Myers Literary Guide:
The North-East
 

THOMAS MORTON (?1764 - 1838)

Morton was baptised at Chester-le-Street in 1764. Sent to Lincoln's Inn in London, he preferred cricket to the law and became a senior member of the MCC. He scored an influential success with a musical The Children in the Wood (1793) and wrote several popular comedies for the Covent Garden Theatre, including Speed the Plough (1798). This introduced the (off-stage) character of Mrs Grundy as the voice of conventional morality.

Morton's son John (1811-1891) wrote the famous farce Box and Cox in 1847.

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