Arthur George Morrison (1 November 1863 – 4 December 1945) was an English writer and journalist known for realistic novels, for stories about working-class life in the East End of London, and for detective stories featuring a specific detective, Martin Hewitt. He also collected Japanese art and published several works on the subject. Much of his collection entered the British Museum, through purchase and bequest. Morrison's best known work of fiction is his novel A Child of the Jago (1896).
Early life
Morrison was born on 1 November 1863 in suburban Poplar. His father George was an engine fitter at the London Docks in Wapping, who died in 1871 of tuberculosis, leaving his wife Jane with Arthur and two other children. Arthur spent his youth in the East End. In 1879 he began work as an office boy in the Architect's Department of the London School Board. He later remembered frequenting used bookstores in Whitechapel Road about this time. In 1880 Arthur's mother took over a shop in Grundy Street. Morrison published his first work, a humorous poem, in the magazine Cycling in 1880, and took up cycling and boxing. He continued to publish in various cycling journals.
Career
In 1885 Morrison placed his first serious journalism in the newspaper The Globe. After working his way up to the rank of third-class clerk, he was appointed in 1886 to a job at the People's Palace in Mile End. In 1888 he gained reading privileges at the British Museum and published a collection of 13 sketches, Cockney Corner, describing life and conditions in several London districts, including Soho, Whitechapel and Bow Street. In 1889 he became an editor of the paper Palace Journal, reprinting some of his Cockney Corner sketches there and commenting on books and other matters, including life for London's poor.
