Fountain Court is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Thomas Morison on 19th March.
Tom was educated at Winchester College and Worcester College, Oxford, joining Chambers in 1963 and establishing a highly successful commercial and employment law practice. He was called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn (Bencher 1987) in 1960 and he took Silk in 1979. Tom was appointed to the High Court, Queen’s Bench Division, in 1993 and sat in the Commercial Court with great distinction (very rarely being overturned on appeal and with a nose for the true merits of any dispute) until his retirement in 2007.
Tom was a hugely popular member of Chambers and judge, with a mischievous sense of humour and abhorring any form of pretentiousness or pomposity. His death notice in The Times on 1 April gives a sense of his personality:
Morison Thomas Richard Atkin “snuffed it on 19th March, aged 83. No funeral; no memorial; no mourning; no flowers; no worries. Grateful thanks to the cancer team at the neurological-oncology centre, Southampton. With huge thanks to my wonderful wife for caring for me so well; to my wonderful children: thank you especially for giving me four beautiful and talented granddaughters. And thanks to my furry four-footed friend, Dave: sorry I was not a better walker for you at the end. Just perhaps, see you all later…”
