Albert Morris (13 August 1886 in Bridgetown, South Australia – 9 January 1939, Broken Hill New South Wales) was an acclaimed Australian botanist, landscaper, ecologist, conservationist and developer of arid-zone revegetation techniques that featured natural regeneration . Morris is particularly celebrated for his decisive role in the development of the Broken Hill regeneration area, a pioneering arid-zone natural regeneration project. The regeneration area project exhibited standards and principles characteristic of the contemporary environmental repair practice, ecological restoration. The work of Albert Morris, Margaret Morris and their restoration colleagues significantly influenced the development of New South Wales government soil erosion management policies in the 1940s.
First Nations communities
From time immemorial Traditional Owners, the Wilyakali people, cared for homelands that encompassed the extended Broken Hill and Barrier Ranges region, western New South Wales (hereafter NSW). They maintained relations with the Barkandji (aka Paakantyi) nation, of the Baaka (aka Darling River). From ca.1830 onwards, pastoralists forcibly dispossessed the Barkandji and Wilyakali communities, seizing homelands along the Baaka and steadily extending their influence to more distant regions. As well as being dispossessed of their spiritually significant homelands, First Nations communities of western NSW were for many decades subjected to various hardships: material deprivation; widespread ill health and epidemics; racism; confinement to government reserves and denial of civil liberties. Dedicated government rectification of these injustices only commenced in the latter decades of the twentieth century. In 2015, the Wilyakali community and the Barkandji nation, after eighteen years of challenging and protracted legal proceedings, were successful in establishing their Native title claim to traditional homelands along the Baaka and extensive areas of western NSW. Today, Australian First Nations communities assert that their homelands were never ceded to the Crown.
Early life of Albert and Margaret Morris
Albert was born in Bridgetown, South Australia, to parents Albert Joseph Morris and Emma Jane (Smith). Confronted by the economic depression that gripped South Australia in the late 1880s, Morris's father sought work in the new mines of far western NSW. He moved his family to Thackaringa, and then to nearby Broken Hill, to live. Broken Hill was to become Albert's permanent home.
Early in life, Albert developed a keen interest in plants. Possibly a serious childhood injury to his foot, which prevented him from taking part in the bustle of childhood activity, contributed to his independence and self-containment, and to an increasing interest in botany. However, it is documented that his father, Joe Morris, was an "enthusiastic" botanist and young Albert was his "offsider", so this was a more likely source of his botanical interests, as well as innate talent and an interest in the subject. By the time he was undertaking technical school studies in metallurgy and assaying, Morris had developed a small garden and nursery, and contributed to the cost of his fees by selling plants (pepper trees) that he had grown. Morris took up work with the Central Mine in Broken Hill, eventually becoming chief assayer for the company.
Albert Morris and Ellen Margaret Sayce (1887-1957) were married on 13 April 1909. Margaret (Morris) was a dressmaker, and developed extensive interests and skills in art, botany, conservation and journalism. She was a member of the Society of Friends, (Quakers). Albert's formative years were spent as an Anglican, and "some years" after his marriage he converted to Quakerism. Albert and Margaret, with family assistance, built a cottage in Cornish Street, Railway Town, a western suburb of Broken Hill.