Thomas Morton (1764 – 28 March 1838) was an English playwright.
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Morton was born in the city of Durham. He was the son of John and Grace Morton of Whickham, County Durham.[1] He went to London to study law at Lincoln's Inn, but abandoned his studies for playwriting. For much of his life, Thomas lived in Pangbourne in Berkshire. His son, John Maddison Morton, was also a well-known dramatist.
He wrote about 25 plays, several of which had great popularity, among them Columbus, or a World Discovered (1792); Children in the Wood (1793); Zorinski (1795); The Way to Get Married (1796); A Cure for the Heart Ache (1797); Speed the Plough (1798); Secrets Worth Knowing (1798); The Blind Girl, or A Receipt for Beauty (1801); The School of Reform, or How to Rule a Husband (1805); Town and Country, or Which Is Best? (1807); The Knight of Snowdown (1811); Education (1813); The Slave (1816); Methinks I See My Father (1818); A Roland for an Oliver (1819); Henri Quatre (1820); School for Grown Children (1826); and The Invincibles (1828). The name of one of the characters in Speed the Plough, Mrs Grundy, has entered the English language as a synonym for "prude".