Vaughton (born ~1886/7) on 14 September 1915. They divorced and he married Violet Mary Muskett, nee Greig (born ~1900/01), herself a divorcee, on 4 January 1934. She survived him.
In the late 1940s he moved to South Africa, settling near Capetown. He became a South African citizen.
Journalism
After school, Morton entered journalism on the staff of the Birmingham Gazette and Express (in 1910), and became its Assistant Editor in 1912. He then moved to London, becoming sub-editor of the London-based national newspaper the Daily Mail from 1913-1914. In 1913 he became editor of Empire Magazine (London).
He served in the Warwickshire Yeomanry during WWI. After the war, he returned to journalism, first on the (London) Evening Standard (from 1919), and then on the Daily Express from 1921. His columns on London life in the Daily Express became very popular. In 1923 he achieved world-wide fame for his reports on the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt. From 1931 - 1942, he was "special writer" at the Daily Herald.
Travel writing
Morton's first book, The Heart of London, appeared in 1925, and was a development of his popular Daily Express columns. In 1926, as motoring was becoming established in the UK, he set off to drive around England in a bull-nosed Morris, an early mass-produced motor-car. His account of these travels and of the England of the 1920s was published in 1927 as In Search of England, a best-seller that established him as one of the leading travel-writers of the age. A number of similar books dealing with different regions of the UK followed.
Even greater acclaim greeted Morton's first foreign travel book, In the Steps of the Master (1934), which sold over half a million copies. The Master was Jesus, and the book an account of Morton's travels in the Holy Land. A number of other books on similar themes followed.
After WW2 Morton turned his attention to South Africa, publishing In Search of South Africa in 1948. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he wrote a number of books dealing with Italy.
Honours
He became a Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature (FRSL). Greece made him a Commander of the Order of the Phoenix in 1937 and he was awarded the Italian Cavaliere, Order of Merit in 1965.
Bibliography
- The Heart of London (1925)
- The London Year (1926)
- London (1926)
- The Spell of London (1926)
- The Nights of London (1926)
- In Search of England (1927)
- The Call of England (1928)
- In Search of Scotland (1929)
- In Search of Ireland (1930)
- In Search of Wales (1932)
- Blues Days at Sea (1932)
- In Scotland Again (1933)
- In The Steps of the Master (1934)
- In The Steps of Saint Paul (1936)
- Our Fellow Men (1936)
- Ghosts of London (1939)
- Women of the Bible (1940)
- H. V Morton's London (1941)
- Middle East (1941)
- I, James Blunt (1942)
- I Saw Two Englands (1942)
- Atlantic Meeting (1943)
- In Search of South Africa (1948)
- In Search of London (1951)
- In The Steps of Jesus (1953)
- Coronation in Wonderful Pictures (1953; co-authored)
- A Stranger in Spain (1954)
- A Traveller in Rome (1957)
- This is Rome (1960)
- The Holy Land (1961)
- A Tourist in Italy (1964)
- The Waters of Rome (1966)
- A Traveller in Southern Italy (1969)
- H. V. Morton's England (1975; edited by Patricia Howard)
- The Splendour of Scotland (1976)
- In Search of the Holy Land
- Magic of Ireland
- In London
- In London Again