John Morley (1838-1923), British statesman and author, born in Blackburn, England. Morley began his career as a journalist in London in 1860, and in 1867 he was appointed editor of the Fortnightly Review. An ardent radical and idealist, he was receptive to the ideas of liberalism, and during the 15 years he was its editor, the review was an organ of liberal opinion. Morley was elected to Parliament in 1883, and in 1886 the Liberal Party leader and prime minister William Ewart Gladstone appointed him chief secretary of Ireland. He held this position again from 1892 to 1895, when the Liberal government was defeated. Before returning to public life, Morley completed a biography of the English statesman Oliver Cromwell in 1899 and wrote the Life of Gladstone (1903). As secretary of state for India (1905-1910), he sponsored the Morley-Minto reforms (1909) that allowed some political role for Indians. In 1908 he was made Viscount Morley of Blackburn. Two years later he resigned his cabinet post but remained in the government as lord privy seal. When Great Britain entered World War I in 1914, Morley, protesting intervention, resigned from public life. His writings include On Compromise (1874), Notes on Politics and History (1913), and Recollections (1917).