F. L. H. Morrice

Deal Walmer and Sandwich Mercury 23rd October 1915

AN APPRECIATION

In F. L. H. Morrice, of The Vine, Northbourne, and Brampton Hall Suffolk - known to his friends simply as "Freddie," which, if it does not explain, attests his attraction - has passed away a brave heart, a keen sportsman, and the loyalist of friends.

At Harrow, where he was a good all-round athlete, he played in the Cricket Eleven in 1874, and at Cambridge, though he did not get into the XI., he proved a very useful bat and field.

It is no wonder that with his sense of woodcraft highly developed, and with his great power of enduring fatigue - in his early days he was one of the most tireless walkers I ever knew - Morrice developed into a "mighty hunter," and wily Shikari, chiefly in wild regions not frequented or favoured, perhaps on account of their dangers, by the "big game" advertiser.

In that not "Perfect Piccadilly" of the Pyrenees, which forms the tortuous frontier between France and Spain, few places, few passes are there, which he knew not, while "The Nightless North," the book he wrote describing his travels in Lapland and the Arctic, sets out very modestly something of the perilous time he went through and the extreme hardships from cold and starvation to which he was exposed.

His gifts as a linguist saved him from some, but landed him in other, difficulties. In the Pyrenees, while stalking a fine head, on whose track he had been for two days, he was arrested on the same day first by the French, and later by Spanish, Douaniers as a smuggler! Freed chiefly because of his firm, but facile fluency, he got his beast the next day.

But to the other side of the account put the story of his being stranded when the war broke out in August last year at Vittel, and of his journey of five days back to Paris. Travel was only possible in military trains containing soldiers hastening to join their depots or get their equipment. In one crowded carriage, talk, in which Morrice freely joined, was constant - all arms, all ranks were represented, from the cavalry officer in quest of saddles to the Army baker wanting "13 more ovens." "Where are you going?" Morrice was eventually asked. "Home." "In which Departement?" "England, for I am  an Englishman." Then incredulous laughter; then whisperings together; then mutterings of "Espion" (and spies were plentiful in those days). "A very awkward position," (as he afterwards termed it), "was only saved by the Master Baker asserting that I had not, and could not pronounce properly a certain word, and, incidentally, by the circular notes of my London Bank.

As a raconteur, he shone - especially when the point, or score, of the story leant against himself.

Of the pleasant relations existing between him and his neighbours, his tenants, his employees, the crowded church of Northbourne at his memorial service on Friday, 15th inst., was ample proof.

What could not fail to strike anyone who knew him was Morrice's pride of being a "Man of Kent;" his passionate devotion to Betteshanger, which his family had owned for nearly two centuries and where from his earliest days, (even when he was living elsewhere), he desired to be buried; and in these last years, his simple almost boyish, joy in the rebuilding of "The Vine," on the old Elizabethan foundations, discovered after patient seeking, and in the many coverts and plantations of trees which he loved to make on his estate.

Hauntingly reminiscent of him, and sadly appropriate - for, till the war be over, he must lie among "the hated cypresses" in Italy - are the lines of Horace, which Matthew Arnold declared to be, perhaps, the most perfect lyric ever written.

"Linquenda tellus, et domus, et uxor
Placens, neque harum, quas colis, arborum
Te, prœter invisas cupressos
Ulla brevem dominum sequetur,"

which may be rendered -

"Thy land must thou leave, thy house, thy
Winsome wife, nor of the trees thou tendest
Shall any, save the hatred cypress, follow
thee, their brief owner, of the grave"

The cypress, like the yew in England, is the tree of the graveyard in Italy.

Oct. 17th. W.R.

See also:
Memorial Service
Frederick L. H. Morrice - 1855-1915
Volunteer Training Corps Meeting - 1915
Morrice Family