William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield
William Richard Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, was an English motor manufacturer and philanthropist. He was the founder of Morris Motors Limited and is remembered for establishing the Nuffield Foundation, the Nuffield Trust and Nuffield College, Oxford, as well as being involved in his role as president of Bupa in creating what is now Nuffield Health. He took his title from the village of Nuffield, Oxfordshire, where he lived.
Initially Morris Motors relied heavily on Oxford's local labour force, and William Morris became the largest employer in the city. However during the 1920s and 1930s, Oxford saw a dramatic size and population increase following large numbers of unemployed people from depressed areas of Britain seeking work in Morris's factories. This time period was marked with frequent attempts of industrial action protesting against the low pay and poor working conditions in Morris's factories. The first successful strike in a Morris factory was achieved in 1934, led by Communist Party activist Abe Lazarus with support from local Labour Party activists.
William Morris was politically anti-union, anti-Semitic, and a key financier of Sir Oswald Mosley and British fascism. Morris gave Mosley £35,000 to fund the anti-Semitic newspaper Action, and £50,000 in 1930 to finance Mosley's fascist New Party, which was subsequently absorbed into the British Union of Fascists. Morris was also a subscriber to anti-Jewish publications, and his personal papers detailed his belief that the government of England was controlled by Jews. Despite Morris's personal political beliefs, the workers employed in his factories contributed to ushering a wave of left wing political activism across Oxford during the 1930s.
Background
Morris was born in 1877 at 47 Comer Gardens, a terraced house in the Comer Gardens area of Worcester, England, about northwest of the centre of the city. He was the son of Frederick Morris and Emily Ann, daughter of Richard Pether. When he was three years old his family moved to 16 James Street, Oxford.Career
Before motor car manufacture
Upon leaving school at the age of 15, William Morris was apprenticed to a local bicycle-seller and repairer. Nine months later, after his employer refused him a pay increase, aged 16 he set up a business repairing bicycles in a shed at the back of his parents' house. This business being a success he opened a shop at 48 High Street and began to assemble as well as repair bicycles, labelling his product with a gilt cycle wheel and The Morris. Morris raced his own machines competing as far away as south London. He did not confine himself to one distance or time and at one point was champion of Oxford, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire for distances varying between one and fifty miles.He began to work with motorcycles in 1901, designing the Morris Motor Cycle, and in 1902 acquired buildings in Longwall Street from which he repaired bicycles; operated a taxi service; and sold, repaired and hired-out cars. He held the agency for Arrol-Johnston, Belsize, Humber, Hupmobile, Singer, Standard and Wolseley cars. In 1910 he built new premises in Longwall Street, described by a local newspaper as The Oxford Motor Palace, changed his business's name from ‘The Oxford Garage’ to ‘The Morris Garage’ and still had to take more premises in Queen Street. The Longwall Street site was redeveloped in 1980, retaining the original frontage, and is now used as student accommodation by New College.
Motor car manufacturing 1920s
In 1912 he designed a car, the "bullnose" Morris, and, using bought-in components, he began to build them at a disused military training college in Cowley, Oxford. The outbreak of World War I saw the nascent car factory largely given over to the production of munitions—including 50,000 minesinkers for the North Sea Minefield—but in 1919 car production revived rising from 400 cars in that year to 56,000 in 1925. Morris pioneered the introduction to the United Kingdom of Henry Ford's techniques of mass production. During the period 1919–1925 he built or purchased factories at Abingdon, Birmingham and Swindon to add to those in Oxford.In February 1927, in competition against—amongst others—its creator, Herbert Austin, Morris paid £730,000 for the assets of the collapsed Wolseley Motors Limited which became his personal property. Wolseley were at this stage in fairly advanced development of an overhead camshaft 8 hp car, which he launched as the first Morris Minor in 1928. The original MG Midget, launched in 1929, was based on the Minor.
When major component suppliers had difficulties he purchased them on his own account. His American engines were now made under licence for him by Hotchkiss in Coventry. When in 1923 they were unwilling to expand production Morris bought their business and called it Morris Engines Limited. It would become Morris engines branch when he later sold it to Morris Motors. Again when back-axle manufacturer EG Wrigley and Company ran into financial difficulties he bought and reconstituted it as Morris Commercial Cars Limited to manufacture an expanded truck and bus offering. Following the same policy he bought the manufacturer of SU Carburettors in 1926.
