Despite ongoing poor health, he prospered and was a leading force in civic matters. He served as a Justice of the Peace, was elected a councillor when Bowral became a municipality in 1886 and served as mayor in 1888 and 1891, dying on November 11 that year, aged 49 years. Continuing here is an overview of his life, mostly sourced from early newspapers, there being no known family history or biography of him.

JG Morris' auction and wholesale/retail mart were on Bong Bong Street's west side, midway between the Royal and Grand hotels. Morris was a prolific advertiser in the Bowral Free Press from its first issue in July 1883, promoting a wide range of goods including ladies' fashionable clothes, millinery, laces, ribbons, aprons, gloves, and men's and boy's clothing, ties and scarfs, boots and shoes, as well as household drapery, crockery, glassware, furniture, bedding and groceries.

Read the previous installment in this series here.

JG Morris served as a provisional director of the Bowral Butter Factory Co Ltd. At a shareholders' meeting of December 1887 he explained that the factory's location should be convenient for the milk suppliers, with Roberton Park being proposed.

As mayor of Bowral in 1888, JG Morris opened the Bowral Horticultural and Industrial Society's first annual Flower Show. The venue was the still relatively new School of Arts hall, built in 1885. The well-attended show received glowing praise in local and Sydney papers, including for the quality of its exhibits. The event brochure included advertisements for JG Morris' millinery and other fine goods.

In March 1889 JG Morris sold his Bowral emporium business to John Alford, but kept an office for his auctioneering and real estate agency in the premises which he still owned. On January 18, 1890 the entire emporium was destroyed by an early morning fire that devastated four shops along Bong Bong Street. Fortunately no one died and with much effort the fire was prevented from spreading even further. The Free Press provided a description that makes gripping reading, both for its elegant turn of phrase and as a snapshot of how townspeople coped in the days before the town had a fire brigade. Extracts will be provided in this column at a later date.

Morris stood for NSW Parliament at general elections in June 1890 to represent the County of Camden as a Freetrader, but was defeated by a small majority. That same month he admitted step-son Henry Wickham as a partner into his business, re-named as JG Morris and Co. By the end of October the firm had erected a new emporium on the site of their destroyed premises.

At the time of his death in November 1891, JG Morris was not only mayor of Bowral, but also sitting on the bench at Bowral Police Court, president of the School of Arts, honorary treasurer of the Agricultural Society and filling several other key positions.

Shortly after his burial at the Wesleyan Cemetery, Burradoo, his widow Sarah wrote to the aldermen of Bowral Council thanking them for their beautiful floral wreath, which she interpreted as expressive of their respect for her departed husband and of sympathy with his family. She also gave assurance that her husband found much pleasure in working with them for the public good, and that his duties as mayor were made more pleasant and easy by the cordial co-operation of his fellow councillors.

Just three years later Sarah died at her daughter's Shellharbour residence, aged 52, and was buried with her husband. From the end of 1891 her two sons, Henry and Edward Wickham, conducted JG Morris and Co as partners, from an office on Bong Bong Street opposite the emporium. In 1904 Ebb Davis acquired the firm, keeping the name for at least a decade, it then becoming Davis and Westbrook. A Bowral streetscape of 1914 shows 'JG Morris and Co, Auctioneers established 1872' still on a shop facade.

John George Morris had actually come to Bowral in 1873. From when, for 18 years, he flourished and earned great respect. More than 300 people attended his funeral.

Do you have memories of the Southern Highlands to share with our readers? If you have stories from the past, or old photos that will give us a window to years gone by, just fill out the form below.