t-at-Law. Sir Nicholas, who had
represented Barnstaple in seven successive parliaments and was a man of
considerable wealth, died in May, 1731; almost exactly a year later, in
May, 1732, his daughter, then thirty-seven years of age and described in
a letter written at that time as a lady much admired for her piety,
prudence and good conduct, was married to Thomas Morrison, then
twenty-seven. Three children were born of their marriage: Mary in 1734,
Eleanora in 1736, and Hooper in 1737. In the year following the birth of
their son Mrs. Morrison died, presumably at Bath as she is buried in the
Abbey Church of that city; on the tablet he placed there to her memory
her husband said that she had been the best of wives who, for the few
years she lived with him, not only made him a much happier man, but a
better man, since not only had her rational and endearing conversation
been the perpetual delight of his heart, but her exemplary conduct had
likewise been the pleasing rule and constant direction of his life.

Upon his marriage Morrison had necessarily resigned his fellowship of
New College, and two years later he also gave up the college living in
Cambridgeshire; the benefices that he afterwards held were all in the
diocese of Exeter. In 1736 he was made a prebendary of Exeter and became
Rector of Wear Giffard; the following year, after obtaining a
dispensation to hold the two livings together, he was also instituted to
High Bickington, which, however, he resigned in 1742. In 1744 he became
Rector of Littleham, soon afterwards resigning Wear Giffard; and
finally, in 1758, after resigning Littleham in its turn, he was
instituted to Langtree, of which parish he continued Rector until his
death twenty years later. The presentations to these livings were made
as follows: to Wear Giffard by Lord Clinton, Lord Lieutenant of the
county from 1721 to 1733, whose seat was at Castle Hill near Barnstaple;
to High Bickington and to Littleham by John Basset of Heanton--who was
patron of half a dozen livings; to Langtree by John Rolle Walter of
Bicton in South Devon and Stevenstone House near Great Torrington,
Member of Parliament for Exeter.

These parishes all lie within six miles of Great Torrington where
Morrison appears to have been resident from at least as early as 1750.
In his answers to the Bishop's queries of 1744 he had, however, declared
himself to be resident partly in Huntshaw, a parish adjoining Wear
Giffard; and--for reas