Geoffrey de Morton
Geoffrey de Morton (died c.1317) was a wealthy merchant and shipowner in fourteenth-century Dublin who served as Mayor of Dublin in 1303. He acquired an unsavoury reputation for unscrupulous business methods and corruption, and was largely responsible for the murage controversy of 1308-1313.
Early career
According to Elrington Ball de Morton came from a prominent Anglo-Norman family which had settled in Dublin, and made his wealth by trading with England, Scotland and France.[1] Presumably his wealth was the reason he was chosen as Mayor, but controversy began almost immediately when he was accused of stealing the official seal of Dublin Corporation for his own use. Geoffrey insisted that it was not he but his wife Maud who had taken the seal, and the Corporation seem to have accepted this rather implausible explanation, although what possible motive his wife might have had for the theft is unclear.
In 1305 he brought a series of lawsuits against Richard de Beresford, Lord Treasurer of Ireland and the Barons of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland). The Barons brought a series of counter-claims which were successful, and as a result Geoffrey was briefly imprisoned.
The murage scandal
Geoffrey was undeterred by this setback, and in 1308 he applied to King Edward II for a licence to levy a toll for six years to pay for murage, the tax for the upkeep of the Dublin city walls, and of Isolde's Tower, the defensive tower situated at one end of Old Dublin Bridge (now Father Mathew Bridge), which had been damaged by fire.[2] Geoffrey neglected to mention that as the tenant of the tower he was legally obliged to keep it in repair at his own expense. The licence was granted, but almost at once a flood of complaints about Geoffrey's corrupt management of the tolls began, in particular his practice of exempting his own friends from paying. In addition it appears that none of the money was actually spent on upkeep of the walls, which might have had disastrous consequences during the Bruce campaign in Ireland. Geoffrey also built several houses on the bridge, which it was alleged seriously disrupted traffic.[3]
In 1309 Richard le Blond, the King's Serjeant, made the first official complaint concerning Geoffrey's maladministration. The case was heard by Piers Gaveston, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, then on a military campaign in Ireland; the hearing appears to have ended inconclusively. [4]
Disgrace
By 1311 the complaints about Geoffrey's misgovernment had become so vociferous that the King ordered a full inquiry, which upheld all the complaints of fraud and neglect. John Wogan, the Justiciar of Ireland was ordered to revoke the licence for murage and audit Geoffrey's accounts.[5] In 1312 the King reprimanded Wogan for failing to carry out his orders. Finally in 1313 Geoffrey admitted defeat, submitted to the grace of the Mayor and Corporation of Dublin, promised to make amends for his trespasses, and bound himself and his family in the sum of 500 silver marks not to trouble the city any further.[6] He did not however demolish the houses on Dublin Bridge: in 1317, when he had recently died, his widow, daughter and son in law came to an agreement with the Corporation concerning them. His son-in-law John de Grauntsete rebuilt Isolde's Tower and added another tower at the other end of the bridge, and later endowed a chapel on the bridge. [7]
Family
Geoffrey married Maud de Bree: they had two daughters: Maud, and Alice who married John de Grauntsete.[8]