A Family Devoted to Public Service.
Andrew’s grandfather, WS “Shakes” Morrison, 1st Viscount Dunrossil, was a Member of the UK Parliament, Government Minister, and the first native Gaelic speaker to serve as Speaker of the House of Commons. On retiring from Parliament, he served as Governor-General of Australia. The beautiful avenue leading to Yarralumla, the Governor-General’s official residence in Canberra, is named Dunrossil Drive in his memory.
Andrew’s father, John, the 2nd Viscount, was a British Diplomat, who served on six continents. While posted to South Africa, he attended the trial of Nelson Mandela and later arranged for law books to be smuggled into Mandela’s cell, so that the great man might be prepared to lead his country, if ever given the opportunity. Later he negotiated the independence of St Kitts Nevis. John served two terms as Governor of Bermuda and, in retirement, was appointed Lord Lieutenant of the Western Isles.
Andrew’s mother, Mavis, Lady Dunrossil, headed the History Department at what became the University of Gloucestershire and served for over thirty years on the Gloucestershire County Council, retiring as chairman of the council on her 80th birthday. She was also the chairman of the Cotswold School for its first 23 years and Chair of the Friends of Gloucester Cathedral. While presenting her with an Honorary Doctorate, the Bishop of Gloucester described her simply as a “legend.”
Mavis’s father, Dr. A. L. Spencer-Payne, gave up a successful Harley Street medical practice to build churches and schools in the Kalahari Desert. After being banned by the Apartheid-era South African government, he devoted his remaining years to raising funds for the South African Church Development Fund.
Andrew’s father and grandfathers all interrupted their educations to volunteer for the armed services during world wars and his grandmothers also served. His maternal grandmother left the Guildhall, where she was training as a concert pianist, to become a nurse in WW1, and his paternal grandmother helped organize the Women’s Land Army in WW2, when her husband was Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
But the roots of this empathy for the oppressed and underserved lie deeper. The Morrisons are Gaels, indigenous Scots, whose language and culture were systematically persecuted by English-speaking Scots for hundreds of years. King James VI, who became James I of England, commissioned the Marquis of Huntly to “extirpate within a year the barbarous people of the Isles,” in other words to commit genocide against the Morrisons and other Hebridean people. Even in the mid twentieth century children were still subject to corporal punishment if heard speaking their native language in a school playground. Despite his own privileged upbringing, Lord Dunrossil has come to feel strongly that minority or native cultures and languages need to be protected and cherished. Furthermore, his father taught him what he called the Scottish ideal of equality: not equal outcomes but an equal opportunity to achieve those outcomes.
