Eleanor Morris
Former Governing Board Member
Eleanor Morris (centre) with Narelle Townsend (left) and Zena Daysh (right) at a UN Commission on Sustainable Development meeting in New York in 2004 (Photo Ian Douglas)
Eleanor Morris was the local organiser of the highly successful CHEC events during the 1998 Edinburgh CHOGM. Explained how she became involved:
“Zena came straight at me! ‘You are from Edinburgh University and I need you as liaison for our next pre-CHOGM Meeting in Edinburgh 1997’. Then and there I was organised helping Zena run one of the most successful Pre-CHOGM Conferences of the Commonwealth Human Ecology Council. I was hooked and worked with her to her end”.
Eleanor was born in Washington, DC in 1935 and studied architectural science at Radcliffe (the female part of Harvard University) graduating 1956. She followed this with a Master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where she met husband-to-be, James S Morris, a Scottish architect, and then did further studies at the University of London.
After marrying James in Philadelphia in 1959, the couple returned to Edinburgh, here she became a lecturer in planning and wrote a Ph.D. thesis on “pocket parks” in inner city areas. She became an associate member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, becoming its first female Scotland Convenor in 1986. She also was on the executive committee of the National Trust for Scotland from 1995 to 2001.
After retirement from the University, she spent much time with CHEC, being elected to the Governing Board in 1998 and spending much time in CHEC’s office helping with financial management and editing. Eleanor was always ready to attend UN meetings and to visit CHEC chapters overseas. She enjoyed being at CHOGM side events and meeting people from other Commonwealth countries.
She became the chairperson of the Executive Committee in 2008 and chaired the Finance Committee. She supported Zena in her last years at CHEC, especially in getting her to the 2009 Manchester International Human Ecology Conference where Zena was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society for Human Ecology.
Eleanor really tried to raise CHEC’s standards and horizons. However she was not always able to understand other people’s points of view or accept their decisions. She ceased to be a Board member in 2014 and retired to “the Glass House”, the modernistic home she and her husband had built in the Midlothian countryside south of Edinburgh.
With kind thanks to Ian Douglas and Eva Ekehorn
21 October 2025