His mother was Lady Frances, daughter of Edward Lascelles, 1st Earl of Harewood.
He succeeded his cousin in the earldom in 1827 and was elected a Scottish representative peer in 1828.
He served as a Lord-in-waiting (government whip in the House of Lords) from 1841 to 1846 in the second Tory administration of Sir Robert Peel and in 1852 in the first Conservative administration of the Earl of Derby.
Lord Morton married Frances Theodora, daughter of Sir George Henry Rose, in 1817.
Lord Morton died in March 1858, aged 68, and was succeeded in the earldom by his eldest son Sholto.