This article was published in Australian Dictionary of
Biography, Volume 2, (MUP), 1967 Sir John Morphett (1809-1892),
landowner and politician, was born on 4 May 1809 in London, a
son of Nathaniel Morphett and Mary, née Gliddon, of Cummins,
Ide, Devon. His father came from a Kentish family and was a
London solicitor. After leaving school at 16 Morphett joined a
London commercial office and at 21 entered the counting-house of
Harris & Co., in Alexandria, Egypt. Morphett returned to London
in 1834 with his younger brother George and, through Dr Edward
Wright, became interested in the South Australian Association,
then pressing for the establishment of a colony in southern
Australia, on the principles of systematic colonization
advocated by Edward Gibbon Wakefield. On the passing of the
South Australian Act (4 & 5 Wm IV, c. 95), Morphett issued a
four-page circular, Reasons for the Purchase of Land in South
Australia, by Persons Resident in Britain; With a View to the
Removal of Labourers, and the Profitable Em