On the night of last Monday the news reached Huelva of the death of Sr. D. Thomas Morrison, which occurred in Barcelona on Sunday the 5th instant.
Two days have now passed since we received such grievous tidings, and still the sorrow weighs upon our soul; for Sr. Morrison, to whom we were bound by close ties of friendship and affection, was, throughout the twenty-two years in which we had the honour of his acquaintance, always the same: affectionate towards all the world; generous to a fault towards the needy classes; a perfect gentleman in every one of his dealings; and, as a man of business, he enjoyed a most thoroughly deserved reputation in all the mercantile centres of Europe and America.
In February of ’79 Sr. Morrison opened his doors in this capital: we still recall the office staff — Mr. John Mailer, D. Miguel Vega Heredia, D. Gabriel Coromina and D. Antonio Oliveira; as warehouse-keeper, the same man who holds the post today, D. Juan Rivas.
The business of the house multiplied, and the need was soon seen to establish branches in the provinces.
Today, besides the head offices in London and Huelva, they have houses in Barcelona, Bilbao and AlmerÃa.
Only two years ago, Señor Morrison, finding himself in indifferent health, gathered his family together and converted his house into a Limited Company, all the shares remaining in the hands of his family.
On that occasion he appointed as Directors of the House his nephews D. Tomás, D. Juan and D. Guillermo Morrison, the first of whom has in truth held the reins of the business these two years past, and who today will without doubt be the Managing Director of the said Company.
Sr. Morrison, on his last visit here, said to us: “I find myself very ill; I believe I shall soon retire, but there is life in the house yet; my nephew Don Tomás has identified himself so thoroughly with the character of the house’s business that, when I am gone and it continues under my own name, my death will not alter in the slightest the character and course of the concern.”
Huelva, commercial and charitable, has lost, with the death of D. Tomás, one of its most direct and effective benefactors.
We associate ourselves with the grief which, we are certain, all our fellow-townsmen will have felt, and we weep, in company with his family, the loss of one so dearly loved.
[A Huelva Gazette article based on original documents and sources of the epoch: La Provincia, 8th of May, 1901]