Alexander Morrison was born 7 April 1891 in Ceylon. One of seven children to Scotland-born couple William Morrison and Annie Taylor, he most likely grew up on the Taprobana tea estate which was owned and managed by his father. In the late 1890s his mother and siblings relocated to Aberdeen, Scotland, where the children commenced their schooling. Alexander later attended the West of Scotland Agricultural College in Glasgow and, on completing his studies, emigrated to Western Australia.
It’s likely he took advantage of the State government’s generous offer of assisted passage and the promise of land to farm workers. Alexander made his way to the Wheatbelt where he lived and worked at the expansive Bon Accord Farm, east of Narrogin.
When a football league commenced in the region in 1913, Alexander joined the Cuballing club for whom he was consistently amongst the best players in games with Narrogin and Toolibin. The following season he turned out for Narrogin and chipped in particularly strong performances in friendlies outings with metropolitan league sides Thistle and Training College.
Alexander enlisted in July 1916 with the 44th Battalion, as a Private. He departed from Fremantle shortly before Christmas and early in the new year trained at Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain. Conditions in the camp were harsh, defined by mud, damp and windy weather, which probably accounts for why Alexander spent a fortnight in hospital sick late in March. Transferred to the 11th Light Trench Mortar Battery, Alexander entered the fighting around Messines, Belgium, in mid-year.
During the early stages of the Battle of Passchendaele, the 11th Light Trench Mortar Battery suffered heavy casualties. Amongst them was Alexander Morrison, who was killed in action on 16 October 1917 in Flanders.