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Frederic Augustus Morrison
is judge of the district court of the judicial district of Stettler, to
which position he was appointed in October, 1916. He is also local judge
of the supreme court of the province of Alberta for his district. In the
mind of the public His Honour Judge Morrison is regarded as one of the
Edmonton judges, as he has resided continuously in Edmonton since his
appointment, and his judicial work has had more to do with Edmonton and
the northern judicial districts than with the district to which he was
commissioned.
His Honour Judge Morrison
was born at Scotch Ridge, in the Parish of Saint James, County of
Charlotte, Province of New Brunswick, September 28, 1875, the son of
Hugh and Clara (Getchell) Morrison. The father, Hugh Morrison, was the
son of Peter Morrison, who, with others of his clan emigrated from
Sutherlandshire in 1818. He led the colony which formed the settlement
of Scotch Ridge. The judge's mother was Clara (Getchell) Morrison, the
daughter of William and Louise (Joye) Getchell, settlers of the
adjoining Parish of Saint Stephen, and the type which gave salt and life
to that district.
The youthful days of the
judge's father were before the opening of the present public school
system, but Hugh Morrison managed to get a fair founding in elementary
matters and to go to the Normal School of the province. After getting
his first class license he taught; but in the end he came back to the
farm, which he worked as is the custom in that country. While attending
to all of these matters he did the work of magistrate, county councillor
and member of the Provincial Conservative Association. The father and
mother were active, but not militant, members of the Presbyterian
church. Hugh Morrison, the father, died in 1903 and the mother (lied in
1912.
His Honour Judge Morrison
is the seventh in a family of twelve children, eight sons and four
daughters. His early education in the formal way was what was offered by
the public school system of the province for the country districts where
he lived. From here he went to the University of Dalhousie, taking in
the ordinary way his degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Law in 1897 and
1901. As a law student-at-law his articles were held by the present Mr.
Justice Grimmer of the supreme court of New Brunswick. Coming west in
1903 he was for two years at Winnipeg and Regina and went to Vegreville
in December, 1905, to begin the practice of law.
In 1907 Mabel Whitney
Morrison married Judge Morrison. Her birthplace was Calais, Maine, the
daughter of Edward Everett Whitney and Violetta (Wood) Whitney. Mrs.
Morrison went to the schools of Calais, and showing an unusual talent
for vocal and instrumental music passed on for a full course in the New
England Conservatory of Music at Boston, Massachusetts. Mrs. Morrison is
a woman of liberal taste and cultivation, and her social position is
measured only by these tests. She is a member of the Unitarian church
and the Alliance of Liberal Christian Women, while the judge's
denominational traditions are of the Presbyterian church as they stood
before the date of the proposed union of Protestant churches. There are
four children: Hugh Whitney, Patricia, Margaret Mabel and Edith
Morrison.
His Honour Judge and Mrs.
Morrison are members of Mayfair Golf & Country Club and the Granite
Curling Club. |
