Valentine Morris
Encyclopedia
Valentine Morris was a British landowner born in Antigua
in the West Indies, who was responsible for developing the picturesque
woodland walks at Piercefield
in the Wye valley
and later became Governor of St. Vincent
.
and who, in 1740, bought Piercefield House
near Chepstow
.
On his father's death, the younger Valentine Morris, who was then attending school in London, inherited Piercefield. In 1748 he married Mary Mordaunt, a niece of the third Earl of Peterborough
, and began living at Piercefield with his family in 1753. Morris added to the magnificent splendour of the estate and its setting, by landscaping the parkland, with the help of Richard Owen Cambridge
, in the fashionable style of Capability Brown
. At a time when tourism in the Wye valley
was starting to become popular, Piercefield was developed into a park of national reputation, as one of the earliest examples of Picturesque
landscaping. Morris laid out walks through the woodland and included a grotto, druid’s temple, bathing house and giant’s cave. He also developed viewpoints along the clifftop above the River Wye
, and opened the park up to visitors. One of the many tourists to marvel at this view was the poet Coleridge
, who wrote: "Oh what a godly scene....The whole world seemed imaged in its vast circumference".
Morris was strongly in favour of road improvement, and promoted the first Turnpike Bill
in Monmouthshire, enacted in 1755. He gave evidence to the House of Commons that there were no roads in Monmouthshire and, when asked how people travelled, replied "We travel in ditches". As trustee of several turnpike trusts, he was responsible for maintaining and improving the roads from Chepstow to Raglan
, Woolaston
, and Beachley
, often against the wishes of the local gentry who owned the land through which improvements were made. He was responsible for ensuring the building of over 300 miles of turnpike roads in Monmouthshire and Gloucestershire during the 1760s. As a magistrate, he also imposed standardised weights and measures in trading, for the first time in the area .
However, Morris' personal generosity and his gambling, business and political dealings took him into financial difficulty. In 1771, Thomas Morgan, MP
for Monmouthshire and a member of the powerful Morgan family of Tredegar House
, died, and Morris resolved to stand in the by-election
against Thomas' brother John. A contested election was highly unusual at the time, and the Morgans attacked Morris as an outsider, a Creole
, and a slaveowner. For his part, Morris appealed to the "honest unbiassed men" of Monmouthshire to "shake off all shackles, assert your independency, and once in your life have courage to dare elect the man of your choice". Morris lost the election, by 535 votes to Morgan's 743.
After failing to be elected, Morris was forced by both political and financial pressures to set sail for his estates in Antigua. In 1772 he became Governor of the island of St. Vincent's
(as it was then known), which had been taken from France
by the Treaty of Paris
in 1763. According to an 1801 memoir of Morris by William Coxe
, while there he "laboured with so much zeal and activity in promoting the cultivation of the island, that he almost made of it another Piercefield." He helped defend it at his own expense against the French, but, in 1779, negotiated its surrender to French forces. He later brought charges against the American-born military commander of the island, Lt. Colonel George Etherington, on the grounds of "neglect of duty and ... improper behaviour in the face of the enemy." However, Etherington was acquitted and recent research has suggested that Morris may have been motivated by vindictiveness against him.
By now reduced to poverty, he returned to London. His wife had attempted suicide and been confined to a madhouse
. He was imprisoned for debt, surrendered his estates in the West Indies, and had to sell Piercefield in 1784. He died in London in 1789.
Antigua
Antigua , also known as Waladli, is an island in the West Indies, in the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region, the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua means "ancient" in Spanish and was named by Christopher Columbus after an icon in Seville Cathedral, Santa Maria de la...
in the West Indies, who was responsible for developing the picturesque
Picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England's...
woodland walks at Piercefield
Piercefield House
Piercefield House is a largely ruined neo-classical country house designed by Sir John Soane, located near Chepstow in Monmouthshire, south east Wales. Its extensive surrounding park overlooking the Wye Valley includes Chepstow Racecourse...
in the Wye valley
Wye Valley
The Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is an internationally important protected landscape straddling the border between England and Wales. It is one of the most dramatic and scenic landscape areas in southern Britain....
and later became Governor of St. Vincent
Saint Vincent (island)
Saint Vincent is a volcanic island in the Caribbean. It is the largest island of the chain called Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It is located in the Caribbean Sea, between Saint Lucia and Grenada. It is composed of partially submerged volcanic mountains...
.
Life
He was the son of Colonel Valentine Morris (c 1678-1743), a sugar plantation owner and merchant who claimed descent from the Walter family of MonmouthshireMonmouthshire (historic)
Monmouthshire , also known as the County of Monmouth , is one of thirteen ancient counties of Wales and a former administrative county....
and who, in 1740, bought Piercefield House
Piercefield House
Piercefield House is a largely ruined neo-classical country house designed by Sir John Soane, located near Chepstow in Monmouthshire, south east Wales. Its extensive surrounding park overlooking the Wye Valley includes Chepstow Racecourse...
near Chepstow
Chepstow
Chepstow is a town in Monmouthshire, Wales, adjoining the border with Gloucestershire, England. It is located on the River Wye, close to its confluence with the River Severn, and close to the western end of the Severn Bridge on the M48 motorway...
.
On his father's death, the younger Valentine Morris, who was then attending school in London, inherited Piercefield. In 1748 he married Mary Mordaunt, a niece of the third Earl of Peterborough
Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough
Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough and 1st Earl of Monmouth, KG, PC was an English nobleman and military leader. He was the son of John Mordaunt, 1st Viscount Mordaunt, and his wife Elizabeth, the daughter and sole heiress of Thomas Carey, the second son of Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth...
