William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield
William Richard Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield GBE CH (
10 October 1877–
22 August 1963) was the founder of the
Morris Motor Company and a philanthropist.
Morris was born in
Worcester, England in 1877. When he was 3 years old his family moved to 16, James Street,
Oxford. Upon leaving school at the age of fifteen Morris was apprenticed to a local bicycle seller and repairer. Nine months later, aged 16, he set up a business repairing bicycles from the family home. The business being a success he opened a shop at 48,
High Street and began manufacturing as well as repairing bicycles. In 1901, he began to work with motorcycles, designing the
Morris Motor Cycle, and in 1902 acquired a garage in
Longwall Street from which he sold, repaired and hired cars.
In 1912 he designed a car, the
Bull Nosed Morris and began manufacturing at a disused military training college in
Cowley, Oxford. The outbreak of
World War I saw the nascent car factory given over to the production of munitions but in 1910 car production recommenced rising from 400 cars in that year to 56,000 in 1925. During the period 1919â€"1925 Morris built or purchased factories at Abingdon, Birmingham, and Swindon to add to that in Oxford. Morris pioneered the introduction to the
United Kingdom of
Henry Ford's techniques of
mass production. The first
Morris Minor was sold in 1929.
In 1938, Nuffield purchased the bankrupt
Riley (Coventry) and Autovia companies from the Riley family and quickly sold them to his own Morris Motor Company. With the addition of
Wolseley later that year, the combined enterprise became known as the
Nuffield Organisation. This merged with
Austin Motor Company in 1952 to become the
British Motor Corporation. It was later merged with
Jaguar to become British Motor Holdings. In 1968, nearly every British automobile manufacturer, including BMH, became
British Leyland.
Morris was created as a baronet in 1929, created Baron Nuffield in 1934, and made a viscount in 1938. Both titles became extinct upon his death without issue.
Morris was married to Elizabeth Anstey on
9 April 1904 â€" there were no children, and as a result he dispersed a large part of his fortune to charitable causes. Morris founded the Nuffield Foundation in 1943 with an endowment of £10 million in order to advance education and social welfare. Morris also founded
Nuffield College, Oxford.
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Nuffield College, Oxford*
The Nuffield Foundation*
Lord Nuffield and his Foundation*
Nuffield Place, home of William Morris
