The Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) has paid tribute to its former deputy general secretary and legal advisor, Labour Peer Baron Morris of Aberavon.
Morris died aged 91 earlier this week, and the FUW has since credited him with being “instrumental” in the establishing of the union.
He founded and edited the union’s newspaper ‘Y Tir’, which continues to be published monthly, and set up union branches across the country to give legal advice to farmers throughout Wales.
FUW president Glyn Roberts said: “The FUW, Welsh farming and Wales as a whole have lost a great friend and advocate.
“We will always remain indebted to Lord Morris for his early work in helping establish the FUW and for remaining a close friend of the union to the end.”
Before his death on June 5, 2023, Morris was the last surviving member of Harold Wilson’s 1974–76 cabinet, and the longest-serving privy counsellor.
Lord Morris
Morris served as FUW deputy secretary general and legal advisor between 1955 and 1957 which he described as “..two of the most demanding years of my life, I promised to stay in Wales for three months, three months became a year, and a year became two”.
After its conception, the union was given three months to live by some critics, FUW said, and Morris stated: “It gave me a lot of pleasure to attend the 50 years celebrations at Newtown in 2005, a rather longer life than the three months envisaged in 1955.”
He then went on to be elected as the Labour MP for Aberavon in Glamorgan at the 1959 general election.
Roberts said that Morris continued to communicate with the FUW on agricultural matters that arose in the Houses of Parliament throughout his political life.
Morris referred to a meeting at Chwilog Market in his book ‘Fifty years in Politics and the Law’. He recalls hundreds of farmers gathering for a huge debate regarding establishing an independent agricultural Union for Welsh farmers, and stated that he was proud to have organised it.
Glyn Roberts recalled a conversation with Morris a number of years later when he said that in all his political and legal career the most exciting time was the meeting with potential members at Chwilog.
In 1978, while serving as Secretary of State for Wales, Morris secured the FUW’s formal recognition by government as independently representing the interests of farmers in Wales.
John Morris was Member of Parliament for Aberavon from 1959 to 2001 and held positions in the governments of James Callaghan, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair.
From 1974 to 1979 he served as Secretary of State for Wales and was attorney general from 1997 and 1999. He was made a life peer in 2001.
