John Maddison Morton (3 January 1811 – 19 December 1891) was an English playwright who specialised in one-act farces. His most famous farce was Box and Cox (1847). He also wrote comic dramas, pantomimes and other theatrical pieces.
Biography
Morton was born in Pangbourne. His father, Thomas Morton, was also a well-known dramatist.
Morton's first farce, My First Fit of the Gout, was produced in London in 1835. He was the author of several other one-act farces, including My Husband's Ghost (1836), Chaos Is Come Again (1838), A Thumping Legacy (1843), Lend Me Five Shillings (1846), The Irish Tiger (1846), Done on Both Sides (1847), Who's My Husband? (1847), Going to the Derby (1848), Slasher and Crasher! (1848), Your Life's in Danger (1848), Poor Pillicoddy (1848), Where There's a Will There's a Way (1849), A Most Unwarrantable Intrusion (1849) My Precious Betsy (1850), Sent to the Tower (1850), Grimshaw, Bagshaw, and Bradshaw (1851), The Woman I Adore! (1852), A Capital Match! (1852), Waiting for an Omnibus in the Lowther Arcade on a Rainy Day (1854), A Game of Romps (1855), How Stout You're Getting! (1855), The Rights and Wrongs of Women (1856), The Little Savage (1858), Wooing One's Wife (1861), Drawing Rooms, Second Floor, and Attics (1864), My Wife's Bonnet (1865) and A Day's Fishing (1869).
Morton lived in Chertsey for many years. It was there that he wrote Box and Cox (1847), adapting it from a French play. The New York Times in 1891 called it "the best farce of the nineteenth century". Box and Cox was wildly successful, earning him about £7,000, and was translated into many European languages. A musical version, Cox and Box (1867), was created by F. C. Burnand and Arthur Sullivan, but Morton received no royalties from it. However, it brought him a measure of fame as it is often revived by Gilbert and Sullivan fans, helping to make it his best known work.
