George Morey, who sailed on Cook’s Second Voyage was baptised on 7 January 1752 at Havant, Hampshire, the son of John and Ann Morey.  He entered the Royal Navy in 1771 serving briefly as an AB on two ships being fitted out at Portsmouth for the Falklands crisis. 

Morey (Moorey) then joined Adventure as an AB on 13 January 1772, becoming a midshipman on 1 January 1773.  He appears not to have kept a log and hardly features at all in the journals of the voyage.  However, William Bayly, astronomer in Adventure recorded the following incident on 4 March 1773 as the ship approached Tasmania:

at about 11½h evening an odd affair hapned, Viz Mr Mory (a Midshipman) was on his watch on the Forecastle by himself, there happened not to be any one nearer than the quarter Deck to him.  He run aft in violent Agitation crying out he should never see his father again & after he was a little pacified, he said that as he was walking to & fro his Father came & walked by him dressed the same as when he saw him last in England, this terrified him so that he was ready to sink, * made him conclude his father was dead.  This Mr Mory is a very sober young man & not in the least given to drink.

After Adventure Morey joined HMS Surprize, a sixth rate, as a midshipman under Captain Robert Linzee.  Surprize sailed to Newfoundland in 1775 and was present at the relief of Quebec in 1776.  In October Morey transferred to the sloop Penguin as master under Lieutenant William Yeo.  Penguin sailed for Newfoundland and was wrecked there in Bay Bulls in November 1778, by which time Lieutenant Thomas Shiver was in command.

Morey sat his lieutenant’s examination in February 1779 and received his commission in March 1781.

He was appointed 6th lieutenant in HMS Duke, a second rate of 90 guns.  He served on the sloop Inspector in 1793.  In 1797 Morey was in command of HMS Pegase, which was acting as a hospital ship.  Morey became a superannuated commander in January 1816.

George Morey married Ruth Henderson on 17 July 1784 at Alverstoke, Hampshire.  He was recorded as coming from Havant and may already have been a widower.  George and Ruth had two sons (John Doling and George) and a daughter (Ruthey).  John Doling Morey was baptised at Holy Trinity, Gosport.  Ruthey and George were baptised at St. Faith, Havant. 

Both sons entered the navy and served at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 (John Doling was aboard HMS Royal Sovereign and George was in HMS Britannia).  John Doling Morey was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy on 27 December 1808.  George Morey was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy on 13 February 1815 but retired from the navy and became a schoolteacher.

George Morey, himself, served as a lieutenant with the Sea Fencibles (a naval home guard) from October 1804 until February 1810.  He died in 1821 and was buried at St. Mary's, Alverstoke on 14 December, aged 69.  He had been living at Gambier Place, off Bury Street in Gosport, Hampshire. 

George Morey junior was listed as a schoolteacher in the 1841 census, which records him at Milton next to Gravesend, Kent.  He was married to Betsey and they had two children.  George Morey died in 1842.  Their daughter Ann continued to live with her mother and moved to Brighton, Sussex.  Betsey died there aged 90 in 1884 and Ann Ruth died there aged 73 in 1894.  Their son, Edmund Morey, attended Christ’s Hospital, Horsham, Sussex.  He joined the East India Company and settled in New South Wales in 1846 when aged only 17.  He became a landowner at Euston, NSW and, later, a justice of the peace at Port Douglas in Queensland.  He returned briefly to Britain in 1860 where he married Alice Parker.

John Doling Morey married Elizabeth Garrett on 13 August 1818 at St. Mary's, Portsea, Hampshire.  They had two children, both baptised at Alverstoke.  John Doling Morey died aged 38 in 1825.  Ruthey Morey married Edward Garrett, a Royal Navy lieutenant, on 7 April 1804 at Alverstoke.  They had nine children including Horatio Hill Garrett who spent some time in Australia.  Ruthey Garrett died in 1868 in Alverstoke.

A Nathaniel Morey sailed in Endeavour.  He joined on 21 July 1768 as the third lieutenant’s servant.  Nothing else is known about him.  He may have been George Morey’s brother but no other records have been located for him.

John Robson

Lieutenant’s passing certificate for George Morey

Son of John and Ann Morey;
baptised 7 January 1752 at Havant, Hampshire
13 February 1779
more than 27 years old    more than 6 years service.
 

Journals from Penguin
Certificates from Captain Linzee
18 February 1779             Middleton, LeCras, North

Originally published in Cook's Log, page 22, volume 32, number 3 (2009).

See also George Morey's Family