Robert Morant


Sir Robert Laurie Morant, was an English administrator and educationalist.

Career overview

Born in Hampstead, Morant was the older brother of Amy Morant. He was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford where he took a First in Theology.
After a year teaching at a Preparatory School he was appointed as tutor to the crown prince of Siam. On his return he worked at the Toynbee Hall settlement in the East End of London.
He then joined a research unit reporting to the Privy Council on Education and thence to the Board of Education, where he rose rapidly and served as private secretary to Sir John Gorst, Vice-President of the Committee on Education until 1902. He was responsible for some of the new ideas in the Education Act 1902, and was appointed Permanent Secretary to the Education Board in April 1903, being thus placed in a position to ensure the Board effectively implemented the act. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 1902 Coronation Honours, and promoted to Knight Commander of the order in the 1907 Birthday Honours.
In 1911 he was sharply criticized by Edmond Holmes for failings among school inspectors, in a private memorandum which then became public. He was forced to resign and then accepted a post chairing the Commission to implement the National Insurance Act 1911. This included a huge and wide-ranging task of administration and even included the foundation of the precursor of the Medical Research Council. Morant promoted and largely drafted the National Insurance Act 1913, correcting problems in the previous Act.
He served on the Haldane committee on the machinery of government, 1917–18.
When the Ministry of Health was created in 1919 he became its Permanent Secretary.
He died of influenza on 13 March 1920.
In 1917 Beatrice Webb called him "the one man of genius in the Civil Service", and A. L. Rowse, writing in 1942, said he was "by universal acclaim the greatest civil servant of his time".

Family

In 1896 he married Helen Mary Cracknell.