ROYALTY AND STATESMEN IN AUTOGRAPH COLLECTION

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28261, 26 April 1957, Page 16

ROYALTY AND STATESMEN IN AUTOGRAPH COLLECTION

“The Press’- Special Service

AUCKLAND, April 25. One of the biggest collections of autographs in Auckland of men who have given their time to public life is owned by Mr C. S. Morris, of Suffolk street, Newton. The latest addition to a formidable list of Prime Ministers, Lord Mayors, Governors-General and members of Parliament is the autograph of the British Prime Minister 'Mr Macmillan). Mr Morris has not let the success and adventures of others be a substitute in his own life. “I have had an adventurous life and have never regretted it,” he said, and went on to tell of his early days in the mills of Bristol, of his life before the mast and in the stokehold and again in the mines of Huntly, where he was working at the time of the 1914 disaster, in which 43 miners were entombed.

A man who spent many years ir. the service of the public—he was chairman of the Newton school committee for 20 years, a member of the Auckland Education Board and a representative on numerous other public committees—he has specialised in collecting the autographs of others who have been prominent in public life. Eight crammed albums contain the autographs of 55 Governors in the British Commonwealth, 21 Prime Ministers, 20 Lord Mayors, 57 Mayors of New’ Zealand cities and boroughs, and 56 members of Parliament in New Zealand. He has had more than 112 replies from the Royal Household thanking him for the many booklets, birthday greetings and photographs of New Zealand he has sent them. Among his most prized specimens, and ones that most other collectors would find hard to get, are the autographs of Sir Winston Churchill and Sir Anthony Eden and Lady Eden, and “a charming letter from Princess Alice.” Mr Morris said that he usually

had little difficulty in getting autographs—most of the people seemed only too happy to be able to help his collection. In 1953 he was invested by the Queen with the M.B.E. for services to education and the community generally.