Life
1794-1838; b. Clonmel, Co. Tipperary; son of Sir Richard Morrison (1767-1849 ); sent to visit Rome and Paris; made tour of Europe; assisted his father on on country houses incl. Kilruddery, Co. Wicklow; Ballyfin, Co. Laois; Fota, Co. Cork; Borris, Co Carlow; and Glenarm, Co. Antrim; himself remodelling Baronscourt, Co. Tyrone, and built Oak Park, Co. Carlow; also Clontarf, Co. Dublin, and Ballygiblin, Co. Cork; author of two of courthouses in Carlow (1830) and Tralee. BREF
Criticism
J. Morrison, ‘Life of the Late William Vitruvius Morrison’, in Weale’s Quarterly Papers on Architecture, I (1844); The Architecture of Richard Morrison, 1767-1849, and William Vitruvius Morrison, 1794-1838 (Dublin: Irish Arch. Achive 1989), 189pp., ill.
References
W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (IAP 1976; this edn. 1984), refers to William Vitruvius Morrison, author of the Ionic-fronted courthouse in Carlow [117]. Bibl., Dictionary of National Biography and J. Morrison, Life of the Late William Vitruvius Morrison, in Weale’s quarterly Papers on Architecture, I (1844). Further, his father Richard Morrison is said to have designed the arch erected for the entry of George IV into Dublin in 1821, modelled on Hadrian’s arch in Athens (see The Royal Visit, O’Kelly Pamphlet, UCD, 6165; Stanford, Notes, p.129.)
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