John Morris (1895-1980), CBE 1957, was a traveller, anthropologist and writer.

Morris served in the Army 1915-1934. He was a member of the 1922 and 1936 expeditions to Mount Everest. He was Professor of English Literature , Keio University and lecturer at Imperial and Bunrika Universities, Tokyo from 1938 and also adviser on the English language to Japan's Dept. of Foriegn affairs.

Morris was head of the BBC Far Eastern Service 1943-1952, and controller for the BBC Third Programme 1952-1958.^[1]

From February 1943 to October 1943 he worked in the same department for the BBC Eastern Service asGeorge Orwell, at 200 Oxford Street. He wrote an article about Orwell,Some are more equal than others, for Penguin New Writing Number 40, September 1950 which was reprinted with the title That Curiously Crucified Expression, in Orwell Remembered. "George Orwell always reminded me of one of those figures on the front of Chartres Cathedral [-] my inability to enjoy his filthy cigarettes was symbolic; it represented other things which made any sort of intimacy between us quite impossible". They did not get on. Stephen Spender described Morris in his Journals as "A not very daring promoter of the cause of culture, cruelly teased by his friend E.M. Forster, who referrred to him as 'the pudding'." ^[2]