Clan Morrison
also Morison, MacGille Mhoire
Of Pabbay and the Outer Hebrides, the brieves of Lewis, hereditary judges under the Lordship of the Isles.
- Origin
- The Highlands & Islands, Scotland
- Motto
- Teaghlach Phabbay
- Famous bearer
- The Brieves of Lewis, hereditary judges of the Outer Hebrides
- Register
- Scottish clan
CoreHistoric reach
The seat of Clan Morrison
Seat vacantChief
No one leads the Clan Morrison community yet. When the movement opens, you can stand for its leadership, or help elect whoever does.
Current mission
No shared goal set yet. Once Clan Morrison has leadership, it sets the public focus: a restoration, a gathering, a real-world project that helps its own.
The Morrison clan is being rebuilt. Join the waiting list for the movement today, and you help decide who leads it and what it does.
Help rebuild the Morrison clan →Motto
Teaghlach Phabbay
“Family of Pabbay”
What does the Morrison name mean?
Two parallel etymologies. In the Hebrides: Mac Gille Mhoire, 'son of the servant of (the Virgin) Mary', anglicised as Morrison. In the Lowlands: a patronymic of Maurice (Morris), with the genitive 's' added in the English fashion. Both surnames produced the same Anglicised form, and the Hebridean Clan Morrison and the Lowland Morrison surname pool share only the spelling.
The history of Clan Morrison
Clan Morrison of Lewis traces its descent to a kindred of brieves, hereditary judges (breitheamh in Gaelic), who held the office of arbiter of customary law in Lewis from at least the 14th century, under the authority of the Lord of the Isles and, from 1493, of the Scottish crown. Their seat was at Habost in Ness, the northern tip of Lewis, and their hereditary lawcase records survived in fragments into the 17th century.
The clan was destroyed in a multi-generational feud with the MacAulays of Uig and, after 1610, the MacKenzie incomers who took Lewis from the MacLeods. The brieve office was abolished by the Scottish parliament in 1611 and the Morrison kindred dispersed. Hugh Morrison the Brieve, the last of the office, died at Habost around 1620.
The surname today reaches far beyond the Hebridean clan, Lowland Morrisons of Edinburgh, the Aberdeen merchant Morrisons, the American-political Morrisons. Van Morrison (b. 1945) of Belfast is from a Northern-Irish Morrison line of Lowland Scots descent; Jim Morrison (1943–1971), of Florida, descended from a 19th-century emigration of the same broad Scots-Morrison surname pool.
Champions of the Morrison name
The bearers whose lives are inseparable from this surname. Each has its own page — biography, achievements, geography, connection to the family.
Step Into History
Walk the streets and seats the Morrison name knew — a photoreal walk through time, on foot.
Notable bearers of the Morrison name
- The Brieves of Lewis, hereditary judges of the Outer Hebrides
- John Morrison (1701–1774), 'Iain Gobha na Hearadh', Harris-born Gaelic religious poet