As a qualified journeyman in 1907 he helped install a Pelton wheel hydro electric scheme in the Hex River Valley, and the first 2 200 Volt high tension switchboard at the Dock Road Power Station for Cape Government Railways.
With the outbreak of World War I Morris volunteered for service, first in local hostilities when he joined Cullinan's Horse, a mounted unit forming part of a surprise "Eastern Force" for an intended cross-desert attack on the German rear in South West Africa (the Germans had surrendered, however, by the time the force reached its destination).
Morris was awarded a Military Cross "for continuous excellent work and disregard of personal danger, though constantly bombed, machine gunned and sometimes shelled in front of Arras and in the advance on Valenciennes and Mons".
His first task was to re-organise the obsolete electrical reticulation of the city, although dual control by Kimberley and De Beers continued.
For prioritising the extension of electric street lighting in the poorer parts of town, Sol Plaatje was to inscribe a copy of his novel Mhudi (1930) to "Mr H.A.
"[2] In 1941, dual control of Kimberley's electrical reticulation was finally ended, and, as Morris put it, the city regained its birthright.
In 1938, with impending war, he submitted a scheme to set up a pilot training school "on the safest aerodrome in the world where the highest possible number of flying hours could be had".
In 1946, with Russell Elliott and Graham Eden, he co-founded the Northern Cape and Adjoining Areas Development Association, publishing further pamphlets and maps to promote this hitherto neglected region which held enormous potential, particularly in terms of its mineral wealth.
From 1946 he was a member of the fund-raising committee for the building of the Northern Cape Technical College, the William Humphreys Art Gallery and the Theatre complex.
The citation, referring to Morris's "yeoman service in pioneering the establishment of the Northern Cape and Adjoining Areas Regional Development Association" which had "proved to be of inestimable benefit to the City of Kimberley and the Region as a whole", as well as his having been "a leading figure in promoting the interests of the City of Kimberley in the early years of commercial aviation in South Africa," was handed to Mr Morris by the Mayor, Councillor G.B.