, and began living at Piercefield with his family in 1753. Morris added to the magnificent splendour of the estate and its setting, by landscaping the parkland, with the help of Richard Owen Cambridge
Richard Owen Cambridge
Richard Owen Cambridge was a British poet.Cambridge was born in London. He was educated at Eton and at St John's College, Oxford. Leaving the university without taking a degree, he took up residence at Lincolns Inn in 1737. Four years later he married, and went to live at his country seat of...
, in the fashionable style of Capability Brown
Capability Brown
Lancelot Brown , more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English landscape architect. He is remembered as "the last of the great English eighteenth-century artists to be accorded his due", and "England's greatest gardener". He designed over 170 parks, many of which still endure...
. At a time when tourism in the Wye valley
Wye Valley
The Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is an internationally important protected landscape straddling the border between England and Wales. It is one of the most dramatic and scenic landscape areas in southern Britain....
was starting to become popular, Piercefield was developed into a park of national reputation, as one of the earliest examples of Picturesque
Picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England's...
landscaping. Morris laid out walks through the woodland and included a grotto, druid’s temple, bathing house and giant’s cave. He also developed viewpoints along the clifftop above the River Wye
River Wye
The River Wye is the fifth-longest river in the UK and for parts of its length forms part of the border between England and Wales. It is important for nature conservation and recreation.-Description:...
, and opened the park up to visitors. One of the many tourists to marvel at this view was the poet Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
, who wrote: "Oh what a godly scene....The whole world seemed imaged in its vast circumference".
Morris was strongly in favour of road improvement, and promoted the first Turnpike Bill
Turnpike trust
Turnpike trusts in the United Kingdom were bodies set up by individual Acts of Parliament, with powers to collect road tolls for maintaining the principal highways in Britain from the 17th but especially during the 18th and 19th centuries...
in Monmouthshire, enacted in 1755. He gave evidence to the House of Commons that there were no roads in Monmouthshire and, when asked how people travelled, replied "We travel in ditches". As trustee of several turnpike trusts, he was responsible for maintaining and improving the roads from Chepstow to Raglan
Raglan, Monmouthshire
Raglan is a village in Monmouthshire, south east Wales, United Kingdom. It is located some 9 miles south-west of Monmouth, midway between Monmouth and Abergavenny on the A40 road very near to the junction with the A449 road...
, Woolaston
Woolaston
Woolaston is a village and civil parish in the Forest of Dean district of Gloucestershire in South West England. It lies on the north side of the Severn Estuary approximately 5 miles from the Welsh border at Chepstow and is surrounded by woodland and agricultural land.-The Village and its...
, and Beachley
Beachley
Beachley is a village in Gloucestershire, England, near the border with Wales. It is located on a peninsula at the junction between the Rivers Wye and Severn, where the Severn Bridge ends and the smaller secondary bridge for the River Wye begins. The tidal drop here is one of the highest in the UK...
, often against the wishes of the local gentry who owned the land through which improvements were made. He was responsible for ensuring the building of over 300 miles of turnpike roads in Monmouthshire and Gloucestershire during the 1760s. As a magistrate, he also imposed standardised weights and measures in trading, for the first time in the area .
However, Morris' personal generosity and his gambling, business and political dealings took him into financial difficulty. In 1771, Thomas Morgan, MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Monmouthshire and a member of the powerful Morgan family of Tredegar House
Tredegar House
Tredegar House in Newport, set in the 90 acre Tredegar Park, is one of the best examples of a 17th century Charles II country house mansion in the United Kingdom.-History of the Building:...
, died, and Morris resolved to stand in the by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
against Thomas' brother John. A contested election was highly unusual at the time, and the Morgans attacked Morris as an outsider, a Creole
Creole peoples
The term Creole and its cognates in other languages — such as crioulo, criollo, créole, kriolu, criol, kreyol, kreol, kriulo, kriol, krio, etc. — have been applied to people in different countries and epochs, with rather different meanings...
, and a slaveowner. For his part, Morris appealed to the "honest unbiassed men" of Monmouthshire to "shake off all shackles, assert your independency, and once in your life have courage to dare elect the man of your choice". Morris lost the election, by 535 votes to Morgan's 743.
After failing to be elected, Morris was forced by both political and financial pressures to set sail for his estates in Antigua. In 1772 he became Governor of the island of St. Vincent's
Saint Vincent (island)
Saint Vincent is a volcanic island in the Caribbean. It is the largest island of the chain called Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It is located in the Caribbean Sea, between Saint Lucia and Grenada. It is composed of partially submerged volcanic mountains...
(as it was then known), which had been taken from France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
by the Treaty of Paris
Treaty of Paris (1763)
The Treaty of Paris, often called the Peace of Paris, or the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763, by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement. It ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War...
in 1763. According to an 1801 memoir of Morris by William Coxe
William Coxe
William Coxe , English historian, son of Dr. William Coxe, Physician to the Royal Household, was born in London. After his father's death his mother Martha married John Christopher Smith, who was Handel's amanuensis ....
, while there he "laboured with so much zeal and activity in promoting the cultivation of the island, that he almost made of it another Piercefield." He helped defend it at his own expense against the French, but, in 1779, negotiated its surrender to French forces. He later brought charges against the American-born military commander of the island, Lt. Colonel George Etherington, on the grounds of "neglect of duty and ... improper behaviour in the face of the enemy." However, Etherington was acquitted and recent research has suggested that Morris may have been motivated by vindictiveness against him.
By now reduced to poverty, he returned to London. His wife had attempted suicide and been confined to a madhouse
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
. He was imprisoned for debt, surrendered his estates in the West Indies, and had to sell Piercefield in 1784. He died in London in 1789.