British Member of Parliament, Social Reformer. He was educated in Eastbourne, but later moved to Liverpool in 1891. He was forced to leave school at the age of 15 due to his mother's financial difficulties. He went to work as a clerk for the shipping firm Elder Dempster and supplemented his income with part-time journalism. Many of the articles that Morel wrote related to stories from visitors to the shipping office, including material on British trade in Africa. Morel became concerned about the consequences of such trade for African culture. In 1900, he published a series of articles concerning the Congo, and was forced to resign from Elder Dempster due to the company's involvement in the rubber trade in the Congo. In 1904, he founded the Congo Reform Association and took a leading part in the movement against Congo misrule. He published many pamphlets on the subject and travelled to the United States to create a similar movement there. Morel was Honorary Secretary of the Congo Reform Association from 1904 to 1912. In 1909, hel took part in the formation of the International League for the Defence of the Natives of the Conventional Basin of the Congo. He was also a member of the West African Lands Committee (Colonial Office), from 1912 to 1914, and Vice President of the Anti-Slavery Society. His interest in African affairs extended to his journalism. He published "Le Congo Leopoldien" along with the French explorer Pierre Mille, and was editor of the "African Mail" for ten years before bringing out his own paper "The West African Mail" in 1903. He was also active in the political world. He was the Liberal candidate for Birkenhead from 1912 to 1914, resigning when the First World War broke out. He then formed the Union of Democratic Control, a political party that opposed the war. From 1917 to 1918, he was imprisoned for violation of the Defence of the Realm Act. After the war he joined the Labour Party and was the Labour candidate for Dundee from 1921 to 1922.