Hon. Alexander Morris was born on March 17, 1826, in Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, son of Col. Hon. William Morris (1786-1858), Receiver-General for Canada.

He was a lawyer and politician. He attended local schools, then went to Scotland and attended Madras College, St. Andrew's, and the University of Glasgow. Upon his return to Canada, he entered the firm of Heward and Thorne, commission merchants of Montreal, then he articled in law in Kingston. He attended McGill University, where he obtained his B.A., M.A., B.C.L., and D.C.L. In 1851, he entered the Montreal law office of Badgley and Morris and was called to the bar of Upper Canada. In 1861, Morris was elected as a Conservative member for Lanark in the Legislative Assembly of Canada West and held this seat until 1867. He was a member of the federal Parliament for Lanark from 1867 to 1872, and from 1869 to 1872 was Minister of Inland Revenue. In 1872, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba, and later in that same year was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, a position he held until 1877. He was also appointed Chief Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Manitoba, a position he held from 1873 to 1875.

In 1851, he married Margaret Olive Cline (1826–1915). He died on October 28, 1889, in Toronto, Ontario.