Richard Victor Morse
Richard Victor Morse (1885-1925)
1925 Obituary [1]
MAJOR RICHARD VICTOR MORSE, A.I.F., D.S.O., was born at Rockdale, Sydney, Australia, on 4th September 1885.
He was educated at the Sydney Grammar School and at the Technical College in the same city, and he received further technical training in the engineering works of the Standard Waygood Co., Sydney.
In 1905 he proceeded to England and spent some years in the works of Messrs. Dick, Kerr and Co., Preston, and in those of Messrs. Willans and Robinson, Rugby, gaining further useful experience.
In 1908 he returned to Australia, and after some service with his old firm, the Standard Waygood Co., he eventually entered the electrical branch of the New South Wales Railways and Tramways.
In February 1916 he left Australia for active service at the front, as a Captain in the Mining Corps, and in France was promoted to the rank of Major and awarded the D.S.O. He was twice mentioned in dispatches.
Major Morse returned to Australia as O.C. Troops on the transport "Kanowna" in October 1919, and in the February of the following year he went to Tasmania, where he joined the State Hydro-Electric Department and spent two and a half years in strenuous work.
On his return to Sydney he was appointed Chief Assistant Electrical Engineer to the New South Wales Public Works Department, a position involving further heavy demands.
He suffered, however, from gradually failing health, due to his experiences in France, where he had been severely "gassed" on several occasions, and an illness he contracted whilst on an inspection tour on the Murrumbidgee Irrigation area terminated fatally on 26th January 1925, in the fortieth year of his age.
He became a Member of this Institution in 1920.