Multiple Selves

 

 

A youthful Jan Morris

This blog looks at the life of Catharine Jan Morris, born James Humphry Morris, [2^nd Oct 1926 to 20^th November 2020]. She had an extraordinary life, and her public description as a Welsh historian, author and travel writer, seems somewhat underwhelming! Her best-known work was the Pax Britannica trilogy, a history of the British Empire, published between 1968 and 1978, and her portraits of cities such as Venice, Oxford, Trieste, Hong Kong and New York City, were highly praised. Her Last Letters from Hav was a Booker Prize short-listed novel in 1985. She published under her birth name, James, until 1972 when she had gender reassignment surgery after transitioning from male to female.

An even more youthful James.

As James, he was a member of the 1953 British Mount Everest expedition led by Colonel John Hunt and including Edmund Hillary which achieved the first ever confirmed ascent of the mountain. He was the only journalist to accompany that expedition, impressively climbing with the team to a camp at 22,000 feet where he used a pre-arranged code to send news of their successful ascent. His coded message, “Snow conditions bad stop advanced base abandoned yesterday stop awaiting improvement.” reached The Times by coincidence, on the morning of the coronation of Elizabeth 11. 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 by runner to Namche Bazaar en route! And a further triumph to combine the two disparate events in such eye-catching synchronicity. The global publicity from these two monumental events was enormous and the name of James Morris became famous.

The boy, James, during the Everest triumph, 1953.

Morris was born in Clevedon, Somerset, the youngest of the three children of Walter Henry Morris, (died 1938), an engineer from Monmouth in Wales who never fully recovered from being gassed in WW1. Her mother, nee Enid Payne, was an English church organist who trained as a concert pianist at the Leipzig Conservatoire and became a well-known recitalist in the early days of broadcasting in south Wales and the west of England. Jan Morris’s elder brothers, Gareth and Christopher, both achieved distinction, as a flautist, (Gareth) and as an organist and music publisher for the Oxford University Press, (Christopher). James had been a member of the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, while boarding at Christ Church Cathedral School then went on to study at Lancing College before returning to Christ Church, Oxford, as an undergraduate, taking a second-class honours BA in 1951 which was promoted to the customary Oxford MA in 1961. While at Lancing, he made a start in Journalism reporting for the Western Daily Press; and during his time at Oxford, contributed to Cherwell, the university student newspaper.

Morris initially, hoped to join the Royal Navy but was prevented because of colour blindness, instead joining a Cavalry regiment during the closing stages of WW2, and being posted to the Free Territory of Trieste in 1945, during the British -American occupation. He eventually went on to serve as a Regimental Intelligence Officer before settling into civilian life as a journalist. He wrote for The Times which august publication published his original Mount Everest/Coronation Day scoop though he managed to land other journalistic firsts too leading to an impressive career and life. Reporting on the Suez Crisis for the Manchester Guardian in 1956, he 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. He also reported on the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem and later, publicly opposed the Falklands War.

James with wife, Elisabetth, and young family

But chiefly, it was the personal life of James Morris which aroused public interest. In 1949 he married Elizabeth, daughter of a Ceylon tea planter, Austen Cecil Tuckniss and they had five children, including the poet/musician, Twm Morys; one child died in infancy. The family lived in the village of  Llanystumdwy in North Wales for over 50 years until Morris’s death in November 2020. He began transitioning to live as a woman in 1964 and travelled to Morocco in 1972 to undergo gender-affirming surgery performed by Georges Burou when doctors in England refused such treatment unless Morris divorced his wife, [the former Elizabeth Tuckniss] something he refused to do. They did divorce later but remained together and on May 14th 2008 were legally reunited when they formally entered a civil partnership. Jan detailed her transition in Conundrum in 1974, her first book under her other name, Jan Morris. 

Morris died on November 20th, 2020 in Bryn Beryl Hospital in Pwllheli in North Wales at the age of 94, survived by Elizabeth and their four children. Elizabeth died at 99 on June 17th, 2024. After Jan's death, the Guardian opined that she had been an outrageously successful journalist and travel writer, adding that, however, the greatest distance travelled by Jan Morris was not across the Earth's surface, but between extraordinary identities: from being the golden boy newspaper reporter, James, to the 

Jan Morris at 93.

transgender historian and explorer, Jan.  

Awards

Despite being born and chiefly raised in England, Morris always identified as Welsh so that it seems appropriate that she received early honorary doctorates from the University of Wales and the University of Glamorgan. She was also an honorary fellow of Christ Church, Oxford and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She was elected to the Gorsedd Cymru in 1992 and received the Glyndwr Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts in Wales in 1996. After some mature consideration, for Morris was a Welsh Nationalist at heart, she accepted her appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1999 Birthday Honours List for services to literature. In 2005 she was awarded the Golden Pen Award by English Pen, for a "Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature." In January 2008, The Times named her the 15th greatest British writer since WW2. She has also featured in the Pinc List of leading Welsh LGBT figures in 2017 and in 2018 won the Edward Stanford Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing Award. Hers was an extraordinary and fascinating life, well lived! Before she died, she spoke of her 1970s transition and the love of her wife [Elizabeth] which had never wavered. " I was born a man but only achieved serenity as a woman."

James Morris congratulates Edmund Hillary as he returns from his successful attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

From James to Jan.