Harold Arthur Morris (1884–1977) was the fifth person to be awarded the Freedom of the City of Kimberley, South Africa, an honour conferred in 1967 in recognition of outstanding services to the City and the Northern Cape. Morris was born in Rondebosch, Cape Town, on 4 May 1884 and died in Kimberley aged 93 on 3 June 1977.
Early life and education
H.A. Morris was the second of three sons of the Revd Henry Elliott Morris, who was the head of the Diocesan College Preparatory School and afterwards an Honorary Canon of St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town. The three boys grew up with their parents at Feldhausen ('The Grove') in Claremont and at Bishops (Diocesan College). Morris's elder brother, Edward, an attorney at Nqamakwe, Transkei, died during the 1918 influenza epidemic, while the youngest of the siblings, Hugh, as a medical graduate from Edinburgh and a fine artist, who rose to the rank of captain in the Great War, was killed by a sniper behind enemy lines in 1915 while sketching enemy positions.
Morris was educated at Diocesan College, 1893–1901, and began an engineering career in Cape Town in 1902. As a qualified journeyman in 1907 he helped install a Pelton wheel hydro electric scheme in the Hex River Valley, and the first 2 200 Volt high tension switchboard at the Dock Road Power Station for Cape Government Railways. Subsequently, joining the staff of the English-owned "Koffyfontein Mine Ltd", he went to the Free State mining town of Koffiefontein in 1909. In 1912, he qualified as an engineer, being awarded Certificate No 11 which, in 1967, was the oldest valid professional engineering certificate in South Africa.
World War I
With the outbreak of World War I Morris volunteered for service, first in local hostilities when he joined Cullinan's Horse, a mounted unit forming part of a surprise "Eastern Force" for an intended cross-desert attack on the German rear in South West Africa (the Germans had surrendered, however, by the time the force reached its destination). He then worked his passage to England, as a Third Engineer in S.S. Galway Castle, and joined the Royal Engineers. As a Sergeant he took a searchlight contingent to the front. Commissioned in 1918 as 2nd Lieutenant, No 5 Anti Aircraft Searchlight Section, H.A. Morris was awarded a Military Cross "for continuous excellent work and disregard of personal danger, though constantly bombed, machine gunned and sometimes shelled in front of Arras and in the advance on Valenciennes and Mons". He later led his section on the great march across the Rhine as part of the Army of Occupation in Germany.
Kimberley
Morris returned to South Africa after the war and went to Kimberley to join De Beers as a construction electrician, resigning in 1926 to take up the post of "City Electrician" with the Kimberley City Council – or as "City Electrical Engineer" as the position came to be designated from 1930 onwards.
Developing Kimberley's electrical reticulation
His first task was to re-organise the obsolete electrical reticulation of the city, although dual control by Kimberley and De Beers continued. He encouraged the use of electrical appliances to increase the load, revenue and size of the municipal network. Morris later recalled that although Kimberley was famed for its early street lighting, he'd been astonished on his first day with the municipality to have a staff member report for paraffin and fodder for his horse, his job being to light up the rather primitive lamps in the "far West End" of the city. For prioritising the extension of electric street lighting in the poorer parts of town, Sol Plaatje was to inscribe a copy of his novel Mhudi (1930) to "Mr H.A. Morris, with the author's compliments and happy memories of the lights of the first Electric City on the Continent of Africa."
In 1941, dual control of Kimberley's electrical reticulation was finally ended, and, as Morris put it, the city regained its birthright. The department expanded rapidly.
Kimberley Airport and aviation
In 1930-31, when Imperial Airways planned its Trans-Africa Air Service, Kimberley upgraded its aerodrome. This new venture was included in the engineer's portfolio, which became "City Electrical and Airport Department". The Kimberley airfield's night lighting was proclaimed the best on the continent and was subsequently copied by Johannesburg.