Morris Meredith Williams – an Artist on the Western Front

Born in Glamorgan, Morris Meredith Williams was trained in London at the Slade School of Art but was working in Edinburgh as an illustrator and teacher at Fettes College when he joined up in April 1915. Commissioned into the 17th (Service) Battalion (1st Glamorgan), the Welsh Regiment’s first Bantam battalion, he later transferred to the Royal Engineers. In France from June 1916 he filled pecket-sized sketchbooks with vivid images of army life in and behind the Front Line. These, combined with his correspondence with his wife, create a rare insight into a junior officer’s days. This talk concludes with a brief look at the memorials on which they worked together after the war, including the famous frieze in the Scottish National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle.