Fourth son of John Morris (1765–1840), Director of the East India Company. From 1818 he was a member of the Bombay civil service. He befriended the East India Company army officer and historian James Grant Duff (1789–1858; DNB) and acted as his ‘first assistant’ on a three-volume History of the Mahrattas (1826). In 1826 Southey wrote to him to thank him for a copy of the History.