Impressed by American all-steel bodies he persuaded Edward G Budd of Budd Corporation to enter a joint venture with him called Pressed Steel Company which erected their large factory at Cowley opposite Morris's own and with a connecting bridge in 1926. At that point the two business tycoons had each met their match. Eventually in 1930 the High Court ended their disagreements by obliging Morris to surrender his and his colleagues' membership of the Pressed Steel board and all Morris holdings and Morris lost all the capital he had invested in the venture.
Motor car manufacturing 1930s
Morris was "the most famous industrialist of his age". On New Year's Day 1938 he was further ennobled as Viscount Nuffield. In September 1938 he bought the bankrupt Riley and Autovia companies from the Riley family selling them to Morris Motors Limited. He had added another personal investment, Wolseley Motors Limited, to the portfolio of Morris Motors Limited in 1935. After he was ennobled as Baron Nuffield instead of the Morris Organization the whole gallery of all his personal enterprises were promoted as the Nuffield Organization. There was no legal substance to either of these groupings.Factory strike of 1934
In July 1934 a strike took place in a Morris' factory which historians have described as a "spontaneous walkout" of approximately 180 workers. William Morris was politically anti-union and had boasted that he would refuse to recognise any unions at his factory, stating "I never allow the trade unions to interfere with me." Although the workers had no specific demands, their reasons for walking out ranged from low wages to terrible working conditions. Upon hearing of the strike, the Communist Party of Great Britain sent the striking workers an experienced trades union activist and strike leader called Abraham Lazarus, who would later become a key political figure among Oxford's working classes. Before the strike there was very little trade union activity in Morris' factories.On the 11th day of the strike the managers gave way and Morris' factories agreed to increase wages and to permit the establishment of trade unions within Morris' factories. Following this victory, all of the organisations which supported the strike benefitted from increased support. The Labour Party saw a resurgence in Oxford, the Transport and General Workers' Union saw an increase in members, and the Communist Party of Great Britain won the support of the majority of Morris factory workers. The success of the strike at Morris' also led to communist political beliefs gaining more widespread acceptance across Oxford.
World War II
The Supermarine Spitfire was a technically advanced aircraft. Though ordered by the Air Ministry in March 1936 by early 1938 no single plane had been made. Lord Nuffield had offered his own expertise, and that of his Morris Organization, to design and construct a vast new factory at Castle Bromwich, to his own ideas of industrial planning, claiming he would build four times as many planes there as any other factory in the country. Although the Treasury initially opposed the idea, having concerns about his control over the design of the project and its costs, the huge "Nuffield Project" was approved at a cost of £1.125 million by the Secretary of State for Air and Morris, now Lord Nuffield, placed in charge of it. Within a year, with the factory still not built, the costs had increased to £4.15 million mainly due to constant changes in site layout and design. Nuffield had claimed he could produce 60 Spitfires a week but by May 1940, the height of the Battle of France, not one Spitfire had been built at Castle Bromwich. That month Lord Beaverbrook was placed in charge of all aircraft production, Nuffield was sacked and the plant handed over to Vickers, Supermarine's parent company. Vickers had inherited such a confused construction programme that even by 1942 building work was still going on and the project's accounts were not finally signed off by the Treasury until March 1944. As early as 1942, cracks in the brickwork of the principal building were discovered by Vickers, due to differential expansion of the various types of bricks used in the different stages of construction. Possibly as a result of this débâcle, in 1941 Nuffield invited Mrs Dorothée Martin to join his organisation to advise him on his war work.Post-war
Morris Motors Limited merged with Austin Motor Company in 1952 in the new holding company, British Motor Corporation, of which Nuffield was chairman for its first year.Viscount Nuffield retired as a director of BMC on 17 December 1952 at the age of 75, taking on the title of honorary president instead. Although succeeded as chairman by Leonard Lord, as honorary president he attended his office regularly and continued to advise his colleagues.